The students are the curriculum for the first several weeks of Spanish I. We are interviewing students and talking daily in class with lots of repetitions of compelling content wrapped in high frequency vocabulary . Here is the second timed writing of the year in Spanish I. It is [...]
The gains from personal interviews continue to amaze me. In the last six days we have been doing only two activities: establishing procedures and conducting personal interviews. Drilling procedures is crucial for classroom management and the time invested now pays off hugely in the weeks ahead, but the gains [...]
The "Special Person" activity is a way to engage students and really connect with them with real language. The questions are on the website in Spanish and French, and now they are available in Japanese.Thanks to Betsy Paskvan of Anchorage, Alaska for the translation! SPECIAL PERSON QUESTIONS IN JAPANESE
COMPELLING INPUT, GENUINE ENGAGEMENT & ACQUISITION FROM AN UNLIKELY SOURCE For La Persona Especial today in first period we talked with a girl named Mattea. This was the second round of questions for her and she is normally quite willing to share with the class, but today she was [...]
Last week Jon Cowart, the lead world languages teacher from a school in inner-city Memphis, Tennessee, came to observe. Since he was investing an entire day, I adjusted the class schedule so that he could see a variety of activities that we typically do over the course of several days. The students [...]
Another question about preteaching vocabulary with the Persona Especial interviews. Steve writes: I heard/saw nearly all of your webinar. I loved the stuff about personalization. Personalization is the best way to get truly compelling CI and your ideas look like the best way of personalizing I have ever seen. Question: [...]