A repost from March of 2009: Eugene and Bonnie Hamilton just spent a few days with me. Eugene is a Latin teacher and musician (French Horn) and Bonnie is a high school German teacher. We were talking between classes and Eugene said that he thought of stories as jazz, when some TPRS teachers turn them into […]
I know that in the law there are various levels of, for example, murder, premeditated being the worst. But do murderers avoid imprisonment when their crime was unintentional? No. Ignorance of the law is no excuse. Similarly, in the last post here I tried to make the point that teachers who hurt children through ignorance
FACT: People learn languages effortlessly, using a part of their brain – the unconscious mind – that cannot be taught to, cannot be reached with traditional language instruction. FACT: Most language teachers do not know this, with the result that they teach to the rational, linear, conscious mind. This is idiotic. FACT: In 50 years
Live in your classroom in full confidence that the next moment will manifest safely, creatively, just as the next note manifests in a piece of jazz, naturally. The next note is the next word or word group. Language is not predictable and controlled, but by its very nature free. This is called teaching from faith
One of the biggest things that we miss in class, perhaps because we are teachers, is what the kids are seeing and experiencing as we focus on providing them with good comprehensible input. We have to be in control, yes, but we can’t be bullies about it. We can’t control everything and thus ruin it.
We should not quit a job because we have been given too much to do and we can’t handle it. We keep our jobs by simply doing less. We don’t coach that team. We don’t volunteer for that activity. We protect our balance and our mental health. We don’t stress so much about kids who
I once heard Mary Ann Williamson say that “you teach what you need to learn.” Well, I already know French, so what do I need to learn from my teaching? I need to learn to be in command of my classroom, for one thing. And I need to learn how to be a real teacher
(This post is dedicated to Sean Lawler and his wife Candice in Chicago, who have been helping to build the new Freedom Train in the Chicago Public Schools for a long time now.) I wrote the article below in all caps because I am animated by a sense of urgency that rivals the sense of
This is a repost to remind us that we do too much. A PLC member sent these and I can’t remember who it was to credit you so thank you whoever you are. We may want to rethink some of this when we look at our next paycheck: – Promethean board – managing our school
Q. So how do you really feel about Can Do statements, Ben? A. Thank you for asking! I think that they are about as useful as a screen door in a submarine because they favor the few. We can’t teach that way anymore. Therefore, in my view, the best use of time in a foreign
In the previous article, I stated that when an observer comes into my classroom, I try to remember to bring the child that the observer once was into the class, to find that child and teach that child some French. Of course this fits in with Bob Patrick’s comment here yesterday about welcoming the weary traveler
I hear comments about how teaching using CI can be exhausting. I don’t agree with that position. It’s about FLOW. (Search that category for more articles on this important TPRS/CI concept.) Flow is one of Krashen’s favorite words, judging by the things he’s said about it since about 2008. It was stressful learning how to
