Alisa Shapiro-Rosenberg has been doing a lot of work with non-targeted instruction this year. She is in a unique position to comment on the topic because she teaches both high and low cognate languages, Spanish and Hebrew*. Her comments below raise questions. That is what we need now in the NT discussion. We have to figure out the questions before discussing possible answers, in my opinion.
*She clarifies: “Hebrew does have plenty of cognates, though its sounds are very different than English, (including gutterals) and it uses a right to left (phonetically based) alphabet.”
Alisa:
I wonder what writing looks like when the instruction is targeted vs. when non-targeted instruction (Story Listening, Invisibles, etc.) is used.
I would think that perhaps the writing resulting from targeted instruction might look better since it’s narrower and massed vs. spaced; so maybe that kind of a side-by-side taste test wouldn’t make NT look too good – the writing might look less accurate but more…sophisticated, broader & bolder? Dunno…would love to, though.
A concept I’ve been thinking about a lot regarding NT instruction is how it accelerates the processor. When I went to my very first Carol Gaab training, that phrase captured my fancy. What accelerates the processor? Why it’s the very language itself, hearing it in different contexts, etc. The i+1, as long as the students comprehend it, accelerates the processor. NT provides more of it – works the brain harder in many regards – though the filter stays low because the experience is more low key – the teacher is less ‘desperate’ to hammer.
Mandarin and cognate-poor languages aside, I have found that by casting a wider net a few things happen:
1. a higher tolerance for ‘noise’- maybe due to better coping or context skills – it seems that hearing new language items more frequently (allowing new words in) flexes the processing/comprehension muscle.
2. students seem to remember, or at least demonstrate contextual understanding of – words that haven’t gotten multiple/hammered reps.
3. My own sense of what’s been acquired ‘implicitly’ is changing – I thought I had to circle and check the heck outta stuff that actually they have under wraps.
I am just meandering here, wondering what it would take to prove to skeptical teachers that NT (even for languages other than Spanish & French) really works. It certainly does for me in Hebrew, though I did start the year with more classical circling….
Maybe writing samples would hold sway, though it’s be hard to control the variables. Still it’d be interesting and illuminating to look at, if we had samples.