Well, the day is over. How’d it go? Let’s respond to your suggestions from this morning point by point:
1.On the no English rule, I went overboard. I came across too strong on the enforcement. Maybe scared a few people. And, of course, to enforce it, I used English, so what’s up with that? All in all, though, the effect of the crusader act on the no-English rule worked today. I used to think that it was all about SLOW, now I see that, for me, it’s even more about no English. So being a little on the intense side paid off on this point today. I will do it again. Especially with the young boys who are testing their teachers at every turn of every class they have all day.
2. As for my own use of English, I made the bed and have to sleep in it. Since August, I have allowed myself digressions, and then all of a sudden I want myself to now speak in L1 in class? Ain’t gonna happen. If I want to be able to completely stay out of L1 in my classes, I’m gonna have to start that pattern in the first ten days of class (I would give myself the first week of classes to use enough English to set the rules, of course). But this is one of those deals where you can’t change horses in midstream. I’ll do my best with this and put it on my list as things to be most serious about when starting the year doing CI.
3. I didn’t go out of bounds much at all. Big victory there today. There was just one expression that I consciously remember presenting that I shouldn’t have. This awareness, of course, put me in great contact with the barometers. Even kids absent yesterday were happy with their understanding, which is all about not going out of bounds, so I give myself a good review on this point, which Diana has been key in pointing out for the past year or so when she visits my classroom.
4. SLOW was good today. I find that the kids pretty much determine my speed through their eyes.
I didn’t have to “hope” some kid wouldn’t interrupt inappropriately because the first two kids who did wished they hadn’t. I remember playing this card on them: “I’ve worked for over ten years to learn how to do this and you will not ruin it for me. What if you worked for ten years on something day and night and then somebody came in and messes it up? How would you feel?” That snarkiness worked. I really do believe that the problems we have in our CI classes are brought on by ourselves and no one else. We are the adults. We can’t “hope” they will behave. We hammer on them until they do, and we hammer on ourselves as well to avoid English.
Somebody has to be in charge. If the (usually younger) teacher sends out the vibe in the classroom that they want to be liked and like back and oh what fun this is going to be a fun class full of fun activities, they will be spit out by the jackals in the class, who lack empathy and usually don’t start showing up until October. Such teachers send it out that they are not sure who is in charge. But if you are not the authority, it makes sense that in any human community one will emerge, and if no humans emerge, the jackals will.
For some reason I had no fear today, maybe because I got this letter from you this morning challenging me to not use English and to avoid going out of bounds. I need to say that again. I had no fear today. I was loosey goosey, flying high, letting myself go into the magic. That is rare for me because if there is a video there or an observor, it all changes for me, because there is fear in me. We could have perfect skills, but.f there is fear in us, and we then don’t run our freak flag up the flag pole every day, then we are going to suck in the same way that a professional baseball player can get into a hitting slump just by worrying about getting a hit.
Which one are you going to raise in class? Your own affective filter with the kids, or your freak flag? Why even bother with this intensely emotional experience of trying to teach using comprehensible input if you can’t relax into the technique, if you are always worrying about whether your instruction is o.k. or not?