Hello Profe! How are you? I hope you are well. I wanted to share a great story with you. I am in Potsdam finishing my masters in teaching. I start student teaching in Earth Science tomorrow!
Last night a few of my friends and I were out on the town and I ran into two Mexican immigrants at a local pizza shop. One was shivering and did not have a coat, and they were looking for a cab. It was 2 AM. Long story short their phone was not working. They had a cab card, but could not find someone who spoke Spanish. I was the only one in the whole place!
To be honest, I haven’t taken Spanish in three years. I took the required course in college and received an A. I also worked with a few Mexican gentlemen at Lakeview Landscape, Hansen Farms, and Fox Run. (in our local area-Laurie) But I was out of practice. I went off of clear memory, and eventually hailed them a cab in the freezing weather.
I had to figure out if they had problems with the police, where they worked, and how long they had been in the states. All in Spanish. All from memory! They had been here for only 2 months, but worked at a dairy farm. The one gentleman who was shivering has a wife and a family in Mexico, and my heart just felt for them. I am always amazed at how they come here so far from their families to support their lives.
My friends were amazed, but most importantly I looked back at the instruction we had in your classes. It was all still in my head! I will feel good about what I did for the rest of my life, because they were 20 minutes away from “home” and had their Wal-Mart bags and other items outside on the street curb when the cab came. They needed groceries but their boss must not have been able or didn’t want to take them into town.
I can’t explain their expressions when they hopped into their cab, but they kept saying “Gracias amigo” and “Buenas Noches” and I reminded them it made me feel good to help them out!
As teachers we never know how far our instruction and mentoring will go to help others, and yours reached very far last night! Have a wonderful week!
You are not an isolated example but you are a rare one. I’ve taught high school students for 30 years in a rural area. The students whose families are above the poverty line are the ones who, overwhelmingly, hear messages of hope and support for a financially stable future via education. Those whose families live at or below rarely see outside of their own reality. In many cases, in today’s world, they have more financial aid available to them..many could go to college for little or nothing…but they and their families see little value in education. They do not even consider future careers that require education. That is clear by the time they enter ninth grade.
First of all, school is a different world than it was. While wealth has always helped, my observation is that more and more, a family’s financial background comes into play. Because so much emphasis is put on the data, more and more rewards are given to students who do well, STARTING IN KINDERGARTEN. Students who do well often come from families who read to them from an early age, can afford a good preschool program, ate well and exercised well and slept well the first five years of life. Kindergarten teachers are remarkably accurate in their ability to predict who will graduate from high school and who will not. Some of that may be from experience. Some of that may be because, in kindergarten, we have already identified who will be successful, who will not, and treat them that way (whether we realize it or not). Families with means will encourage students to play sports, take music lessons, have art supplies at home, provide computers and computer access from an early age. They will travel. They will encourage behaviors that will be encouraged at school from infancy…whereas families from lower-income social groups will not…without even realizing it.
It is not just the availability of money that makes the difference (although I promise you that a third grader who uses a computer and can afford a trip to the nearest arts and crafts store for his Solar System project will receive a much higher grade than the kid who did his on the back of a letter from Social Services.) It is the MINDSET of possibility (my own term) that money brings that is the biggest difference.
I am sure that Pat Barrett could explain it far better than I, but what I see is that these families require each member (in the family and it also often includes people in their “community” to be HIGHLY interdependent. These students have emotional, financial and social commitments early on in life. They are EXPECTED to stay home from school whenever a baby sitter is needed, or some stressful situation arises and a family member needs support. They frequently have adult responsibilities by ninth grade: paying bills, child care, negotiating disagreements between adults, visiting family in jail, arranging doctor’s appointments etc. It is very very difficult for them to even imagine taking enough personal time away from their families to put homework first, give up work time for classes, or even worse, leave home to go to college.
The other issue is harder for some of us to understand, but I assure you that it is very real. There is a cultural understanding in these families, that going to school and doing better than one’s parents is an insult to them. That a student would think himself better than a parent, and to act on it, is in many cases, unforgivable and therefore, unthinkable. The family is not going to ‘move up” with the student. In order to do better, the student would, eventually, have to leave the social environment in which s/he lives. In this kind of “closed” community, that rarely crosses their mind. They simply would never think of it.
