Jonny, a Mandarin teacher who saw my recent presentation on Special Person Interviews, had some questions about the process. We've had a conversation about it and here are the results. Before answering Jonny's questions, I need to make this crucial point: Follow-up questions are the most important part of [...]
Shayna, an AP Spanish teacher and reader of this blog writes: Hi Bryce, I've spent my 10-year career teaching Spanish at a private high school. I am very intrigued by CI, but as an AP Spanish teacher, I'm concerned that if I abandon some of my traditional teaching methods, [...]
Anita, a reader of this blog writes: . Hi Bryce, . I've just about completed my Persona Especial for the year and saw some good and bad things about my first time. I wanted to share these with you. . • Spanish I did well with answering questions in [...]
Asking students a series of purposeful questions and follow-up questions supercharges learning. It engages them and drives acquisition of language and complex ideas like nothing else. Plato modeled this technique brilliantly in Socrates’ dialogues. Special Person student interviews are similar to Socratic teaching. It is asking questions with a [...]
There was a noteworthy article in the May 1, 2021 Atlanta Journal Constitution, Foreign Language Classes Get the Conversation Going, by H.M. Cauley. You can read the original article here. Below are some select quotes from that article and my commentary about the world language classrooms of Allyson Segal [...]
(A 5-minute read) This lesson may be easier to read and print out in another format. You can find it in a PDF here: QUESTION-DRIVEN GRAMMAR IN SPECIAL PERSON INTERVIEWS The teacher has great power to control student interviews, just by the nature of the questions directed at the student. [...]