Stop with the bad Chinese already, please!
All you people who've had a couple of Chinese lessons -- please, please -- and I am not saying this to be mean -- stop generalizing your experience with Chinese to the broader field of language acquisition and particularly to teaching Chinese. Immediate output is not...
read moreJust you and me: adapting classroom practice for 1-on-1
Many teachers are beginning to take distance students using Skype or other technologies, and increasingly there are questions about what needs to be done to have a successful 1-on-1 class using TPRS. It's true that there are a few things that should, or can, be...
read moreCI Myth #97: You can’t follow student interests if you target
What people do not get is that it is entirely possible to discuss topics students are interested in while targeting. High frequency, you know? We are focusing on high-frequency language, supposedly. It's perfectly feasible to simply add a few words (making them...
read moreIt’s a method! No, it’s an approach! A philosophy!
It's not any of them. CI is a lens. It's a way of looking at things. Not only a way of looking, it's the compulsion to look at everything that happens in the classroom and ascertain whether it is providing Comprehended Input in a way that will get students to listen...
read moreWow, this list of 100 English fairy tales is great for Level 1 TPRS!
Except they really aren’t. They are not (for the most part) familiar stories, which means you can’t use background knowledge. They are not simple stories, which means lots of words are needed. IMO these stories don’t belong in a Chinese L1. You might get away with...
read moreLeveling up
Paraphrasing a post I saw on another group recently. A teacher was very dissatisfied with her own performance in implementing TPRS. She had been to a conference, watched all the videos she could find, and practiced, but still she felt inadequate. Even though her...
read moreToo many voices
Lots and lots of people are going to workshops and conferences and starting to do TPRS or to try to teach with comprehended input. And that’s great. And those same people are out on the internet, looking for more information. More things to do in the classroom. More...
read moreCPR
Everything else is TPRS-minus, folks. Sorry, but it is. Every other sort of activity you can come up with is TPRS minus something. And most of them have been done to death back in the days before CI teaching. Just saying you are using fewer words when doing them...
read moreIs it time to amputate?
On an Internet teachers discussion list, the comment was made with regards to the targeting/non-targeting question in TPRS/CI teaching: like say “here are my 3 phrases that my kids will acquire today.” No one says that. No one...except a CI teacher working in Chinese...
read moreMobile CI Classroom
For training to be effective, it should: 1. Provide information about what teachers are supposed to be doing, and 2. Provide teachers as realistic as possible a situation to do it in, while still making the situation safe and "scaffolded" (i.e., they don't have to...
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