Does Acquisition require Output?
Out of necessity, he tried to communicate and quickly found the language “spilling out of his mouth”.
Comprehensible Input
The Mighty – 4th episode – Their first quest
“Don’t think of it as a friendship. Think of it as a partnership. You need a brain and I need legs.”
The Mighty – Session 3
“Then the boys meet the gang again and there’s an exciting chase scene during which Kevin becomes Max’s brain and Max becomes Kevin’s legs. It’s one of the best scenes in the film.”
Max meets Kevin – part two of The Mighty
Grammar is only relevant when it gives us information about the characters and their situation.
The Mighty
There are scenes that could have been left out, the knights on horseback fail to capture the wonder of a boy’s imagination. They are just a bunch of men dressed up as knights. But the story comes across, we know that Max and Kevin are seeing real knights, and the magic works every time. It has become an indispensable tool in my teacher’s kit.
From Gibberish to … Wow!
You may have found a great video but when you put it on, your students complain that the speakers don’t articulate, they speak too fast and their accents are frightful! It’s gibberish to them.
Agreeing to Disagree
An experienced teacher knows her students, their culture and their needs and her own personality and possibilities better than anyone else. No one can make her decisions for her. If what she is doing is working, if her students are acquiring language, no one can criticize it. If it’s not working, she knows it before anyone else.
How to Get More Grammar with Less
He was using the passive voice spontaneously and correctly and appropriately. Something the excellent students from my “S” class had never quite managed, in spite of the tests on the passive voice that they had aced.
The Magic of the Agen Workshop
This year we are being honored by the presence of Blaine Ray, the man who invented TPRS, Diane Neubauer and Mike Coxon from the United States, Charlotte Dinscher from Germany, Kristin Plane and Iris Maas from the Netherlands, Sabrina Sebban-Janczak from France, Alina Filipescu from Roumania, Cathy Bu from Australia, Marguerita Perez-Garcia from Venezuela by way of New Zealand, Jayne Cooke from Great Britain and of course, the wonderful Beniko Mason Nanki from Japan. Agen is the truly international conference where people from around the world come together in harmony and share their ideas, talk over their difficulties and leave with renewed faith in human nature.
To Circle or not to Circle
Teachers intent on counting reps forgot that input must always be compelling. If your students’ eyes have glazed over, you may as well stop circling.