If conventional language teaching is grammar-translation, then we’re all somewhat a group of heretics! Still, there are so many sub groups of CI that it warrants a bit of elucidation. At some point, John Bracey and I were talking about if either of us just started discovering CI right now, we’d have NO IDEA what to do or where to begin. Here are descriptions of all the different CI groups I’ve observed over the past 5 years already in existence, or just emerging:
non targeted input
NTPRS 2016: More Changes, More Thoughts
After attending iFLT, I spent another week in Reno at NTPRS. While iFLT offered more opportunities to observe teachers teaching students, NTPRS offered more opportunities to actually BE a student for those of us in the Experienced track. I appreciated the short demos that most presenters gave, even when the workshops were not titled “___ language demo.” There are some game changes here that warrant their own posts (e.g. embedded readings straight from the source, Michele, Whaley), but I have much else to report on. Like last week’s iFLT post, this one includes more of what I intend to think about and/or change for 2016-17. They’re organized by presenter:
5.12.16 Tea with BVP Takeaways
It’s good that my goal wasn’t to summarize and respond to every point made on each Tea with BVP show. Why? Of all the shows, the recent Season 1 Finale had treasure troves of gold to respond to. Several of those nuggets stand out for me…
Non-Targeted Input: Ditching a Lesson Plan
Since I began teaching a language, it’s been pretty hard letting go of the graduate school generic UbyD planning mindset, and spending less time working on administrator-desired posted Objectives (see Terry Waltz’s answer for this). These and various other educational processes sap our time that otherwise should be spent on honing our craft, and really, really getting to know our students and their needs. The hardest, but perhaps most fruitful thing to let go is the Lesson Plan, and just discuss something non-targeted in Latin. I know, it sounds crazy, right? Read on…
Magister P. 