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Sometimes, teachers feel that they fail at comprehensible input methods. That they simply can’t get on the CI train. Blaine and Susie and Jason can run that fast but we can’t, is the feeling. But look around. Schools now are on the verge of collapse. Kids have been trained in the current system to cheat almost […]

Here is a Jim Tripp story if you need something for tomorrow. For those of you unfamilar with Jim’s story format, he likes to suggest optional target structures – so there is a simple version and then one with a few optional structures, the ones in brackets: Bad Smells  [rooms of a house] [levels of a house] smells bad goes up/down

I just got this from Martha Nojima in Japan: In the last year TPRS Japan has become a community. We have several members in Tokyo and then most members are south of Tokyo. We have three members in the north. All three of them read the blog. Jack Taylor runs the TPRS forums. He is

My visit to George Washington yesterday was so much fun. The entire department of five young teachers all agree that Krashen is the best way to go for their kids. Because of this, and perhaps because of the youth of these teachers (they average under 30 as I said here elsewhere), I spent my day

Now, to push the rebar/concrete image further, but hopefully not too far, please note something else. If we add too many new rocks/words to the concrete/story on Tuesday, it then overloads the rebar and the concrete fails – the story doesn’t work – even if we got over 120 structures on each structure on Monday. We

This is the first in a short series of blog posts about PQA: A rebar (short for reinforcing bar) is a steel bar used in reinforced concrete structures to hold the concrete together. In that way, three rebar rods in a piece of concrete would be like the three structures we use to hold stories together. Now,

My interests these days (since January) in my classroom are: 1. PQA details – how to get maximum use out of the three structures. 2. What is the best way to plan a week – completely new stuff I have been developing since January. Videotape will help illustrate that new weekly schedule, but I will

Robert and Bryce recently made comments here about the idea that comprehension based teaching is not just another way to teach, but a vastly superior way. I would like to add to what they said here: The Denver Public Schools has a team of 25 (of our 93) foreign language teachers called the TCI group

Bryce – the Dunning-Kruger premise was so wonderful to read about. But, for me after a bit of reflection today, it only takes things so far. Can we really dismiss the failure of CI/TPRS to take hold by now in foreign language classrooms simply to the fact that many of our colleagues don’t get Krashen?   It is not our colleagues’

At the end of the conversation with [the IB principal mentioned here a few days ago], he insisted that I talk to [a certain teacher], who felt slandered by some of the content connected to one of her students [described in that same blog]. This teacher actually came out of class to speak with me on the

In order to avoid the kind of conflict recently described here, I have decided to turn this blog into a members only site. A private membership format will bring us a higher degree of honesty, professional safety, freedom of speech, and will protect us from those who, in my opinion, don’t fully grasp comprehensible input and who, as