Hi Ben, I “remind” my students often, at least daily, of their responsibility to sit up, make eye contact, join the conversation, make class fun by offering unusual details, etc. It counts for 40% of their grade in Spanish 1. Yet I find I’m saying it over and over to the same students, and I […]
Q. What if the kids just keep on blurting? A. Tina recommends for situations where there is a lot of blurting of ideas, that you allow everyone to call out ideas for about one minute, then employ a “Closed Debate!” sign. She wags her finger at them and kind of sweeps it in front of
I sure would like some help answering this question. I’m not sure how to do it, since the premise of homework as I see things in this work is that it should be optional: Hi Ben – I have my students for two 50 minute classes per week. (One class is only about 60-75 minutes
I just now skyped with my students from last year in India. It was their morning and my evening. It made me think that the greatness of teaching is not in any pedagogy, or data, or anything else except in the relationships we have with our students. It is a good reason to work hard
Here is a more complete answer to a question that Keri asked a few weeks ago here: Q. I am certain that I won’t be using an 84 minute block class to create an image. So, I’m wondering what else to do with the kids for the rest of that period. I’m sure I will
The entire thing about all the questioning, in my own view, has been overblown. Why not just use our own intuition to say things that promote the plot line and the kids get to sit back and it’s all relaxing and amazing for them? Tina asked me once why so many of us put a
I was just thinking how the standard TPRS/CI folks always like to say how the kids need variety in the instructional process. In my view it’s not the routine that causes the kids to get bored. On the contrary, they need structure through the week. I think, rather, that keeping the focus of the kids
Q. How do I stay in bounds when new words keep emerging all the time? A. The students need to understand the message, not the individual words. We are teaching language, not individual words. I have come to see after all these years that it is not what words we say, but how we say
Q. What about lesson plans with the Invisibles? A. The Invisibles approach is really a sequence of activities so nothing can be planned out. We just follow the sequence for building stories and for reading. We open our teaching selves to see what happens in each activity, and it is different in each class. This
Q. You mentioned using your hands to work with “clay” in building the one word images. Can you elaborate on that? A. In the same way that a sculptor puts her hands in water and then steps over to a big lump of clay and sculpts the image, we also craft our image right there
Q. I can’t get my kids to really listen to each other. They are always blurting over each other. A. You have to use the Classroom Rules with the smile. Every time. Each and every time there is blurting or talking over, simply take a deep breath, walk calmly and slowly over to the Classroom
Q. But what if the character is really good and falls flat, even with a good emotion and a good reason for that emotion? A. I am quite happy to provide the students with boring instruction by providing worksheets for them. I know what you mean – classes can get like that. I am very