The third issue is that doing well academically routinely requires delayed gratification…and that is simply NOT part of their reality either. But that is a deeply rooted, psycho-social phenomenon that I;m sure is dissertation-worthy, so I’ll leave it at that.
There are students who do it. And we encourage every single child to become what God would have him or her become. But, teachers are one tiny OUTSIDE voice among many closer and louder voices that they hear every day.
For me, that is the attitude of the home and surrounding environment, and my experience is that it is closely tied to families without financial resources. Can addressing poverty help that? In the sense that students might then NOT have to take on so many adult responsibilities..yes.
In addition, I believe that it would surprise many to know how many students ONLY eat at school. 1. There isn’t food at home. Either there isn’t money or the money is used elsewhere and that is beyond the student’s control. 2. High school students from these families often work evenings and do not use their money to buy dinner. It goes for gas to get to work. 3. Believe it or not, many of these homes actually LOCK up their food. For some, it is a way of controlling their children. For others, it is a way of protecting the food, many of these folks live in “communal” family situations (3-4 “families” in a household) and this is simply how they protect their resources. Also, parents who are addicts often have paranoid behaviors that lead to this…as do many parents with untreated mental health issues. (two situations which are prevalent in my area in this income bracket)
The last piece that adds to the challenges that these children face is the fact that they rarely get a good night’s sleep. They may not know where they are sleeping. They may be avoiding sexual contact from someone in the house. They may have family members up all night playing loud video games, or drinking/using drugs, arguing, etc. They often have younger siblings to take care of at night if mom works overnights. They don’t get the medical attention and medications they need when they are ill and sleep very poorly due to a number of ongoing physical ailments. They often live in crowded houses/apartments with little personal sleeping space available.
One might think that given all that they face, that they would love to get the heck out of Dodge and take advantage of a good education to do it. Well…not if they have never seen that happen. Not if, from kindergarten on, only the “rich” kids do well in school. Not if they have been an integral part of a system that requires them to put today in front of tomorrow.
Exceptions exist, they truly do, but not as often as we’d like. All human beings have their challenges, each child, regardless of his/her background can become far more than his/her childhood has dictated. But before that can happen, the possibility of such a thing must exist in his/her mind. Your family may have given you that. Let’s hope that we can find the resources to help those who weren’t so blessed.
(Originally posted 8/6/12)
I tried to stay silent, but this morning’s coffee (Costa Rica..Pura Vida!) put me over the edge.
Assessment is one thing. Grading is another. There is no validity in grading. At least not in the assessment that districts want us to impose on our children.
a. Students have been trained for years to respond to assessment in ways that make a natural assessment impossible.
b. We don’t have time to create nor utilize the results of useful assessment…no matter how proud we are of our lovely exams.
c. Grading is simply a way to do many things that have little to do with honest teaching goals….create an unnecessarily competitive environment, motivate via an invalid rewards system, create a false sense of superiority (in students, teachers, parents and the school itself), etc. etc.
I could go on and on, but I’ll go back to enjoying my coffee!! I applaud Scott and others for attempting to make sense of a senseless, but required, system. Truth is, nothing will be accurate, nothing will be fair, and nothing will make everyone who wants to be happy, happy.
Limit the time you agonize over it. Pick something that seems adequate.
Then devote your time to getting to know your students and providing them comprehensible and compelling language. Develop an honest and loving relationship towards them. Encourage their curiosity. Reward their tenacity, sense of humor, humanity and individuality. Provide them with frequent moments of success in the form of interesting and comprehensible language. Make eye contact and send the message that each student matters. Smile from the heart. Show compassion. Encourage excellence. Eschew perfection. Model humility. Enjoy every moment possible.
How do we deal with using CI when some days it is so challenging?!!
Those of you who know me, are aware that getting to, and maintaining a healthy body weight are a challenge for me. I keep seeing all of these parallels between my challenges and the difficulties that exist when a teacher attempts to incorporate a Comprehensible Input approach to his or her teaching.
