The Agen Workshop is an idea. It began as a desire to share with other language teachers a new approach to our profession that made me feel both more effective and closer to my students. Who was I? A girl who had gone to Cameroon in 1967 as a Peace Corps Volunteer. After a year
Teachers often discover CI after several years, even many many years, of using other methods. Old habits are hard to break. A question that often comes up s how to transition from former methods to one that stresses Comprehensible Input. Where to find help?
The short answer is: We don’t. How do you know that “He goed” is not grammatically correct? At some point in their infancy, most children will say “He goed”. Then they stop saying it, long before a school teacher tells them that it is not good grammar. Good grammar, like vocabulary, is acquired before it
Blaine thought his new students were a little bizarre. They were all squirrels and refused to sit in their chairs. Blaine gave them books, but his students ate the books. He gave them worksheets, but they ate the worksheets.
Every summer for the last ten years something magic has happened in Agen, France. Teachers from around the world have gathered in a friendly little town in southwest France and particpated in what many of them have called a life-changing experience. They come together because they have heard of a different way of teaching languages, a way of creating stories with their students and building a different kind of classroom. They come with open hearts and open minds and they leave with smiles and warm memories and many new friends. That is the magic of Agen.