A 2010 repost: I used to think that forcing and prodding the kids into early speech production too early was just a waste of time, but now I see it as harmful. The image is of a field with seeds just sprouting but not yet above the crust of the earth, needing the protective warmth […]

This is from Greg in case you missed it in the comments a few days ago. It’s important: So my school did student based surveys that give scores of teachers this year (we are told that this is not going to be evaluative just informative). You can check out the company here: https://www.panoramaed.com/ They did

I found a nice site (link provided below) on personalized learning (is that not what we do?) while looking for a definition of the word curriculum. I like the suggested definition below and suggest that we make one of our goals this year – of course along with our staples mental health and classroom management

Our PLC member Taron Ware shares something cool that he created: Hi Ben, I posted this in the French Teachers in the USA Group as a response to the Google Form Evaluation I have been working on (I tagged you in it in the screenshot is below). Would you mind having a look at it? Here’s

Robert Harrell – How Do I Get an A?

This is a story that might be told in the future: There was a student on a class trip to France who had quite an experience there. She was a fourth year 17 year-old student in a well-to-do school in Chicago and, although great at memorizing the things required by her textbook-driven teacher in the

This post from TPRS in a Year! is related to the topic of milking and will be the final article in this series on the topic. Anyone doing NTCI can ignore the targeting mentioned in the (2009) article, but if targeting works for you, enjoy! – Skill #22: Staying in the Moment This is my

Laura just returned to her classroom after a family loss. Normally, that would be a tall order, to restore the classroom to prime form after a month of subs and right before a vacation. Here is her report: Hi Ben, I was out from school for over a month. When I got back, the clamor

Here are the Director’s Cues mentioned as a major tool in the milking processes described earlier in this series of posts. They are also listed in A Natural Approach to Stories (ANATS) and in A Natural Approach to the Year (ANATTY). Properly posted (high above the screen), they can be easily used at any point

Eugene and Bonnie Hamilton once spent a few days with me when I was still teaching in a middle school here in the Denver area. Eugene is a Latin teacher and musician (French Horn) and Bonnie is a high school German teacher. We were talking between classes and Eugene said that he thought of stories

Live in your classroom in full confidence that the next moment will manifest safely, creatively, just as the next note manifests in a piece of jazz, naturally. The next note is the next word or word group. Language is not predictable and controlled, but by its very nature free. This is called teaching from faith