The Circling with Balls activity (this site/resources/workshop handouts), is an excellent way to begin the year in first year classes because it addresses both the personalization piece and the establishment of the rules piece (see this site/posters for the most current version of the rules that I have developed over the years). By getting to know the […]
More from K: Bonjour M. Slavic, J’ai une question pour vous. Je fais mes devoirs d’ete pour PIB French 2 et J’ai un problème. Je dois lire une histoire et puis écrire un résumé. Nous sommes censés utiliser l’imparfait. Mais, je tiens à dire “Il a dit que Jean-Pierre ne pouvait pas avoir un chien”
I got this recently from K, who makes an interesting observation about the value of classes in which vocabulary acquisition is valued over language acquisition: Hey Mr. Slavic, Knowing a bunch of words without use won’t help. I have a neighbor who took 5 years of French (including AP) and only knows a bunch of
Heather has very kindly clarified some things about ways to use this site: Bonjour to all of Ben’s readers! I recently fixed an issue with the RSS feed from the blog – if you tried to use it, it would not download the posts. As I have an iPad and am using the Blogshelf app
[Ed. note: I’ve been up in the mountains if you’re wondering why it’s been quiet here lately. Things will slowly crank up as we get back into August, when we can talk about ways to reach the kids with personalized comprehensible input in those first all-important weeks of the year. The week of July 26
Jennfer sent me this interesting email: Ben, I have always been a 4%er, and now I may know why. I’m wondering how this can impact my classroom… I picked up my Russian copy of Bednaya Anya (Poor Ana) and have been happily reading through it as my bedtime reading. As such, I have been re-reading
There are two things that are considered standard operating procedure in foreign language classrooms that I just can’t accept. I really believe, and so must state that as my truth, that some, many, teachers are getting away with ineffective practices in their classrooms and nobody is calling them on it, in two ways specifically. First,
We created a “beginning the year” category here a few months ago. Here are a few quick additions to that list, which I will time stamp as well for August. First, there is no doubt that TPR is in for a renaissance in my CI classroom. A lot of us seem to have been thinking
Those who remember the heyday of the Realm in TPRS can recall the great excitement around the idea of building an entire year of stories around certain medieval/gang/whatever characters, as the class chose. I think I have finally figured out why the Realm didn’t work for me. Those very characters, as excited as the kids
Congratulations to Holland for opening up a can of Whoop Ass on the Brazilians. The Dutch have been such a good team over the years, and this is just a deserved victory. We in America send our best congratulations and best wishes in the next two games to Kirstin, Iris, Alike and all our orange
Susanna Kesterson thank you for sending me this which I share here with all of us: ACTFL Announces New Position Statements Source: FLTEACH The ACTFL Board of Directors recently approved the following position statements: * Use of the Target Language in the Classroom (http://www.actfl.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=5151 ) * Language Learning for Heritage and Native Speakers (http://www.actfl.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=5152 )
I was in California for ten days up in their mountains, and so apologize for my absence. I”ll try to catch up on any threads in the next few days. While I was gone I got a question from someone overseas. I have no idea how to answer it: “I teach English but the students’
