Scope and Sequence 18 – Robert Harrell

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25 thoughts on “Scope and Sequence 18 – Robert Harrell”

  1. In level 1, if they can look at a picture frame from one of their stories and say a sentence about it, that’s enough presentation for me. I have a sophomore level 1 student who came out of a very traditional Latin class into French 1 this year. He is kinda shy, but he is one of those real interesting kids. I passed him on campus the other day – I nodded and said his name – nothing more – and out of his mouth came a beautiful “Bonjour Madame”. Talk about presentational – a very small thing to some, but to me, it was so automatic, so effortless – I told him later that he made my day, and he did. That’s my kind of presentation.

  2. ACTFL ought to state the “relative value” between the 3 modes and how they interrelate.
    I believe the 3 modes became the focus to remind us why we’re teaching a language – for real-world language use. If the kids can’t use what they’re learning in class within the 3 modes then what is the point? That’s a zinger to textbook teaching.
    How much time will students spend in each of the 3 modes once in the real-world? I can see people using email a lot (written presentational), but I’m not thinking of many who would need to give oral presentations.
    Now, having proficiency in the 3 modes be the goal doesn’t tell us anything about how to get there – how language is acquired. Our TCI camp believes we only it’s the interpretive mode that drives development in the other 2 modes. You also have to have some “communication skills” in order to engage in interpersonal communication. And in presentational, isn’t there more time to monitor and edit the output? So it is this mode that makes most use of learning (not acquisition).
    We must also realize that grading in the 3 modes is unclear. To what extent do the modes have to be measuring fluency, lexical variety, syntactic complexity, morphological accuracy, etc.? My guess is that the presentational mode is also where teachers grade more for accuracy (since students have time to edit output).
    The 3 modes should NOT be given equal value at every level. Too much emphasis on the presentational mode at any level is going to lead to less acquisition and more learning. That has little place in a K-12 FL program. And let’s start focusing on the fluency (speed & quantity of comprehended input and comprehensible output) of all 3 modes.

  3. “the relative value”
    I would say that there is a relative value in the “Standards for FL Learning” document. It does not show up in the diagrams. But Communication is the first of the Cs. I would also agree with ACTFL that Standard 1.1 (Students engage in conversations, provide and obtain information, express feelings and emotions, and exchange opinions) should appear first, following the natural order for L1. jGR, teach to the eyes, etc. is about Standard 1.1 which is interpersonal mode. Interpretive, which is Standard 1.2 would come next. Interpretative includes reading and listening without a feedback loop. They might involve some of the same activities as Interpersonal, but with Interpretive and Presentational the reader/speaker is on his own.

    1. So, if I’m hearing this right, Interpersonal Mode is where students are negotiating meaning with the teacher whereas Interpretive Mode is where students show understanding independently.
      I’ve been under the impression that whenever we read and discuss a written text we are in the Interpretive Mode. The content of a written text is finite, unlike the content of a story-asking session, which is negotiated. When we story-ask we are in the Interpersonal Mode.
      This is how I see it: when we assess students’ abilities to comprehend, analyze, synthesis, or evaluate (Bloom’s Taxonomy) of a written text, we are activating the interpretive mode of communication. These assessments involve interpreting meaning of a text. When we have no text to refer to, or rather, before reading (step 3), as we present new vocabulary structures, establish meaning with those structures, and begin to create compelling aural messages for students using those structures (steps 1 & 2), students need to activate those Interpersonal Communication Skills. This is essential in order to receive and let the unconscious begin to register the aural input. So while the Interpretive Mode depends on a written narrative to refer to, the Interpersonal Mode does not. And vice-versa, the Interpretive Mode is not necessary for students to establish meaning and register the aural input of new vocabulary structures. Am I wrong?
      *Caveat: Interpersonal Mode comes into play when discussing a text with a group, sharing and analyzing each other’s interpretations. But it doesn’t have to if we are directly assessing for comprehension of facts of a text.
      Then there is the Presentational Mode where students demonstrate ability to automatically produce the language through retells or descriptions of visual texts.
      This is how I’ve looked at the 3 Modes as they inform assessment. But yeah, I would also love to see ACTFL make a statement about the “relative value” of each, or how they inform assessment. That would help clarify how we grade students.

