Whenever I hear about the imminent disappearance of an indigenous language, my socks start to roll up and down and my intensity level about our work increases. This morning I received an email that I would like to share with the group in hopes that anyone has any possible response ideas to put in the […]
The repetition of chants can deliver new language deeply into the kids’ minds better than practically anything! Really good chants, chanted from the gut, get past the kids’ minds into their bodies via the repetition. This works wonders for language gains. In my view, chants are even better than songs because they are shorter and
Here are some of the individually created images Carly’s students made today as she powers up into what I think is the best way to do CI of all. I’m very happy to see the beginning of a great gallery for pds 3 and 4 and I’m glad she acknowledges the artists in the gallery
It’s always a high point when we share letters we get from students. Here is one that I got today that makes me rejoice. Please – when you get these – send them to me so that we can all celebrate with you. It’s not as if we don’t need such validation of our efforts,
What Carly said a few days ago about getting a problem going in a story as not that important made me make a connection. Back in 2005 I asked Joe Neilson how he was able to spin such cool stories. Now I realize that not only Blaine but also Joe never targeted. So a key
In what I consider to be a tour de force argument in favor of NTCI, Alisa wrote something a few months ago that I think deserves a repeat post: “Like so much of what many of us do, we can document our work…after the fact. “After you actually create the tableau/story in the Create phase,
I’m updating these. The German needs work. Can anyone check it? ENGLISH with gusto romantically lip-synched like a Munchkin to the left to the right above, up there below, down there laughingly nodding modestly with one foot in the air with head forward with head back with arms in the air while whispering loudly in
This letter is from Anne to the parents of a kid that needed to be contacted about their kid’s poor verbal choices in class: Hi Ben, My new thing when a kid says something inappropriate is “I’m gonna tell your mother you said that” and I do, after one warning. Here is the email: Dear
It’s time to destroy the myth that problems and solutions in stories are difficult. The myth exists because, in the past when teachers have tried to use stories to teach certain vocabulary from lists, the stories lost their marrow and became like a dry bone. This was due to the constraints on interest that came
Remember during a story to periodically recycle information. I always do that whenever somebody comes into my room with a note or some other interruption, so common in our buildings, which slightly derail our stories. Recycling means summarizing what has happened so far in the story up to the point of interruption. It is like
I didn’t choose this profession to be bored. I chose it because there is so much potential for fun in this work because the intellectual curiosity of kids, unlike so many adults, hans’t been entirely snuffed out yet. I figured such people would be more interesting to work with than, for example, people in the
