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Thought for the Day

Each of us must become our own best teacher, the one that now lies still dormant inside of us, the one waiting to be brought to the real teaching life, to the smiling life, to the happy kids life, with comprehensible input. Nobody else can become what each of us is becoming in this process […]

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Syllabus Samples

Greg shares his syllabus and parent letter: This is my “syllabus”. In my school we call it a “procedure sheet”. Unlike college syllabi, we are not required to provide the whole schedule of what we are going to do in class to students.Here it ishttps://docs.google.com/document/d/1QukizIKwoNKTsklzkTCDCFVW-0PR_7FqFz-0JH8AAkU/edit?usp=sharingReply This is the letter I send home to parents on

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Paul Sandrock – 2

If you read the first article on Paul Sandrock, you know that Paul is doing what all good politicians do, speak to their base. In that article, Paul clearly defends both positions. That is his right, maybe. I wonder if it really is his right to defend the traditional way of teaching for two reasons:

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Paul Sandrock – 1

Sandrock is the ACTFL Director of Education. In 2014 we in this PLC had a vigorous interchange with his massive ACTFL Foreign Lang. Educators group. We illustrated and defended CI and made the point over a month long interchange that CI is the way people acquire languages, and that the traditional methods of the ACTFL

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Question

A teacher asked me what kind of auditory input materials I would recommend for aiding in developing her own command of Spanish. I responded: Maybe some of Carol Gaab’s upper level books that she sells for reading classes from her “Fluency Matters” website – the ones with the audio track of the book so you

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Call for Syllabi

Diane needs a syllabus for the fall, level one preferred. You have them. Give them to her through this site. You will thereby “do her a solid”. Have you ever thought about that odd expression? It means that you give her something concrete to work with. There are also all sorts of ideas tucked in

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John Krueger

John just joined our group and here introduces himself. I appreciate it and invite any other new members to follow his lead. This applies to long time members as well. How can we help each other if we don’t know each other? Hi everyone. Glad to have found this community!  I am very impressed with what

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The Invisibles

My newest and in my opinion my best books – on the Invisibles – are now available here at benslavic.com. They will not be made available anywhere else. Here is the ad copy: Follow this link: https://benslavic.com/index.html

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New Curriculum

I mentioned the new Star Sequence here a few times today. With lots of new members here, I thought I’d share it. In my view, it’s a look into the future of what a language curriculum can be, one based not on corporate interests (the textbook) but on actual research:

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OWI and Invisibles

Got this email today: I will tell you that my students and I are never happier than when I do OWI.   My response: And yet OWI pales in comparison to Individually Created Images (ICI).  Reader: My only obstacle with NT is that schools require a set curriculum.  In my department we are really trying to

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