This was written in early 2014: I feel like an idiot. I’ve been thinking about this for days now, and I can’t get past it. I speak to my students all the time in French, and so many, so many words come up in our classes. I mean, a lot of words. So many flowers. […]
This is a repost from 2009: I was running this evening and passed a little league baseball practice. The kids, beautifully attired in new uniforms, were being spoken at by their equally decked out coaches about what to do in case a runner was on second, or some such schlock. The kids were way too
I got this email from a mother in Denver in 2010 – this is a repost. It broke my heart then and now again seven years it has the same effect. We need to get ourselves together and fight to end this kind of situation: Hi Ben, I was wondering if you are offering any workshops or
It saddens me when the passion that some of us have for comprehensible input methods is misinterpreted as being some kind of boastful claim to expertise and superiority in the field. Just because we write and talk about what we do with such intensity and excitement, people latch onto that in oppositional terms and accuse
Administrators must decide, lest they resemble the donkey who, faced with two equidistant haystacks, fails to decide on which one to go to for sustenance and so starves. The old way of using a book and speaking English and the new way of using Krashen’s ideas of interesting comprehensible input in the target language cannot
Meagan is my colleague at East High here in Denver. Last week she told me about how a kid came into her classroom and asked, “Is it true that four year olds can learn a langauge faster than us?” I loved Meagan’s response: “No, it’s not true. That myth exists because of the way languages
Michele put the following up as a comment but it scrolled out while awaiting moderation (comments with url’s get moderated), so I am putting it here in relationship to the discussion about informing administrators about what we really do. In fact, I have one AP who cares to study and embrace CI, because he thinks it can help
I am fascinated by a book written by C.L. R. James in 1938 called The Black Jacobins about the Toussaint Louverture uprisings and freeing of Haiti in the only successful slave rebellion in history in the 1790’s, not so long ago. James’ research is so thorough that one can truly “grasp” the behavioral split in the
Jennifer/Profe Loca’s brilliant comparison between TPRS and Pacing Guides was posted here a few days ago, but Robert put it into a nice format and has posted it on his site (see list of TPRS bloggers on the right side of this page). The reason I am making Robert’s instructions into a blog here is to keep this
Here is a blog from a week ago but with some additional insights from the writer below in italics. This is chill’s mentor and a career professional of 38 years who is just now finding out about TPRS: If I were still teaching, I would feel all re-inspired and energized from all your ideas. I watched
Grant wrote a question to which I have no response, but maybe someone else does: Q. Ben, I need reminders that the best way to lead others to the light is through making my own teaching better and my own students outstanding rather than being evangelical, boisterous or confrontational. I battle with this on the
Jennifer wrote this: I had some truly amazing students last year. Amazing intellect, amazing creativity, amazing personality. Truly, I was blessed as a teacher to have some of these kids. One boy borrowed a grammar workbook to study at home. He came back to me a few weeks later to report that “I’m not quite sure
