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Craig found this:

Many of us fault ourselves for not being good enough teachers, for not doing more. Now, I can see that the culture that exists in our schools of a lot of the kids being just bored out of their minds in many classrooms has been a major contributory force in this problem of me worrying

Al Franken as Stuart Smalley famously said this memorable line on SNL years ago: “I’m Good Enough, I’m Smart Enough, and Doggone It, People Like Me!” Why did this particular line reverberate with so many people? What in it spoke to me as a truth? In my own situation, in spite of the way my

Anne sent this question in today: Hey Ben – This discussion has probably been had on your blog and on the facebook page 100 times, but I’ve missed it, and I really want to know: When assessing reading comprehension, how is it fair to give an A to someone who is able to infer the

I got this email from Craig today. He shares an awesome insight: So now in my 5th year at this school (continuation school). I’m really seeing that language learning and language ability is all about imagination and creativity. I’ve worked this long at a school full of students who are completely lacking in creativity and

I call the Monday after a break Snarky Monday. The kids just seem to get basted with an extra layer of snark over the break – who knows why? Since trying the same stuff that our classes were doing before a vacation doesn’t always work for those first few days after the vacation, I wait

There is this quote from Soren Kierkegaard: “There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.” I connect this to what is happening in the CI world these days. I won’t say how. Just some food for thought.

How’s this for an unnecessary and professionally embarrassing website? http://www.angelfire.com/az/english4thechildren/krashen.html

Here is an excellent MT clip from Craig for Thanksgiving: https://goo.gl/UJUjfR

In the next year it would be nice to collect some readings here and put them all in one place. I remain convinced that we don’t need the novels. They are pretty boring. We can generate our own reading materials from our classes to share far and wide. An example of what we might be

I was just reading a thread in an online group. It said, “Challenge them by introducing more vocabulary.” I don’t agree with this. “Challenging” kids is code for “make them think harder,” or “make them aware that the class is something they have to gird their minds up for”, or “I’m going to control what