If, like me, you are on a big roll of not targeting any pre-planned structures, you may have heard something like this from someone : “Oh if you don’t target structures you’ll go out of bounds.” Poppycock. The way to not go out of bounds when you have no targets is to strenuously limit any […]
We need to go over every second of what we do in a story with a fine toothed comb. Obviously that is impossible here in this blog space but I just want to say it. I believe that a big answer to our ongoing struggles lies in our initiating a deep and exacting, even unrelenting
It’s not as if we are going to get all the verbs ‘acquired’ in the first month verb frenzy time. My kids still now in April don’t always get the difference between goes and wants in French and we must have many thousands of reps in so far on those two cousins in sound (va/veut). So
I take little notes on my desk, those little sticky kind, during stories when I get ideas to share here. These are the sticky notes from today’s class: We cannot get too many details. We just can’t. We must keep our problem simple. We just must. When we get our problem stated, about 10-15 minutes
To all the hustle and bustle and rustle: I have a bunch of 12 year olds coming in four minutes from now. It’s school. I guess I don’t get my way. My way: (Can’t I just hang out with my students in French?) (In quiet awareness of each other? Yes? Maybe? Please?) (Where the pauses
Claire used the term “lack of faith in linguistic spontaneity” here recently when talking about the targeted vs. targetless discussion (clanging chains vs. no clanging chains is how I describe it). I thought, “That sums it up perfectly!” Robert made it into a meme. I’m still not sure what a meme is. What is a meme?
I am not going to shut up on the targetless discussion. It will continue to evolve. I just got an email from a PLC member which contained this little gem: …this non-targeted stuff is blowing my mind as well. Way more interesting stories and way more interested kids…. Hmmm. My prediction: some of us will
If the kids/teachers ARE burned out on stories, we have the April bail out moves of course, and all the other bail out moves. But I’m thinking of doing what I describe below if the kids are rude during stories w/ excessive English, lack of focus, etc. I’m going to try it tomorrow and if
Alisa ends her critique: If you could set up/explain what preceded the video a bit – do they already know the language elements/verbs of the story Sarah is spinning such that this story asking is but recombining those solid elements? Otherwise I think more play with this new language is in order before we go
Alisa continues her very excellent critique of Sarah’s work: More Teaching to the Eyes; more Point & Pause & SLOW – these are basic skills and must be consciously practiced. Sarah doesn’t regularly make eye contact or Pause & Point…yet, and we all could stand to slow our TL rate of speech waaaaay down! Reps/recycling
Alisa gives a tour de force critique of our video from Israel. It honors our vision here – to use the internet to get better at TPRS! Thank you Alisa. You are real teacher in every sense of the word! Joseph, This is so exciting…You probably know that I am a huge cheerleader! I hope
We have a problem with cell phones. I knew it was bad when I read an article yesterday where a school bus driver was texting and driving with a busload of kids in it. Here is an article that some of us may resonate with: http://gawker.com/louis-c-k-s-explanation-of-why-he-hates-smartphones-is-1354954625
