Ryan McArthur has an excellent question: Ben, I’m facing a dilemma that maybe you can guide or give me advice (or others of the forum). I am doing weekly Interpersonal oral skill assessments (once a week) with my Invisibles (I totally love the concept and practice; they are invaluable!) and I have some students coming […]
Elena said this yesterday here on the PLC: …just add a few characteristics at a time – maybe 1 or 2 or 3. No need to get a ton of details. I saw an OWI demo in Korean. We added very few details but the presenter went slowly and recycled…. Then she added: …it was
Angie wrote this here awhile back. Here it is again: …yes, we understand how analytically-oriented high schoolers can be, but does that mean we play to that tendency in language class? Or is this where we encourage the aspect of ourselves that learns through a unique kind of paying attention…not taking apart and analyzing, but
A teacher in our PLC lost a student on Saturday. We cannot bring back that quiet, intelligent girl, but we can get better at this work. We may never know how one little acknowledgement that they are important and belong to a group of people who actually interact in real ways in class, how one
Our Work is Important. It Brings Hope to Children. Read More »
Elena is a second year teacher in an urban school in Portland: Ben, have I not told you my mentor story? Well, last year I’m not sure if you know this but I was really, really depressed. I came home from work every day with a mountain of work to do. I was tired and
Beniko Mason is a strong proponent of simply telling kids stories in the TL. Tina Hargaden, who spends a lot of time talking shop with Beniko these days, in a comment here yesterday, gives us an excellent description of story listening. This is brand new stuff and belongs as a part of, as Russ Albright
…creativity is a platform for one to express what is inside. For some, it is a personal depiction of their reality, and for many, often times the goal is to share an important message and point of view about the collective reality we all live in. Creativity is a platform for connection. We want to
This was a comment but I wanted to make it into a post: Craig said: …the structure of the system is incompatible with the nature of language learning…. Now we need to really reconsider what we’re talking about. I have been repeatedly called to task for criticizing certain things like novels and testing and target
I don’t know if anyone can relate to what Robin has said below, but I can. It explains my work with stories vs. traditional language teaching, and why I work so hard to promote lightheartedness and fun in the foreign language classroom.
Russ (in Portland area) shares: My position on the Invisibles has always been the same (at least once I understood really what it was and it’s implications for my classroom)…. It’s not drastically different from what other teachers have done in the past [but] is the most aligned with the original ideas of TPRS from
Our Craig West is a poet. Here we compare his passage about language being a mystery of the universe with a similar passage by the French author Antoine de Saint-Exupéry: Craig: …hang the research. We don’t need any validation other than the spirit of celebration and peace that exists in our classrooms; regardless of the
This passage was written by Meher Baba: Art is one of the means through which the soul expresses itself, and inspires others. But to do that thoroughly, he [speaking about an actor to his mother in private interview] must have his inner emotions aroused thoroughly. If you feel that something checks you from expressing yourself,
