Why Did We Ever Start Studying Grammar?
More from Robert Harrell: If you follow the history of the teaching of languages, a number of practices become logical - even if misguided. Up until the early modern period, Latin and Greek were taught as means of communication. When those languages
Grammar Challenge
Another useful article by Robert Harrell: The quiz below can be given to teachers who teach using the old grammar model of teaching languages. So if you get into one of those uncomfortable discussions with a teacher in your building who
Ten Thousand Stars
Kids teach us. Let's embrace that idea. So when they refuse our academic overtures, those are teaching moments. For us. Students are not mean spirited or lazy, as the Teacher's Lounge Crew would often have it. They are just bored. That's
Question
Q. Hi Ben! I am a second-year Spanish teacher. In graduate school, I studied and trained in TPRS methods with a professor whose pedagogy was centered on comprehensible input in language acquisition. I am lucky to have had her! I admire
Parents Night – One Possibility
Another option for parent's night from the archives: Anne Matava has an open house this week but no set parent demo sessions so she just prepared the document below as she meets the parents informally. Anne is new to the school and
The Grammar Syllabus – 2
Providing a rich diet of non-targeted language is the most effcient way to propel students to develop long-lasting proficiency in our languages. Non-targeted stories bring many other benefits to our classes besides just language gains: more trust, more engagement, less
The Grammar Syllabus – 1
Krashen has said: “I think that many teachers simply can’t do non-targeted input because they are required to follow a grammatical syllabus.” However, the grammatical syllabus is at odds with Krashen's hugely important Natural Order Hypothesis — the concept that we acquire
Grammar Quiz
There are actually still some teachers who think that it's important to teach grammar, even though ACTFL doesn't mention the word on their site, and it has been shown via research to be marvelously ineffective. So if you ever get
Half and Half
Why not just teach half the class period traditional and half CI? The reason I say that is because the yapping is just too stupid in some buildings. Now, if the department/school wants CI, that's great. They won't hassle you.
College Grammar Demands
Here’s a tiresome topic that we never seem to get tired of: Ben, I just got done going through your Big CI Book. I found it incredibly useful as my Spanish department is getting to make “the shift” to CI/IPA. We are