I don’t know about you, but the deeper in I get, the more untenable classroom instruction in foreign languages looks. I am not sure that classrooms of 35 work. Are we just spinning our wheels? Should we keep trying to figure this stuff out – how to best teach languages in classrooms? (These are just […]

Susan Gross will be presenting a workshop on TPRS level 2 through AP in Jefferson County, CO in the next few weeks. TPRS training in upper levels is practically non-existant. I don’t know the exact dates but if you are in the Denver area you may want to get there. I will see Susan this Sunday

Properly trained TPRS trained kids know much more, acquire much more, than any standardized test could ever measure. Traditional teachers know this on some level, and consequently are not the biggest fans of TPRS teachers. They know the power of the method, if they know their craft, which means knowing Krashen. Mistrust results. Luckily for the

Ben, I attended the two day workshop in Maine a few weeks ago and I had to let you know that one of my students came into class today and told me she had a dream IN SPANISH-…The dream  was that it was Spanish class and I was speaking in Spanish and she felt glad

Heather has very kindly clarified some things about ways to use this site. This was published last summer and is here repeated for those who may have missed it then: Bonjour to all of Ben’s readers! I recently fixed an issue with the RSS feed from the blog – if you tried to use it,

Below is a suggested sequence of class activities for a reading class – I had mentioned it here a month or so ago, or maybe I presented it to the Maine group – I can’t remember. If there is anything I am missing in this reading or song sequence that would add to a good flow

On Friday, one of my students, without being asked, told me that she had written and memorized a story using some of the words from our Word List wall. She had also drawn from a list of prepositions and articles (and how they combine) on the wall directly over the Word List. I didn’t ask

I got this from a colleague, addressed to me but really all of us. It’s pretty serious: Ben – I’m really trying to process something that happened in my class right now.  Would love your thoughts and input if you have time.   Kids cannot learn if they don’t feel safe.  We cannot teach if

Taking a brain break at 20-25 minutes intervals in our classes has three benefits: 1. we get a short rest from our teaching and the kids can get out of their restraining devices for a moment or two and relax. 2. tossing a ball, etc. drops the just learned material from the desktop into the hard drive,

Ben, Thought you and the bloggers would appreciate this video 🙂 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U Profe  

Besides the search function on this site, which looks for blogs only, comments can be searched. Just google ben slavic and then some words for whatever you are looking for – the comment will come up. Thanks to Carla for that idea.

People sometimes claim that TPRS/CI doesn’t work in language classrooms because it requires too much energy and the kids can get out of control. It is so much easier with the book. Easier to dismiss the method than look at oneself. But refusing to adopt input methods into one’s classroom these days is much like