Scope and Sequence 20 – Robert Harrell

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20 thoughts on “Scope and Sequence 20 – Robert Harrell”

  1. Jeffery Brickler

    How can this coordinator say something like, “the silent period is relatively short for a 14 year old.” How would he know? He is the authority? Has he done the research? What credentials does he have to say this?

  2. I don’t know if I put it into the original document I sent Ben, but at one point my interlocutor admits that he cannot quote or reference authorities – but he has 30 years’ experience in the classroom from which to draw. (He hasn’t been in the classroom for at least 10 years, probably more.)

  3. “…acquisition is accomplished unconsciously as we attend to comprehensible content in the target language. While focusing on meaning the brain subconsciously maps the language being used. It is a non-linear internal process that does not lend itself to checking off boxes but requires a much deeper relationship between “informant” (teacher in our case) and “learner” (student) for assessment. This is not to say that there is no place for “grammar instruction”, but it should certainly be toppled from its throne as the crowning glory and driving force of instruction.”
    You have a way with words, Robert. I guess you know that, but I just have to tell you, too. It’s so clear and simple. I especially love the brain subconsciously mapping the language. It’s a perfect image and I think a useful one for talking about this work we do. I’m new to this, so these things help a lot.

    1. It’s like living in a place long enough so you know the woods, streams, meadows, ravines, rocky outcroppings… or the streets, alleys, intersections, best hole-in-the-wall restaurants, neighborhoods…and can find your way around just because you’ve wandered around enough.
      The physical map of a familiar place is maybe like the grammar. It’s interesting maybe, fun to look at, helpful at times, and maybe even shows you something you don’t already know, but you don’t walk around looking at it or thinking about it.
      This reminds me that my job is to help create a world of French for them to wander around in and get to know. I love not being in charge.
      Snow day here today. I love it now but won’t in June.

  4. Ruth, I love this analogy!!!! Yes…if you go to a location with GPS, you can get to where you need to go, but…..could you get there without it? Do you get to know the area? Do you become familiar with the lay of the land? Absolutely not, unless you are exceptional. It takes spending time and wandering around enjoying a place (not in fear because you are lost) to truly get to know, be comfortable, and be able to navigate.
    Wow. With your permission, I’d like to be able to use this to help people understand the paradigm.
    with love,
    Laurie

    1. I’d be honored, Laurie. You are most welcome to it.
      I was just thinking, too, how some people love looking at maps and other people can’t make heads or tails of them – like grammar.

      1. I agree, a beautiful analogy. Even for those urban planners who look at maps to design infrastructure, the best of them design based on knowing how people on the streets enjoy their neighborhoods.

  5. Thank you for the image Ruth. Now I finally see how it is that teachers don’t get the unconscious mapping system piece. How can they become aware of a system that they don’t know about, aren’t aware of, to them doesn’t exist? Of course they would resist such simplified statements as “language learning is an unconscious process”. There is no blame. As Laurie says, the map vs. knowing-the-town-by-heart image you suggested goes a long way in helping explain it. It also helps me to understand how it has been for me in my own life that French has always been a thrilling divine romance based in the heart and not the mind.

  6. This talk of the silent period makes me think about how valuable it would be to allow our students who received Ds or even Cs to retake our CI classes. We have a veteran teacher, Elaine, here in Chicago who is able to that. The “D” student gets the credit for taking Spanish 1, then takes Spanish 1 again next year for an additional credit. Elaine found that they just need to call Spanish 1 something different on that student’s transcript, like “Spanish Enrichment”, to appease the state board of ed.

    1. That’s creative, Sean.
      Did the student get the D or C in the CI class or in a grammar-based class? Otherwise, I am wondering why the child got the C/D? Just trying to see the bigger context in which this is done. Thanks.

      1. Good question. Elaine teaches at a school for students with learning differences/ disabilities and I think she’s had a couple of students she knew didn’t acquire much of anything so decided it would best met their needs to have them in the same level class again. No doubt in my mind that I have several students that would benefit most from taking my level 1 class again, and they themselves would be all the happier for it. These are students with legitimate learning disabilities.

