There is so much happening up in Alaska. Tina Fey has become involved in politics up there, Cara sent us an awesome reflection paper a few weeks ago, and now here is one – slightly edited for length by me with her permission – entitled “TPRS and Comprehensible Input” by Jennifer Kelly after her recent visit down here. Thanks, Jennie – what you write here is particularly honest and from the heart:
Personal Challenges
My journey of teaching with comprehensible input has been a continuous cycle of opening up and shutting down, moments of joy sputtering into self-doubt, and clarity of vision that becomes obscured by a desire to defend myself. Ever critical of my own performance, I stop and start over every time I notice a rough spot.
For me, learning to teach is an internal journey, and an emotional one. Despite my years of trying and training with TPRS, I am still in need of reassurance about my own ability to do this job.
During the week I spent in Colorado, I found the perspective I need. One who observed my teaching affirmed that yes, I have skills that I know how to use. Another mentor insisted that even the students with their heads down have ears that are still functional and that they, too, will acquire some target language.
Watching teachers who know how to make sure students understand, I realized that I don’t have to hit a home run every class hour. I can just keep gesturing, going slow, making it simple.
More than one teacher I observed told students, “This story is lame. Let’s make it more interesting.” They are giving students more responsibility for creating a class that works for them. It is all right for me to simply focus on the skills, and let student energy be what it is.
Classroom Management
Every single class I observed was different from my classes in one critical aspect: the climate was one of silence and listening, not of clamor and side conversations. Classroom management has been a weak point for me, and it’s absolutely essential. I have been hesitant to admit this to myself. But it’s time to face the problem and work on solutions. I admit my infatuation with cool little techniques, thinking they’ll fix things. But it’s really coming down to me and my control issues, me and my fear that my students won’t like me.
Here are three things I’ve tried since returning from my trip which have helped immensely. First, I rearranged the seating in my classroom. I had had the desks in traditional rows just because I thought that’s all that would work with the furniture and the classroom size I had. I have moved them now, so that there is a causeway down the middle of the classroom and the students are seated in two groups facing each other. They have not complained about having to turn to see the board, and now I can easily approach every student. Also, we have a runway for action in stories we’re creating. I set a table at the back end of the classroom and use it for student actors to sit on. I thought that my students might use this setup as an excuse to make faces at each other across the room, but they have not.
Next, I set up a partner rotation plan. I’ve seen this idea before, but Bryce had a new take on it for me. He provides his students with a map of South America or of Latin America. Students write a different partner’s name for each country. They keep these in their binders. Now, whenever I want to mix things up a little and have partners retell to each other or read to each other, I say “Find your Bolivian partner for the next activity.” It has been smooth, without complaints.
Finally, I instituted group incentive points with really clear target behaviors. I picked a few things that have been bothering me. For example, I get very tired of lending pencils and having students need to go back to their lockers. So the whole class can earn a point if everyone comes with a writing utensil, another point if they all have their journals. During a story, I can award a point for group responses if that’s what I’m after, or for amazing acting. Each point is worth a minute of class activity time. I will save my games, movies, and food events for when students have enough minutes to choose an activity. Again, I am surprised that no one has argued with me about my distribution of points. This is because I’m being clear about what will earn a point before we begin something. It feels much less cumbersome than I had feared. I just put tally marks on a paper on the wall for each class.
Letting Go of the Perfect Plot Line
Here’s one theme I noticed during my Colorado week, watching Ben especially. Ben is able to let go of just about any idea he’s working. He doesn’t care if the story that’s developing makes perfect sense, follows itself, wraps up all the details. I do.
I hang onto every little PQA until it is completed, by golly, whether there’s student interest or not. I keep having to find the end of every teeny minisituation. I am so invested in my own ideas. If I ask a question and don’t get the kind of response I want, I ask again. I ask leading questions. I want things to go my way in the developing story.
So I’m not open to the moment, since I’m always feeding into the next moment, which (I’m thinking in my own controlling mind) will be the one in which I emerge as a clever, clever leader of happy learners. We will all be a warm community of language learners because of my own cleverness, my own warmth. Gee, Jennie, when did you become such an icon of loving and intelligent instruction? This is my pattern.
And I see the same pattern in my students. They want their own details to be the ones chosen. They insist. They argue. And it’s because they see me modeling that very behavior. When I let go, and when I become relaxed, that will certainly facilitate their letting go. They also, my vocal students, are attempting to control the outcomes. If they don’t like pink, then they boycott pink. If they want Amsterdam instead of Paris, they refuse to go to Paris in the story.
So here are the techniques that can help me with these problems. I need to own the story, tell them it’s my story. But then I must relinquish my own control of where it goes, provided I’m repeating the structures. It doesn’t matter if it’s clever. It doesn’t matter if we finish. All that matters is that they’re listening and understanding.
When I circle, I can quit arguing about details or sweating over details. I saw Bryce do this… they were trying to figure out where someone had gone in the story. Some ideas came out, but none of them seemed a good hook. Bryce said, “Okay, I don’t know where he went. But in any case…” and went on with the story.
I can now see that I try to create beginnings, middles, and endings not just in the classroom structure, but in every little PQA. I should take Ben’s example and just drop things and move on. Not even because they’re not working, but because I see something else to do. I don’t have to invest so much in any small discussion, or continue it. I am so controlling with that, when I need to let student input steer things more. I need to not focus on trying to finish, but just to take the moment, build on student interest, and check for understanding. So what if we don’t get to the end?
I can park with a single structure until the whole class is really understanding it, instead of going on because I’m afraid they’ll be bored. And I don’t have to keep adding adjectives. My circling was going after more and more descriptors and not enough action.
Student Ownership of the Class
I’m realizing that I need to allow students to make more decisions. I can’t allow them to decide how I will manage the class. But there are lots of ways they can provide input, besides the chance to contribute to a story line. Some students really balk at oral contribution, not because they’re not understanding the language but because they think it is uncool to be invested in a fantasy. So I can give these students some of the more academic tasks. Ben has one student record the story line, and another write the quiz. I tried student quizzes this week and I think this will be a new standard for me. I have read about it, but it took seeing it work for me to be ready.
Bravery, Love and Persistence
My students and I can grow in this together as long as I am brave enough. This is tough territory, especially since administrators and colleagues, parents and students all expect to do foreign language instruction as it’s always been done. It takes bravery to do things differently, in the face of questioning and criticism. I need to love myself and my students enough to get beyond the fear that I won’t be able to “defend” my methodology. This is not a “hippie style” of teaching (yes, this is one comment I’ve heard). It is a loving and affirming way to teach that embraces students as the whole people they are, and language as the wonderful complex medium it is. Persistence is the piece that holds this all together. Faith is not necessarily based on feeling. I have to trust what I know and then hold myself to that standard. I think now that I have enough strength to persist.