      1. Eric, I agree that those who focus on skill-building may simply see this a reorganization of of the four skills. As such, Interpersonal could be seen as including Reading / Writing or Speaking/Listening, depending on the medium, say, email vs skyping.
        What some may see as”skills” I prefer to see as natural communicative channels and the “modes” as communication direction. We cannot develop any”skills” until there is language to do so, but we have to access the channels or there will not be any language available for acquisition.
        The “modes” thus, must access the channels of communication. The different types represent directional differences. Standard 1.1 (interpersonal) is two-way communication. Standards 1.2 (interpretive) and 1.3 (presentation) are opposite ends of the street in one-way communication. 1.1 is give and take. 1.2 is take. 1.3 is give. As such there are different tasks involved. The author may wonder if the potential readers will grasp her meaning. The reader may wonder, “What does she mean?” The just texters ask each other, “What do you mean?” (Maybe you are wondering that right now.) My point is, and perhaps it is a fine one, that there is a qualitative difference between 1.1 on the one hand and 1.2 & 1.3 on the other hand. 1.1 is more like ping pong. 1.2 & 1.3 are more like bowling.
        Sean, the analysis of a communicative situation is complicated by that fact that it could involve more than one mode. With the class discussion of a reading we have two different modes. Each of the readers is in the interpretive mode with the author. The author has produced a one-way communication. The reader is not responding to the author. The author does not even know if his book is being read. This is what happens in FVR/SSR. But there is also another communicative act occurring, that between the students and the teacher about the reading. This communication is two-way.
        Rereading your comments, Sean, I see that your caveat expressed this difference.
        I used an example of classroom interpretive, viz., Free Voluntary Reading/Sustained Silent Reading. You mentioned using the interpretive mode for an assessment. Both of these are examples of the interpretive mode via the visual channel, viz., reading. The interpretive mode could also be employed via the sound channel, e.g., listening to a you tube of a song in Spanish. The artist also used the sound channel for the recording, but she was in the presentational mode. Let me know if this is helpful.

        1. The “text” (remember that a text is not just words on paper or a screen) can also use both the audio and visual channels as well as non-verbal channels of communication. Thus, a film can also be used for interpretive assessment.
          Nathaniel’s explanation is excellent, and I like his choice of considering “channels of communication” rather than just skills.

          1. – 1-way or 2-way
            – reception and/or production
            It’s all just reading, writing, listening, and speaking. Not sure I like calling them “skills” since that’s a “loaded term” that gets defined differently by different people. You acquire language, rather than skill-build. When people say “skill” I’m thinking more about organization/style of that language (production) and sustain of focus/decoding (receptive).
            I don’t think the “3 modes” give us anything new. The Proficiency Guidelines don’t measure proficiency in a “mode”, but rather in a skill/channel.
            A more interesting dichotomy is explicit vs. implicit. We can have reading with implicit knowledge (speed reading courses) vs. reading with explicit knowledge (untimed and can go back and reread text), writing with implicit knowledge (speed writing) vs. writing with explicit knowledge (untimed and graded for accuracy), etc. Measuring these abilities and focusing on developing these gives us more information about language competencies.
            There will be examples of each over multiple modes, e.g. untimed email interactions (interpersonal) and untimed essay writing (presentational) are BOTH primarily writing with explicit knowledge. The only way it favors writing with implicit knowledge is if the person is focused on meaning, there is time pressure, and it’s spontaneous.
            Any task can have conditions that favor implicit or explicit, but there will always be the possibility that the person is using some of both. (that is 1 major criticism of Krashen’s learning/acquisition dichotomy, since how are you ever completely sure the person is only using one or the other?). “Proficiency” testing can favor implicit, explicit, or rely on both. I recently read a study in which the TOEFL was correlated more heavily with explicit knowledge than implicit. Meanwhile, the IELTS showed correlations with both implicit and explicit knowledge.
            I now define my goal as developing spontaneous, fluent, and contextualized language ability. Call it acquisition. Or call it implicit knowledge. What I want most from my kids is for them to be able to have a conversation – to handle basic interpersonal communication skills (BICS). And that kind of ability is going to heavily favor implicit knowledge.
            I also think we need “Acquisition Guidelines” instead of “Proficiency Guidelines.” I’m fed up with how the latter defines proficiency levels based on a person’s handling of authentic language (for native speakers) rather than level-appropriate language. How about guidelines that specify the kind of language that can be 90%+ understood. Rather than saying “they’ll understand main ideas and some details” how about tell me “they’ll demonstrate fluent and full comprehension of a text at the 100-word level with an average sentence length of 7 words and grammar that is restricted to the simple past, present, and future.” It’s like saying what level graded reader can be fully comprehended. (each company classifies graded readers differently, so we have to refer to word-levels or structure-levels). As for production it can be said that the person fluently produces language akin to that of a first level graded reader.