Several people have mentioned that no one really knows EXACTLY how humans acquire, maintain and develop language, but at this time, we believe that certain things do contribute: sheltering vocabulary, a variety of high-frequency structures,interaction with that language, repeated comprehensible input,encouragement of one form or another,and success in conjunction the brain’s natural “wiring”. Yet, each human being may develop language and language skills in a unique fashion based on his/her brain, body and life experiences.
Isn’t that the same with getting to and maintaining a healthy weight? Obviously there is no “magic pill” or no one would have this struggle. There are, however, a collection of things that we believe contribute to a healthy weight: limiting calories, a variety of nutrient-dense foods eaten in small frequent meals, a constant intake of water, steady activity, encouragement and success in conjunction with the body’s natural functions.
The challenge to “do what works” in both circumstances can be extreme, EVEN WHEN WE ARE KNOWLEDGEABLE, MOTIVATED AND WELL-INFORMED. Pat may have a much better read on this, but this is what I see….
Challenge #1: Dealing with discomfort
Human beings are not good with this. We do everything possible to avoid it. We have hundreds, if not thousands, of little tricks in our repertoire to make sure that we avoid and/or eliminate discomfort. Changing from the comfortable is even more uncomfortable!! And scary. People who are physically or emotionally sensitive find discomfort even more difficult.
Things that we do to avoid/eliminate discomfort get in the way of our change and growth. Why? We have well-developed skills and entire skill sets of unhealthy ways to deal with discomfort. We call them habits. :o)
Challenge #2: Measuring our self-worth instead of believing in our self-worth
People who believe that they are inherently valuable because they live and breathe don’t get as uncomfortable as those who don’t. People who don’t believe that they have intrinsic value have, as I said before, a highly-developed set of skills that they use to a) determine value and b) measure their own value. Because we don’t like to be uncomfortable, from childhood we hone those skills that make us ‘measure up” well on our own scales. (pun intended) Because of the insecurities that haunt and stalk us, we measure everyone and everything. Because not measuring up is exhausting and painful, we stick to the things that we are good at and give them a much higher value than other skills.
Challenge #3: Lack of Trust
Changing a paradigm requires a leap of faith. It might be taken in baby steps or one giant bungee jump, but it requires rejecting the known for the unknown. That takes trust. Both improving TPRS skills and losing weight are easier and more enjoyable with caring support team. However, people who have been burned in the past by friends and colleagues who should have encouraged them but didn’t will find it hard to reach out and share this journey. When a journey gets tough, it helps so much to turn to someone for help. Without that support, it’s easy to turn around and go back. If our sense of self-worth is measured on our ability to work independently and/or if it is new and uncomfortable for us to rely on the assistance of others, these changes are going to be difficult.
Challenge #4: Not Putting First Things First
This is about being able to take the “long view” and see ourselves, our actions and our choices with a judicious eye. Over and over and over again, for any number of reasons, we put other things in front of what is truly important.
In the case of weight loss, my list is a mile long and I have conveniently convinced myself that other things should come first. I’m dead wrong, but that doesn’t stop me from thinking this way.
In the case of using Comprehensible Input, the same darn thing occurs. Any teacher who isn’t using it has a list of “good” reasons that they are convinced are more important.
Some people can overcome all of these issues lickety-split (thanks Susie!) They jump in feet first without worrying, overthinking, balking or obsessing. Others take things cautiously, carefully, one step at a time. They analyze and adapt. Neither approach is better or worse than the other. In the areas of weight-loss and TPRS I’ve met both kinds of folks who have been successful.
I’ve also met people who follow a strict regimen. So follow the guidelines and never stray because they believe so strongly in “what works”. Others do so because they have a hard time “marrying” diverse trains of thought. Whatever the reason, the strict regimen works for them.
I’ve met others who would lose their mind without forays outside of the box. People who need a dictation, a project or a double-circle activity the way some folks need an occasional pizza, beer and chocolate chip cookie in order to keep their lives in balance. These steps off of the path do not actually add to language acquisition nor to weight loss, but they have other positive effects that make them valuable, at the right time in the right amounts.