    1. Fun. Tuesdays I have more time to read (only 2 classes today, I love my schedule). There are several worthwhile comments below the original post, including two by Ben. I noticed a comment by Kristin Plante that expressed well what I think about the “silent period.” Then Ben’s later comments picked up on Kristin’s comment, too.
      I understand the silent period to be a time in which the acquirer isn’t producing lengthy, spontaneous language, but not that they say nothing and certainly NOT that they are passive or discouraged to speak as she characterized. I think the blog writer set up a bit of a straw man argument, because I’ve never read anything by Krashen that says we ought to stifle or prevent output.
      I ask all students for one-word/phrase responses and invite as much speech as they’ll give. It is very active, interactive listening. The only time I’d encourage less speech is if I can tell the student is way over her head in trying to speak beyond their comprehension. I remember asking about that in the PLC a couple years ago. Only 1 student is sometimes like that this year; I had 1 go-getter 5th grader last year like that, too. I did actually talk with him. They’d get lost trying to think up correct words and their sentences were hard to understand. Letting them know I really appreciate their enthusiasm, and that it’s ok to give shorter answers when that’s smoother to say, helped them. Then coaching them on listening techniques — like when I re-state their idea in a full sentence — to let them know how they’ll get to that fluent speech they obviously really want. I think it helps move them from conscious to unconscious processing. You can see it in their face; they relax and think about meaning instead of worry about producing the right words. So I think the important thing is what kind of process, more conscious or unconscious, is happening, rather than how much speech they produce when.
      I guess there is a point with which I agree with that blog: I don’t accept English answers from students when I’m asking a Chinese question, unless they haven’t yet heard that Chinese or they need the scaffolding of my pointing to the word they wanted. It’s kind of evident when a student is just being glib and rebellious versus just not yet having the acquired language to use in their answer. The former gets a stern response; the latter gets a gentle encouragement and pointing or writing the answer they wanted; both get my help with the Chinese and they each need to acknowledge that’s what they meant before we go on.

      1. “I understand the silent period to be a time in which the acquirer isn’t producing lengthy, spontaneous language, but not that they say nothing and certainly NOT that they are passive or discouraged to speak as she characterized. I think the blog writer set up a bit of a straw man argument, because I’ve never read anything by Krashen that says we ought to stifle or prevent output.”
        This is great! I never stifle output. BTW, I did end up reading the responses from Ben after I posted on here. 🙂 I need to get in the habit of reading all responses before posting.

        1. Thanks for making this available.
          It was worth it if just for Ben’s comment that the “Silent Period… is not silent at all, but it is silent to the conscious mind.”

          1. And my big thank you is back to Robert for this dazzling array of information for us, not just on Scope and Sequences but on a lot more than that. One thing I got that I won’t forget is the subterranean mapping image. That is just so right on to describe the unconscious process that we call language acquisition. We can’t see it but that doesn’t mean nothing is happening.
            The only time nothing is happening is when the conscious mind is the target of instruction. Then nothing really is happening, because the instructor is using a book or something to “teach” something to the conscious minds of the students, which is like throwing seeds onto concrete. The CI seeds can only sprout when they are planted in the deep and fertile recesses of the mind where everything is unconsciously mapped. Hence the need of CI to bypass everything, to keep the seeds falling where they will, with enough water/input, sprout.
            The old worksheet driven curricula at their very best resemble those earliest maps of the explorers. Those were some bad maps. Admirable in their conception, but really bad. The new GPS instant mapping systems, as great as they are, are still a far cry from the effect and design of what we have sitting right there in our own noggins, just below the part of your mind that is reading this sentence, always ready to process language, just there, out of reach, one of the most magical things ever created.
            So we don’t need to be smart. We don’t need to be great teachers. Anybody can do this. We just speak to them. How hard is that?

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