This is from Jim on planning our CI lessons: I do a lot of my backward planning from songs. Of course, this isn’t always the most efficient form of planning (yet), because songs contain an array of high frequency structures and words that we may not be able to get nicely packaged in the form […]
Teachers who work hard don’t necessarily reach their kids. That may be true in other lines of work, but this language game is not about working hard. If it were, parents who aggressively teach their small children language would have more fluent kids later on, but this is not true. It’s just the opposite. Everybody
Jody sent this for us a few days ago: Warren Ediger, creator of the website, Successful English, wrote an interesting article this week about “How do I know if my language ability is improving?”. I am very interested in this topic and wrote to him to ask if I might use his ideas to help
How do I know I'm Getting Better at ________ (fill in the language)? Read More »
Maybe we became teachers because we like to be in control. But there is a problem with that. Real conversation between people, the good stuff, cannot be controlled. In a good discussion, no one voice dominates. Good talk is a dance among equals. That is where the 50% rule applies. I think that that 50% rule is
I don’t know if anyone else has had this experience during CI: You build an image with the kids, for whatever reason (story, PQA. or just to build a little one word image for fun), and pretty soon this kind of weird ownership or the image emerges from the kids. Like, you can’t change any
In a recent communication with a parent there was, in the signature of her email, this quote by Paul Shepard: “…I move toward a feeling that we can make enormous changes, but that they’re not going to be made through change in ideology, or policies or programs. They’re going to be made in the way we
I got a nice letter from a parent today – it was cc’d to other people in the building. We should all get such letters at the end of each school year! – “I would like to personally thank you for making learning a language so enjoyable for my son. His French 1 class
What goes on in a typical classroom reflects the mental stance of the teacher. If the teacher is uptight, the classroom will be uptight. If the teacher is spontaneous, the classroom will be spontaneous. If the class is heavily planned with all sorts of fragmented/eclectic activities, the classroom will reflect that in the form of
Make it clear to them that periods of silence, when the class is trying to come up with cute answers to a question, are welcome. Just sit there in that quiet space. It’s o.k. – sometimes everybody needs time to think. If the silence really drags out, do a retell right then. Then watch
Let’s admit that the influence of the people in our buildings who feel that grammar really needs to be taught to the kids in the first year is strong in our classrooms. Kids hear that the next year is all grammar and they get a look in their eyes like, “Are you preparing me for
I got this testimonial from Elissa a few days ago: “…I am LOVING LOVING LOVING my work with kids now that I have found TPRS. OMG this is frickin awesome. And I still feel like I’m at the tip of the iceberg! I’ve learned so much from you and the blog and DVDs. I just feel
Does anyone know the number of words in the average person’s spoken vocabulary? We in DPS had lunch today and the number 250 came up. Whatever the number is, I know that when we hear it in workshops it is always surprisingly low. I mean, we can and of course will use some words beyond those