Can “anyone” be a CI teacher? Yes. Can “anyone” get to and maintain a healthy weight? Yes. But there will always be challenges. It will never be simple. It may never be easy. Some people will find the challenges greater than others. Some will be able to do it quickly and others will take a lifetime to get there. It can NOT be done in total isolation, without the ability to self-soothe, without a belief in the inherent value of the human soul nor without the ability to let go of the old and make room for the new. But, when we look at the gifts we receive in return (as well as our students, families,etc.)both changes are inherently and unarguably valuable.
If we have already “crossed over” on the journey, we need to remember to honor the journey of others rather than judge it, or our own journey loses it’s validity.
I’m not as familiar with the IB exam as others, but I can tell you about the kinds of reading,speaking and writing that you referred to.
Embedding reading has been our number one ally in the transition from reading totally comprehensible stories to deciphering articles and literature beyond their comfort zone. I hope to get out a number of posts about that on my blog during August.
PQA is the key to conversational ability about a number of topics. By carefully choosing topics, questions and focus structures,and incorporating regular PQA provides them with the skills and practice to hold their own in any situation.
We have a debate element in the Level 4 program where we start by defending “favorite things”. (thanks to an idea from another TPRSer!!) We build skills and then utilize them to have debates on a variety of topics. Building debates or arguments into conversations in stories is an easy thing to do as well.
Our juniors and seniors do very little “story “writing compared to our 8th-10th graders. Here are examples of what they have done this last marking period:
* Read this article about “the monolith on Mars” and summarize. Then add a paragraph stating your opinion. Is it natural or manmade? Substantiate your belief.
* Now that we have seen the movie Vantage Point, and you have read the accompanying Embedded Reading, tell me which character was the most naive and how his/her behavior reflected that.
* In the movie, the Secret Service used a body double for the president. Do you think that in real life body doubles are used? What are your thoughts/opinions on this?
As for writing using a variety of documents, it is not a problem. They have been writing DBQ’s in Social Studies for years. Spend some time with a SS teacher reviewing how they teach students to do that. Then, what the students need, is the vocabulary necessary to write. This vocabulary is usually an active part of a TPRS curriculum ( while, since, although, according to, despite, next,etc.) These can be developed via storytelling.
Storytelling does NOT have to be silly or goofy all of the time. The silly and goofy obviously has educational benefits for the brain to help build acquisition, however, it is important at the upper levels to have stories that appeal to their growing maturity and natural cynicism. Incorporate characters that don’t believe anything and always need to be convinced. Characters that learn a valuable lesson. Use fables and fairy tales with a moral for reading or as a basis for storyasking.
The ability to think critically was so obvious to me this year in their final exam writing. The juniors had two pieces to write about: The Perfect Vacation and a “story” from a picture. I anticipated that many of them would write “fluffy” pieces, but I was very wrong. The vacation pieces were very personal, describing a past vacation that was important to them. They nearly all wrote about WHY the vacation meant a lot: the connection with family/friends, the break from stress, the appreciation of a new place, etc. A number of them compared a good vacation with a bad one. The interesting thing? I gave them no prompts…just the title.
The pictures were even more interesting. The pictures were faces of people expressing different emotions. I read about recovering from a death in the family, achieving goals, being lonely, learning how to lose a friend, being afraid to be a senior, a family’s reaction to a gay marriage. Very eye-opening.
Lastly, a junior brought in the movie “The Way” and asked if we could watch it. It is in English so I really hesitated. But this student rarely offers this kind of input, the setting is real, the background and history are compelling, and the message is powerful. So we watched it in English with Spanish subtitles.
As a culminating assignment I gave the students the lyrics to four songs that we had done and asked them to pick two that had lyrics that connected to the things that characters in the movie might say or do. Then they had to choose one of the four main characters and write a letter,in Spanish, as if they were that character. (see the PS if you are familiar with the movie) I WAS BLOWN AWAY by the insight of these pieces. The students incorporated many details from the film, and were deeply perceptive. Imagine a letter from a dead son to his father (and vice versa)….I needed a box of kleenex to get through them.
Finally, several of our highest achieving students wrote fictional pieces that are highly publishable. These are students who obviously read a lot in English on their own time. They also take full advantage of free reading opportunities in Spanish class, and are very creative souls. But their level of skill was mind-blowing. and their writing was BEAUTIFUL. Publishable, really.
