Let’s say when starting to build a one word image with your class that you accepted, from the objects called out, a grape. The first thing we have to do with any new vocabulary is “walk before we talk”, so we stroll to the board and write down in both languages as always: raisin – […]
I’d forgotten that I had made some “places” posters for my walls back 15 years ago when I was still doing TPRS. Back then I thought it was all about the posters. Now I use about three. Anyway, maybe someone would like to use them:
When children feel honored as a part of a community, they learn. How to speak to our students in a way that uplifts? It is so simple. First, we must of course speak so slowly to them that they understand effortlessly, effortlessness being one of the key words found in Chomsky and Krashen’s research. We
Cher Ben, We know what we know to be true. And we know that if we don’t do what we know to be true, then we betray our students and ourselves. Students are and have always been the reason we fight when we fight. I do not even do pop-up grammar anymore unless I can
If you are writing a story down in class on the document camera, write slowly and enjoy the conversation with your students. Ask them side questions. If your students have by now learned how to play what Blaine calls “the game”, they might lie to you, which is your cue to see how far you
This is from 2009: Block days (90 minutes) are perfect days to teach a song and then build a story or a reading from it. But you can do this in one class period as well. Project a song with its translation and work with it in a more or less traditional way for its meaning. An
Bryan Whitney offers perhaps the best bail out move I have ever seen, better than dictee maybe because that only lasts ten to fifteen minutes, posted below. I call it Write Their Little Butts Off. For those who don’t know what a Bail Out Move is, it’s just a way to end something that isn’t working during
It’s March, everybody. We can do it. Maybe take a lesson from this guy:
This is reprinted from 2008: When we teach isolated “activities” that are connected to teaching certain grammatical concepts, we are not teaching wholistically. Yet, language is learned wholistically, if Krashen is right. And Krashen is right. Doing such “activities” without providing a steady stream of uninterrupted L2 in our classes is like planting flowers in pots. The
A repost from 2009: I suggest that we endeavor to respect the continuum of hearing and seeing in L2 – the auditory part in stories, and the visual part in readings. When I say continuum, I mean flow of L2, as in din of L2, in stories. Readers unfamiliar with Krashen’s term Din are invited to
The focus of any comprehensible input instruction program should be on the fact of communication and not on the vehicle being used to bring it. Even a small amount of focus on the vehicle results in serious constraints on interest which greatly hampers the flow of the communication, and the comprehensible input cannot thrive. For
This post is from a few weeks ago but we had the wrong link, now corrected. It’s a request from Jonathan in VA: Ben – Been away for a while. Wondering if the folks here on the PLC could throw me some feedback on my Daily Interpersonal Communicative Engagement rubric. Shareable Link here: https://docs.google.com/drawings/d/1s1K329evaOijCKxA6m8rl8qMZNtXzHFDDFcy5HfVTkM/edit?usp=sharing A
