Unlock with PatreonThe Problem with CI
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Not A Toy
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8 thoughts on “Not A Toy”
I think the reason someone would put something on the group like that is just for the sake of unity. It’s kind of a jungle in the school system and I know that the teachers that I know here in Chicago who are more on the TPRS/novel side are good teachers and their students are learning. Also in my own department teaching the novels is the best way to get traditional teachers more of a push towards CI .
That being said I appreciate that you are always pushing us to question our practice and speaking out against practices that harm students (homework, turning novels into the textbook, etc).
I think NTCI is superior for two reasons 1) targeting is a constraint on student interest 2) Targeting can lead to a denial of I+1. That being said, for COMPLETE beginners (first two months of Spanish 1) I think a little targeting might not be that detrimental. Students are just trying to grasp what is being said that the targeting does not constrain interest.
My position is that you were always non-targeted. I watch the old Ben Slavic TPRS training videos and I don’t see someone trying to get reps on structures, but using a set of structures as a starting point and then going with the student interest.
I think the way that we can win teachers to NT is to get them to try the OWI, The Invisibles, and the 7 step story process. That’s what won me over.
I agree 100% with Greg about your videos and the OWI/invisible system. I always thought that classic tprs was inaccessible to many. I spoke to Sean about it in OK during our conference.
With your videos Ben, the ones with commentary, you would beat yourself up for.adding extra structures while doing the Lazy/working Marana script. They were awesome though because you were giving RICH input with synonyms about a particular student.
That was always the critique of classic TPRS circling is that it is too predictable and not rich. It seems like the more complex or militant TPRS teachers threw the subconscious part of Krashen’s work was thrown out the window.
Steven said:
…it seems like the more complex or militant TPRS teachers threw the subconscious part of Krashen’s work was thrown out the window….
This is accurate. I remember kind of giving up on making that point here about ten years ago. It was too big a bite to digest. Most teachers read it and then went back into their classrooms and got their kids focused on the language. The history of TPRS and its general failure to bring comfort and ease to teachers is explained perfectly in your sentence. If language can only be acquired when the learner is focused on the message and not the language (Krashen), then what TPRS did from 1995 to now has been to slowly draw the attention of the learner to the language and not the message (circling, targets and everything discussed here: https://benslavic.com/blog/hit-list-of-8/) Blaine is the only one who truly was following Krashen from 1995 to 2005 and then it went splat from there. Teachers cannot flout the research and expect to succeed. The research is the research for a reason.
Greg, what do you think about the idea that I have heard expressed with venom at me (by some of my now estranged colleagues in the Denver Public Schools), that some people simply cannot do non-targeted bc it is so random and right brain? Do you see any truth to that?
I don’t think that’s true. The OWI is a very specific process as is the Invisibles prompt the students create and the 7-step story process. Also each process creates a reading and there are 21 reading options- seems pretty systematic to me! It’s just organized according to a process and not according to targets.
I have talked to a number of TPRS people and mentioned your 7-step process and they said “I am not familiar with it”. Therefore, until people get familiar with it, they should not judge it.
Also Greg since your mind is so sharp and clear on the entire non targeted picture (mainly because you have studied and internalized and viewed with honesty what came before – TPRS – as well as the new non-targeted stuff), I would add that it is the glopping of the NT work with all the other less effective things out there that I object to.
Examples are PQA and Movie Talk as touted in that website as equal with One Word Images. This is not true. PQA and MovieTalk in my view don’t have any of the power of the Invisibles. And as you imply, if a teacher has never heard of the Invisibles, then how can they judge their relative value, as you say point blank:
…until people get familiar with it, they should not judge it….
I very much appreciate your insights here, Greg. They are always spot on because, unlike so many other CI people, you both read and study and test things BEFORE commenting on them.
I would add that, as it says in the Hit List post that I keep referring to here and asking new people to read, class reading of novels really is a disaster, and yet it goes on and on each year, at great expense to many in the class, not to mention to the pocketbooks of the teachers and schools they work in. Class novel sets have become big business. But the activity of reading class novels hurts kids and further breaks down the equity piece, as it says in the Hit List of 26 article (can be found in the categories or via the search bar on this page).
Hi Ben, i know you asked Greg about the strategies but if like to chime in. PQA by design was never about the students, it was about using or forcing the targets via a false personalization… and using the YOU forms which doesn’t align with Krashen. And I know that the critique to that is “get more training” but I just can’t be that fake…ever.
The same applies to movie talk. A lot of MT is used to force vocab or use thematic vocab like all the colors, clothing or foods.
Your brand of NT is always one that is student driven, uses more brain power with imagination and increases interaction which leads to richer input. Even my most closed of students share out. To me its been revealed via card talk that limiting vocab and going SLOW is still important along with all of the tools to make it comprehensible for the students. The processes as Greg said repeat but the language always changes. Here is the difference I guess with NT.
What Steven said.