Getting around points

I have to find a way of getting around “points” in class. If we structure a class around points the students will only do what they have to. If they want to be there, then they will do more than they have to. Points can be like a reward. Therefore, most kids will do whatever [...]

Laziness

I know that at certain times I have just felt that the kids were so lazy. That they needed to just get with the program and be responsible. For some students, this is the case. However, I would say that most of the time they aren’t lazy. They are just bored and they don’t care. [...]

Homework

I have been reading a little more on the list serve lately. It is the yahoo group moretprs. It has been so helpful and there are a lot of teachers out there who are posting on great issues. There were a couple of posts lately about assigning homework and apathy. They have really caused me [...]

Sports and Activities

I was teaching the other day and looked out my window on beautiful spring day and I saw the baseball team warming up. They warm up and have a practice before every game. I had to stop for a second and think about what was happening. It sent a message to me about what the [...]

School size

There is a recent trend in education that the student to teacher ratio needs to change. The class size needs to become smaller. I would say that this is a correct evaluation, but I feel that there is more to it. When the total population of the school is quite large, but the classes are [...]

Teaching multiple tenses

I just read this in Ben Slavic’s blog and it offers such and interesting perspective. I have always wanted to teach more than one tense at a time, but was concerned that it would throw the students into disequilibrium. I have found that when I did my children’s books that the students handled it just [...]

Meaning based grammar teaching

Often I hear different teachers say something like: “My main objective is to teach the difference between the preterit and imperfect during this unit” or “Now we are focusing on gender and verb agreement within the sentence.” etc.
I don’t know what it is, but I just get so turned off to statements like these. I [...]

Pictures with Reading

On days when we are reading I think that it would be a great idea to have some pictures to go with the stories. I was just reading on Ben Slavic’s blog and he was writing about stories that he creates of the students. In order to create a higher interest he is considering putting [...]

The gap in education

I may write more about a current problem in education. I have noticed it particularly with my level 2 students. There seems to be a wide gap in students. I am sure if this has always existed, but it is there. There are students who do extremely well and know how to study. Then there [...]

Foreign Language Education, The Easy Way

This is another great book by Krashen. When I first saw it, it make me think that the title was misleading. The Easy Way to me meant, teaching the easy way out. In other words not putting much effort into teaching. And perhaps there is some truth to this if you teach the way the [...]