If you read my older books from 10-15 years ago, they are filled w details about how to make TPRS work. Each year from 1997 or so to 2015, when I finally jumped the TPRS ship, the skills and strategies got more and more complex until they were a real burden. I attribute this to […]
On the general topic of how stressful our work is, especially now at the beginning of the year when we have so much to deal with, I got an email on Friday from a PLC member whose been reading here for over ten years: Hi Ben – I felt dizzy and lightheaded this morning, it
I have noticed a general tendency on the part of CI teachers to focus too much on output in the first few years. It’s a natural thing to do as a language teacher, because we want to guide our kids along in the ways of writing and speech. But nothing good happens fast. My caution,
Any ideas from anyone on what to do when a teacher is going to be out on the first day?
In the past, teachers were told to do certain things in their classrooms to find out of their students understood them. First, they were told to ask their students via ten finger comprehension checks and/or indicated with thumbs up or thumbs down whether they understood. Neither works. The kids lie. Why? Because they are at
Did anyone get a slight stab of concern in the pit of your stomach when you read the title of this article? Why beat yourself up if you don’t teach perfectly? I went to New Delhi to teach in the American Embassy School after my retirement to learn more about teaching from Linda Li, whom
Here is the response made by our PLC member to this person, for those following that thread: Ben – Here’s my response to each of her concerns and I also sent her 7 pages of research about CI from the Year 1 book if she wanted to read it. Dear _________. Thank you for your
If anyone reads this I’ll be doing a webinar on classroom management at 1:00 ET today so if you want to join us please do. Just go to the Teacher’s Discovery Facebook site and look for the webinar.
Ben. I have a 4th period class that has such a hard and awkward spirit about them. They don’t answer questions. They don’t really respond to anything. Today I was considering emailing the AP about getting some of them moved to another class. That was before I passed out the paper for the first invisible
In this communication between Robert Harrell and a parent, we almost have a template that we could modify to use to answer parent inquiries like the one our other PLC member received yesterday: Good afternoon Mr. Harrell, My wife and I have been after our son for the last few days and his grades and participation at
We could talk about this situation for years, and indeed we have, as this kind of communication with parents is not our first rodeo with it. I would guess we’ve had this conversation twice a year for over fifteen years. Some observations: The parent and kid are victims. They too a worksheet intro class, I’m
One of our PLC members got this email from a parent: I’m sorry I wasn’t able to make it to Back to School Night last Friday. I do have a few questions regarding your period 4 Spanish class.My son is in this class and has a few concerns. My main question is can a student with
