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Tina On The Change
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27 thoughts on “Tina On The Change”
As I’ve said here before, I think The Invisibles represents a big shift for the students’ perception, but not AS big for the teacher’s pedagogy.
What I mean is, to sense that the whole creative enterprise is in the group’s hands, and that the teacher is just there to clarify and drive the bus, is very different from a story whose key phrasing is predetermined. It’s still great for students to be able to decide lots of details, like names, places, sequences of events, physical descriptions, etc. in Classic TPRS. Nothin’ wrong w/that! But what Ben has hit upon is the importance of also actualizing plot. We used to dither on the color of the potato’s half-mustache; Ben honors and advocates the kids’ need to FIND OUT WHAT HAPPENS. So it’s not JUST that we omit the predetermined structures, it’s that the story as a unit is prioritized – and gets resolved. He read the room – thousands of times – and w/the Invisibles gave the kids what they wanted – to find out what happens.
There are constraints on that if the major verbal structures are already in play. But any skilled CI teacher (by that I mean having the classic TPRS/CI skills) can choose to do Invisibles. For my level, I still do lots of random circling within my story-asking. My young beginners need that more than say a jr or high school group.
Again my major point in this pre-caffeine kick-in meander is that The Invisibles feels different and more empowering to the students, but the Ts are using most of the same skills.
I’ve been to two day -long trainings with traditional TPRS teachers. I have been forgetting about circling. Oops! I only do it during observations and reading. With what Alisa says, it is much more natural to just ask questions that DRIVE the story.
We are captains of our own ship. The ocean is the language. The process of navigation or acquisition is more important than the destination, curriculum or even fluency. When my students leave me to go to high school, I will leave them on an island with their own boats. It will be up to them to navigate from then on.
Alisa – Many people have said that to do the Invisibles a teacher needs Classic TPRS training. I don’t see it that way. For example, PQA and Circling are not needed. They would only get in your way if your goal is, as you said, to have a really engaging plot line. Experienced TPRS teachers actually have to learn to jettison a lot of what they learned in order to enjoy the effortless, no planning approach that the Invisibles represent. That’s how I see it.
Tina thinks, as well, that if teachers were to just get the feeling in the cells of their bodies of “being understood” when talking to the kids (it is a safe and calm feeling and nobody is trying to sneak away and we are all there together), that there is no need to become obsessed with the idea of questioning our students in a CI class. We don’t need to rack up a bunch of questions like we are playing ski ball.
The entire thing about all the questioning, in my own view, has been vastly overblown. Why not just use our own intuition to say things that promote the plot line and the kids get to sit back and it’s all relaxing and amazing for them.
Tina told me that she would never have thought that such an approach (few questions, just tell them a story as per SL) would work with American kids because she was never trained that way. The image she gave me was of putting a pill (target) in a piece of rolled up ham to get the dog to swallow it. Why? Just give them the ham (the language as a whole).
I’ve been thinking about how circling as it is usually taught (at least to beginning TPRSers) really is so unnatural, particularly when the goal is to get a student (or even an entire class) to remember a particular chunk of the language. Sure, we want students to comprehend what we’re saying, but if that particular chunk of language is truly that important it should come up again naturally in other contexts and at other times. If it is that high frequency, then it will be repeated. Plus, we need to be casting a language net relatively far and wide (while always focusing on keeping it comprehensible) if we want students to be able to access the language they need next.
Perhaps the focus on mass repetitions for classical TPRS beginner students is that we are trying to speed up a process that can’t really be sped up. Also, if it is too repetitive then students (and the teacher) will just check out, and that can hardly be the best use of our time. It needs to be personal and/or compelling (or at least interesting) otherwise why would someone want to pay attention to it? (Unless we’re forcing them to…) I’ve never actually even used the counters because it just seems so contrived and unnatural to do. It’s not like you would pull out a counter with your son or daughter as they’re learning a language…
…I’ve never actually even used the counters because it just seems so contrived and unnatural to do….
Me too. I dropped them. I dropped a lot of stuff from TPRS. No regrets.
“Plus, we need to be casting a language net relatively far and wide (while always focusing on keeping it comprehensible) if we want students to be able to access the language they need next.”
Agreed. We do not know the order of acquisition and we cannot control what students retain. We should provide them ALL of the language that we can. Isn’t that providing them with differentiation. It is one thing that I noticed with SL. Targets would inherently put kids at a disadvantage because they are encouraged to memorize. Language is not acquired that way. The end result is that we end up leaving kids behind for not “acquiring” certain structures. The AF goes up real fast. Wide net = low accountability, rich language, low affective filter.
Yes! This! I had read a ton, been to TPRS workshop with Blaine Ray, and researched and prepared. I am a perfectionist and wanted it to be “perfect” before trying it out with my students. So I tried last year, I stumbled, I bumbled, and I’m sure to an experienced TPRS teacher I would have looked like a complete idiot. While trying to circle and get reps and do everything and follow a script, I was a hot mess. I didn’t know what to do next and COULD NOT for the life of me think on my feet and use my years of being a teacher and thinking on my feet to help me. It was all to foreign and felt too weird and forced. So then, I read more, did Ben’s workshop this summer and had a new energy and felt that I had could use his system as a new start. Guess what…it worked! The cool thing is I still stumble, and I still have trouble thinking of what to do next or what to say next or where to take the story but I am slowly figuring it out and the best part is that the students have no idea. We are talking, we are making wacky and zany stories, we are laughing and they are acquiring language, and it really isn’t a lot of work at all. I am blown away by what they can do and am learning to love my job again.
