Human Intelligence Requires Free and Open Paths

It is like magic when you just tell them a good story with a slow pace in your speech, simplified in a way that is comprehensible for them but still compelling, and then when you ask them questions related to what they have listened to or watched they can answer accordingly. It is amazing and I am very happy but I am pretty sure I am not doing TPRS as the Green Bible recommends.

Then Tina responded:

I agree, yes, it is like magic. I love the cozy feeling of telling stories to them. I feel like a librarian. When I was a little girl I loved the library and sometimes I think I just narrowly missed the Librarian Boat. I love books and story hour! But hey, I guess I have the best of both worlds, huh – French, Spanish, AND books and stories!! I have even started reading story books to them, like Kindergarten Day but not really, more just like Story Time, without all the kindergarten theatrics, just plopping a cute book on the overhead and going fer it.

Hey, just between you and me, and anyone reading this, I (and many others) have not been doing TPRS as the green book recommends for quite some time. I do not even think Blaine does TPRS as the green book recommends. I think TPRS as the green book recommends is somewhat clunky and puts fences between you and the kids (as per the “Fences” post which is currently still hanging around in the “Recent Posts”) because of all the focus on target structures and circling. I just thought, man, these kids are in SECOND GRADE. Why not just let go of all that and just be with them in L2 and make it comprehensible?

I have been processing a lot as of late. A lot. A real lot. And one thing I am really getting clear on is that we have, all of us, truly made this all so hard. Whatever the reason, CI, Krashen’s pure vision, the Natural Approach, the human instinct to communicate with the young, that comes natural as rain to every mommy and daddy, has been twisted and warped into a method, a package, a system. When in reality, it is a mindset, a skillset, and a way of setting your heart to be with kids.

For God’s sake, these are eight year olds! I would tell them stories, and more stories, and read with them like in the Language Experience Approach. I would tell them stories about their cute characters (maybe they draw them, maybe you create them in class together using the OWI process) or just regular old stories like honest to goodness bedtime stories.

The important part, and this is what is really, really gelling for me right now, this last couple of weeks, and I have actually had some pretty emotional moments over these realizations, they are so big for me: what matters is your heart, and your intention to COMMUNICATE WITH THE YOUTH.

This means that you have to find something that the youth enjoy talking about. BUT also something that conveys values that you want to transmit as the adult. So, the Invisibles and One Word Images transmit creativity and collaboration and problem solving and listening to each other and I find that the Invisibles, through their back stories and even the pictures themselves, reveal kid concerns and so we get to touch on issues that come from the kids’ hearts. And stories, just telling stories, well, I was chatting with Beniko at length last night and she was saying that she loves traditional/folk tales because they transmit deep truths and are often about good and evil. There is a reason certain tales stick around – they touch us in a deep, human place. And there are so many possibilities, even just from history and the traditional tales of the cultures we teach the languages of.

We need to love what they are talking about. The target structures/celebrity suggestions from the kids, it was fun for me for a few years, but I had a hard time mustering the love for them. A diet of stories based on the popular culture (by its very nature vapid and ephemeral and shallow) falls far, far short of a steady diet of Meaning. Real, true stories transmit both the whole, unsliced, artisanal loaf of the language as well as deep, nourishing values and kid interests, which because they are from kids are most likely of a deep nature. Kids are just like that. They are fresher and deeper than the green book gives them credit for!

And are we not lucky to spend our days with them? If only we can learn to relax and not impose the language on them like a dictator. If only we can channel the naturalness of a librarian at story hour, of a parent at bedtime, of a storyteller enchanting the audience with a gentle spell of language.

Once we give up the idea that we are there to teach something, and surrender to the idea that we are there to transmit messages, we will finally reach the Pure Land that Ben write about so long ago. We will finally be free to BE you and me, together, just letting the miracle of human intelligence unfold before us.