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A Bit Of A Shock
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22 thoughts on “A Bit Of A Shock”
It makes sense that a story would generate a longer free write, since it’s sequential and therefore easier to recall. (Not a research-based claim, just my own feeling about it!) The conversations revolving around a theme aren’t really like that. But I don’t know if the acquisition is higher just because the free write numbers are higher.
I agree with Angie, also anecdotally. If students experience a lot of 3- or 4-paragraph long stories, they have more of that framework to write that way, too. I feel like my students’ free writes are short, but I’m happy with the content of them. They’re definitely growing. We sometimes read longer stories (3/4 paragraphs) but most of our aural/oral stuff is more free form discussions.
I agree with Angie and Diane that lots of stories increases performance in creating stories (among other good stuff). It seems we’re teaching skills that even our L1 teachers would be impressed by. For a kid to write a 100 word story in 5 minutes in L1 would be pretty good output of language and formation of ideas.
I think what often happens in early timed writes, as Eric has pointed out many times, is that kids are pulling chunks of language they’ve acquired without having acquired the actual lexical and morphemic intricacies. This is fine in my mind, to instill confidence and illustrate to kids the process we’re working on, earlier on. And I don’t think we should worry that our students may be outputting the same amount or even less in future timed writes as long as the language keeps becoming richer (ie more random and diverse).
I recently posted an entire level 2 class’ timed writes, with reflections, on my blog. This group has had stories with predetermined targets, flexible and rigid, but their overall experience has been much more free CI than targeted storyasking.
Angie and Diane…I agree…easier to recall organize, and reproduce for output purposes.
🙂
My 7th grade semester class ended yesterday and I had the kids fill out an end of semester survey of French 1, and by far they said preferred stories to anything else we did. Especially stories about themselves. My 6th graders (who only had 45 mins every other day for 9 weeks) asked if we would do more stories in 7th grade and if Spanish does stories also. We just did mini stories using stuffed animals I brought in from home and the Lady Gaga Petit Cochon, but they loved it. When I told them that the Spanish classes are more text book centered and don’t create stories like we do in French, they almost all said they were taking French (they asked, I did not volunteer info). After our first mini story this 9 weeks, I asked them how they thought they were going to learn language in my class, and a couple kids shouted out, “the fun way”! I’m still going to do 4 truths and a lie with my 8th graders today because they just finished midterms and I will only see them today and next Wednesday, so I don’t want to start a new story. I think it will be a good switch from Brandon Brown and all of the reading activities we’ve been doing. This turned into kind of a ramble. Sorry about that!
Thank you for all of your insights and ideas Ben and everyone! This PLC keeps me going and gives me inspiration when I feel like I’m falling on my face!
How about turning 4 Truths…Lie into a story?
Yes it happens often that some fact from 4TR becomes a story. But we only have 85 min. classes so there is the time problem. This whole discussion is just teaching me (again) to just go with the flow. I can’t create compelling, I can only recognize it and pounce on it.
“I can’t create compelling, I can only recognize it and pounce on it.”
Ben, I feel the same way during PQA. Scripts and stories however lend themselves towards raising the bar in compelling input.
Four lies and a truth to me seem more like a “unit” that can be repeated from time to time in order to get more personalized info from students. It can also formatively test students in the 4 skills.
I have never gotten better output than after stories. They are meaning platforms. It’s not an accident that TPRS is built around stories and not around a bunch of other random activities (not that other stuff is bad).
Chris said:
…it’s not an accident that TPRS is built around stories and not around a bunch of other random activities….
I agree. I think we all do. Then we start talking about other activities that bring more output. We have uncovered a kind of dichotomy between (more passive input) stories and (more active output) alternative strategies that bring more output from the kids but just aren’t as good.
Along those lines, Steve said below:
…my admin is happy with me [ed. note: i infer that this means when Steve does stories] but may want to push me towards more student-student interaction….
The same is true with me but it is my students who constantly, like every day, want more stories and I haven’t done a single one in any classes since mid-November. I get kids coming to me between classes, at lunch, after school harping on it. I really don’t know what to tell them.
So what to do? It’s a nice problem to have, but my interest is in getting more output than all of that lean-back-and-be-entertained input, since we have been talking about ways to increase output here for at least a year now.
What to do?
I think I know what Dr. Krashen would say. Do more stories.
Nathaniel elaborates really nicely on this quandary below.
Chris,
You bring up a valuable point. When I ask students to show me the results in the from of output the best forms of output are always based on stories. We do much more than just stories e.g. conversations, PQA, games, songs, etc. Those other things are difficult for students to put into chunks of observable output.
I am also reminded of my personal beliefs about how I use MovieTalks. I almost always select videos that have a beginning, middle, and end. This has to do with how I deliver a story and how most human beings receive it.
In a classroom I am driven by the results. I am cool with hanging out in the language but if I cannot find a tangible way for students to self reflect on what they have learned (a timed writing or oral retell) or have an artifact to show others or myself….I think I would find myself in some trouble.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
Micheal, in the district (and school) there is a strong drive towards results. So far TPRS skills have lent themselves well within my context. My admin is happy with me but may want to push me towards more student-student interaction.
Steven,
The issues with student to student interaction are the limited level of output they are able to create and the quality of input they are able to provide for each other. These are two sides of the coin: Tom’s input is Sally’s output and vice versa.
