Here is the text by Matthew that I mentioned in the last article that has brought closure to the food fight with ACTFL for me:
Thank you for this post, Nathaniel. I don’t think ACTFL is the enemy some are making them out to be, and I don’t think they view TPRS as their enemy, and they certainly don’t view comprehensible input as their enemy. Their “official stance” on CI, in their own words, is that teachers should:
– provide comprehensible input that is directed toward communicative goals; and
– conduct comprehension checks to ensure understanding
With their 90% statement, they go out of their way to insist that the input is comprehensible, and even insist that we ensure understanding with comprehension checks rather than just assume we are being comprehensible as we blabber on. They really care that we are providing input, and they really care that the input is comprehensible. In this respect, we are on the same team. In terms of textbooks, semantically-related vocab list, and topical units, we are all on the same team.
In terms of themes, I don’t think we are actually very far apart either. Jason Fritze has been quoted several times here as saying you have to talk about something. If you go into some of my colleagues’ classrooms, however, you will realize this is not the case. They follow the textbook and don’t talk about anything, except verb conjugations and noun/adjective agreement. When ACTFL says we use themes (instead of textbooks), I don’t think it needs to go any further than this. I teach at an IB school, and from time to time lead workshops in the region/state for other IB teachers. IB is all about thematic units (in the Carrie Toth sense, not the textbook sense). The discussion I have with teachers as we look at creating their units is very often exactly the same: E to IE stem changing verbs is not a theme or a unit. Food is not a theme or a unit. You would be surprised at how many teachers simply don’t talk about anything in their classes. They just learn how to conjugate, and learn a long list of related nouns, and can’t envision things being any different.
ACTFL’s insistence on themes, to me at least, is all about using the language to talk about something, rather than using L1 to talk about the L2. This is exactly what we do, and we don’t even have to get defensive about it or bend over backwards to prove we are doing it. We are picking a fight that needn’t exist. Eric asks if a story can be a unit theme. Of course it can! We are using the language to talk about something meaningful. That is exactly what they want from a theme, and exactly what we are doing. Is it helpful for us to package it in the sorts of language and questions Robert lists? Sure, if only because it shows people unfamiliar with SLA what sorts of awesome things we are doing in our classes. Jumping through hoops for admins will always be part of our jobs, and that is hardly a cumbersome hoop to jump through.