How can we open our hearts to our students? How can we make the language we teach beautiful to them? We must do so consciously through our voices. The first thing is to remember that just the sound of any language is a beautiful thing in and of itself. So, to reach this place of […]
Greg sent us this valuable resource that we can save for next year. I will file it under the “Observation Suggestions” and “Lesson Plans” categories for easy access when needed in the fall. Thanks Greg, as always. Hi Ben, I have my formal evaluation of my teaching tomorrow. Something happened and they did not observe me
I got this question from an elementary school teacher with my response below: Q. Hi! Just wanted to know if your summer institutes would be useful for elementary K-5 Spanish. I only see my kids once per week. This is my first year of teaching. Many of the kids live in poverty, and I had
Here is a good way to plan the year from Greg: TPRS-ish activities/circling/PQA/CardTalk/ (August-Sept) —-> One Word Image- less circling (Oct)——-> Invisibles Stories & Matava NT (November) (even less circling)——> Storylistening (March)——> Student projects (April/May)
Margarita reports from New Zealand (don’t forget to put your flag in the map if you haven’t already): Today in Auckland, I have given a demonstration of OWIs. I titled it: Desde a la Palabra a la Escritura Creativa en el Aula de ELE. Contrary to the first time, in another workshop organised by the
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 planning and far less nervousness for us, not to mention more interesting stories. What if
This new and exciting work that many of us in our group are doing with non-targeted instruction allows us to reach kids much better in class. It shortens the emotional distance between everybody in the room. This then allows us to get to the real problem in WL education, the incredible falseness of it all,
Working with Tina and I, Abbey Thole in Portland has written the first part of a new reader, working with the Louisville-based illustrator Derek Ashby. Why is this a big deal? Because it will be the first books to fly off the FCR table during Free Choice Reading time. Why? Because it will deal with
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 language structures in a fixed order that we do not know, and that
Ben, I am reaching a new level of appreciation for what you do on your PLC. I am moving into my new role and it involves communicating with and encouraging educators across the state. I am amazed at how much time it takes to do well! You are so quick and in depth in your
The heritage speaker “problem” is not a problem at all in a nontargeted CI/Invisibles classroom. Why? It is because the students have something to do in class that interests them. Scenario 1: Few Heritage Speakers in the Class. When there are just a few heritage speakers, or only one, in a non-targeted class, it is
Many of us are doing the storybook projects now (among others) as a way to get to the end of the year in a calm manner. We can therefore now start slowly turning our attention to next year*, when Card Talk is how many of us start out our first classes. Just a suggestion –
