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Sample Tableau

I got this nice message and drawing – click on link below – from a teacher who took the Ultimate CI Book I training this summer: Hello Ben. I hope you are well. I just wanted to share that the tableaux have been coming out nicely in my classes. As expected the kids love it.

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The Bulb in the Ground

I got a question: Q. I have a third year student who is a great student.  She reads on an upper intermediate level.  Listening comprehension is a mid-intermediate level.  She is an EXCELLENT reader in English and LOVES to read.  She tackles her favorite English book in Spanish and is not afraid to work at

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Planning

I always felt that something was wrong with me because I didn’t plan. They told me to plan but I didn’t. They made me feel like I was doing something wrong and so I must be a bad teacher. Now I see the truth – for me. Planning a language class is so far out

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Eight Traps

I am compiling a set of documents that, when finished, will become a book entitled In Defense of CI. Taken almost exclusively from posts from my blog over the past 15 years, it will be designed to offer CI teachers educated responses to those annoying and uninformed attacks about how we teach from helicopter parents,

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An Insidious System

Students who come from privilege – in language classrooms and in all American classrooms – continue to be trained in schools for their roles as leaders.  Via our instruction, via our assessment, via almost every aspect of the way we teach, we silently indoctrinate the underprivileged into their roles as “less than” in our society,

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Students Trust Us

When children come to us to learn the languages that we teach them, they come to us in trust. But we do not always honor that trust. We do that unintentionally of course – but the result is the same. Why is this? It is because of the way we think about curriculum. We think

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Don’t Do That Anymore

With stories, teaching a language successfully is very difficult, but it reaches most students. Without stories, success is virtually impossible, and reaches only a few bright kids. You have to pick one of these. If you pick the first, you align with 21st century standards. If you pick the second, you align with nothing. You

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Shutting Down This Site

Due to poor management from my web developer, I’ve decided to shut down this entire website and move it to Patreon. This won’t affect most people who have a monthly PLC membership because they can just sign up on Patreon and read my content over there. However, those who have paid and currently have a

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