Circling is useless without SLOW, but SLOW can be quite effective without Circling. Point and Pause can be used to do the job that Circling does if the SLOW is slow enough.* Even if we are masters of all of the various other skills used to deliver comprehensible input, we will fail to reach all […]

Comprehensible input takes four forms in my classroom: 1. PQA – this means that we use Circing to talk with the kids. There are no key structures (guideposts), as there are with stories. The target structures come randomly from the information given to us by the kids, as in the Circling with Balls activity (see

Kate sent this about Becky Bailey’s work: Bryce and the rest of you curious seekers as to that info regarding learning, listening and speaking – I got that info from Dr. Becky Bailey at Loving Guidance (.com). Becky has been doing brain research for YEARS and applying it to the teaching process from babies to adults.

Chill sent me this: Ben: The Sauk presence at the NTPRS conference was profound. I found this video made by our friends and wanted to share their powerful message. Carol http://www.culturalsurvival.org/programs/elc/program

In this request from input from the group, Skip puts together a very cohesive point about the relationship between PQA and stories. Hey Ben, I came away from the conference with a question.   My first workshop was with Michael Miller and Barb on Personalization.  Michael MIller said that the better one becomes at PQA the

Referring to the series of comments on the post “Go Willingly”, Skip asked me this: Hi Ben, Can I ask you what you meant on the blog when referred to your big learning as “allowing myself to be free when presenting…?” Just wondering. I was thinking it may relate to how I feel in front of

We are all just panning for gold. We are searching for nuggets lying amidst the skills of TPRS and the daily practice of teaching. We seek flashes of gold, something, the right idea, the right technique, the right way to personalize, that will make us better teachers. In my opinion, however, focusing in this way only on

I learned something about chants when presenting on Thursday: Chants are there, but they are hiding in the circling and in the general discussion. So, every once in a while, take any sentence that you are circling and kind of slow down and taste it, like you would taste a wine. Explore the sound there, audibly or sublingually or

At NTPRS this year there was a new rotating format that really worked. Presenters stayed in the same room and groups of teachers rotated in and out. Nothing was carved in stone, however, so there was a lot of choice. Bryce and Linda presented together, with Bryce doing the “teacher talk” piece, commenting on what Linda was

Last week I published here ACTFL’s position that the target language be used 90% plus of the time in the classroom. Here is that link: https://benslavic.com/blog/2011/07/10/actfl-90-use-statement/ Since then, Diana Noonan has sent me a highlighted version of the same text. It points to a few other sentences that may have escaped our attention, since we

While I’m in St. Louis for NTPRS, I will ask my readers to take advantage of this brief hiatus to read some of the back blog entries back to 2007. Just click on the calender or on a category that might interest you. Bryce has a ton of new stuff, and Jim’s new story book

I got this from Anne Matava. The hog referred to is one of a group of Maine kids who were lucky enough to have spent all four years of their high school careers acquiring – and I mean acquiring – German from Anne, where they heard nothing but comprehensible input with this great teacher: Hi Ben, I wanted