In the last 5 years I have required less and less homework…and instead grade all in-class assigments.
Inspired by research and exhausted by the battles which always seem to accompany homework, I have chosen to actively and clearly offer as little as possible. When I give homework (usually one day per week if it is a 5 day week) I make sure that it is accessible from the Internet and easy to do without help.
My students have NOT learned nor acquired any less. In fact, they spend MORE time outside of class using Spanish. They actively listen to music and watch programs in Spanish or read online in Spanish because it interests them. Yes…even in my little rural district. Parents often report siblings speaking to each other in Spanish at home.
By de-emphasizing homework I have eliminated several things:
a) an ENORMOUS battleground where no one ever won a battle nor a war.
b) frustration over who did it and who didn’t.
d) students entering class a failure before class even starts.
I can also frequently remind students that when we use class time well, I can continue to keep homework to a minimum.
Now, before TPRS, this really didn’t seem possible. What progress students made, they made because of the ‘memorization’ that took place via those assignments. Homework really appeared to make the biggest difference in gains.
With TPRS, those output activities are just a little decorative icing on the cake. A little goes a long way. It may go “against’ the “traditional” approach….but it has been working for my students for over a decade, so I’m sticking with it!
A reader asked a number of great questions on a post where I wrote about NOT using participation points. I will try to address some of them here.
How do you get there?
Which system do you have that replaces participation points that works?
How do you deal with discipline (attitude, absences, English)?
Which is the social contract you have with your students and parents?
How did you reach this social contract?
How do you enforce the rules that make daily living (la convivencia) possible?
Below is the contract that I created to address these issues. When I have an administration that requires a signature, I’ll collect that. Our Dean of Students and Principal have a copy. A copy is on my website and a copy is sent home to parents.
The key to this, however, is taking time the first week of school to address each point below:
Your Rights and Responsibilities
1. You have a right to be treated as an individual who interesting, capable, and important.
You have a responsibility to treat others the same way.
2. You have the right to a positive learning environment every day.
You have the responsibility to learn and accomplish something positive every day.
3. You have the right to be informed about the academic and personal goals of this course and your progress towards
those goals.
You have the responsibility to complete the class work and homework designed to help you achieve these goals and to monitor your progress.
4. You have the right to communicate with me in a respectful and appropriate manner about issues that affect you in class or in this building.
You have the responsibility to communicate with me whenever you have a problem, question, or concern about issues in this class, or your achievement in this class.
You have the responsibility to communicate if you, or anyone else, is in danger of physical or emotional harm.
These are posted in the room and referred to as necessary. We address them as “new information”, one per day the first week…IN ENGLISH…along with any number of team-building and get-to-know-you activities in Spanish.
I address infractions to the above immediately and directly…although not always publicly. A one-to-one conversation often goes a long way. The first two are the most important. As the teacher,
I have the final say if there is disagreement on what kind of behavior falls “outside of the lines”. I briefly mention and discuss “boundaries” so that students understand that there is a need to have lines drawn for appropriate/inappropriate behavior.
What we allow, we encourage.
The first few weeks with a new teacher, it is the students’ job to find out exactly what that teacher will allow. For example: talking when the teacher is talking, writing on other students and/or their belongings/desks etc., arriving late to class, not engaging in class activities, pretending to not know anything, sarcasm, mean remarks, making fun of others, inappropriate clothing, not doing homework, passing notes, texting, eating and drinking in class………………………………………..
I don’t take it personally when students test the boundaries. As adolescents, that is what they are wired to do. They want to know how I will handle trouble when it comes. They need to know that they can trust me to keep the classroom a safe place. Ironically, it is the “troublemakers” that need to know this the most. Many of them are extremely bright and knowing where the boundaries are is how they function. Many of them have learned survival skills outside of the classroom and want to know from the beginning which of those skills they will need to survive this venue. Some of them have a reputation to uphold. If I am consistent about the rules, their classmates will not look to them to act up. If I am NOT consistent, then it becomes their role to see what I’ll be like today. They learn by watching adults….and each other. Adults who are inconsistent become playthings and entertainment. I let them know up front that we have other things to do.
So…Step 1: The Rules and Responsibilities
Step 2: Identify the Boundaries and Stand Firm
Step 3: Offer the Better Option….Calmly.
