If you were reading here a year and a half ago you followed the dramatic turnaround in the careers of Greg Stout and Angie Dodd. Angie actually did quit teaching, and Greg took a hiatus to teach in France last summer to get a different perspective on things. Both never stopped studying comprehensible input.
Tonight, we focus the spotlight on Angie with respect and admiration for what she has done in such a short time of 18 months. I recommend reading these two posts from from a year ago so that you can more deeply appreciate what Angie has written below:
https://benslavic.com/blog/teacher-of-the-month-april-2013/
https://benslavic.com/blog/angie-dodd/ (read especially this one)
Hi Ben!
Five weeks down. It has been a huge effort both physically and emotionally. I don’t feel like I’ve hit a rhythm yet, and I’m still waking up in a panic most mornings, but I’m beginning to see and feel how this could take some kind of shape. Stories have been a lot of fun. Students have intuitively picked up on the game and joined in with lots of good spirit. Plenty of volunteers and enthusiasm for all jobs. No problems comprehending the reading, translation is a breeze for them. Part of the stress for me is that they seem to feel so confident that it’s hard to get us all to stop and work with the text, to get all the necessary reps. I’m learning also that it’s a strategy of many high school students to feign competence and present with impatience/boredom. As a student I always felt impatient with follow-up activities, so I’m trying to learn how to use them effectively and transmit the importance of them. I feel like I’ve got Krashen whispering in my ear, “if it’s not fun anymore, then move on!”, but is that Krashen or my own impatience and fear? I’m not able to sustain discussions of the reading, I run out of material and I often don’t have the necessary discipline in place with the students. But I’ve had some glimpses of what it feels like to slow down and talk about what we just read. “Who needed medicine? Why did she need it? Where did the girl go to get the medicine? How did she pay for it?” I’m reminding myself to take the long view and trust that I will learn these skills over time.
I’m focusing too much on the disengaged students and not giving enough props to the ones who are working with me. I have one tiny class of intermediates, there are only 5 of them. I was scared to try stories with them because of the low number of kids and instead spent a couple weeks talking about their summer vacation and what each student did, making a reading about each one. When that petered out, I had to go to stories because I didn’t know what else to do. They took to the game immediately. I’ve also had them do some reading on the Mary Glasgow site, and we do a lot of hanging out and talking about their lives, experiences and activities. Their comprehension is strong and they can say more and more, but of course their output is very limited. Which brings me to my main concern….output. I haven’t done any to speak of except for the usual back-and–forth of circling and answering simple questions about their lives. All my quizzes have been T/F and translation, and scores have been predictably high. I love the department I’m working in, my colleagues are amazing, they threw out the text book more than 10 years ago and developed a “proficiency-based” curriculum using a combination of thematic units and teacher-created stories, along with films and other authentic materials. Output is a stated goal for every level, and the process involves having students prepare and memorize/learn recitations of essays or stories that they create. I have been putting off confronting the need to have my students do this. As I understand the process, it goes like this: they do a free write, then I correct it and they write it out as an essay/story, and then make visuals and memorize it, then study it and come in prepared to write the thing and speak it into an iPad, and then I have to grade their accuracy of speech and writing, I think that’s the process. They feel a sense of pride and ownership of the language and like we’ve done something summative. What’s so scary? I’m scared I’ll lose momentum with them. I’m scared the weak memorizers and writers will lose confidence. I’m scared my autistic student will give up. I’m scared of all of these unknowns. And yet my colleagues have done this successfully for a long time. My beloved mentor has coached me on how to grade the oral “competencies” as they are called, and to help students understand their own strengths and limitations at this stage.
I feel that this is not really in line with the student’s language acquisition needs, but it is what I have to do. I have to do it with good will and whatever confidence I can muster. Often the students have needs that I don’t understand or don’t know about yet because I am so new at this. There are different ideas about when forced output is helpful to acquisition. There have been a lot of things I have been afraid to do that turned out to be good ideas. I can imagine what you might have to say about this, Ben….!
My other major area of growth is discipline. Many of my students are chatty and a few are physically restless. I often have to wait long seconds or even minutes for quiet. There is a lot of English blurting. I’m trying to find my way amid the huge volume of good advice out there about how to deal with these problems, and am growing my backbone little by little.
The blog is a lifeline I check in with every day. Some days I think that this is ridiculously hard for a sensitive person like me, and no paycheck is worth this level of stress. Other days I have a vision of what it will be like when I get through this period of initiation and I imagine myself being as mellow as Robert, or as loving as Laurie, or as indomitable as Eric, or as slow and friendly as Ben, or as funny as Chris Stolz, and smart and confident like so many of you veterans. I know I can get there. I don’t need or even want to have an easy work life, but I want to feel calm, confident and relaxed most of the time. There’s no reason I can’t get there. Language makes me happy. I know I can find a way to bring that into the classroom.
Much Love,
Angie