One concern is: at what point does the student-provided input become non-L2, in the sense that it is no longer of any use in creating the mental representation in the other student’s mind? Another concern is: at what point does the student’s lack of capacity force him out of L2 use and into either silence or L1?
The solution may be to focus such S-S interaction on what is already under control in the students’ “repertoire” of output. My thought is that it is like easy reading. We look for easy reading because students can do a lot of it and the more compelling CI they get the more mental representation building occurs.
My premise is that the students WILL say whatever they CAN say quickly and easily in the language. The only reason they resort to English is that they do not have the capacity to express what they want to express in L2. As Laurie would say, “If they could say it (in L2), they would say it. They don’t say it because they can’t say it.
(I admit that those students who are untrained in L2 one-word answer responses, and those whose teachers have had low expectations, and those who have what seems to be an anti L2 pride will say even say “yes” and “no” and “thanks” in L1.)
So your admin wants to see kids talking. But s/he will not be impressed to see them breaking down in L2 communication. So the logical solution would be to foster S-S interaction in easy language. But what do we do that we are not already doing? What are the compelling communicative moments that students will have? If the premise is true that they will naturally input and output with each other when they have something meaningful to express/ interpret, then what can we add to what we are doing? Will putting them in twos add something? Or is it something that will happen given sufficient time, input and interaction?
Will the admin be satisfied with the quantity and quality of the speed writes, the interaction with the class, while patiently awaiting the time for the flower to unfold?
But if there must be a showing of the pony, it might best be served by directing the attention to what the kids can do, what they can readily use and understand, rather than on what they can’t do well.
I agree with Nathaniel on this one. My mentally deficient department head is always pushing for more student-student interaction and I find myself similarly perplexed. I would suggest faking it, to an extent, by using partner retells, storyboard retells, blind retells, etc. I would basically turn to any sort of paired retell activity to get your admin of your back. If you have unannounced observations in your school, you might also consider having a crappy xeroxed dialogue to hand out to your students as an emergency option. My department head suggested that scripted paired dialogues would be a great way for students to get CI. He is an extreme case though. He could quite possibly be the dumbest human being on planet earth. Seriously…
So sorry, John! Scripted, paired dialogues! Ugh.
I see this way too much in other schools in my district. Canned dialogues in which the students barely comprehend and forced output is the result that admin pushes.
…if there must be a showing of the pony, it might best be served by directing the attention to what the kids can do, what they can readily use and understand, rather than on what they can’t do well….
Thank you for this, and the entire comment, Nathaniel. It is full of wisdom and answers/solves the entire dilemma for me. It’s all in that sentence above. Focus on what they can do with ease. That’s the answer for me. Wow! That was easy.
What form will tha
Nathaniel said:
…if there must be a showing of the pony, it might best be served by directing the attention to what the kids can do, what they can readily use and understand, rather than on what they can’t do well….
This solves it for me. Nathaniel’s entire comment solves it, but especially the sentence above. We focus on what the kids can do with ease.
What that means to me is that in the output activities like Four Truths, etc. there is always a little forced quality in the output. It doesn’t align with natural speech. As Nathaniel said, and this is another huge point he makes above:
…at what point does the student-provided input become non-L2, in the sense that it is no longer of any use in creating the mental representation in the other student’s mind?….
This sentence has helped me understand what I am really doing in Four Truths, and perhaps what we are doing in all of the interview based activities like Special Chair and Star of the Week. Without the mental representation and desire to say it, what do we have? Something akin to some level of parroting.
And we know how long it takes for natural speech to occur anyway. The research is there.
Where I find enormous quality output because the kid actually wants to say it is in the discussion of the simple novels in SSR. I hold their feet to the fire with the quick quiz; the kids know that after they read and discuss the text with me there will be a quiz every day before the second (listening CI) part of class, but when I ask an ultra simple question during the SSR discussion, I find that my students talk all over each other and have to be restrained. It’s beautiful, and ugly. There are lots of errors that are so beautiful to hear. There is speech output in SSR! I started counting words yesterday in a level 1 class because I was noticing the VOLUME of output in this SSR work and one kid said 27 words in answer to some question about Brandon’s visit to the doctor with his mother in Brandon Wants A Dog. Another kids must have said 40 words. Totally butchered, and totally comprehensible. As long as the text is way below their capacity, they can speak up a storm.
So I will return to stories now, thanks to Nathaniel’s clarifications above, and because I can’t be greedy about speech output. I am getting a ton of it in the SSR part of class that precedes the listening CI second part of class.
(I start all my classes with SSR now and will elaborate on one very effective way to give a quick quiz for maximum input later.)
There’s something special, sacred about stories. They serve as the original form of history. So when communicating with others, stories just stick because they serve a purpose and include emotion and natural repetition.
Your point above, Steven, must be said in this discussion. It is a foundational truth. Thank you for saying it. It goes back to Chris’ statement here this morning:
…it’s not an accident that TPRS is built around stories and not around a bunch of other random activities….
Chris has been a champion of stories and Blaine Ray for a long time, without wavering. Read his blog and you will learn much:
https://tprsquestionsandanswers.wordpress.com/
Excellent! I’m reading the latest post. It’s thought-provoking.