To teachers who can’t get them to listen (due to dysfunction in the kids, previous bad experiences with other teachers, etc.) Tina gives this advice:
Scale CI down to something that looks a lot like school. Pencils, paper, and immediate grades for written work.
A plan:
(1) Have them all turn in a little slip of paper that has a fact about them. For example, their favorite food or a place they like to hang out. Or their Top Threes. Top three places to go on the weekend. Top three things they like about school. Top three friends. Top three teachers of all time (besides me).
(2) Then do Write and Discuss, pulling their answers and questioning them and the class to fill out the paragraph. You won’t get through all of them (unless you like leading them on a long ass forced march that could take a week or two) but it’s still fun.
(3) Have them take notes on the writing or copy it into their copy books.
(4) Then give a written quiz with them either using notes or not. Bingo. Two grades (plus interpersonal communication) you can use to bludgeon the little darlings into listening.
(5) Then do a Venn diagram as you compare and contrast two kids. The class can take notes on their own Venn diagrams.
(6) Then do a write and discuss paragraph telling your findings. Have the little.
(7) Give them a map of the world or a country and have them listen and add to their map what they hear and see you add.
(8) Then write and discuss to summarize their learning.
(9) You can take up and grade their maps and the paragraphs they copy.
Now you have grades in the grade book, and you have also trained them in the area that they are the weakest in (listening) by making it feel more like school (i.e. school to them is about writing and not really learning by listening/participating) and so it looks like school and they take it more seriously.