Pitching So They Can Hit It
A repost from 2011: We want to be like pitching machines, which, being robotic, do not overly concern themselves with the ideas part/where the story goes. It's like a director deciding to develop the dialogue for a film around the personality of an
Slight Smiles
I have noticed over the years that there are two ways that students look at me in class. When I am using English they seem far away. They seem to be considering what I’m saying but not really caring very
WMP – 1
This post is from 2015: We have talked so much about SLOW over the years, but I think we all still go too fast. We always go too fast. Our classes then split under this burden. What is too fast? There are
Why SLOW Is So Important – 5
We won't know that they all understood until we teach a class that ends with great enthusiasm expressed by all. It isn't just a good story that generates such happiness, it's that they all got it. Like jen said in
Why SLOW Is So Important 4
Kids will do anything not to be excluded on hand comprehension checks, even lie on hand checks. It is our responsibility to build that inclusion in our classrooms not just via personalization but also by going slowly enough so that they
Why SLOW Is So Important 3
There was a girl who was failing all her classes. She dressed in black everyday with black lipstick. But she was thriving in my CI classroom - actually she was the class superstar. She told me, when I asked once if I
Why SLOW Is So Important 2
Kids lie. They really don't all have 8's on those hand comprehension checks. They have 6's and, were some of them to be completely honest, much less. It's because we go too fast. But we accept that lie and go
Why SLOW Is So Important 1
Krashen's bold statement that language acquisition is an unconscious process is at the core of all we do in comprehensible input, and yet we forget that. But the fact is that we learn languages unconsciously, as per: http://www.benslavic.com/blog/2008/08/28/ci-oceanic-stuff/ http://www.benslavic.com/blog/2010/07/18/we-learn-languages-unconsciously-1/ http://www.benslavic.com/blog/2010/07/19/we-learn-languages-unconsciously/ SLOW is the principle
Teach to the Eyes
Elena said this yesterday here on the PLC:
Report From the Field – Ron Wilber
I am writing you to tell you of my presentation to foreign language teachers in my district yesterday where I am the only TPRSer. They gave me 50 minutes, and all were Spanish speakers except one Mandarin teacher. So she