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Speech Output
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10 thoughts on “Speech Output”
Great eye opener!
How does this relate to free writes? Do we just assign them and accept whatever we get? Just be encouraging? And when they have to write for a (forced from above) midterm or final? It leaves a bad taste in my mouth to be forced to give these exams, and then have to force the kids to write. (Our exams have to be 90 minutes of reading and writing. My early level exams are mostly reading, but man, are they exhausting!) But I’m straying from the point…
As always, thanks so much for sharing your experience and expertise.
Hey Kelly. I don’t know. Maybe someone else has an idea. Your description of being forced to grade kids on writing resonates with me. Writing is truly way up the taxonomy in the acquisition of language – it implies that the root of understanding of sound and syntax and structure and attention to little things like accents has it’s base in a sound and strong root that has spent a lot of time being watered in heavily composted CI soil, but when does that happen? After 1000 hours? 2000? More? Forcing kids to write too early is as crazy as forcing them to speak too early, and it’s a good way to break down a kid’s confidence. When we start pointing out that their spelling sucks and that they can’t even locate a direct object in a sentence, let alone get the form of the object right, their hope in themselves as language learners diminishes. Natural emergence of writing, I would imagine, would require just thousands of hours of reading. Unless we want to twist it into a conscious analytical process. That is the idea behind free writes, isn’t it? To avoid the dismal conscious analytical discussions of grammar in L1 and instead make writing kind of an unconscious sound flow process, just letting the sounds flow through onto the paper and then, over the years, via much reading (the best CI soil for writing), the grammar then self corrects in a slow and natural way. I know, it’s heresy. But it makes a lot of sense to me. On these exams, can you maybe spin some aural CI out of a properly leveled reading and go back and forth from different parts of their brains – from reading to aural input – and keep things varied and interesting for them that way, and somehow avoid the writing, or as you say, just be encouraging and rubrically assess what they write as a minimal part of the exam?
I only use two “official” free writes. One at the very beginning of the year. I tell them this is the hardest thing I’m going to ask them to do all year. to be patient with themselves, if they get more than 15 words (actually i am hoping for 30) I will be thrilled. of course, almost all of them score over 15 so they are thrilled for real.
at the end of the year, i have them turn to the back of the cahier. they have long since forgotten about that first traumatic (smile) exercise. they are AMAZED at what they can write that last class! I , am not, I know how powerful this TPRS is! I’ve not had a student yet who isn’t impressed !
during the year, i provide lists (chunking) and they work in partners/by themselves to produce as many sentences as they can, i have them do lots of exercises where they must respond in full sentences (mostly either or questions) anyway, they have lots of practice. i just don’t ever grade them aside from a passing thought about who is doing really well.
i like what susan says about sucess being a motivator…..it’s important i think. output is really difficult
Lynn, I like this idea a lot. I had decided this year that I would not require Spanish 1 students to write a single word, except for the rare silly writing activity with their partners. They have no notebooks in my class for first year either. I will keep it this way, I think, but I think I’ll try the timed writes the way you describe above, one early, one at the end. Maybe I’ll make them optional though. I mean, if there’s only two, they might be itching to show me what they can write. And if they want to continue with the language, their gains would be cool to see in a couple years (extra push to do it). Just don’t want to squash that sprout.
On another note, I used a pretty cool tool to translate that French from Ben’s post. http://www.oddcast.com/home/demos/tts/tts_tran_example.php?clients
Kind of freaky how well it works (not perfect, but well).
Well, I’m a little nervous about being the lone dissenter here… After two years of not requiring much output (my first two in high school), I’m doing much more of it this year with both Spanish 1 and 2. We only offer two years of Spanish, so perhaps my situation is different. My students need to be able to do some output by the time they leave my class–after all, they believe they are taking it to learn to “speak” Spanish. Many of my students did not feel good about their ability to speak when I wasn’t emphasizing that skill. I began to think that delaying output may actually make it MORE stressful. Instead, now I help them take baby steps all the way along and output is seen as a natural part of learning the language.
