Uncategorized

I believe that it is important for any professional in any field to have a mission statement. I never actually wrote one when, for the first 24 years of my career, I was teaching AP French Language and Literature, because I didn’t really have a mission, and if I ever published one it was a […]

Those who have indicated to me your interest in the new Invisibles Zoom trainings, let me know at benslavic@yahoo.com when the best time for you to meet is during the week. I’ll take the most requested time on the most requested day and we can start next week. We will meet for about 90 minutes

Think of these words: warm, reciprocal, participatory, fun, human, uplifting, flowing Now think of their opposites: cold, solitary, alone, boring, robotic, depressing, locked up Which set of words do you like better? Which set better describes the way you would like to teach a language? If you chose the second set, you are describing what

We’ve been unloading some truth bombs on the novels lately. Really, we’ve been doing that for years. Today, Greg laid it all out pretty clearly in this fine and very accurate comment-turned-article, whether people like its content or not: The issue is this – the pure novel brand of CI is super boring. The interesting

Got this. This is not the only such email I’ve gotten lately. Something is happening: Ben – Just wanted to let you know that, after dabbling in comprehensible input instruction for years, my school has decided to do away with it entirely. I can understand the decision – our admins spent a lot of money

Questioning Level 2 – Who As stated earlier, when you use the star curriculum, everything is based on creating images. In this first sample (Category A) journey around the star, your image will come from one of the students’ cards that you see in front of you. How does this process, called Card Talk, work?

Questioning Level 1 – The Town Meeting We start each class with a town meeting. Go quickly around the room and inquire in English about what is going on with your students that day. You probably already do this. We can’t just barrel our way into stories – it spikes affective filters. This light discussion

In ordinary times, some 16% percent of public school students nationally are chronically absent, with higher rates among high school, black and Hispanic students, according to the U.S. Education Department. Now, with online school, it is up to 80% in some schools. And it would be difficult to measure, but I would suggest that we

There are still spaces in the upcoming Invisibles training on Zoom. See this link:

So much is going to change in our profession as a result of Covid-19! We will move more and more to using the internet, as schools go in that direction in general. Physically showing up for class will not happen very often, and eventually not at all, and that will reveal one of the biggest

Now let’s take a look at how Category A works, where in the Create phase we make a character from a student’s card in the Card Talk activity and then take it around the star to a completed journey. Category A – Creating a Tableau from a Student Card Category A/Sample Journey 1 – Henry

The Categories There are six categories of drawings of Invisibles – Categories A-F: Category A – Creating a Tableau from a Card Category B – Creating a Tableau from an Individually Created Image Category C – Creating a Tableau from a One Word Image Category D – Creating a Story from a Card Category E