Step 4: “Conduct” the Class
I tell students that this class is much like a band/chorus/orchestra and I’m the Maestro. I literally “conduct” the class. They need to follow my words, facial expressions, gesture etc. and respond appropriately. The first piece we learn is the “Signal” (check out the post below)
I take my job as Maestro seriously and choose my activities (pieces) carefully based upon the strengths, interests and abilities of the students. From Day 1, I make it clear that I have chosen everything for THEM. Not because it is next in the book, what the other classes are doing, I think it’s cool, it makes me look good or another group liked it. For THEM. I choose activities which I know that my students will enjoy and will be successful at.
Every day for the rest of the year, I keep those rules and responsibilities in mind. I know that we will need to review them regularly.
Here is a key element in our program: Creating readings/stories/conversations around THINK/FEEL/SAY/DO.
In a story characters will THINK, FEEL, SAY AND DO things. The first structure is something that Earl SAYS, “I need to tell you something.” The beauty of it is that it immediately implies a feeling. Earl NEEDS to. AND a future action: TELL. This is a seriously powerful structure.Not all structures are this powerful…especially in the lower levels. For example, I choose the structure “wants to eat”. That is what Earl FEELS. It will help things flow if my next structure is not about feeling. So I could choose….
Earl wants to eat.
If I need to park on “wants to” I can stay there for a long long time…but if I want to move on (for any number of reasons) I need to pick another structure.
THINK Earl thinks about his favorite food………….or
FEEL Earl is really hungry………..or
DO Earl goes to SuperWalmart……….
ALL of which are now connected to the first structure and make sense. Truthfully, teaching beginning students is such a challenge. Their language pool is pretty shallow…it’s hard to dive in deep!! Using the THINK, FEEL, SAY, DO model really helps.
Darn good question. I look for/try to create activities. I’ll base them on previous successes, find them on other people’s blogs and posts, borrow from a colleague’s brilliance, get an idea in the shower and I a constantly utilizing the Internet for interesting tidbits of stories, songs, headlines etc. I try to keep the majority of the activities geared toward the focus topic (like food for next marking period), but I’m not married to that. I keep this checklist in my head and review it to verify four things:
a) Is this activity GOOD CI or unavoidable output?
b) Is this activity going to connect with my students?
c) Is this activity connected to a function or too powerful to ignore?
d) Is this activity helping my students to develop/work on a variety of these functions/skills?
If so, then it is probably a worthwhile way to spend classroom time. Then I get feedback from the students. Sometimes it is feedback that I just observe; although I have learned to give an activity two or three tries before abandoning it. Some ideas just need to catch on. :o) However many times, because the students have gotten used to how I work, they speak right up. How long are we going to do this? Can we do more tomorrow? We’re not done with this are we? Can we do this again? And yes…I do get constructive criticism as well!!Is it standards-based? Yes….look at the functions…they hit all of the standards. But the functions work better for the way my mind works.
How do I plan long-term? Well…the same way anyone does. I put my plans on the computer.
Then I have the privilege of deciding whether what I planned five months ago has any bearing on where my students are now and what they need. If it does…proceed! If not…adapt!! Planning long-term gets my goals in order. Teaching short-term gets my students connected to the language. I need a little of the former and a lot of the latter.
How do I evaluate? Like I’ve always evaluated. By skills. Listening, Reading, Writing, Speaking.
How do I fit in all of the topical vocabulary? I don’t. No one does. If they say that they do ,then they are doing one of more of the following:
a) Providing lists and asking students to work with them outside of class in some way.
b) Using too many of them too quickly for any significant long-term retention to occur.
Hence the never-ending frustration of “teaching” students who never remember anything that you have “taught”.
So I choose a core list of words that will help them to be understood and focus on those as production tools first. (another post….)
The truth is (I seem to be writing that phrase a lot this week!!) that IN REAL LIFE a variety of vocabulary occurs. So believe it or not, the organic nature of language provides what they need.
It really does. I am beginning to see this more and more. I am also able, in the level 2/3 to play a little bit with language. For example in this last marking period we did several activities using a huge list of cognates that end in -ion. Short activities that affirmed their ability to recognize and use cognates. It really was a confidence booster for them and I have seen these words appear over and over again in the students’ work.
