When you pause, it gives everyone’s neurology a chance to reset. It gives you a chance to “get back” to yourself. It’s one of the benefits of the Jesus Rule, and WBYT. Do it consciously and soon it will become an unconscious part of your teaching. Similarly, when you parse word chunks, you purposefully allow […]
Some years ago here in the PLC, Laura Censis wrote intelligently about how to communicate with parents about how we grade in our non-targeted approach: Spanish I students do not start this course with significant Spanish skills. They are here to absorb the language (receiving input) and they need hundreds or thousands of hours of
We need to address HOW we are making our kids feel when they are in our classes. To extend Marshall McCluhan’s message beyond electronic media, is it not possible that we ourselves, our bodies and the expressions on our faces, are also a medium for our CI messages in our classes? Bear in mind that
I don’t know who wrote the article below – probably Beniko Mason – but if you don’t do story listening you should be, at least part of the time. Beniko told me that a good ratio is 80% NTCI and 20% SL: Story-Listening (SL) classes attempt to provide a massive amount of meaningful aural comprehensible
Corinne out in Redding, CA reports in on how the Star is making it easier for her to teach online: People are going to love being taught a language online the way we have been practicing together in our Zoom group this past summer, with stories that they help to create. Last night the all-staff
In schools, we don’t really offer languages (I know there are exceptions like Alisa’s team in Chicago), to young kids under the age of 12, but then when they are in secondary school they start. Think about that. This conflicts glaringly with the idea that kids learn their first language starting at birth. What is
I see a parallel with what is happening with police and what is happening with teachers. Both are being asked to do too much. This brings a certain meanness into them. Look at how we grade kids. It is divisive. Some deep kind of dark principle, the same one that divides cops from the people
We take the data-collection piece of our work as a true and valid thing. It is not. We are serving a monster – the data collection business that makes millions of dollars off of us and our kids each year. It is sucking our souls, vampire-like, and we are letting it. COVID is here as
We have discussed the importance of the artists and their work. Here is some further discussion on this important subject: One morning I was doing my morning routine of sitting at the kitchen table answering emails, the usual. My eye caught the mess on the sink and countertops of my kitchen and my brain said,
If you are pushing the CI now, doing the Star, etc. I would say to wait a bit. If you are not your own department, and you have to align with someone else to prepare for common assessments, etc. make sure you do that. You want to have your kids exactly where your traditional grammar
I refuse to let the molders of my world, esp. right now, influence my mood. We will eventually break down – to dust – the old curriculum, and happiness and unforced communication will define our days doing our jobs. Yes, we have been slaves to the corporate suck-need, their view of education, their need to
Some kids engage at the right amount. Some too much. What about the kids who withdraw? It is my position that, generally, kids who withdraw from interacting in a CI class have a reason to do so. We all know that kids withdraw in traditional textbook classes from pure boredom. But when things are interesting
