This is the third blog post from that self-reflection email from jen:
An overall observation from many of their responses is that (probably due to me not upholding my 50% and keeping martial law in place) they still seem not to be aware of the fact that I do not expect them to “output.” Many of them expressed frustration at “not being able to speak” or “I can recognize when something is in the past but there is no way I would know how to write it.” Geez. I thought, out of everything I was at least making that clear, but obviously not. Back to the slowdown. and then slow down some more. The proof that slow and silence works is in the amazing stuff that came out of the freewrites. And the superbly confident negotiation of meaning in the translation exercise, and the quick responses I noticed in the listening comprehension practice. Not to mention in the day to day banter, where I ask and they respond without a lot of thinking and figuring, and we just kind of hang out. I think part of it is that some of them think they need to “feel the burn” and if they don’t, then they must not be learning anything. That is just a guess.
My comment: Again, I think that this involves parents. Parents ask them to speak. They are uninformed, to use the charitable term. They are idiots, to use the non-charitable term. This is another simple one on how to handle it. (Of course, all my comments are just my opinion.) You tell their parents (if you are lucky you do it also in the presence of the principal at the meeting the “concerned” mom called so that you can educate them both) that natural speech is what you are going for in the class, and that, if you look at the example of small children, such speech doesn’t even begin to emerge after years of 24/7 hearing the language. Ask the mom if she really believes that in the 125 hours you get with her child you really expect her to be able to speak anything but the most useless memorized expressions, which you won’t inflict on the child because it doesn’t work. Ask her if she has ever studied how the brain works and how languages are really acquired in terms of the neurology piece. Ask her if she has ever heard a baby speaking after the first 125 hours (less than a week), or 1, 250 hours (just under two months), or 12, 500 hours (just under a year and a half) of their lives. Educate these people.
FYI this is a “level 2” group but in terms of CI, they had April through June of last year, plus this semester. I think they are doing awesome. A couple of other teachers, who happen to be former students (not my dep’t. head, with whom I basically have no contact) saw some of the stuff we are reading and a recent (first) freewrite from the level 1 class and were blown away by things like “Wow, I never learned lui until French 3” or “I remember only being able to write lists of words. I could never have written a story halfway through French 1.
My comment: That’s because you kick ass.