Parallel Stories — Further Explanation When students are given a situation and are allowed to be creative and smart I hear such good lines from them that I can hardly believe that I have not heard them before. Surely a brilliant author would have thought of that by now! And when it works, there is […]
Go Deep! (Patricia va a California, Chapter 3, Part III) Read More »
Bryce continues: There are many ways of “reading” a novel besides, just, well, reading it. These are some of the techniques I use to add interest and engage the students. Parallel Stories This is Blaine Ray’s method of teaching a novel. You simply tell a story about a student in the class that is similar
Go Deep! (Patricia va a California, Chapter 3, Part II) Read More »
I admit to a mild feeling of trepidation on Sunday nights, especially when I have, as Jody said, vacation head. Will my lesson plans work? Will I be in mental conflict with one or more kids? Will I reach them? How bad will the push back be? Will my instruction reach them? It seems worse on
Experienced TPRS Teachers, As a new foreign language teacher, I want to ask you all to please seek out student teachers to teach with you in your classrooms. For my student teaching, I ended up by chance in the classrooms of Rosa Santaiti and Cindy Price, two enthusiastic and experienced TPRS teachers, in a foreign
Here is some stuff about reading from Bryce Hedstrom. This the first of four parts: A few years ago, when I was more blissfully over-confident in my skills, I would push through all four of Blaine Ray’s level I novels in Spanish I. If it worked, I could get those poor 8th and 9th graders to
Go Deep! (Patricia va a California, Chapter 3, Part I) Read More »
Jeff sent these cool CI activities but the queue is so jammed up with stuff that I didn’t get it here in time for the NCAA tournament. Anyway, it’s great stuff for making the CI interesting. (Jeff, my apologies on getting this up here late, and to others who don’t see their stuff up here
A colleague recently sent me this. It is from a department chair in a school for which this colleague just went through an interview process. It speaks to the fact that not all schools want things done in the old way: It was truly a pleasure watching you teach and discussing my favorite topic, TPRS. We were all impressed
Here is a passage from The Horse and His Boy, by C.S. Lewis: For in Calormen, storytelling (whether the stories are true or made up) is a thing you’re taught, just as English boys and girls are taught essay writing. The difference is that people want to hear the stories, whereas I never heard of
This also from Brad today. Looks like a good project. Dear Family and Friends, As you may know, we started a family business and ministry called Riegg Language Concepts, in which we teach Spanish using the Bible. It has been a most satisfying and enjoyable venture for us. By God’s grace, we have seven wonderful
Got this from Brad this morning: Ben- A 2nd year student made this post today, and I thought you’d appreciate it: “Had the amazing opportunity to talk with some Mexicans tonight at the gym entirely in Spanish. It was fabulous…. I had seen them a few times there before, so I figured, what the heck,
One colleague recently asked why we only have one word responses in circling. She couldn’t figure out why, when the kids obviously knew the answer, they didn’t output it right then in a complete sentence. Here is one answer – it seems to me that when we are doing circling, and comprehensible input in general,
This is an invitation for teachers in the Denver/Boulder area to attend TPRS/PQA trainings on Saturdays. Groups are limited to ten people. Students will stand up and teach while being coached. Payment for the classes will be based on what people can afford. We will meet in a Tae Kwan Do studio in south Jefferson County
