This profound report from Craig reveals exactly what WBYT can bring to your instruction. It reminds us that engaging kids, actually commanding their attention in the TL, doesn’t happen as nearly as much as we think:
Hey Ben –
Thinking about the Invisibles has helped me realize that language is ALL about what we see, feel, hear,etc. It’s all about making observations and expressing those observations in new ways. Today we read again the description of character we created yesterday. The image was the perfect subject. Then after that we discussed a single image from a movie talk that in past years I’ve just kind of blown through. For the first time I went SLOW, walked before I talked and wrote everything down. For the first time I felt like I was bringing students along. It was really enjoyable to see that the kids that actually need the language instruction were starting to understand things. Here’s the image we discussed.I think what I found most fulfilling was that there was no phoniness in our interaction. I’m not trying to “make” them do what I want. We’re merely making observations together.