I can’t think of a better reason to go through the insanity of teaching languages than the one about uplifting ourselves and others. And what is the best way of teaching languages that uplifts us and our students the most? It’s through comprehensible input based storytelling, everybody agrees on that these days. We don’t hear […]
Are there any other reasons why we teach, something not so obvious? Personally, I believe that a not-so-obvious reason we teach is to uplift ourselves and others, so we can find work that at least has some potential to make life fun and interesting, which many jobs don’t have. Making life better is one subtle
We must often revisit our motives for going into teaching in the first place. It will keep us heading down the right road. We spend a lot of time doing this work in very difficult buildings with lots of opposition, so we should know why we do it. Do we do it for the following
The next time you want to sit on the pity pot and complain about what a sucky job this is, go read this article in the 2016 issue of Time Magazine: http://time.com/magazine/us/4547305/november-7th-2016-vol-188-no-19-u-s/ Then go into your classroom and at least try to get a story going doing whatever works for you. We have work to
I am working with a teacher who is unfortunately in one of those “dramas” this week that we sometimes get into with parents when we try to teach according to the standard. I thought I would share some of my communication with him here: He wrote to me: Ben – I received a parent email
This is what Beniko Mason shared with us a few summers ago in Agen on the topic of reading. With respect, and acknowledging the crushing daily opposition to the work we are trying to do, I wonder how many of us could check off all of these seven points as something we actually do in our
Many of us fault ourselves for not being good enough teachers, for not doing more. Now, I can see that the culture that exists in our schools of a lot of the kids being just bored out of their minds in many classrooms has been a major contributory force in this problem of me worrying
Al Franken as Stuart Smalley famously said this memorable line on SNL years ago: “I’m Good Enough, I’m Smart Enough, and Doggone It, People Like Me!” Why did this particular line reverberate with so many people? What in it spoke to me as a truth? In my own situation, in spite of the way my
Anne sent this question in today: Hey Ben – This discussion has probably been had on your blog and on the facebook page 100 times, but I’ve missed it, and I really want to know: When assessing reading comprehension, how is it fair to give an A to someone who is able to infer the
I got this email from Craig today. He shares an awesome insight: So now in my 5th year at this school (continuation school). I’m really seeing that language learning and language ability is all about imagination and creativity. I’ve worked this long at a school full of students who are completely lacking in creativity and
