Here’s information on my webinar for Teacher’s Discovery next week on CI basics. Then, the week after that the webinar topic will be The Big CI Book and after that the Pringle Man Video, which is the first Invisibles character ever created, way back in 2015. Link to webinar information: https://www.facebook.com/events/495899371170466/ Link to Pringle Man […]
In tonight’s debate, Rep. Tim Ryan of Ohio said in his closing statement: …we must address the trauma that our children are experiencing in our schools…. Finally, someone said it. Here’s the deal: By changing how we teach languages in our schools, by using CI but in a way that works, we can’t remove the
This is an update on the new Invisibles book. What I did was combine the two books into one updated 410 page masterpiece, if I do say so myself (I’ve never said that about any of my other books) – it was an ease of reference thing. So, if you have purchased the books as
Anne continues here description of how she starts the year: By the time we have gone through every questionnaire, the students have acquired a lot of expressions like has, wants, needs, goes, likes, sees, says, eats, drinks, plays, etc. Now they are ready to start using the story scripts. Each of my scripts has a
This post is from 2016. I had asked Anne to describe how she starts the year to get her students ready for her scripts. Here is her response: Hello, all, Thank you for your interest in the story scripts. The most important thing to remember is that each of us is an individual, and we
This information is taken from the first of the Invisibles trilogy books, A Natural Approach to Stories (ANATS, 2015), which preceded A Natural Approach to the Year (ANATTY, 2017), which have now led to The Invisibles/The Invisibles Supplements (2019). If the classroom rules are not the main subject of the first weeks of class, you
With stories, teaching a language successfully is very difficult, but it reaches most students. Without stories, success is virtually impossible, and reaches only a few bright kids. You have to pick one of these. If you pick the first, you align with 21st century standards. If you pick the second, you align with nothing. You do, however,
The effects of the textbook and worksheet on language instruction in our country has been devastating. ACTFL has allowed it, never jabbing their fingers animatedly in the direction of the research. They should have done that. The result is that all teachers who have trusted ACTFL to guide them in the direction of best practices
The Situation in Our Country Today – Rant Warning Read More »
Note: I write long posts. Social media experts say not to. But this isn’t social media. These pages represent an in-depth look at our profession on many levels. So I feel no desire to keep my posts short. That said, here’s another long post. It covers a problem that is unique to CI teachers. What
Brett Chonko wrote something about gesturing here a few years ago that is just spot on, in my opinion: I am for the most part convinced in this article to not require my students to gesture next year for a number of reasons: 1. It wasted a lot of time to have kids come up
A truth that all teachers know is that students see through everything. If they sense that we are trying too hard for their approval, then their approval will always remain just out of reach. If, on the other hand, the class is working together to create a story based on their characters, we find that
We feel overwhelmed. Our students feel overwhelmed. Instead of allowing ourselves and our students to feel that way, we should question what make us feel that way. Feeling overwhelmed cannot possibly be a normal human condition, the way we were meant to be. We have bought into the idea that if we don’t feel overwhelmed
