With new words, ask for mental associations to help the kids remember them. You can see this done occasionally in some of the videos. How to do this? It’s simple. When you write any new words on the board in both languages, you have the option to ask this question: “Class, how can we remember […]

Think about the gut reaction that a child must have to going into a language classroom and being forced to memorize a long list of words that she is not particularly interested in memorizing except to get a grade on a test.  Now think how she must feel when she is asked to write or

Those present at the training (Gp. 9, Session 6) on Saturday saw some pretty high quality “mais” bleating from Danielle, whose talents as an artist were shown to be paired with a marked alacrity for bleating.  Then, ironically, her son had a first date that evening and her name is “Mae”. I wonder if Danielle

When we teach robotically, we get robot-like responses. But when we teach from our hearts, using body and heart-centered activities that reach the oft-closed hearts of our students, we get responses from their hearts.  Language instruction REQUIRES the involvement of the heart. When it is all caught up in the head, no language is being

The next Book 1 training is from April 2 – May 7. (Group 10)  The next Book 2 training is from May 14 – June 18. (Group 11) The books and trainings are free to patrons.  Send me an email (benslavic@yahoo.com) and tell me which training you want and I’ll put you on the list. 

Most people doing the Star are familiar with the basics of how the artist’s job functions, but there is so much more. So if you really want to go deep with the artists’ role in your classroom (recommended), you may want to revisit those pages (p. 59 in the UCI Book 1). Here is a

Group member Kyle Kolacek’s coaching session last week (link below) is a good watch for people trying to learn the Star. It’s because we keep things basic. My belief is that in order to gain real command of all five phases of the Star you need to first be fully conversant and comfortable with how

Our website here is going through some positive changes for patrons and I wanted to update everyone about them: 1. I am now offering – to benslavic.com patrons only – free access to all future trainings. Each six-week training is a $189.95 value, so it’s a good deal. The books and other materials are free

There is a series of asanas (poses) in yoga called the Sun Salutation. Not just a single asana, it consists of many poses, with one flowing seamlessly into the next. This is what a well-taught StarChart™ class feels like. We flow seamlessly from Phase 1 (Creation of the image) into Phase 2 (Review) and on

Things to remember when you start a trip around the StarChart™: 1. Make sure that you have an artist in place who knows to create a drawing that is accurate, simple (not a lot of moving parts) colorful, with bold lines and details that can be easily seen from anywhere in the room or online.

Going down the grammar rabbit hole not only automatically divides the class down the good memorizers and the bad memorizers, but there is a lot of social strata discussion that needs to take place on this as well.  Moreover, besides splitting classes, when the grammar teacher beckons everyone in the class to go down the

By insisting that our students go down the grammar rabbit hole with us, they build an antipathy for us and what we are requiring them to do. Their affective filters are off the chart, and actually leave our classrooms after one or two years to never return, and worse, feeling that they are failures at