When CI teachers tell their kids not to speak in class because they are “not ready” to do so, they misinterpret the research, and it hurts the kids. If we just give them enough time to process each thing we say, and at the same time, make it interesting, then, when they try to speak, […]
This is an important presentation that Beniko shared with us in France in 2016: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1Pud4inlrESpwVOyRh97jbVpDbqBdgWVpfcxTqG0iMlQ/edit?usp=sharing
I wonder why we have kept the grammar/translation paralysis-by-analysis left brain dominant way of teaching languages for so long. The research has show that it doesn’t work, so why prolong our students’ agony and delay the day when smiles of inclusion of all students are finally seen in our language classes? In talking about “identity
Perhaps the very concept of building a learning community, so vital to everything we do in our classrooms, has eluded us. It’s like Robert said in his recent comment here on rigor – perhaps we should define the term first. To me, community in my classroom is the place where I find validation of myself
A repost from 2011: I personally never want to lose this comment so I’m making it into a post. Others may not resonate with it so much, but to me, with its focus on building community, what Kate wrote below as a comment to the David Young thread is of vital importance to everything I
In an online setting, I recommend that we grade our students on two things: (1) the five kinds of quick quizzes that we have at our disposal, and (2) the observable non-verbal behaviors that we see them doing during class, as per the Communication standard. By grading them in those two ways, we answer the
Now that the problem has surfaced from beneath the waves, we are left to ask what we’re going to do, right? Now that we are aware, now that we can see the scarred underbelly of our profession, will we just start treating all of our students in the same way? I don’t think that’s possible.
Some teachers were talking about George Floyd: “What can I do about it? I’m just a Spanish teacher!” One teacher responded: “True – you’re just a Spanish teacher, but has this event not made you at least more aware that there is has been visible social inequity in our schools, and possibly in your own
I just heard on the news that only 1 of 6 teachers are willing to go back into the classroom if it is done online. And yet, the news that it won’t be safe to return into physical buildings for at least 3 or 4 months – certainly not in 3 or 4 weeks –
You may want to read this if you still use Circling as a TPRS/CI tool. It engages the mind in thinking about the pattern and CI is about disengaging the mind and making acquisition a completely unconscious process. Circling was invented by someone in Blaine Ray’s circle (not exactly sure who it was, maybe Blaine
The agonizing over opening schools, those conversations, is usually explained as based on a fear that kids will get behind. I don’t know about other subjects, but there is never being “behind” in languages. Everyone is exactly where they are. At the end of ten months of torture in traditional classes, the kids are en
