The Big Picture has been a wonderful resource for me this year. Most of what shows up is related to current news footage, and as such is mostly useful for my 3 / 4 combined class who enjoy talking about the real world, but even then, I only pick and choose (Useful: Oil Slick in […]
I asked K to give us a few thoughts here at the end of the year: Today I asked the kids at lunch what the best or most important part of the year was. Based on their answers, here is what I have come up with: Build a strong community in the classroom and throughout
Second email: A key component in this vicious cycle is testing. My students are expected to pass an accuracy based, grammar/vocabulary recognition test to enter into Spanish 2 (I have a TPRS colleague in a similar situation in another school district—so I know this isn’t a unique occurrence). I can understand why the schools do
Hi Ben, It’s the end of the year and I have to say it’s been a good year. I’ve done TPRS the majority of the time and we’ve only used the books once in a great while – usually for cultural stuff and review before the final exam. I’ve noticed that this year,
I am fascinated by a book written by C.L. R. James in 1938 called The Black Jacobins about the Toussaint Louverture uprisings and freeing of Haiti in the only successful slave rebellion in history in the 1790’s, not so long ago. James’ research is so thorough that one can truly “grasp” the behavioral split in the
Yin and Yang are dependent opposing forces that flow in a natural cycle, always seeking balance. Though they are opposing, they are not in opposition to one another. As part of the Tao, they are merely two aspects of a single reality. (Aaron Hopes, Zen Yoga) Teachers are out of sync with the natural calendar
Michele sent this as a kind of follow up to her regular Thursday blog. Jody’s regular Saturday blog will follow here shortly. The original article from Michele was much longer. For those who want to pursue this further, I will put the longer version of Michele’s blog below this shorter version, under the dotted line. It is
Doug Stone has written admirably on the assessment and curriculum development pieces as they relate to input based methods. We really need to keep in the forefront of this blog the discussion about data, especially. Wwe really need to be careful. Data can carry a lot of misinformation. It is not easy to understand and even
Sometimes I blend structures from Anne’s stories. Like I took se sent comme/feels like from Wendy Goes To A Psychiatrist and took seul/lonely from Lene and pulled mignon/cute from the text of Lene (Anne had not targeted it but I wanted my kids to know it) so my new structures were feels lonely and cute and, combining the two
John Keats, in his Letter to John Taylor, 27th Febrary 1818, stated: …if Poetry comes not as naturally as the Leaves to a tree it had better not come at all…. This line expresses how I feel about language learning. What we do in instructing our students should not be a primarily conscious thing, no
Bryce requests that we read and discuss the text below: Here is an attendance and make-up work policy I am preparing now to deal with absences next school year. Progress in CI-based classes depends upon regular student attendance. Only students that show up can get the input. I have to begin writing at this time
I just gave my second final exam to a mixed group (levels 2-5). I stole the idea from a traditional teacher in our building. The concept was that the kids were returning ten years after having graduated to the Russian class reunion. They had to have 15 pictures that they would share with classmates. They
