Classroom Strategies
You Could Have!
My adult French native students have problems with “should have” and “could have”…
Judith Dubois
Classroom Strategies
A New Twist on Embedded Readings
I have found Embedded Readings, as developed by Laurie Clarq and Michele Whaley, an excellent way to encourage students to read. The idea, like all great ideas, is quite simple. You make three or more versions of the same text which increase in difficulty.
Classroom Management
The Tiny Little Monkey in Your Brain
I have an adult student who is a beginner in English. She is highly motivated but has tried to learn English before and has never succeeded. She likes working with me and getting comprehensible input…
Conference
Teri’s Take on the Agen Workshop 2014
Teri Wiechart, our coach of all coaches, recently sent in this description of the workshop. It might be a good time to remind people that the early bird price of 295 euros ends on March 31st.
Classroom Management
How Much Native Language to Let into the Classroom?
Ben Slavik recently observed a teacher in Denver who kept her students active and engaged for an entire hour without any use of English (her students’ native language) or any blurting by students. He was impressed and wrote an article about it. One of his suggestions was that we make “No English” a rule for our students.
Classroom Management
Experience??? What is Experience?
Younger teachers often tell me they envy my “experience.” Yet, what does the word really mean? Does it just mean that I’m getting old? What is experience? It has to be more than a mere accumulation of years. It seems to imply a certain wisdom that I have no claim to.
Articles from the Net
What Is Wrong with Schools?
Yesterday I read a long article by Carol Black that stunned me. In very simple words she explained so many things that I’ve often felt or sensed. At the same time, much of what she says echoes the findings of Stephen Krashen, Alfie Kohn and the latest cutting edge research in neurolinguistics.
Classroom Strategies
How Can I Teach Pronunciation?
This question was asked recently by a French person who came to the Agen Workshop in July, 2014. She is perfectly bilingual and a creative, hard-working and conscientious teacher of English. She admitted that she didn’t feel comfortable teaching pronunciation.
Comprehensible Input
My Encounter with Stephen Krashen
This is the third year that I have traveled to Paris for the annual TESOL Colloquium to present TPRS. The other two years I was a speaker and had a small room where I could explain the method to anyone who wanted to come in.
Comprehensible Input
Cato the Elder and Night Blooming Flowers
Recently I have been thinking about the difference between comprehensible input classes and other language classes.