Below is the first of four blogs that were posted originally on FL Teach by Amber Sullivan, and brought to this blog by Byron Despresberry. I think that they are very very very important in the overall discussion about comprehensible input methods. Recently, Susan Gross told me that there are teachers who do a lot of planning, fun activities, interesting exercises, all geared to the development in their students of the various skills associated with learning a language – we seem to be calling them eclectic. The problem that Susan pointed out is that such eclectic activities are still mainly output activities and output doesn’t lead to output, input does. Amber’s thoughts below, then, along with responses by two very experienced TPRS teachers, Byron Despresberry and Matt Jadlocki, describe what is in my mind at the core of the entire discussion about what best practices in foreign language instruction means. To me, these blogs from Amber are a really big deal – they help us see some true things about eclectic teaching.
Dear listeros…
I am wondering if any of you are teaching for acquisition that meet the following conditions:
– in a public school with normal set of students (wide range of abilities)
– both lower and upper levels
– spending the majority of your instructional time in the target language
– not doing TPRS (no, I do not have anything against TPRS – it’s just not something I can implement right now)
– both lower and upper levels
– spending the majority of your instructional time in the target language
– not doing TPRS (no, I do not have anything against TPRS – it’s just not something I can implement right now)
I am looking to really push myself next year with my instruction (particularly at lower levels), but would really like to speak with someone who is conducting a class as such.
Mainly, I feel that my students (particulary at lower level) are doing more of “memorizing rules” than they are of acquiring language. Something is coming up short in my activities…. and I think that the issue on my behalf is the amount of instructional time spent in the TL. I do little of that at lower levels compared to the uppers.
Looking for some ideas and good conversation…
Thanks!
-Amber Sullivan
(L’Anse Creuse High School/Michigan)
(L’Anse Creuse High School/Michigan)
[ed. note – I would like to repeat this part of the above:
“…I feel that my students (particulary at lower level) are doing more of “memorizing rules” than they are of acquiring language. Something is coming up short in my activities…”.
I feel a lot of truth in those words. Students do activity after activity, but, somehow, at the end of the year, they really can’t do much as a result of those activities, even though they were really well conceived, not to mention the result of a lot of planning and hard work]