On a teacher’s group, a question recently came up (again) about listening rubrics. After one or two comments, this was the reply as to why it should be okay to use one that includes eye contact as a requirement to “meet standard” as listening in class: As a class, students help to make and decide […]
Archive for December, 2016
Shooting down the grammar geeks
Posted by Terry Waltz on December 16th, 2016
On a teachers’ site, this question recently surfaced: Ok suppose a kid said, “Mr/Ms Smith, I want more grammar teaching/practice” and you’re like, “no way, there but for the grace of Blaine go I.” You know C.I. works but you need a fast, simple demo to show that grammar (or really any explicit teaching of […]
Posted in Grammar 
Tags: grammar, memorization, rules and output 
Comments Off on Shooting down the grammar geeksTough love about the smart kids
Posted by Terry Waltz on December 14th, 2016
A comment recently came up on a teachers’ group: I have 2 groups with only high profile students, ages 8 to 12. I notice that their minds work very differently from the average student. I also notice that hardly any of the TPRS / CI activities that I do with them, works. On the contrary, […]
Smiling ruthlessness
Posted by Terry Waltz on December 12th, 2016
On a teachers’ group, the question was recently posted: How can I transition my Spanish 2 class from listening to me speak in Spanish, but almost always responding/suggesting/asking in English to the students speaking in Spanish as well? Two words: classroom management. I know, not the answer people want to hear. Teachers would prefer to […]
Input by the numbers
Posted by Terry Waltz on December 9th, 2016
On a teachers’ discussion group, the question recently came up: Any suggestions for teaching numbers up to 100? I know they can naturally come up in stories…but I feel like it doesn’t happen often enough and doesn’t regularly cover every “ten.” Or should I just do more of it?! The post garnered a number of […]
Paralysis by analysis
Posted by Terry Waltz on December 2nd, 2016
On a social media group for teachers, the following question (actually pretty far removed from the title of this post!) was recently posted: Could you share resources that you’ve used to infuse your TPRS lessons with cultural perspectives? As I waited for my server to let me into my own blog — some sort of […]