My goal this year was to incorporate aspects of the U.N. document of Human Rights. What emerged was an unexpected theme. When “planning” this year, I have tried to think in terms of 10 week marking periods instead of units. It has really helped me to pull things together and yet provides some latitude for playing with the language. At this point, nearly three-quarters of the way through the year, I am looking back to see where we have been, and where I would like us to go:
The first marking period my student teacher (¡Hola Famoso!) and I centered on the theme of work. We started with what they knew how to discuss: school work, sports practice, music practice, play practice. This helped us to get to know what the students were involved with this fall. Here are a few of the structures that we worked on: had to, had the desire to, forgot to, will, planned to, therefore, Because this group is old enough to have had summer jobs, we then carried over the structures and dove into the work world.
We did this using stories in class and using the book El Trabajo de Roberto. I liked the fact that Roberto’s story also dealt with family relationships which a) is always a part of what we deal with and b) made the story more than one-dimensional. It will be a couple of years before I really like what I am doing with that book, but so far, so good.
In the midst of the marking period we got caught up in the story of the Chilean miners. It gave us so much to work with!!!! We could touch on types of work, worker safety, co-workers, working conditions and so much more. I actually had songs on tap, readings on tap, articles on tap….all of which got set aside because of the amount of great stuff available!! What emerged this marking period was an idea about working hard and never giving up. (cue the Luis Fonsi music please: Yo
No Me Doy Por Vencido)Early in the fall I found the Discovery Channel Amazing Race. ..perfect for the Travel focus I was hoping for for the second marking period. Truthfully, I could have easily built and entire year on that piece….the segments had my students riveted!! Little by little they got hooked on the adventure and most of all the couples and their relationships. The father and son team of Edison y Edison was the favorite and we all practically went into mourning and refused to watch the rest when they were eliminated!!! From a teaching perspective, everything you could ever want was available to talk about: losing passports, planes, trains and automobiles (taxis, trams and metros), hotels and tourist attractions.
And the unexpected theme persisted: Face your obstacles and never give up!
This marking period we have been focusing on the environment. There is just so much information out there for us to read and use that it has been hard to narrow it down. Because I work better with an organizational structure of some kind, I chose to bring in a project. Now projects are tricky. Projects tend to be output-motivated. So my challenge was to pour as much input to the output as I could. The project has been to create a book about an environmental Superhéroe.
I’ve tied in a series of stories about our Science department and their secret identities (the League of SuperScientists), several songs (El Progreso by Roberto Carlos is my favorite), articles from Econoticias.com and have danced around field trips, assemblies and the like. One level watched
The Tale of Desperaux (the hero theme AND the upcoming food theme) and the other group is about to see Fern Gully. The creation of the book has been a input then output activity (but that is another post…) So now we have a bulletin board full of books to read about a Superhero, a Supervillian and an adventure. And the theme continues: Earth matters….so treat it right andnever give up!!
Now here comes marking period number four. My original plan was for Food!! I figured that this was a topic sure to hold their attention even as the sun appeared. And it will…it would…but let’s see what develops…nothing has really played out as I originally planned so far…so I know that there are still unexpected and wonderful things ahead for the last few weeks.
And then there is that underlying and every-emerging theme: Never Give Up. I’m not seeing the food connection right now but I’m sure that it will come. Now how has that theme become a planning tool?
1. Vocab and structures:
a. Verb phrases like these: try to_______, should________, must_________, has to_______, refuse to _______________, plan to_____________, realize that___________,stop ___________ing, ___________again, able to overcome, has just survived, etc..
b. Adverbial phrases like this: without stopping, without a doubt, with courage, with hope, carefully, Un/fortunately, without knowing the reason, upon arriving at the scene, according to the victim, etc.
c. Key vocabulary like this: challenge, goal, decision, development, leader, partner, skill, ability, achievement/accomplishment, support, let go, change, surrender, vanquish, conquer, etc..
2. Material choice:
When I see a video, hear a song, read an article, choose a book etc. I keep the Never Give Up theme in mind. How does this connect? What lessons does it hold for students?
