In this article Robert asks the textbook companies about how they address relevance. The point he makes below is also one of my favorites in this series, which, to repeat, if read with an open mind by anyone in the field of language instruction, spells the certain demise of the big textbook companies: How does […]
Based on: http://www.sk.com.br/sk-krash.html Stephen Krashen is a Second Language Acquisition researcher and professor at University of Southern California who has been publishing and speaking since the 1970’s. “Language acquisition does not require extensive use of conscious grammatical rules, and does not require tedious drill.” Stephen Krashen “Acquisition requires meaningful interaction in the target language –
Stephen Krashen’s Theory of Second Language Acquisition Read More »
It’s funny – funny in the sense of weird, even unnatural – how we put kids down and then blame them (using our weapons of choice: grades) because they can’t do what we ask them. I’m referring directly here to our history of making languages inaccessible – let’s be honest – to our students. First,
On the first day back after this vacation, check in with your students in English, like you do in the town meetings with the invisibles. Throughout the year, this check-in period at the start of class will be a good time to talk about any changes or new developments in the class, and this is
(Note: This was published after Thanksgiving but will work equally well after the Winter and Spring breaks as well. In my opinion there is no better way to start in with CI after a vacation than with some variation of Two Truths and a Lie as described below.) We must make the re-entry process after
The end of Christmas break signals a time of depression in many of us. We have five hard months in front of us. The question invariably comes up, “Can I do anything to get the kids to bring more respect now in January or is it too late?” For me, the answer has always been
Robert addresses rigor in this question: How does the textbook support the following constituent elements (according to the US Department of State) of rigor? Sustained Focus Depth and Integrity of Inquiry Suspension of Premature Conclusions Continuous Testing of Hypotheses Doesn’t the textbook’s deductive method (presenting the rules and then asking students to practice specific applications
Over the years, there seems to have been a unique theme, or maybe two, that we as a group have kept at the forefront of our collective mind for discussion here on the PLC for that particular year. For awhile, about fifteen years ago, over a long period, we engaged in public idealogical or philosophical
We’ll take a few weeks to break now for the holidays. There is no shortage of articles to read. All you have to do is pick a category that you want to work on next year, some area you want to improve in, or type some key words into the search bar and dive into
What happens in schools over the years with our students is that everything becomes increasingly based on performance. Beginning in the latter part of elementary school, everything starts to become based on success and tests, and if a child can’t perform at the “required level”, they are labeled as deficient in some way and that
Let’s not mince words about going back into our classrooms after a vacation, esp. the summer vacation. The purpose of this post is to help us get mentally ready to go back to school AFTER the fast-approaching winter vacation. The education system is designed, certainly unintentionally but with no less damaging results, to wear down
Obviously. The outage was caused by malware. Thanks for your patience. Rest assured that the new company protecting this site is very highly rated, so we should not have any more hacking problems, fingers crossed. Apparently hacking of all sorts on the internet is now at an all time high. If you need to protect
