Zach Al Moreno told me a story this morning. He told me that his old department chair in his old school told him that kids need to practice speaking, otherwise how could they learn it? “They must speak in class and that is what is wrong with TPRS” is what he said. That is, of course, […]
Linda and I have a great department chair here at the American Embassy School. His name is Zach Al Moreno and he is from Seattle. Zach has been doing TPRS for about five years and he rocks the CI house. Anyone teaching using TPRS with Linda Li around is going to rock the house, right? I
Claire can you comment on the image below? I would put this on the Forum as is our new plan but can’t upload the image over there. I am trying to draw attention to the lack of alignment in TPRS in the three areas portrayed in the image. I ask you to use your extensive
What if somebody built a new concept car that was far better than anything ever built before it? Would car mechanics then not invent new tools to allow them to properly work on the new car? Or would they just try to use the tools they already had to do the job? We are not inventing
I received a question in response to my quote from Claire. And yes I know this is another rant but I promise I will stop soon because I have to. I’m returning home in the next week and doing some work with some teachers into June and then disappearing from this blog until after the
This is the time of year when we get notes from kids that surprise us and give us hope. I received one from the least likely source just yesterday which I will treasure. I have also received many from group members over the years. Just today I got one from a blog member that is
Tina had the idea to use the mostly unused Forum for five specific things to make things simpler and to lessen the dominance of any one thread here on the PLC. It’s a good idea. So the five new categories for the Forum, which should simplify things a lot, are: Curriculum Assessment Instruction Invisibles New
Warning: this blog post contains uncomfortably direct language that could be perceived as offensive but is not meant to offend more than it is to illustrate and defend the delicate balance needed to keep this community on the fast track to best practices in our CI instruction: Yesterday Jim asked in a comment field here.
Landen and I return home on Wednesday. A few days in NYC for some obligatory shows and on to Denver. It will be hard to say good bye to my friend and mentor, Linda Li, and her equally fantastic husband and buddy, Doug Asher, but I am happy to know that I will see them
Those new readers here who may be interested in the targeted vs. non-targeted discussion will find in a search of the terms hundreds of posts on this topic started in 2009 in connection to some communication with Dr. Krashen. It has been slow going. School districts seem in control of Dr. Krashen’s findings, if that can
Why did I include, in the preceding post, the part about Claire’s 11 kids? Because how many more are there like that in ESL and WL classes around the country? A million is a low number. And nobody is talking about these points. If we really are proponents of reform in language teaching then we
Claire reflects on her seminal document: … I paved this road and I am shouting at my friends to get on it and none are listening…. [ed. note: that is not going to happen here – only people who want to continue the broken status quo will avoid doing the deep reflection that this document deserves.]