3. History and Culture:
There is so much out there to choose from. Having a theme has really helped me to narrow in on pieces that fit the theme. It makes the art/music/event more memorable for the students. The bishop did not believe at first that Juan Diego had actually spoken with The Virgen. Why would Frida Kahlo paint so many self-portraits? Why did Justo pursue a career singing to students? How can immigrants overcome prejudice? How many different tunnels did the Chileans try to drill?
4. Grammar goals:
Depending on your needs, there are many, many ways to go here (if you need to do that for your district, yourself, your students): I’ve spent a lot of time this year working with the past tenses….we have used so many stories! There have been repeated opportunities to use the future and conditional tenses…and it naturally leads to use of the subjunctive as well. Many of the“focus” verbs have reflexive forms so students have gotten a lot of practice in that regard as well.
Now I just have to keep the theme in mind as we roll towards the end of the year!!! Never Give Up!!
I am trying to step back and take a look at how the Level 2/3 curriculum has evolved this year. Did it center itself around a theme or concept? Were the students able to connect with the activities intellectually and emotionally? Was I able to utilize enough high frequency structures? How well did the students acquire them? Was I able to meet the varied needs of the students? Are they confident in their growing language skills? And yes….how will they do on the NYS Regents exam?
I’ll start with what I know about the last one first. Both the 2s and the 3s took a Regents exam for the Listening/Reading sections of the (Writing is not one of my worries!) midterm. I did not modify the Level 3 exam at all. Everyone passed. The majority scored at the mastery level. Unless they have a really bad day or the test is horrific, there should be no need to worry on that account. The
Level 2 exam was modified in the following way: The long reading passages were chosen because they were similar to topics that this group was familiar with. I also restructured the set up so that the multiple choice questions were located directly under the associated paragraph . Usually all of the questions are located at the end of the 4-6 paragraph( 1-1/2 page) reading. All of the students who have been our program for at least a year passed the midterm as well, with more than half scoring above an 85.
I try not to fret too much about the vocabulary. (okay…try is the operative word there!!) I’ve been going over tests and looking at vocabulary that tends to reoccur. I want to include these words when I can without teaching to the test….
This month the Level 3s and I will be working with the Speaking section. The truth is that in regular, natural conversation the kids are fine. I want to be sure that they understand the rules of the Regents Speaking “game” and how to play to win. I’ll try to keep you posted.
I can take very little credit for the success of this group. They were Patty R’s students for Level 2 and came so prepared to Level 3!! I can only hope every one of the signs up for Level 4…I really enjoy them!!
Marc has started an amazing forum for TPSRers in Japan. His thoughtful questions generate a lot of discussion. I responded to one of his posts on that list and wanted to share that answer here because we all have those “uninterested” students.
Dear Marc,
I wonder if it might be worthwhile to look at a couple of other options. It may be that your lower-level students are not skilled at using their imagination or visualization skills. So not only are things that aren’t about them not interesting….they don’t exist literally…they can’t “see” anything that you are talking about and so they definitely get bored with that information.
Students who are very literal often display some or many of the following characteristics:
* they answer in one or two word utterances even in L1
* they don’t ask questions/display curiosity
* they like activities which result in a concrete result ie a game w/ a score
* they value personal privacy
* they see information of any kind on a “need to know” continuum…if they don’t have a concrete reason to need to know/share, they don’t.
* they are often very good at mechanical skills: fixing an engine, building etc.
* they do not enjoy reading
* they prefer action films to romance/comedy etc.
These students actually need storytelling, but are missing a key skill: imagination. They are the students who need, in increments, illustrations and the opportunity to add details to stories so that they can “see” what the story is about. They need to start with short stories and build as the year progresses to longer pieces. They need immediate feedback.
Another possibility is that these are students who have no idea that they can be successful. They have been labeled for years as “low-achieving”. They don’t even see themselves as students and here you are expecting them to pay attention and answer as students. It may take a while for them to begin to see that this IS something that they can do. Then, even when they do begin to see themselves as successful, they may freak out and react to that as well. It may always feel like you are pulling teeth with these kids because you will be. They stopped giving willingly in the classroom shortly after their first days of school when they realized that the system was not for them and didn’t like them. (even if the Japanese system doesn’t “fit” that concept, human beings do.
