As stated many times here, but more in recent years as we have together become more and more aware of the rank inequity in our field of language education, it is CI that is going to throw the water on the Wicked Witch of Inequity. The research shows clearly that all people, not just the […]

Having reflected in a general way on classroom management in the introduction to our new book, we turn now to identifying what we already know about the mechanics involved in successfully managing our CI classrooms. Section 2 – The Mechanics What are the most proven and effective classroom management strategies that we have developed so

One Must Be Out of One’s Mind If it is so important, then what are we going to do about this problem of how our classroom feels? Retain the status quo or be bold and make changes to what we are currently doing? Do we really want good classroom management or are we merely going

I got this email today from a colleague who has dived deeply and fully into the waters of the Invisibles this year which, since she is in Southwest Asia, began for her and her students only five weeks ago. Hi, Ben, One of the hardest things about teaching in a foreign school is that the

Classroom Management is Based On How Our Students Feel We must make our classes interesting if we are to plug into the CI powerhouse and make it work for us. Here is the key sentence that we must keep in mind at all times if we are to make CI work for us: Students must

We are not yet arrived at the nuts and bolts of classroom management in our summer examination of what the term actually means and how we can master it in our classroom in the fall. More reflection on what we want to see from our students in our classrooms is needed before we go to

Comprehension of another language itself is joyful. So we can stop thinking of ourselves as hilarious entertainers who always have to bring the “wow” factor and begin to think of ourselves as calm, measured providers of comprehensible messages. Usually what teachers read as “boredom” is actually, in reality, “not understanding.” If we think that our

One Has to Be Out of One’s Mind One has to be out of one’s mind to acquire a language. Thinking about the language is a mind-based activity that goes against the research and isolates students from one another. Feeling the language in happy communication (no thinking – everyone focused on the message) creates strong bonds between everyone in

For a language teacher to not be in touch with the concepts put forth by Dr. Krashen and Dr. Beniko Mason and the other comprehensible input experts carries a high price tag in terms of the actual results we get from our students. This is true not just when applied to academic gains but also

Our book on classroom management continues to be written here on a day-to-day way in this, our seventh installment: What Are Our Goals? What are our classroom management goals? What might we imagine a well- functioning CI classroom to look and feel like, from our own point of view and that of our students? If

I know that we’ve decided to make classroom management the focus here this summer, and a good focus it is. To that end, I have so far published here nine introductory articles, over the past few weeks. Each article represents the progressive, day-by-day development of what will become an eventual actual book on classroom management.

It seems rather obvious, but we must speak slowly if we want to build communities in our classroom. How can we build community when our students don’t understand us because we are speaking too quickly? The numbers below are from an article in the The Wichita Eagle from 2008. Studies give slightly varying rates, but the conclusion