As we get deeper into this work we are changing our ideas about what speech output from students is about. We have the writing thing pretty much down but as we go along we are seeing more and more happening in terms of what we are seeing kids doing in speaking the language in our classrooms.
The current thread on student output was originally spurred here by the vPQA discussion of the past two months, in which we were able to see how Julie’s format/slide sequence for the vPQA I saw her do in her classroom in January produced lots of natural and unforced output from her students. I was so thrilled to see it that I came running here blabbering about how I think it is the next big thing in our work.
Please be clear – Julie is not the only person who ever used a slide presentation to teach a class using comprehensible input. In fact, a lot of the young DPS rock star TPRS teachers I observed this past winter used slides. But Julie was the only one who created a taxonomy as described a week or so here that resulted in clear student output and had many other sparkly qualities as well:
This way of sequencing slide PQA by Julie brought the speech output. It was absent in the other classrooms and so was shallow and wide instruction and not narrow and deep instruction.
This lead to a discussion with Ruth Fleischman and Craig West which is leading as we speak to a centralized page on this PLC that well give us a group-created data base of slide shows on Haidudeck (no copyright infringement) that will decrease each of our planning times over the course of next year by hundreds of hours. I am speaking with Craig on the details this week so more on that later.
Most of us know this but some here may just be picking up on this thread and so I repeat this information for those people. In my opinion vPQA the way Julie does it is a better, stronger, easier (much easier) and more effective way of using CI in a classroom than anything I have ever seen, and it brings output.
Here is a crucial sentence – when vPQA as opposed to regular slideless PQA – the old kind – is used to set up a story, the story is always better. This is just a very fine, hybrid way of doing PQA.
That is the background. Now to the point about output. We knock around the term student output a lot. What the output I saw in the vPQA looked like in Julie’s room, however, was real output, the real output we want. What does that look like?
Thanks to Laurie, we have that answer explained in crystal clear coffee-infused fashion by Laurie in a comment this morning and thank you Laurie because this comment is EXACTLY the clarification we need right now as go forward with our “Student Output in TPRS Classes Initiative” that ties so well in with vPQA. (and I am sure it ties in with other things people are doing re students output, but my car doesn’t drive all the way to Canada or to the places where those things are happening so this is my report from Denver anyway.)
Read and learn from what Laurie wrote this morning and I will make a Primer out of it as well for ease of reference. We need to be able click and print because this topic of what student output actually looks like in a TPRS classroom needs to be explained to those who don’t get it and here it is.
Drum roll please:
“I agree that we need to be clear….almost to the point that I hesitate to use the word output. In MANY teachers’ minds “output” = repeating, parroting in skit form, using provided phrases (ie reading them aloud) in role plays, A/B partner practice, etc.
“That is NOT output in a TPRS/CI classsroom at all!!!!!!!!!!
“What we are expecting is quite different:
*clarification
*language that indicates a level of comprehension
*details recalled from a shared experience
*details shared about a personal experience (true or invented)
*responses to personal questions in a discussion (not a scripted conversation)
*opinions based on personal preference in the context of a natural conversation
*ideas or suggestions about details in story (video,picture, memory etc.)
*conjecture about person’s/character’s motivation
*spontaneous reactions to an idea or an event
COMPLETELY DIFFERENT!!!!!
“The difference I see, and maybe other language identifies it in a better way (I’m only on my first cup of coffee!!) is that we are using SCAFFOLDED language and they are using STAGED language.
“While some may see co-created stories differently, I see them as a background for natural interactions (what did he say? what did she do? how did he feel? what happens now?) vs a non CI class where there are few, if any, natural interactions. EVERYTHING is artificial. This is why when a non CI teacher uses a simulation activity like being in a restaurant, market or airport, it is a BIG deal….it’s the only time there are interactions that actually make some sense….although they are staged.
“I hope that I am making some sense. I think that we have to be careful about our use of the word output. Without meaning to we could be implying that simply speaking/writing is output….and in our case…I don’t think that is what we mean.”
(I just wish we could send the Jackal and the Bear (Eric and Robert) back into the Foreign Language Educators discussion from last October with that weapon. Can you imagine what Laurie’s words would engender in those peoples’ minds if they were really to reflect on them? They would be instantly confused and so be forced to reflect on their own conceptions of what student speech output even means and that would lead to their having to re-evaluate what they even think the term best practices means.)