Johnna (who just finished her third week of TPRS last week) sent me this email: “You have to have your eyes wide open, you’ve got to be connecting with them, because otherwise, there’s really no point. They know if you mean it. They know if you’re telling them the truth. They know if you’re feeling […]
Michele just sent this: Hey Ben – thought you’d like this as much as I do: “Here is one quantifiable measure of the advantage of being multilingual: imagine if other children were given twice as much time to prepare for a high-stakes exam as your own kid. You would scream unfair bias. But that is
Michele sent this excellent link which reflects on what we do in TPRS/CI based instruction: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U Michele
The grammar translation analyis of language is in its death throes. We finally get that humans cannot possibly learn languages by consciously talking about them. The world is no longer flat. In this round, not flat, world, we have upward space (the conscious mind) and then we have deeper, downward, space (the unconscious mind). People who
I got this email from Liz Hughes: Hey Ben, I went to the Impulse Theater (an Improv theater) this past weekend for my birthday with my fiance. It is in the basement of the Wynkoop Brewery downtown. It was hilarious. I was reminded of Stephen Valdes´ post about improv and it’s similarities to our classroom.
Dirk sent this: So even though I am in a school setting where I have some classes that are too small for good CI, I am still trying many new things and doing my best in class to make it meaningful and understandable CI Spanish. I have 2 classes of about 30 8th graders who
I am so glad that, in addition to my white board space, I have a rolling white board with two sides of writing space. The artist stands at the side of the board and disappears behind it whenever some new detail is added to the CI. That artist, by the way, must observe the same rule
One time I sent a student out of the room for use of English and she came back with some chips and a drink after a nice long walk around the building. That’s not what I meant to have happen. So, when I give students time outs for English now, I keep them in the
Below is an option to the “Suggested Block Schedule A” posted here a few days ago. It is another way to experience 90 effortless minutes with the kids while staying in the target language. So how does it work? It’s just one big ass One Word Image (see benslavic.com/resources/workshop handouts for how to do a
I just edited/updated this on the resources/posters page of my site on the recommendations of a few teachers in Maine: When You Read In A Foreign Language Also on that page under “Other Useful Information” I have added six texts: Suggested Weekly Schedule Suggested Reading Class Format Suggested Block Schedule A Suggested Block Schedule B Sample
There are those TV commercials where, in a splash of plastic water, someone goes into another place. We should do that in our classes. We should break the plane. What does that mean? It means that we should leave the safety of our position in front of the classroom and, in full CI stride, break
http://www.comcast.net/video/teacher-s-tirade-on-video/1613428013/Comcast/popular/
