Starting off the Year

FIRST WEEK TO-DO LIST

By |2018-08-15T12:37:10-06:00August 14th, 2018|

"Si al comienzo no muestras quién eres, nunca podrás después, cuando quisieres."  "If at first you do not show who you are, you will never be able to afterwards when you want to." From El Conde Lucanor, Cuento XXXV, by Don Juan Manuel (Medieval Castilian writer, 1282-1348). The first [...]

SPECIAL PERSON QUIZ #2 RESULTS

By |2017-10-11T13:22:12-06:00September 2nd, 2017|

These are the results of Special Person Quiz #2, the second full week of school. This week we interviewed just three students. Since the verb "tiene" (has) had been added there were many more opportunities for questions, answers, comments, clarifications and follow up than with the meager vocabulary student [...]

SPECIAL PERSON QUIZ #3 RESULTS

By |2017-10-11T13:22:14-06:00September 20th, 2015|

We just finished the fifth week of school. This year in my level one Spanish classes I am focusing on "Special Person" interviews. I am not teaching to an overt grammar syllabus. I have not done any units. I have not even told any stories yet. I am focusing [...]

CONTEE SEELY’S CLASSROOM OBSERVATIONS

By |2018-04-11T11:49:02-06:00September 8th, 2015|

I have been grateful to have publisher and author Contee Seely observe my classes two times so far this year. Being watched by someone that literally wrote the book on TPRS (Fluency through TPR Storytelling, with Blaine Ray) could have been an intimidating experience, but Contee is so gracious [...]

STARTING THE SCHOOL YEAR: WEEK 2 STUDENT INTERVIEWS

By |2017-10-11T13:22:15-06:00August 26th, 2015|

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 [...]

STARTING THE SCHOOL YEAR: PARTICIPATION GRADING SCALE

By |2015-08-16T17:04:17-06:00August 16th, 2015|

In the previous post I showed the latest version of the participation poster. The question now will be how is participation measured.  Many teacher try a daily points system but find it is just too hard to keep up with. They don't always have time after class to mark scores for [...]

Title

Go to Top