          2. This is interesting, Eric:
            “I recently read a study in which the TOEFL was correlated more heavily with explicit knowledge than implicit. Meanwhile, the IELTS showed correlations with both implicit and explicit knowledge.”
            This totally makes sense to me. A good friend (American) taught classes for the IELTS test. She considered it a better test of student’s real language ability compared to the TOEFL, which many Chinese could pass highly with very little real proficiency in English. They memorized essays, which the Chinese education system encourages so they were already very good at it. That plus massive vocabulary list memorization looked great on the TOEFL. The same students would get overseas and not understand real-time English conversation for months or be able to speak nearly at all.

          3. The advantage of the modes is that it justifies what we do. Part of Krashen’s claim is that second language acquisition is pretty much the same as first language acquisition.
            We do not ask for a lot of presentation because presentation requires a language in which to present and the premise of a language course is that the students have no L2.
            We are cautious about the interpretive mode because interpretation requires a language by which to interpret someone’s presentation. That is, input in an of itself is potentially meaningless, and we launch our work from comprehensible input.
            We engage in the caretaker mode, the interpersonal mode, so that our input will be meaningful to the student, that is, so the student will have the CI necessary for acquisition, without which interpretation and presentation are artificial exercises.
            Furthermore, we focus first on the sound channel (speaking/ listening) because language is acoustical.
            So the modes offer a defense for what we are doing. It allows us to say, our students may not be speaking yet, but just wait…output will come but first we have to have input. Like eager parents everyone wants to see our students run before they crawl.
            I appreciate the way you keep pushing the envelope on assessment part, Eric. You may create a new instrument for us or you may obtain just the right tweak on the proficiency exams.

        2. Abundantly helpful, Nathaniel. Looking at the “modes” as communication directions helps me understand their differences and why they were contrived by ACTFL. I’m left thinking that I could spend much more time studying this as I figure out if I want to continue aligning my gradebook to the “modes” or not.

          1. I am glad it helped, Sean. I appreciate your struggle to make practical application to everything including the gradebook. I applaud your efforts to set the direction in your new opportunity.
            One thing that occurred to me is that probably the three modes are nothing more than the integration of communication theory, the kind of explanation to be found in the first chapter of textbook for an Intro to Communication course. I would guess that that came with the communication focus. It is tricky though because we have to consider (as you and others discuss below) how we spend class time, what we do about grading, where should our goal be for the students, and how do we get to that goal. As Eric said, there is nothing new about the three modes, but since communication is our focus they do give a standard way to talk about what we do and what we want to do.

  4. Do any of you have an opinion about interpersonal mode being paramount to what we do day in and day out?
    I have read where Eric mentions (among others) that these 3 modes should not be viewed equally. I think many see these as 3 equals modes and they design curricula inappropriately.
    33.3% of each mode just plain is not effective.
    Can anybody suggest percentages in a level 1 and/or 2 class for these modes. My bias leads me to look at it this way…
    level 1 class
    70% of class is spent using interpersonal communication (with teacher)
    20% of class spent in intepretive mode (videos, FVR, silent reading)
    10% spent in presentational communication (writing or speaking especially later in a school year)
    level 2 class
    65% of class is spent using interpersonal communication (with teacher)
    25% of class spent in intepretive mode (videos, FVR, silent reading)
    10% spent in presentational communication (writing or speaking when appropriate)
    Thoughts?

