Classroom Strategies
Reading a Novel
Once students have acquired enough vocabulary that they can read short texts with ease and pleasure, it’s time to start thinking about reading a novel with them.
Classroom Strategies
Classroom Management
A Few Tips From an Old Timer
As we start in on the new school year, the moretprs forum and Ben Slavic’s blog are discussing the issue that never fails to come up at this time of the year (and in November when students and teachers start getting weary, and in March when it seems like spring will never come): the issue of classroom management.
Classroom Management
Too Many Mistakes? Too Little Input!
Students who are learning English make many mistakes, of course. But one of the most difficult things for them to master is the difference between countable and uncountable nouns and when to use much or many. Even advanced students have problems choosing the right words.
Classroom Management
What Happened to Bill Gates?
As I explained, my Friday afternoon class is writing a novel. We now have four characters, Vincent Team, Johnny Spider, Jackson Sixteen and James Blonde.
Classroom Strategies
Corrections Are No Longer Drudgery
I have spent literally years of my life seated on a hard wooden bench in the kitchen correcting papers hour after hour. Whole weekends while the sun was shining and the dog needed walking and the horse needed riding.
Classroom Management
TPRS and Project Based Learning
There are four boys in my Friday afternoon class. We began working together last November and they, their parents and I are very pleased with their progress. We’ve done lots of stories and read stories created by other groups.
Classroom Management
When Are Mistakes Not Mistakes?
Basically, one thing that I have learned from horse riding is that it’s much more effective to teach a horse how to do something right than to spend time teaching it not to do something wrong. Pointing out mistakes is teaching students not to do something wrong. Giving them correct models is teaching them to do it right.