We are lucky, to say the least, to have Bryce Hedstrom in our group. He will provide a lot of stuff as we move along – he is not just a reading expert but an author whose materials are used all over the place. This blog entry is a great example of how creative things […]
Warm-up Activities As Catalyst for CI – Bryce Hedstrom Read More »
Well, we heard from my good friend Carol yesterday and today we get to hear from Martin. I will publish one blog bio here each day. We can get to know each other. How wonderful is that? My name is Martin Anders. I teach at Kaltenkirchen Waldorf School, in Northern Germany, and use TPRS for
In recent blog posts the subject of “language activity facilitator” (Tripp) was compared with the term “teacher as coach” (Sizer). The implication was that a language activity facilitator is someone who wastes kids’ time in the language classroom. I think that may be why LAF’s aren’t big fans of Krashen, whose research basically trashes their
The mind simply cannot serve two masters. The human unconscious mind is far superior, infinitely superior, in the artful process of decoding and understanding the sounds of a foreign language than is the conscious mind. It does so just by hearing and reading it – automatically! The language teachers of the future will know this.
What our kids do when they hear a story or just do PQA is they use the vastly superior technology of the human brain to create movies of what is being said. By focusing on the message, the medium is acquired. So it is in reading. Now, if the conscious mind is involved in this process,
When we employ comprehensible input methods. we create real learning. The process, as Krashen has shown, must be an unconscious one in listening and reading both. In both, movies are created in the mind. The process becomes conscious and analysis creeps in only when output – the application of input and not its precedent – begins to
To attempt to teach listening and reading using activities that are essentially of the conscious mind is folly. Reading activities that keep the reader in the conscious mind fail to put the mind’s focus on the message. It is the very nature of the conscious mind to want to keep everything in its domain of
Language Activity Facilitators 3 Jim’s statement: …or do we redefine ourselves from language teacher to language activity facilitator….. can be discussed in terms of reading. When students read, we want them to read as if they are seeing a movie in their minds. This most complex organizing process can only be done by a supercomputer. I
Jim, in a different comment than the one mentioned above, posted the following blockbuster comment here yesterday morning: …after about 3 weeks of [spending class time occasionally doing grammar], I got the impression from them that it was not helping them. My brightest student said to me “I can’t write and speak as fluently because I’m
In a recent comment here, Jim Tripp said: …or do we redefine ourselves from language teacher to language activity facilitator….. Then he said: …personally, I’d rather let them facilitate their own language activities (at school OR at home), and save my efforts for the real L2 acquisition work of delivering quality CI…. Then Nathan gave
I organized the recently suggested weekly schedule into one text for our Denver Public Schools TCI group. I share it here for anyone who might like to have that information – edited down a bit – in one place. One thing to add, for those who have seen this document before (I use it as a handout in
A bio from Cheryl: I have been teaching for nearly 20 years now, and only “found” TPRS/CI about four years ago. Anne asked, “You know how kids can do anything you want, and do it really well, and still not get the language? I found the answer.” So I started with a visit to her