    1. Ben and many members here, including me, have been plugging Interpersonal as 65% or thereabouts of total grade for levels 1 and 2. If you didn’t already know that, then your bias, Michael, validates this.
      I used to think, up until just now, that Reading Option A, which includes choral reading, read alouds, choral translations, falls in the Interpretive mode. But as Nathaniel helped enlighten me, I now see how ROA falls in the Interpretive Mode. There is a give and take (Interpersonal) happening with the direction of communication during ROA. There is also a give and take happening during Read & Discuss.
      So, besides FVR, silent sustained reading and videos (though, Michael, what do you mean when you say “videos”), I see quick quizzes, fill-in-the-blanks, translation exercises, and dictations as falling in the Interpretive mode.

  5. Michael, your percentages are very close to the ones I use for my classes, except I use the same percentages in years 1 and 2 and the same different percentages for years 3 and 4:
    Years 1 and 2:
    65% Interpersonal
    25% Interpretive
    10% Presentational
    Years 3 and 4
    50% Interpersonal
    35% Interpretive
    15% Presentational
    I am, however, seriously considering using the same percentages (65/25/10) all the way through. One of the differences between each year (I try to use the term “year” consistently rather than level because “level” is an ambiguous term) is that students are able to do more of the interpersonal communication as a true conversation among multiple interlocutors rather than a two-way conversation between the teacher and a group. My 2013-2014 upper level class embodied this in so many ways. I always had an agenda for the day but often abandoned it because the students led the conversation somewhere else, and I really became the “guide on the side”, supplying them with the support they needed but by no means dominating. On the best days I was just one more person in the conversation.
    Today was the first day of the second semester at my school, so I reviewed my grading with my classes. I explained that in real life, unless we are professional writers or speakers (authors, technical writers, reporters, singers, lecturers, film makers, etc.) Presentation Communication takes up the least amount of our time and communication. Interpretive Communication takes up the second most amount of our time as we listen to music, watch films, read books, etc. Most of our communication time is spent in real life with Interpersonal Communication (texting, IMs, e-mail, phone, conversation, etc.) during which we can ask for clarification and negotiate meaning as a back-and-forth exchange. I choose to weight my grades based on real-life language usage rather than some arbitrary decision about a non-existent “equality” among the modes of communication or tradition or something equally capricious.
    This evening I was talking to my brother, who teaches French at the university level after a career as a missionary in Africa. His only official teacher training was a three-day workshop with Katyana Paukova. He told me that he is glad he didn’t go through a teacher-training program as it probably would have ruined him for the classroom and not prepared him for what teaching is really about. Then he told me about the movie “The Guardian”. Kevin Costner plays a Coast Guardsman who becomes a trainer. The lieutenant in charge of the program is frustrated because Costner’s character doesn’t follow the syllabus. At one point a captain visits, and the Guardsman tells him and the lieutenant that their program is good, but he is trying to make it more like what the trainees will actually encounter in real life. The lieutenant says that the day’s lesson is supposed to be on hypothermia (i.e. read about it, do worksheets, etc.). Costner’s character has the trainees in a tank full of ice water. He looks at his watch and says, “In about two minutes they’ll know all about it.” This is what we are doing as well: trying to give our students an experience with language that is closer to what they will encounter “out there” in the real world.