I’ll let you know one other thing…we didn’t have time to give them to go back and edit anything. This was writing that they just sat down, thought for a minute, put pen to paper and let it spill out. Because we had to give our final during class time, they only had 20 minutes to write per piece…and still, the quality was astounding.
I haven’t yet sat down to analyze exactly what might have helped these kids get to this point, but, since the ONLY WAY they have ever been taught is through TPRS, I can tell you that yes, by all means, TPRS will prepare students for the types of tasks you are talking about.
with love,
Laurie
P.S. Students wrote letters from the following perspectives to the following recipients (on their own, I made no suggestions)
Joost to Tom
Joost to Sarah
Joost to his wife
Sarah to Tom
Jack to Tom
Jack to his publisher
Tom to Sarah
Tom to Joost
Tom to Daniel
Daniel to Tom
If I get to it, I will post a few to my blog this summer, they were so beautiful….
(Originally posted 8/5/11)
Ay….the debate over notebooks and binders is about as long-winded as the debate over grading participation!!
In the last (almost) 30 years, I have tried it all..from detailed checks, grades and checklists, to nothing. My observation is this:
1. Think of your instruction first. What do students need to have their hands on IN CLASS and how do they get access to it?
Truth is…in most TPRS classrooms, there is very little need to refer to a notebook for most of the class.
2. Think of homework next. What do students need to have their hands on in order to do the homework and how do they get access to it?
That will depend on how you approach homework.
Other than those two questions, the binder has nothing to do with language acquisition.
Now….if you believe that is a teacher’s responsibility to help them with organization etc…then you have the professional freedom to incorporate that into your program!
What I am learning is this: It’s easy to be out of touch with how kids organize these days if you are not of the techie generation. (You are!! I’m not!!) Students keep track of things on Iphones and Blackberries, not the little books schools have been handing out for decades. Students and parents are always checking online to find out what assignments are and looking for papers that the kids didn’t bring home.
It might be a better use of teacher time (depending on your students) to post papers and assignments on line than to check and grade binders.
Truth be told…very little is kept in a “hard copy” anywhere these days so it’s possible that the keeping and grading of binders will soon be (if it isn’t already) ridiculously obsolete.
As teachers (and former star students) we LOVE binders and notebooks and collecting lists and stories and keeping them for years and years. Because we love that, we mistakenly believe that that helped us to be language learners.
So in my long-winded way….here is my suggestion:
Before school really kicks off, ask yourself how important is it FOR ACQUISITION for your students to keep a beautiful (or not) binder? And follow that answer to it’s logical conclusion.
If you believe that it is important, but the kids rarely seem to pull it off…then maybe some out-of-the-box solutions are required:
*smaller composition books for “Do Nows”, Vocab, Freewrites etc. kept in plastic dishpans from the dollar store in the back of the room.
*a shelf set aside for binder storage for students who would be better off with a copy at home and at school.
* Buddy binders where students share. (I have kids every year who ask someone else to carry the important things for them)
Whew…ok…that got long but there it is! Enjoy the days you have left and I wish you a great beginning of the year!!!
These past few weeks have been difficult. We are struggling with how the new pre-assessments required by our district have affected our relationships with our students. It has been soul-sucking to say the least. We work so hard in the first few weeks in our department to create and maintain an environment of welcoming, trust, companionship and caring. Then we have to take an entire week to test our students, with a test that we had not seen, on material we, and they, knew that they did not know using skills that we, and they, knew that they had not yet developed.
Our students rose to the occasion beautifully. But it was still heart-breaking. I would say more, but I still don’t trust my emotions enough to put it on the blog.
Our goal this week was to disregard whatever “curriculum” plans we had in mind, and focus the entire week on activities and interactions that re-established an environment of success and trust. (my colleagues are amazing, by the way) Then I was out sick for two days! I feel like it has been an uphill road to get (back) to where I wanted to be three weeks ago.