Regardless of the culture that we grew up in, we all have a need to be recognized and appreciated. )
These students will not respond as predictably as your higher-achievers, but their progress will be incredibly powerful and rewarding….and they willl progress!!!! The difference is that high-achieving students tend to progress predictably and in a linear fashion. This group will lay “dormant” for periods of time and then make leaps when you least expect it. That is how they grow. But they are the students for whom TPRS can be life-changing. Teaching them can be career-changing. Keep us posted!
(Originally posted 11/15/10)
This is a response I posted on moretprs about my own personal journey with assigning homework.
Several people asked if I could put it here so….here it is. ;o)
1st year teaching: I thought that students loved me and loved my class so much that they would do the homework before class ended!
5th year teaching: I thought that although not everyone loved me or my class, at least they all wanted good grades so they would do the homework by the due date.
10th year teaching: I thought that although they might not like me nor my class, nor care about their grades, that their parents did and would MAKE THEM do the homework and hand it in on time.
15th year teaching: I thought that although they might not like me nor my class, nor care about grades that their parents might and COULD make them do the homework and hand it in if they wanted to.
20th year teaching: My own children were getting so much (ludicrous and unnecessary) homework that a) I didn’t have time to correct my students’ homework and b) I began to wonder if it accomplished anything anyway….
25th year teaching: My own children didn’t like some teachers, saw little purpose in homework assignments and I had already tried (and failed) to get them to do homework by grounding, punishing and several other measures. I saw that they did do homework under two different scenarios: a) the teacher publicly taunted them or humiliated them when work was not done b) the work was interesting, engaging and actually helped them to learn/understand something about the topic. I stopped giving work that was only done at home. Instead I began to collect the work that students did IN CLASS.
28th year teaching: Both sons are in very good colleges and receiving scholarships. I continue to give assignments that are done in class. NOTHING I EVER GAVE FOR HOMEWORK INCREASED LONG-TERM MEMORY OF TERMS OR STRUCTURES. It also never taught one single student to be more accountable or responsible….that was a myth that I attempted to perpetuate for two decades.
(yes…Alfie Kohn uses the term “myth” and I think he has it right…I’ve kept data on my students to “prove” it for administrators)
Are my students responsible? I think so…although you can ask the folks who have come in to observe me in the past five years if you would like a less-biased approach. They show up, get to work, work for as long as I ask them to and work well. They don’t bad-mouth each other, keep the room cleaner than I do and I rarely ever have a student skip class.
Are they scoring well on state tests? So far…very well. I have shifted levels this year so I can give you a better idea of that at the end of June.
Are they “life-long” learners? Are they staying in the program? Without a doubt. Since beginning with TPRS and stopping routine daily homework assignments we have maintained a 20 -25 % retention rate through level 4 (which would be higher if we could get scheduling issues worked out…) and have launched a half dozen Peace Corp participants and an equal number of language teachers…surprising considering our size. More importantly..to me anyway…is the number of students who have gone on to study language in college and participate in study abroad programs.
Even without homework.
Now..having said all of that…each of us should feel free to run our classrooms as we deem appropriate given the knowledge and experience that we have. We should be free to challenge our OWN policies at any time. The world is changing nanosecond by nanosecond. It’s hard to keep up.
We are all doing our best.
One of the challenges we face as teachers is finding ways to help students use their language to express themselves fluently. The best thing that we can do for them is to show them how to communicate with fluency with the language that THEY have acquired…to model for them what it might look and sound like. Susie Gross has often said….Shelter vocabulary, not grammar.
But what does that mean? In the past few years I have really practiced this…and I wish that I had “gotten it” earlier because it is an incredibly powerful change in my teaching. But what is it that I have been practicing? Let me try to explain….
In the book that we are working on in, the phrases “brings him/brings her/brings them” show up repeatedly. What I would like to do is to create opportunities to use these phrases over and over and over and over and over again.
It will work because these are high-frequency. It will work if I keep them in front of me…cognitively and physically. It will work if, every time I use them with students, they are comprehensible AND contribute to some sort of interesting interaction. Some opportunities…
Daily Routines:
1. We start the class with a message on the Smartboard. Here are some ideas …..phrases I could put on the opening message:
The teacher is ready to accept your homework. Bring it to her.
The miners brought rocks home from the mine. Why should, or shouldn’t, they bring them?
The students from France are arriving tomorrow! Our students will be bringing them to school.
