Steven has some nice riffs on the game. I really like #s 1 and 5: 1) After I am done saying my sentence, I count down 3,2,1,0 then ALL members of a group have to raise their hands. This is the huddle time and ALL students have to share out the answer. 2) I say […]
I wrote this to Jennifer in response to a question about how to test kids on speaking assessment, for those of us who must: Ah, the speaking assessment. I lobbied very heavily in Denver Public Schools to abolish it at level 1 and they did. It saved them a lot of money at the district
Jennifer Goldszmidt wrote in a comment here today: One of my Spanish 1 students from last year decided to take French 2 this year (he took French in middle school and now he’s in 10th grade)….The lesson today went pretty well. I asked my former and now current student on the way out if he
A repost: Here’s something I”m in the process of memorizing for the next time someone says to me that my class is not structured: “My class is structured in the same way that what I am saying right now is structured. What I am saying now is structured but you are not aware of it. You
My son takes French at Ken Caryl Middle School in Jefferson County, CO. We are sitting on the back porch of my house after school. I am writing this and he is doing his homework. He has to do four pages for French. Page 1 is a word search activity for colors. And there is
Do not bring work home. Life is short. You will regret it one day. You will want all that time with loved ones back one day after you have awakened to the fact that teachers have bought a bill of goods about time spent doing school work at home that is dangerous to them, to
For those using a quiz writer, Ben Lev came up with a nice little set of instructions for that student. Here they are for those interested: Querido/a Quiz Writer, ¡Gracias por escribir el examen pequeño! • 1. Please write 10 statements in Spanish about the facts of the story. • 2. Use the new vocabulary
If anybody is in a fight in their building over pacing guides, it may help to print this out: The differences in philosophy between Comprehensible Input Instruction (CI) and traditional language education are: • CI is a student-driven methodology. It responds to the linguistic needs of the students at any given time. This makes it
We should answer this as a group in the comment fields below. It concerns us all: Hi Ben – It’s that time of the year when administrators are beginning to ask teachers to turn in Measures of Student Success that demonstrate student growth. Pueblo City School (District 60) implements the RANDA system in which teachers
John reports. Those on the PLC who go back a number of years will note a stark contrast between this report and those of five or six years ago: Hey Ben, In general news, I’m helping to jumpstart the long dormant bay area CI support group that collapsed when Diane Grieman and Jody Noble left
If anyone has any 2018 updates to this list please let me know: Recent State Teachers of the Year: Sarah Breckley – Wisconsin Teacher of the Year 2017 Paul Kirschling – Colorado WL Teacher of the Year 2017 Sabrina Janczak – Colorado WL Teacher of the Year 2016 Grant Boulanger – Minnesota WL Teacher of
Taron has a question for the group: “If you had to list the top five skills/ characteristics that a NTCI teacher should exhibit in their classroom, how would you do that (Maybe SLOW, calm, command of the target language … etc)?”
