Unlock with PatreonThe Problem with CI
To view this content, you must be a member of Ben’s Patreon at $10 or more Unlock with PatreonAlready a qualifying Patreon member? Refresh to
A Middle School Class
Share:
Facebook
Twitter
Pinterest
LinkedIn
Ben Slavic
Get The Latest Updates
Subscribe to Our Mailing List
No spam, notifications only about new products, updates.
Related Posts
CI and the Research (cont.)
To view this content, you must be a member of Ben’s Patreon at $10 or more Unlock with PatreonAlready a qualifying Patreon member? Refresh to
Research Question
To view this content, you must be a member of Ben’s Patreon at $10 or more Unlock with PatreonAlready a qualifying Patreon member? Refresh to
We Have the Research
To view this content, you must be a member of Ben’s Patreon at $10 or more Unlock with PatreonAlready a qualifying Patreon member? Refresh to
15 thoughts on “A Middle School Class”
Well, since we’re sharing about how our day went . . .
On Mondays we discuss how the German Soccer League games went (The season lasts from August to May, so this is nearly a full-year project), and there was both great rejoicing and gnashing of teeth. This was intended to be a level 1 and 2 activity, but the upper levels want to continue following “their” teams, so we do it there too.
Then I used Dirk’s idea of rating the weekend, followed by having “went” on the board. In first period we had the extremes. One student immediately rated his weekend a 1 (totally bad) because he went nowhere – he had been grounded. Of course we had to “discuss” (i.e. make up) why he had been grounded. Another student rated his weekend 10 (totally awesome) because he went nowhere – his girlfriend came and visited, and they made fudge and Italian sweets. Another student went to the museum and saw art by Picasso – tomorrow I’m going to have to show them “Guernica”. [For a German class – but there is a German connection.] Of course, we had lots of comparison and repetition. The other classes went similarly, and suddenly it was time for lunch and then the end of school.
We never did get to the stories for today. Oh well, there’s always tomorrow!
Not being a Fußball man, myself, can this be applied to the Spanish-speaking world? I might have to study up on that game–kids love competition.
Drew, one of my projects is to put together a how-to guide for soccer in the language classroom. I think it’s totally easy – but then I am a soccer fan. It’s easily adaptable to Spanish, you just have to decide which league to follow. It won’t work to try to follow different leagues in a single class; choose Spain or Mexico or Argentina or . . . and stick to that one.
What about the French leagues? I want my guide now!
And we need an RT guide. I wish Jason would write it. We need that guide too.
Totally doing this next year. I will have a level 4 class with 2 really fiercely passionate soccer players, one of whom already follows Barca on his own. He is a quite introverted young man, and so I see this as not only fun for everyone but we will learn a ton because we have a student expert. He will want to talk about this! So excited!
Can’t wait to see what you come up with. I think my level 3 class next year will get into this.
OK Robert now you have to write it. My kids are mostly from Mexico, like half of them are born there, and we can watch Mexican soccer here in Denver whenever we want.
If you can get this thing into our hands soon enough, I can place this near the core of my curriculum next year and then Drew and you and jen and I can compare notes here during the year. With those notes, you can then write a second edition next summer and we will be scoring some goals!
Dude you rock. I want to do that soccer team league thing. It’s like RT in that way, that we would do better with a simple guide to follow. Which I’m hoping to get done this summer, the RT guide, unless I can talk Jason into writing it.
I needed a change this Monday morning.
So today my kids brought in a prized object that we could fit into a shoebox. A kid would show his object to the class while I would look away, and then place it in the shoebox. Off we went with 20 questions. I asked questions like: “Can I eat it?” Can I buy it at Best Buy?” “Does it cost less than 10 dollars?” etc. Wow! I never thought I’d get such an unprecedented level of engagement. The kids loved it. They also got tons of CI. I will try this again next month.
cool idea!
Proof again that when they are trained with stories, when their training is in CI and more CI, then they become and stay engaged. Nice and very nice. If a book teacher were to try that in a grammar class it would be ugly. They would just sit there. Oh well…
I have to remember this home run idea.
Thanks for this post; it comes at a time when I sometimes run out of steam…reminders of the joy we find in the classroom are always helpful.
Oddly enough, I only know the word for squid *because*of stories. One of the jobs is “capitaine dictionnaire”, who looks up the (very few) new words that we bring in via cute answers. We grow an organic and interesting “list” of new words over the course of middle school!
I haven’t been on the blog in a month (went to Costa Rica with my students and sprinting to catch up with everything) and I just read this one entry and got the idea of the dictionary job and the special thing in a box! So happy to be back!! Thank you!
Welcome back Elissa and Cheryl I will add this job to that category and thanks.
Thanks for reposting this. I haven’t seen it before, but really liked the reminder to run with the PQA if it has a good opening.