Uncategorized

I organized the links we have been receiving, crediting those who contributed. This is the list that will appear on the MT hard link across the top of this page: Movie Talk List Definitive 11-19-14

Below is a sort of treasury of the best MT clips we have collected here. They are so good that if we don’t have time to plan a class we can just come to this article or click on the Movie Talk hard link across the top of this page, choose one, plug in and

This is from the Herminator a.k.a Verbmeister: Hi Ben – If you think others would be interested and could benefit… I recently uploaded a 6th grade MovieTalk class to YouTube and added it to my playlist of TCI instruction: First, I had to establish meaning and give out student jobs. The “MovieTalk” part starts at

Robert draws our attention this morning to a question raised by Lance Piantaggini on the ACTFL Language Educators list. It warrants our attention: From: Lance Piantaggini To: Language Educators Posted: Nov 16, 2014 10:57 PM Subject: 80:20 Rule + 90% Target Language + Comprehensible Input Message: ACTFL’s 80:20 Rule states that the ideal ratio of

Our students do not learn from lists of words grouped in semantic sets or thematic units. Such lists represent a pox on our attempts to teach using comprehensible input. They waste time and people who use them fit into a category that Brigitte Kahn once described in a comment as teachers who “claim to do

This is a second repost from 2012 on the topic of whether or not instruction using comprehensible input can even work in our schools: The recent discussions on: – the massive amounts of responsibilities that we carry every day – our inability to keep the comprehension comprehensible by keeping it confined to the unconscious minds of our

This morning Eric Spindler wrote in a comment: …Ben, you have noted before what a complete shift of how you think about teaching this is. It is a huge shift and people won’t make a huge shift if pushed from outside, we have to make them feel a need for it, by drawing their attention

There is one point that we haven’t really made much here. It is a huge point about how what we do is completely at odds with how schools function. For the reason of how they function, schools are perhaps one of the very last places where comprehensible input can work, at least the way schools

This statement by VanPatten was shared with us by Michele Whaley. It is in support of statements made in the last post on rigor. It is incomplete and I will ask Michele to fill in the details so that everything is accurate. It has very strong implications for the pathway ACTFL must now take as

Some teachers on the ACTFL language educators list have started a discussion about which is the best textbook to use in Spanish middle school classes. Nathaniel Hardt offered a very good response, one sprinkled with a light layer of snark, which was unavoidable in this situation. I love that he had the courage to do

We in the PLC owe much to Catharina Greenberg. Her sharing of ideas here with us over the years has benefitted us in many ways. I am sure that I am not alone in saying that her voice is one of the most respected and listened to in our group and I know that she

Yasar added this comment about assessment to the previous article: Ben: The sample tests that we gave to our students after fifty hours of instruction are comprehension based. Little output is required. The achievement level after the test is 100%. That is, 100% of the students taking this test received a grade of 45 (the