2. We use signals to integrate vocabulary and structures and to refocus students on activities. Here are some phrases we could use:
I’m bringing them….to the party!
Bring them…with you
3. Instead of collecting papers from the first person in each row I can ask them to “bring them to my desk.’
I frequently start a conversation with students (or ask them to write a paragraph) that uses a particular structure…with this one I might try…
1. I just received an email from The New York Yankees. They want to come to watch their biggest fan (Dan) play soccer this Thursday. They will need a ride from the train station in Syracuse…..who in class can (will, would, should) bring them to school?
2. Our French visitors have a free afternoon on Friday and we are taking them around the area. They can leave school at noon and must be back for the football game at 7pm. You get to decide where we go….where should we bring them?
3. Silly Bandz is sponsoring a local contest. You can win $500 if you can write a letter that convinces our principal to put on 500 Silly Bandz and wear them to school every day for a week. What would you write in your letter?
4. Start a campaign to convince parents that they should no longer bring their children with them to every family function. What is a function that teens do NOT want to attend and why shouldn’t parents bring them?
5. School policy says “no coffee, no soda” in classes. Should students be allowed to bring them to class? Why or why not?
Culture
1. Day of the Dead….a great opportunity to talk about the ofrendas, the people who are honored and what families bring to the ofrenda.
2. Three Kings’ Day…another great opportunity to talk about a Hispanic holiday, who the Kings were/are and what children hope that they bring …
Reading
1. Headlines…a quick “Google”ing of the phrase “brings (or brought or will bring etc) them” in
Spanish brought me these headlines:
· Alejandro les lleva al paraíso (Alejandro Sanz concert…)
· Ronald McDonald visita a niños cusqueños y les lleva alegría (RM visits kids in Cusco, Peru and brings them happiness)
· The Cranberries, reunión y gira mundial que los llevará a España (The Cranberries reunion and world tour that will bring them to Spain)
And my favorite….
· ¿Es necesario que los escolares lleven el celular al colegio? (Do students really have to bring cell phones to school? …..)
2. Matching…I like to create short matching activities to use in little contests, extra credit opportunities etc…they are always easy, interesting, structure-focused. Here’s a sample:
1. My cat threw up three times. ____A. Bring them to a recycling container!
2. My Mountain Dew cans are empty. ____B. Bring them to school!
3. My clothes are dirty. ____C. Don’t bring them to your mother!
4. My Mercedes Benz needs a new owner. ____D. Bring it to the vet!!
5. My cousins are the Jonas brothers. ____E. Bring it to me!
Listening Songs….Again….I googled lleva+letra (Spanish for lyrics) and found….
Llevan por Raphael http://www.letras.com/r/raphael/hacia_el_exito/llevan.html
Mil Calles Llevan Hacia Ti por La Guardia http://www.quedeletras.com/letra-cancion-mil-calles-llevan-hacia-ti-bajar-89218/disco-vamonos/la-guardia-mil-calles-llevan-hacia-ti.html
Me Llevaras en Ti por Alejandro Fernandez http://www.quedeletras.com/letra-cancion-me-llevaras-en-ti-bajar-44250/disco-muy-dentro-de-mi-corazon/alejandro-fernandez-me-llevaras-en-ti.html
Imagine how powerful this kind of repetition could be with idiomatic expressions that just don’t “click” easily? It takes some practice to start “thinking” this way, but I promise you…once you get started it is a little like playing around with puns…you start to see them everywhere!!!
(Originally posted 9/20/10)
Hmmm….Carol and Michele and Carla got me thinking about how the connection of activities can make a difference in our instruction. A higher level skill? I’m not sure. I think to some extent it is a skill, but it is more a way of thinking that takes practice. I think that sometimes, in the classroom as in life, we can’t see the forest for the trees.
How did we end up in this place where what happens in class is focused around a focused series of structures? I think because I have a student teacher, I wanted to keep the focus narrow. This way he would have a better idea of what vocabulary was “in bounds.” We started with a series of goals: a) get to know the students b) use the present, past and future in a natural way in conversation/instruction c) connect topics with the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights d) connect the curriculum with the students’ lives.
