Bryce sent this today: ¡ME DUELE! This is a story I told to a mixed class I teach on Tuesday evenings. The class consists of Spanish learners ranging in age from 15 to 70 and Spanish teachers that want to see and experience TPRS in a real classroom setting over an extended period of […]
Hi Michele – I have been wanting to thank you for taking the time to write out step by step instructions on Ben’s blog (3/6/2010-way down under the comments) on how to have students create stories from 3 structures.. After reading your “instructions” I gave it a try in my class and OH MY GOODNESS
As for the kids “creating” the skeletons….I think it solves that need that teachers and students have had to “end” a story. Since they have a skeleton….they already have an ending. Something inside says “Ah!!” and can now focus on being truly present in the story…. can you expand on that? i still don’t make
Michele wrote: Maybe all TPRS classes are more similar than they are different. It made me think that, in a CI/Krashen department, if my bike or car had a flat and I couldn’t get to work on time, I could call one of my team members, and they would teach my class, and I could
We had a minor argument a few months ago about assessment – whether it should evaluate participation or not. I would like to say that I am moving more and more in the direction of doing that, of holding my kids more socially responsible, and tying their grade more to what I see in their
Student Generated Stories, a.k.a. Skeleton Stories (first term is mine, second is Michele’s) have really been getting some practice by some of us these past few weeks. I have already stated how they seem to take the pressure off of regular stories (although I will always do those as well because they are just plain
Student Generated Stories, a.k.a. Skeleton Stories Read More »
Ben: Your recent comments about the hit and miss nature of TPRS, depending on moods and relationships, was really encouraging. I have had some fun conversations with students the last month… the Olympics, the Superbowl, and the phrase “what are you going to do this weekend?” were really fun with various classes. I found a
What Should We Say In Job Interviews? I got this excellent question from a young Denver area teacher – please answer below in the comment section if you have any ideas that might help. Hi Ben! A year or so ago, I was doing my student teaching and had heard a lot about TPRS and
Give them a feeling of success What does this mean? We want the students to feel like they are good at Spanish. That feeling of confidence will carry them. I am not talking about some false sense of self esteem. I am talking about developing something within the kids that says “I can do this.”
This was a comment from Sylvia that got held in the queue because of what Robert figured out about the url’s. I tried to fix that but it won’t let me. But, I wanted to make sure we got a chance to read it so I posted it here: Ben, interesting point about teaching to the
Actually this from Michele is a week old, stuck in the queue during that time, but it still fits in the thread, so here it is: Dear Ben, I had an observer last Monday. She has been using the “old” TPRS and wanted to see the “new” TPRS. Because she was an experienced person, I
(This is the KEY point) Interesting, Repeated (many times), Personalized, Meaningful, Comprehensible Input These are the crucial elements of language teaching. Interesting and personalized input adds up to meaningfulness. If our teaching becomes meaningful to the students it will stick. Here is what master teacher Joe Neilson of Salpointe High School in
