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Julio Maestas

Julio Maestas in Louisville got a note from his principal today. It’s a celebration: Mr. Maestas – Thank you for representing Irvin in fine fashion today. I am so proud of you and the work you do. I thoroughly enjoy watching you create a love for the French language in your students while also instilling […]

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Questions

Greg has some questions for the group: I just got this e-mail from this company that is doing a supposedly “comprehensible” version of a Telenovela: https://www.edunovela.com/ As department chair I’m trying to transition the department to CI. Full support of admin. It’s been an uphill battle though. People know what I am doing with the

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Question

Mila has a question for the group: Hi Ben, This is Mila, we’ve been emailing since I started a new job in January, replacing a teacher that left. I’d love to hear your advice on this, as an experienced foreign language teacher. I’ve been adding CI to my French 1, 2 and 3 classes and

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Tina and CALP

I wrote this as a comment in response to a point Alisa made earlier today, but am moving it here as a post because of its importance: This work is all going to CALP. Yes, we want BICS (basic interpersonal communication skills), and that has been my main focus over the years, but now working

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Always Positive Rule

Here is a very simple yet very powerful immediate response to any negative comment you may hear in your classroom, before, during or after class. It is from PLC member Ryann Campbell, who reports: …I teach high school and I do something cheesy but it works well…my rule is “siempre positivo” (always positive). I tell

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OWI – 3 questions

Mila, who is working to master the Invisibles process (and quickly getting there) asks: Q. So, they already drew the OWI character. They decided the details of the character: ex., gigantic red sheep named Geppetto* who is dumb, very rich, very sad, who is crying a lot because he has all the money in the

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Question

Robyn asks: How do I get go about this sticky situation? I share a room one period with my department chair who stays in the room at least half of the period. She is sitting at the front of the room at her teacher desk directly next to where I am standing and conducting class.

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Random Thought

I was just thinking how totally ridiculous it is for us to think that we can teach a language by grouping it in terms of themes, like the numbers or colors, etc. It really is not just wrong, which I have always thought, but it’s also crazy! What if we did that with our first

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Student Jobs

As I make the finishing touches to our new book, I keep finding paragraphs I really like. Here is one: …in the approach to teaching languages outlined in this book, students are not just students – they also work for you in creative and dynamic, even joyful ways as your employees. We do not pay

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