My visit to George Washington yesterday was so much fun. The entire department of five young teachers all agree that Krashen is the best way to go for their kids. Because of this, and perhaps because of the youth of these teachers (they average under 30 as I said here elsewhere), I spent my day at GW feeling like a kid on a baseball field on a splendid morning in the summer playing baseball with my friends – not the organized kind with uniforms but the real kind. See this link:
https://benslavic.com/blog/2009/07/04/they-actually-play/
Hanging out with our friends in non-pressure situations, that is how this change is going to take place. Diana has worked tirelessly to this end for years in our district, and we are beginning to see the results.
In this case, Joe and Kailey and Reuben and I spent the day just having fun together, enjoying the kids, coaching each other, and videotaping ourselves (they agreed to my posting links to that video here when we get the blog membership all set up).
Yesterday I saw again that kids are really geniuses with language. Dominique, Who Is The Dancer That Michael Jackson Always Wanted To Be, combined tiene miedo with a Michael Jackson signature move. You should have seen it. The quick turn to the left, the elbows suddenly over the dropped head – fear. That kind of stuff. Yeah Kailey!
My day at GW wasn’t like work at all! It was awesome, the four of us teachers hanging around and talking about what we all could do to get better at comprehension based methods and not arguing in the invisible world about what is the best way to teach.
That is the way it should be. Play.