Interjections are great structures to introduce into stories. They are phrases that can be used by the narrator of the story or by characters in the story with great effect. Because they are not always easy to use as a focus structure in PQA, reading and story-asking are the perfect venue for these babies.
Joe Nielson is an expert at interjections, and if you have ever had the privilege to see him in action you know what I mean!!! Pick the interjection of your choice and think about how you would like to use your voice to enhance it. Have you ever seen the old Flintstones cartoons? Yabadabadooo!!! Same word, same inflection, every time. It was Fred’s signature interjection! Think along those lines when picking a way to “deliver” the interjection. If that is not your strong point, let your students play with it!!
Some classic interjections…the English version:
It’s obvious! ;o) All of a sudden!
I don’t believe it!! Day after day after day!
Of course (not)!! No way!!
Interjections are also delightfully colloquial. It’s the perfect way to inject idiomatic expressions into our students’ lexicon. Think about which expressions are unique and amazing to the language that you teach.
I have to confess…..I really had trouble with PQA (Personalized Questions and Answers). The idea behind PQA is to use a targeted, high-frequency phrase in conversation with students so that they hear (and comprehend it) many, many times.
At first, I didn’t spend a lot of time nor energy analyzing my PQA resistance….I just avoided it whenever possible. (Fortunately now there is Ben Slavic’s PQA in a Wink!! …but pre-Ben all I could do was marvel at how Susie and others wove wonderful questions in workshops and wish that I could do the same.)
Then one day I had an epiphany! PQA is NOT about the focus structure. IT’S ABOUT THE STUDENTS! So…..instead of asking myself, what questions can I create using this phrase, I began to ask myself…
Can I get to know my students better using this phrase? If so, how?
This cleared away many of the thoughts and emotions that were holding me back. First…I realized that not all phrases are good PQA material. I was able to find other ways to get repetitions with those phrases. (Work smarter not harder Laurie Ann!!)
Second…when I started to think of questions in light of getting to know my students better, the questions became more interesting!!! I was more interested, the questions were more interesting, and so, of course, the students became more interested!!
The third piece that really helped me was incorporating other TPRS skills into my PQA forays. Combining PQA with teaching to the eyes, using signals, choral responses, and circling helped me to focus on my strengths rather than my weaknesses.
It Ain’t Easy…Bein’ Sick (this post originally posted 2/10/10)
For the last week and a half I’ve been fighting mano a mano with a sinus/double ear infection. Between the two days with subs and the fact that talking sends me into long-lasting coughing spasms, my students and I switched from our usual dose of verbal interaction to activities that are more reading-centered and group/pair-oriented.
I like all of the activities. I think that they are educationally sound. I think that my students are getting a lot of good, quality, written Comprehensible Input. But I am astounded at the difference in the classes.
First of all, discipline is off. I have to employ signals and silences more often. I really don’t enjoy that. Neither do the students. It isn’t a lot of extra tension…but it is enough to change the classroom atmosphere.
What is REALLY missing, however, is the strong sense of “being in this together.” When they work in pairs or groups, when they work at an individual pace, there is no sense of collegiality. There are no group “inside” jokes. The class feels very different without that!!!
When I am “conducting” the class, and everyone is working on the same story/idea/conversation/topic, it is like being on a family car trip. Sure, there is a little bickering. Yeah, it’s annoying when someone has to stop and go to the restroom. No, everyone does not like the radio station. But….. there are shared moments of hilarity and common experience that create an atmosphere like no other I’ve taught in.
I can’t wait to get back after a week of vacation (next week). Hopefully the coughing etc. will have subsided and we can get to work on using as much Spanish as possible hanging out together. The story of Ana and her adventures in Casi Se Muere are just more interesting when we read it, and talk about it, together. Not just at the same time in the same room. But really together. It goes from being Ana’s story to our story that we read about Ana.
Oh we’ll still do activities that allow students to work ‘out of the group”……but not as often. We need that together time. It’s who we are. We all miss it.
When I tell my students about language, I point out to them that much of what happens in our brains is “automatic”, that we are not conscious of what actually happens in L1 and so it feels strange or difficult in L2.
I point out that there are the following steps:
1: Hear/See the language element (sound/word/phrase/sentence).
2: Recognize the language element.
3: Comprehend the language element.
That is why on listening quizzes, with fairly “new” language elements, I give them 2/3 credit if they hear “La casa” or “Quisiera comprarlo’ and can write or say it back to me. The remaining 1/3 credit is the meaning. This is often confusing to them because they think that the meaning carries the most importance. I try to remind them that unless they can hear/see and recognize it, they will never get to the meaning portion!!!
It is also practical. Being able to hear/see an element and write/pronounce it allows them to then ask someone…what does “X” mean. Very useful.
Step #3 can be fairly complex for the brain. The brain may run through several process, simultaneously, to arrive at meaning and I am sure that some of you out there can offer research to back me up on this. From a layman’s perspective, at the very least, the students’ brains may use context clues, in comparison to L1 (which relies heavily on the level of development in that language!!!), and/or reach into stored memory for the meaning.
All of this takes time. The input speed, IF I AM TEACHING FOR ACQUISITION, can make or break the students’ ability to attach meaning. When teaching for acquisition…I already knew…and try to remember to frequently point out to my students (colleagues, parents, administrators as necessary) that slower is better.
SOMETHING THAT I HADN’T YET FIGURED OUT is that there is (at least) a FOURTH AND FIFTH STEP!!!!!
Step 4: “Picture” the meaning.Holding on to the meaning of an element (again, sound, word, phrase, sentence) means being able to “picture” , “imagine”, or “feel” the meaning.Step 4 is CRUCIAL. Without it, there is no acquisition, no long-term memory. That is why nouns and actions are so much ‘easier” for the brain to hang on to. It is why the “little’ words are the hardest, and take the most time to get. The meaning of the word “while” cannot be pictured, nor even easily described. It has little “weight”, it is more of a feeling or situation where meaning is concerned and is frequently harder to remember. It takes longer for the brain to assign, hang on to, dig up the meaning of the word.
Step 5: Connecting the meaning to the “story in the brain.” A random set of words that creates no pattern or picture is very hard to remember. Memory and comprehension occur when meaning is connected to a pattern.
Memory and comprehension occur when meaning is connected to a pattern.
On a very simple level, when we do TPR with students and ask them to “Jump three times” their minds must connect the meaning of all three elements in order to know what is required of them and THEN they need time to make their bodies move. Just knowing the meaning of all three elements is not enough. The mind must connect the meanings to comprehend the phrase. Their brains and bodies need TIME to do that.
In conversation or in a story, every meaning-carrying utterance is added to the ones before it in the students’ minds in order to add to the conversation or story. That is how comprehension is built. That is why humor works.
When our students laugh at the idea of our principal feeding doughnuts to a Chihuahua he has hidden under his desk, it is because they got to Step 4: visualizing the situation….and to Step 5: comparing that image to the image of what is expected of a principal and finding humor in the absurdity of it.
IF WE ARE TEACHING FOR ACQUISITION, then we must slow down to allow their minds to go there.
Therefore….following the sage advice of my 9th grade Geometry teacher….I reversed that and was stunned and humbled by the (now obvious, at least to me) truth:
IF WE SLOW DOWN AND LET THEIR MINDS GO THERE, then, and only then, are we teaching for acquisition.