In episode 56, Stacey talks with Martina Bex, whom many listeners might recognize from her blog, the Comprehensible Classroom. Martina tells us about her journey of figuring out what works best for her classroom and outlines how teachers can write comprehensible texts for their students. If you want to create your own level-appropriate written and oral L2 texts in order to bring in culture or current events, this episode will get you started.
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Show Notes
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You can learn more about Martina Bex and the resources she makes available on her website The Comprehensible Classroom, on Facebook, or on Twitter @MartinaBex
Check out this excellent blog post Martina wrote in response to a listener question about this episode!
Martina read from the leveled reader about Brandon wanting a big dog. You can find that book along with others by Fluency Matters here.
Note: At one point in the interview, I refer to talking about culture using “your 10%”. I was referring to the ACTFL guideline of using the target language 90+% of the time during instruction, and how teachers might use that 10% of L1 in class.
I’m so glad that you hosted Martina. She’s great at going to the basics and helping teachers feel comfortable about taking small steps.
And…when teachers get those texts that are just a little challenging, but they’re sure that your students could read them with scaffolding, using an Embedded Reading might be the ticket! (see embeddedreading.com for more details)
(sure that *their* students could read them…)
Which of Martina’s blog posts do you assign your students?
Hi Stephanie! This year I assigned this one with great success: https://martinabex.com/2017/09/21/how-to-write-comprehensible-texts/ My way of using the skill she describes is a bit different from her method, since I focus on authentic resources as the core texts, but it’s a really great foundational resource that we then unpack in class.
A second issue we have is having enough ideas for what to do with the authentic and contructed texts that we use, so I also add this one to my list of sources of activities: https://martinabex.com/2016/04/27/how-can-i-use-news-stories-in-class/