…perhaps the focus on mass repetitions for classical TPRS beginner students is that we are trying to speed up a process that can’t really be sped up….
Very insightful.
I am really happy to let go of circling. I never really got it in the first place, mostly because it felt so contrived and I couldn’t in the moment keep track of what I was circling. I like the counters because it gives my students who need to fidget some thing to fidget with. I don’t really pay attention to how much they count.
With some of my classes, having a phrase to count seemed to reassure some of them that some planning was going on. It was still always a pain. Especially when we became more interesting something else that happened. The more anal of my students would then claim to have learned nothing. Many of the high achieving students wanted to see the sweat.
My thinking is that we need to be getting them to retell. A retell rubric would show them its Serious Business.
I usually have retells as part of what I do after the stories. Sometimes I have them just turn to their table partner and retell in English or Spanish. Tina, do you have students retell in Spanish or English or depends on their level?
I have a retell rubric that I’ve tweaked over the years that I can share…
Yes. I do an L1 with partners. However, we can also do it in writing. Didnt Claire have a rubric?
…my students would then claim to have learned nothing. Many of the high achieving students wanted to see the sweat….
I don’t respect those students. They don’t know how a language is acquired. This is why we all have to do what we have to do in our buildings. There is no easy answer. But I insist that our profession must reform itself to align with the research on how people learn languages, so I confront those students. It’s a never ending battle and will go on for some time and each of us will have mental health that is in direct relationship to the number of people who accept Krashen’s work in our buildings. Lone wolves are and have been hurting badly for some time. Those lone wolves are my heroes. One day, the robots, who do not have hearts, will lose. Each of us is in a different situation.
I think that’s the ticket.
Would a level 1 presentational speaking rubric suffice?
At worst, I would have them do it in L1. Though you can tweak it an exciting rubric. I like making my own to highlight what is the most important: comprehension, were they interested in the story?
Now that I think about it. I would put it on students to evaluate the story and say WHY using evidence of the story, they rate it as such. Kinda snarky.
I so want to dump any kind of circling (and indeed I might have already, I dunno yet…). I just feel like I need to get lots of exposure to the new sounds with my young learners. (My whole program, grades 1-4 total is around 200 hours).
Am I making an excuse? I really don’t know. But I do know that my random circling-esque questioning seems effective. The question is whether it’s necessary because it’s draining to do and feels like droning for the kids sometimes. So when I’m gathering details I’m also negating and sometimes parking, because I feel as though that’s a way to play with that narrow set of language and get some interaction (a la “no class,that’s ridiculous! He doesn’t have a tiny nose, he has a giant nose!”)
Is it possible that young learners need more of this here & now concrete detail confirmation as they construct their language foundation, or am I deluding myself to play it safe?
Your dreaming, draining and droning friend,
Alisa
Alisa you ask, “Is it possible that young learners need more of this here & now concrete detail confirmation as they construct their language foundation, or am I deluding myself to play it safe?”
I say yes. Props help. I saw a video here of an elementary teacher letting a birthday boy pick a crown and a special chair and various other things like a cape etc… I think that this helps materialize it better. Though your situation may not allow for props.
That was my video!
And you are the prop queen, right?
Haha. Yeah. That said, who else here is tired. How did i get so exhausted? Oh yeah four 85 min classes on Wednesdays! My voice got a little raspy today.
If we are teaching for whole-language mastery, then we need to unlearn or let go of the idea that we are teaching parts of the language. If the high-frequency words are important they will come up again and again, and if they are not, then they won’t. This means that we need not stress ourselves out and bog our instruction down in the quest to pile reps upon reps in one sitting via circling. Just use the language, and day after day, the “important” elements of the language will reappear again and again, and be acquired when the learner is ready. This last point is frequently overlooked in targeted instruction. We can hammer a certain linguistic element forever, but if the student is not ready to acquire it, then all our efforts are in vain and we are just putting a lot of energy on something that really does not matter, and not only that, also inhibits our ability to connect with kids and find the humor, joy, and creativity that non-targeted work promises.
I totally agree/feel/trust everything you are saying, but then what is the place of ‘narrow and deep?’
Can you expand on that question, Alisa? As I read it without clarification my answer is that that has to do with the “art” part of teaching. What Tina says in her comment is that routine is necessary and we frame our lessons around that routine while going narrow and deep (and slow) with our instruction. But that answer may not be what you are looking for.
I guess I’m having trouble with staying in bounds with absolute beginners, while telling a story, without previewing the language through PQA, and without circling all the while. Yes, it’s an art, and I’d like to think I already do some of it. I am going to really delve in next week and report back.
Alisa, in the beginning I TOLD mini stories with the students then if time allotted I kept doing OWI. For my block days, I would do OWI then into a full story. The thing is to go slow sentence by sentence and establish meaning with a drawing, a gesture and tranlsation (you know this) and have an “ace” up your sleeve like an interview etc… at first I felt NT to be overwhelming at first but I let my students know that they will continue to hear these new words and they will become familiar.