On Friday, one of my students, without being asked, told me that she had written and memorized a story using some of the words from our Word List wall. She had also drawn from a list of prepositions and articles (and how they combine) on the wall directly over the Word List. I didn’t ask […]
I got this from a colleague, addressed to me but really all of us. It’s pretty serious: Ben – I’m really trying to process something that happened in my class right now. Would love your thoughts and input if you have time. Kids cannot learn if they don’t feel safe. We cannot teach if
Taking a brain break at 20-25 minutes intervals in our classes has three benefits: 1. we get a short rest from our teaching and the kids can get out of their restraining devices for a moment or two and relax. 2. tossing a ball, etc. drops the just learned material from the desktop into the hard drive,
Ben, Thought you and the bloggers would appreciate this video 🙂 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U Profe
Besides the search function on this site, which looks for blogs only, comments can be searched. Just google ben slavic and then some words for whatever you are looking for – the comment will come up. Thanks to Carla for that idea.
People sometimes claim that TPRS/CI doesn’t work in language classrooms because it requires too much energy and the kids can get out of control. It is so much easier with the book. Easier to dismiss the method than look at oneself. But refusing to adopt input methods into one’s classroom these days is much like
Jagan-Nath sent this: Perry Como sings “Kol Nidre” the famous Jewish prayer before Yom Kippur. An old Jewish grandmother in the audience comes up to him afterwards and says: “Perry, that was so beautiful! Only a Jew could sing that song like that. Are you Jewish?” “No, madam, I’m Italian.” “Perry, that’s impossible! Was your
Cara sent this to Michele, who sent it to me: Ben, Cara sent this to me: http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2010/10/04/pm-new-ideas-for-better-teachers-and-schools/ This school in Tennessee is using techniques that TPRS teachers use to improve our teaching! The only thing that we’re missing is being able to freely observe [each other] from afar. Once again, we find that what we’re
Updates to my posters page will be made this week to: Word List Instructions – I have changed what I do with the “Spanish/French Word Lists”. I didn’t need all those words and this is explained in those new instructions. Suggested Block Schedule A – just a small change for those of us who may
For some years Latin teachers have been talking about their profession in terms of Krashen and Blaine Ray. Bob Patrick is one of the founders of this site: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/latin-bestpractices/ Bob and Rick Winterstein (Tacoma, WA) have contributed or will contribute articles in the journal British Journal of Classics Teaching about TPRS. I
Here’s another one from Anne. Target structures in italics. Variables underlined: Hurtin’ __________hurts him/her or has a __________ache lies down on starts to Ben is sitting in school. His hair hurts him. So he goes home and lies down on the refrigerator. The refrigerator starts to shake. “Yikes!” says Ben, and goes back to school.
Nathan sent this exceptional post today. It will help everyone: Hi Ben, As I read through Dirk’s post about the difficulties of CI with small classes, I kept hearing the same refrain: you can’t do CI with small classes. I’d agree that it’s difficult at times, but at the same time I would I would