I looked at the topics on the NYS Syllabus that my students needed to work with in order to be prepared for the NYS Regents exam and decided to begin with Work/Professions because I saw a way to connect it with each goal: a) we could find out about our students’ skills, interests and dreams b) we could discuss past, present and future jobs c) we could discuss the right to work, the rights of workers and the responsibilities of workers and employers d) every student is connected somehow to the world of work.
Next, we need a structure for the classroom….for organizing each period so that the student and the teachers were working within a routine. A routine helps us to rotate in activities and topics so that we can reach all of our students. It provides us with an avenue to drive down with the structures that we use to introduce class, make transitions in class, recognize students for their efforts, interact with students and include the language patterns inherent in the “niceties” of daily interaction.
We created a template for the month of September that included some pieces that are fairly typical of language classrooms and some that might not be. Class begins with a message on the SmartBoard about the first activity of class and what materials the students will need, including the formation of desks. (see Desk Drills) We have a quick review of the information that was on the morning announcements, taking special note of students who have been recognized. We ask for any other announcements (birthdays, driver’s tests etc.) We review upcoming, activities, competitions, meetings and deadlines. (lots of future tense)
Transitions in class are made with the use of Signals and the signals have been chosen with cultural,structural and emotional impact in mind (We will never forget, Viva Mexico, Here I Am etc) Thursday is quiz day…the first quiz was a reading quiz…using a letter written by my student teacher.
The second quiz was a writing quiz….my students introduced themselves to him in a 5-10 minute write. After the quiz they grab books for Free Voluntary Reading.
We notice that the students have a hard time remembering the word “son” they are.
Mondays we have been asking the question, “Where did you go this weekend? “ And throughout the week asked…”Where did you go last night?” (builds beautifully from the discussion of upcoming events) This week we added the question: “Who did you go with?” My student teacher created a short reading about his weekend…staying focused on “I went” I went with, I went to, I went for, I went because….When we ask students where they went, a ton of them respond with “I went to work”…a perfect connection for where we are headed.
When they talk about their friends, their teammates, their co-workers, they don’t use the word “son” either.
We’ve been looking at international news. Our focus? The miners trapped in Chile. How did we tie this in? What structures are connected? They went to work. They to the mine. They went to a refuge under the ground. The families went to sit vigil. The president of Chile went to the mine. He went to talk with the families. He went to see the messages from the miners.
Engineers went to the mine. They went with ideas. The engineers will meet. They will meet and make plans. They will meet and share ideas. They will organize a rescue. The miners will watch a soccer game. They will exercise to keep in shape.
We decide that we need to create a reading with a lot of reps of the word “son”…but that that word might be a “teach for June” goal.
We need to talk about danger and dangerous jobs. We revisit a song from last year “Aqui Estoy Yo” . All kinds of great lines. Don’t be afraid. Here I am. I’ll take care of you. Please accept. We use these phrases to write letters to the miners and their families.
We will talk about why the girl the songwriter talks about thinks that love is dangerous. We are going to talk about the four singers in the video and make sure that we are going to get a bazillion reps of the word “son.”
Another phrase that keeps coming up over and over again? The same. Going to the same meeting. Went to the same game. Ate the same number of pancakes at the pancake breakfast. Bought the same lunch. Scored the same number of goals. Both meetings are on the same day. In love with the same girl. Hoping for the same thing. Three plans for the same goal. Six weeks in the same place. Thirty three families with the same prayer.
We didn’t plan for that. We didn’t see that pattern ahead of time. But we put it up on the board when it came up and now it is popping up organically all over the place.
By reusing and refreshing a routine, by repeating a theme, by revisiting an ongoing story, by recycling a song, by realizing patterns, by recreating similar activities on a variety of topics, by using familiar structures WHILE AT THE SAME TIME staying within a narrow framework of new structures….we are creating a path for everyone in the class to follow throughout the forest….without getting lost among the trees.
I’m not sure that it takes any special skill. I think that it takes focus. And practice. And the ability to stay in the moment and get your bearing. The willingness to look back after the lesson and see where it went and where you should be going. And friends to remind you that it works.
Not every unit, or lesson, or moment will mesh seamlessly. But if we get out of the trees for a few minutes we can see that every tree is a part of the forest…in the great scheme of things it will all, eventually fit together. Every time we can plug into the connection, we just make it easier for our students’ brains to do what they do naturally…acquire language,