As always, it is the students that lift us up. I’ll share “Brian”‘s story with you this morning. Brian is a senior and this is his second year as my student. I know his family very well professionally and personally, but I didn’t feel that Brian and I had much of a connection. He is extremely bright, and extremely quiet. It has always been hard to get a response from Brian, in or out of class. I have never really known if he is shy, withdrawn, non-communicative, anxious, socially awkward or if I just don’t register on his scale of “things important enough for a 16 year old to get involved with.”
(I don’t take that personally, many times I was so involved in my own world at 16 that I couldn’t have cared LESS about my high school teachers!!!) If I asked Brian a question, I would get, after a long pause, a one or two word answer at best.
One day last spring, after class had ended, Brian walked over to my desk and said, “I’d like to know more about colleges that teach languages. I think that I would like to become an interpreter. I really like this class.” From a student who rarely smiled, much less answered. He left the room so quickly that I didn’t even put together a response!! And that was the end of our communication for the year.
On Friday, Brian came to my room at the beginning of one of my planning periods and asked for a pass to come in. He said that he had no friends in his Sr. Lounge that period and that he got bored.I gave him a pass, he came back, started talking and didn’t stop for 35 minutes!!!!!!!
The conversation started when he asked if I had ever heard of “vocaloids”. (I hadn’t) and asked if he could show me an example of some songs that he really liked on youtube. (like this one)
He said that this song really put into words how he had been feeling about the world for a long time and that it taught him that he had created a very small, protected, but unhappy world of his own to live in. It was a dark place and he thought about leaving the world to escape it. He realized that if were strong enough mentally and emotionally to do that then he also had the strength to step out of it and look for happiness and purpose.
How does one respond to that?
What an incredible young man. What a gift on a dark day, in a dark week.
His message to me was that he didn’t give up. And he wanted me to know that. Having been there myself at his age, and numerous times after that, I was humbled and honored.
That is what four years of departmental support and safety can bring to a child. I am his third Spanish teacher. The two that he had before me had created a safe path for him to be on. He trusted me as he trusted them. Some people need years before the feeling of safety allow them to step out verbally into the world. Input before output. Not just of language, but of trust, confidence and self-acceptance.
Before he left for his next class Brian said to me, ” I appreciate that I can be myself and that you are interested. It feels good to know that. We can talk about what matters in this class and you will listen.” From a boy who only two days ago started to speak….
There are Brians in every class. Just know this. Because you many not see the connection does not mean that language acquisition and personal development are not occurring. Trust me, it’s happening.
I was just lucky enough this week that Brian shared his light with me.
I am so excited about the new students that I have!! This week they came up with a great idea…
I was just beginning to ask a story and we had a character, Mia, who was putting on makeup in the mirror in the bathroom on the second floor of her house. The class had decided that it was a full-length mirror. The actress was up in front putting on makeup and it was going fairly well.
In order to get to know the kids better, and for them to connect with me and each other, I have been trying to get as many students involved in as many ways as possible. So, I asked a girl who was similar in height, build and hair color to come up and be the reflection.
She was PHENOMENAL!! It was so funny to watch!! Then the class decided to name her Pia!!!! And now there were double reps! Mia puts on lipstick like Angelina Jolie and Pia puts on lipstick the same way. They put on lipstick like Angelina. (and with sing/plural!!) I thought it just couldn’t get any better than that! And then…..
At one point, Pia, the reflection, wasn’t paying close attention and missed doing something. I said to her in Spanish, “Pia, you are a reflection, when Mia does something you have to do it too.” I was just trying to get in a little more Spanish, but it backfired on me. I could see that she was embarrassed and felt that I had yelled at her. Suddenly one of her friends called out in Spanish, “She wants to be different!”
OH MY!!! A huge smile lit up her face and she said “Yes…I want to be different! I don’t want to be a reflection!” So it was decided, that when Mia was looking in the mirror, Pia did the exact same thing, but when Mia wasn’t looking at the mirror, Pia would do something different.
Oh the fun and the reps we got out of that one!!!! I am definitely bringing Pia back into stories again!!! (hint: at one point in the story, have the actor/actress get very close to the mirror…the actors/actresses end up nose to nose…hysterical!!!!)
