I was talking with a teacher this morning and she said that she never needs to worry about her classes because she always knows, and has taught her kids to always know, where she is on the Star Sequence at any given moment in class. Hearing this made me very happy. The idea of always […]

Robert on laughter: Humor and laughter are amazing supports for learning. Here are some research-based comments about that. An article from the American Psychological Association points out that “Laughter Aids Learning.” http://www.apa.org/monitor/jun06/learning.aspx Susan Weinschenk, PhD in Behavioral Science, writes: “There are many research studies that show that when children laugh, it enhances their attention, motivation,

I can see that my entire career as a teacher was devoted to trying to be able to find ways to teach that lift children up, to find some way to teach that brings light into their eyes, some way, any way, to find a way to chase away the darkness that characterized most of

Is it not true that our jobs are really about creating an environment for our students to become aware that they are beings who are capable when learning a language of experiencing joy, to be happy and secure and valued in the moments that they spend with us? Are those things not the real goal

I remember two occasions in Denver Public Schools hosting Dr. Krashen (in 2012) and Dr. Mason (in 2010) into my classroom to observe, Krashen for an afternoon and Mason for an entire day. Krashen said after visiting my classroom that my teaching was “terrific” and Beniko called me “Mr. Comprehensibe Input” after her visit. I

There is an interchange between the pilot/narrator and the Little Prince in Chapter 2 of Le Petit Prince by Antoine de Saint- Exupéry. When he first meets the Little Prince, he says: Narrator: Mais…qu’est-ce que tu fais là?/What are you doing there? Narrator: Et il me répéta alors, tout doucement, comme une chose très sérieuse/And he repeated to me,

Q. I was looking at one of your books that talked about a daily quick quiz. Can you tell me what you do for absent students to make up the quiz that is easy to manage? A. Thanks for your question. The purpose of the quizzes is to see if the kid was listening that

I just got this very positive report from Anne just now – thought I’d share it: Ben – two things: 1. In the story-making process with the Invisibles, the two questions “where” and “with whom” are the crown jewels. I just love how they lift the whole thing off the ground and send it flying.

Anne Matava just sent me this image from her classroom in Maine: https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipMEG8-cYZDW0XDx95rqRMW1El0YPr1_GlitnCd3Du-sVdUZvVRtOwO-HRBdARc4lw/photo/AF1QipMo5afXD0ORgucXBeINMPlNGSlwo3GAsWCZCPDU?key=WlExR1Jrc0ZyMDdBM3pUMllnNC1WVWpxb2k3a0lB Those teachers working with ANATS* (the book that explains One Word Images/Invisibles) are asked to note the following: (1) The gallery is a subtle way to vastly improve class buy-in to the Invisibles for the obvious reason that when a child walks

SL post from 2016: Kathrin explains Beniko’s Story Listening in an elegant and simple way. The link is a must-see. In it we see great pacing, nice and slow. We see Kathrin just teaching language using language with the goal that the kids follow along in a general way. In my mind giving up the

I just found this unpublished and now completed draft that I wrote in January of 2016. It was about the same week that I first started developing the Invisibles concept. Kind of a blast from the past to read that shows how the concept of working only from images and not words got going back

Alisa recently sharesd some pencil and paper bail outs for when we need to get the kids writing, if for no other reason than to give ourselves a break: 1. Turn a narrative into a Reader’s Theatre. So you ask them what the character would say while the narrative is onscreen, and they offer dialogue,