  6. Eric,
    I love the idea of Acquisition guidelines. This can easily complement the philisophies and explanations that go along with scope and sequence documents. This document could change everything!
    Sean,
    When I mentioned videos I was thinking about some of the videos I use for Spanish class like Eres tu Maria, Mi vida loca, or Extra. Since these are native speaking actors some activities could be viewed as interpersonal if the teacher facilitates learning by using naration/paraphrase technique but much of the time these (for me) are seen as falling into an interpretive mode of communication. Thanks for validating what I was thinking about the percentages.
    Robert,
    I do like your percentages. I think, (unfortunately) that it is helpful to put a % on these modes because we are mostly dealing with this information for the benefit of others that we work with. I think some ages, groups, demographics, and time of day or year are factors that would all alter these percentages. But they help us wrap our ideas in a nice little bow for others. Also very helpful for new TPRS/TCI teachers trying to figure things out.
    As part of articulating what the hect we are doing these numbers are helpful. The underlining fact is that WE are backed by what acquisition experts say…INPUT leads to eventual output. This is where I use ACTFL against traditionalist because most lack the strategies for providing “comprehensible immersion.”
    To put this into perspective of a 1 hour long class period the percentages look like this.
    65%=39 minutes of negotiating meeting with students
    (How many days has PQA going over a class period?)
    25%= 15 minutes of students deriving meaning without help on their own
    (Sean mentions “quick quizzes, fill-in-the-blanks, translation exercises, and dictation” for example)
    10%=6 minutes of students presenting via writing or speaking
    (class responding, timed writing, story retells, etc.)
    To put these numbers in terms of a 180 days school year.
    65%=117 days
    25%=45 days
    10%=18 days
    Now, any teacher knows there are more things going on in a school than just exposure to content. Things come up and people just talk and share with no motives behind doing so other than just being human. So these are kind of extreme figures but still helpful. I do think however, that if any type of teacher is going to reach such numbers and percentages like these, it is through TCI.

  7. In early elementary I’ve come to think that most time should be spent on Interpretive. Kids show that they understand through gestures, drawing, movement, acting, coloring, pointing etc Massive input. Less amount of time is spent on Interpersonal. Basically none on Presentational.
    75% interpretive (TPR, Listen and ____ )
    20% interpersonal (PQA, adding details to stories)
    5% presentational (retell, role-play, kids acting as teacher)
    Many little kids don’t master yet the comunication skills needed to engage in the interpersonal mode. Classroom teachers spent 50% (or more) of the day modeling the skills, giving kids the tools to self-regulate. In L1.

  8. Catharina,
    Do you find TPR to be interpretive? ACTFL defines interpretive communication as “a one way communication where there is no opportunity for interaction with the initiator.”
    Interpretive mode is interaction with the text, audio, or visual only…so I thought.
    I find TPR to be about negotiating meaning. Maybe I don’t have a grasp on these definitions… I find interpretive mode to be about self discovery and a period when students find meaning without help from the teacher.
    Thoughts?

  9. I may be extending Interpretive a little too far because of my particular situation teaching mainly pre-literate kids. I may want to rethink those % listed above.
    Interpersonal: I circle -everything- and those minutes should be tallied here. The kids respond orally and I can negotiate, rephrase, interact
    Interpretive: When my little kids demo physically that they understand, may it be through gesture, movement, drawing and such I would put those minutes under Interpretive. No? They have to interpret what I say with no negotiation of meaning. It’s interactive listening as if I were an audio recording. Minutes spent doing TPR without circling * might* then fit under Interpretive.
    After spending too much time reflecting on how best to reach -all- my bear cubs, I have started to think that more time should be spent on Interpretive because of the lack of self-regulation.
    You are right though Michael. I may be confusing the terminology. Wouldn’t be the first time.

    1. We may be starting to take apart something that shouldn’t be. Yes, we have to appease the beast that is our educational system until the day we can transform it from a “very hungry caterpillar” into a beautiful butterfly, but we run the risk of over-analyzing something organic and beginning to treat it like a (dead) butterfly under glass. Use the percentages that seem best to you and put into each category what seems best to you as long as it is something you have thought about and not just accepted as the way we do it or some authority said that’s what s/he does.
      It’s great for us to share our practices, and I have learned a lot and adopted a lot from this PLC, but the end result is still what I consider best practice in my setting with my students as an expression of my personality, abilities, and thinking.
      At first I was going to agre with Michael, but after Catharina’s explanation, I can see how TPR can fit into the Interpretive Mode very easily, particularly as an informal assessment of learning.

      1. Yes absolutely Robert. I don’t mean to do that. I’ve had too much time on my hand with 4 snow days in the past 2 weeks. Should be shoveling the driveway instead.

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