There are days when we wish we could go into our classrooms and be mindless and not worry about anything at all, following a set of automatic steps that still hold our students’ attention for the entire class period. Below is a 90 minute lesson plan that does that for me. I use it […]
We can get lots of reps and lots of additional input with the personalized readings we do the day after our story. But not only can we do this in the class that the story was created, but we can (and should) also share these stories with other classes. Not only are kids interested in
K, my former student who has written so beautifully and with such great courage about her experience promoting stories in her IB school this year, and the unexpected support she got from her wonderfully open teacher, now shares her thoughts on how next year is setting up for her. The blog is very direct and
Having just watched the movie Outrage, I am so moved by how some gay activists must just feel so tired from fighting the discrimination and ignorance perpetrated by those who would oppose or attack them for whatever political or personal reason. I wouldn’t dare compare the intellectual snobbery and ignorance from Krashen’s colleagues’ on his work to that
Dr. Beniko Mason is a professor at Shitennoji University in Osaka, Japan. She has known and worked with Dr. Krashen for over fifteen years and fully embraces his Comprehensible Input Hypothesis. I was honored that she visited my classroom last week. Here is a short email she sent back to me, which is then followed
The Big Picture has been a wonderful resource for me this year. Most of what shows up is related to current news footage, and as such is mostly useful for my 3 / 4 combined class who enjoy talking about the real world, but even then, I only pick and choose (Useful: Oil Slick in
I asked K to give us a few thoughts here at the end of the year: Today I asked the kids at lunch what the best or most important part of the year was. Based on their answers, here is what I have come up with: Build a strong community in the classroom and throughout
Second email: A key component in this vicious cycle is testing. My students are expected to pass an accuracy based, grammar/vocabulary recognition test to enter into Spanish 2 (I have a TPRS colleague in a similar situation in another school district—so I know this isn’t a unique occurrence). I can understand why the schools do
Hi Ben, It’s the end of the year and I have to say it’s been a good year. I’ve done TPRS the majority of the time and we’ve only used the books once in a great while – usually for cultural stuff and review before the final exam. I’ve noticed that this year,
I am fascinated by a book written by C.L. R. James in 1938 called The Black Jacobins about the Toussaint Louverture uprisings and freeing of Haiti in the only successful slave rebellion in history in the 1790’s, not so long ago. James’ research is so thorough that one can truly “grasp” the behavioral split in the
Yin and Yang are dependent opposing forces that flow in a natural cycle, always seeking balance. Though they are opposing, they are not in opposition to one another. As part of the Tao, they are merely two aspects of a single reality. (Aaron Hopes, Zen Yoga) Teachers are out of sync with the natural calendar
Michele sent this as a kind of follow up to her regular Thursday blog. Jody’s regular Saturday blog will follow here shortly. The original article from Michele was much longer. For those who want to pursue this further, I will put the longer version of Michele’s blog below this shorter version, under the dotted line. It is
