I get so tired from teaching that I have to sleep. But, somewhere after midnight, I wake up, because there is so much to process, so much to think about in this massive learning change that we are all in together now. Thoughts come into my mind and they won’t leave me alone and I have to […]
K sent this as a follow up to Noah’s note: Mr. Slavic, I saw your post – yes, that was very cool. The funny thing is that Noah sent that by himself , so I didn’t know that he sent that e-mail until he and all of the other kids that do lunch stories told
O.K. this is the coolest. K just sent me this from Noah. Noah is the guy who raced her in the hallway to start this thread off some months ago. Yes, that guy! How cool is that? Here he tells us what has happened since that race: Dear Mr. Slavic, Je m’appelle Noah. Je suis un
Ben, I know this topic has come up on your blog a few times in the past. Traditional language programs appear to “weed students out.” All but the best students end up dropping out of language programs. Only 4% of students acquire anything resembling fluency. Etc. This year, our department chair reminded us
Socrates: How can we know that we are learning? Students: What do you mean? Socrates: All we do is talk. There is no proof that we are learning. What do we do to prove that we are learning? Students: But we are learning! Socrates: That’s not good enough. Take out a sheet of parchment and prove
As the battle between trusting the process of free form CI and needing to follow a CI curriculum goes on, I got this from a colleague today…. Hi Ben, … buddy you are reading my mind. After a mostly sleepless night of tossing and turning trying to figure out how to return [a bunch of books], I
Skip added a riff to the Student Generated (Skeleton) Story idea set forth by Michele. She provided structures to the kids and had them quickly write stories, choosing one and going with it, but, unless I am mistaken, Skip offered an option of asking the kids for basing a story on some expressions that they
Bryce sent this today: ¡ME DUELE! This is a story I told to a mixed class I teach on Tuesday evenings. The class consists of Spanish learners ranging in age from 15 to 70 and Spanish teachers that want to see and experience TPRS in a real classroom setting over an extended period of
Hi Michele – I have been wanting to thank you for taking the time to write out step by step instructions on Ben’s blog (3/6/2010-way down under the comments) on how to have students create stories from 3 structures.. After reading your “instructions” I gave it a try in my class and OH MY GOODNESS
As for the kids “creating” the skeletons….I think it solves that need that teachers and students have had to “end” a story. Since they have a skeleton….they already have an ending. Something inside says “Ah!!” and can now focus on being truly present in the story…. can you expand on that? i still don’t make
Michele wrote: Maybe all TPRS classes are more similar than they are different. It made me think that, in a CI/Krashen department, if my bike or car had a flat and I couldn’t get to work on time, I could call one of my team members, and they would teach my class, and I could
We had a minor argument a few months ago about assessment – whether it should evaluate participation or not. I would like to say that I am moving more and more in the direction of doing that, of holding my kids more socially responsible, and tying their grade more to what I see in their