(Originally posted 9/3/12) From Kirstin Plante at TPRS Nederland
When talking about a conference one tends to speak only of the content of the workshops, the logistics and the presenters. I will talk about all of these, of course, but at NTPRS I was also impressed by the participants. I loved their hunger for information, their commitment and the enthusiastic performance of the tasks that were given in the workshops. Their open attitude towards other participants and the spontaneous group activities at lunch time and in the evening gave me a warm feeling. I think the presenters set an example by being open to anyone who wanted to have a chat with them.
But the most impressive to me was that so many teachers would have themselves coached in the coaching sessions. There was a special room with a number of coaches ready at all times to help you improve your skills. Now it is one thing to sit in a workshop listening to the presenter and performing a task or two, and it a completely different thing to stand in front of the critical eye of a group of peers trying out your newly acquired skills and …be coached! This is, believe me, one of the scariest things in a teacher’s life. And still the whole week the coaching room has been full of people who dared to take this step.
I myself have been coached several times, and I have observed different coaching groups. It was literally amazing to see how in just half an hour of teaching with a coach people develop their skills so strongly. I have seen people who fell silent after every sentence in the beginning and ended up asking one question after another without any visible effort. Teachers who would start like a salt pillar and change into an expressive communicator, and teachers who didn’t dare look anyone in the eyes and who, after only twenty minutes, already approached students directly and friendly. The encouragement and the friendly and concrete help of the coaches brought these teachers not just one but several steps further.
I felt touched by the encouraging attitude of the ‘students’, the courage of the teachers and their growing self confidence.Because of what I witnessed in these sessions, I am very happy to have participated in the workshop for coaches (by Teri Wiechart and Lisette Liebold) the day before the start of the conference, because I feel that coaches are an invaluable help for teachers who are working with TPRS – not only those who are just starting, but also the more experienced ones. I think more of us should learn how to stimulate and help our colleagues in our schools or in regional groups, and the workshop for coaches teaches us some helpful ways of doing this. I will certainly be there next year!
Bob Patrick wrote: I don’t put a lot of time into it, but I always do it in Latin. I teach Latin teachers how to do these things in Latin, too, because they are the things that we all do every day, and they provide one of the easiest ways to do CI and multiple repetitions. So, while it should take up as little time as possible, don’t miss the opportunity to do it in L2.
Sara wrote:
I agree that the classroom organization doesn’t help the students learn Spanish but, I believe an unorganized class does detract from the learning.
With a solid system in place, I’m free to focus on the language and now how I want to handle bathroom passes.
And this is exactly what happens…once CI becomes a way of thinking, we start to view everything in the classroom through CI lenses. Then our focus can shift to how to align even the smallest details.
We want the systems to align with our instruction and our relationships.
That is truly Backward Design. As Sara said, a solid system is golden.
Teaching without one is a great deal of unnecessary work. It doesn’t matter exactly what our system is.
Next question: What should a system do?
1. A system should make relationships strong and confusion minimal so that classroom time can be maximized for acquisition. (or in other words, what Sara said above)
2. A system can prove opportunities for interaction in the TL that lead to acquisition. (or in other words read Bob’s statement above)
It doesn’t matter if you pass papers left to right or front to back as long as 1. and 2. above are happening. It doesn’t matter if you have kids carry a toilet seat to the bathroom or only sign out 3 times a marking period if it isn’t interfering with 1. and 2. (tee hee unintended pun that I couldn’t bring myself to delete)
Above all, it helps us to look at the systems that we have in place in order to see if they align with our Rules. If what we expect/demand of our students is outside of the Rules, then we will be seen as hypocrites. We may never be able to control whether or not our students respect us. That is a choice that they will make. We can, however, control whether or not our actions and words are honorable and making changes when necessary.
What can happen is that we get caught up in Rules and Systems (amongst other things) and forget that we are about Acquisition. You’ve heard the expression “Weighing the baby doesn’t make him grow.” Neither does buying him bigger clothes. It just makes him look nice when he fits into them. Sometimes our teacher-obsession with How To Set Up and Run
A Classroom does just that: make the teacher look good because the behavior is under control. That is nice, good and necessary, but not the end goal. I hope that that makes sense.