My Son Daniel
LET’S CREATE A BRIDGE WE CAN ALL WALK ON TO GET TOGETHER. LET’S COMMUNICATE!
Reflections
When the Required Curriculum is Way Too Much!
The standard textbook approach has always reminded me of Johnny Cash’s song, One Piece at a Time, and gives similar results. The students, the few who persevere, have a lot of bits and pieces but they don’t necessarily fit together very well.
About Very Narrow Listening, Stephen Krashen, Michael Jordan and Jackie Chan
We all know that magic tricks work because of the magician’s ability to focus our attention elsewhere. My students are focused on filling in the blanks, but actually my goal is to get them to listen to Comprehensible Input attentively and repeatedly.
Shutting the barn door after the horse has run off
“A century of research shows that traditional grammar lessons—those hours spent diagramming sentences and memorizing parts of speech—don’t help and may even hinder students’ efforts to become better writers. “
The day after Bastille Day
Injustice is often cleverly disguised as our own privilege.
Something New, Something Old
Terry Waltz finds this method quite similar to Cold Character Reading, used with students learning to read Chinese characters.
How to stay out of the rut when working on a lonnnnnng film.
What are ways to keep a entire film interesting to our students, scene after scene after scene?
How to Teach Writing
“Why didn’t I use the sacred red pen? Because student minds retain things that are underlined in red. They retain them …. and reproduce them. Haven’t you ever wondered why students keep making the same mistakes over and over? The mistakes that you have been so carefully underlining in red? “
The Skeleton in the TPRS Closet
“It’s time to stop thinking of translation as something shameful that we do only when no one is looking.”
Help!
“One way to build trust is by employing the 2×10 strategy: spend 2 minutes talking with a student about anything other than school for 10 consecutive days.” Better than Carrots or Sticks, by Smith, Fisher and Frey