Hi Ben,
In the last trimester of my first year of teaching I have finally gotten into the groove of how I want to teach with CI. I have been having a great time teaching students that are all behind in credits with a history of not being successful at school. I have adopted the ICSR rubric, we have a daily quick quiz written by students, and I have been in L2 I would say at least 80 percent of the class period.
I have students who are non native speakers coming to class telling me what they said in Spanish over the weekend and what they have tried to say. It is clear that they have no anxiety about being in the class and trying new things. It is fulfilling for me to see that they are enjoying their success in my classes.
I have posters of the colors, and prepositions etc. on the wall. For the beginning of class I will usually write something up like Amanda tiene zapatos nuevos y esta a la derecha de Brian. We circle through the entire sentence. After talking about a few students we take a break and move on to structures and PQA.
Yesterday we spent almost the entire class on “Tengo un talento unico.” We went through most students identifying their unique talents. We had a great time with plenty of expression in target language from students even in a class of just three students. Today we’ll do a choral reading of what student’s talents are. I’ve found that they really enjoy reading little stories about themselves
I remember reading something you wrote on the PLC about scope and sequence that “the scope is the entire French language, and the sequence is as much time as it takes for students to master the material”. I found this statement to be very liberating, and so profoundly true and as being exactly what education should be that I think about it all the time.
Thanks for everything!
Craig West