I think the key is how we evaluate that output. As long as they make an effort to communicate in Spanish, they cannot fail my speaking and writing tests. Most students achieve A’s and B’s. The first part of my rubric evaluate whether a native speaker would understand what they were talking about–they almost always get a perfect score on that element. I think it encourages my beginners to know that they can really communicate in Spanish. I’m still fine-tuning how I do my grading, but am convinced that output can be required in a gentle, affirming way that encourages, rather than discourages language learning.
Rita you are far from alone on this, even in the CI community. I am alone on it. And the only reason for that is that my path has taken me to this realization. I just don’t think kids can produce any speaking or writing of any substance if forced. It’s not right or wrong it’s what I personally believe. 100 hours or thereabouts is just not, in my view, going to lead to any output that’s worth a shit. In my view, it’s like trying to build a 5000 square foot home out of 50 bricks. I have been doing this for 34 years, and the only time I have seen any spontaneous, real, nice sounding French is when the kids have decided to say it, not when I have decided that they should learn it or sit there with a pencil and a rubric and evaluate them. That is because it is my firm personal belief that people learn languages unconsciously and that the mind of a person is not somewhere I need to go meddling around in to try to pull certain things that I want out of it. That said, I firmly believe that what you say is true as well. It’s all true. I feel so sad when people imply, as some have, that I am trying to get others to do things the way I think. It only sounds that way because I am so passionate about what I have learned from Krashen. This blog is my sounding board, where I come to put my thoughts about my work on paper so that I can process them and get better at what I do. That’s it. I often want to shut it down and start a private journal but people have told me it helps them so I keep it rolling here. Another thing, I don’t think that I can attach my instruction to grading. Not in languages. I’m done with grading kids. Do we grade babies when they learn how to talk? I grade my kids to the extent necessary to satisfy the requirements of my job. I didn’t become a teacher to grade. The kids hate it and so do I. We just want to play with sound. Honestly, that’s all we want to do. Those of us who haven’t been too injured, at least, right?
I agree that you should keep the blog going as your sounding board and I appreciate the respectful way you let others weigh in. There is wisdom in a group that is greater than that of the individual, so these kinds of forums are very valuable.
I taught Spanish in 1-8 for 20 years and didn’t grade the 1st-5th graders at all. I had to push back when home room teachers asked for grades, as it seemed ridiculous to put a letter or number on a little child’s first dabblings in a language. So you and I are not so far apart. I’m working to find a way to make grades meaningful, fair and motivating now that I’m in high school. Maybe it doesn’t exist, but I’m not done trying yet. I appreciate reading your thoughts–they make me keep seeking a better balance.
Ben, your response to Rita is very beautiful to me. I wholeheartedly share your views about output and the futility of grading the brain. I might be able to grade study habits, but not the acquisition of language. To me, it is wrong. I appreciate your humility and your honesty.
I have come to believe that early forced output may truly get in the way of acquisition–that when the student begins to search their brain for schema, translating from native language to target language (often imposing first language grammar, syntax, etc.), it makes the brain negate the process of acquisition–actually training the brain to do it “wrong”, practicing it wrong.
When I see automaticity of speech (falling out of the mouth) and easy, swift translation from target language to English, I know that something very different is happening–something nice sounding, healthy, painless, affirming.
That automaticity comes from repetitive, compelling comprehensible input–not early output. I feel that something different may happen at higher intermediate levels of language when most of the infrastructure is in place. Then, it seems, that output may start to play some kind of role in the acquisition process–probably as Krashen has suggested: output becomes a tool used by the student to encourage people to speak the target language to the student thereby providing the student with more comprehensible input–again, not really the agent, just the outcome. Friday night ramble.
I just read the twitter article you referenced in the blog post above. Not impressed. Gimmicky to me. Same thing-early output-practicing it wrong (my opinion)–just high tech. Who cares? I guess the students do–in which case I imagine it’s ok, but it’s still a gimmick. Don’t like it for beginners. Just me.
I guess for me, the relative worth of early output depends on what you define as output.
Does output mean that I am asking my German I and II students to speak with the understanding that their output will end up in the gradebook? You are looking at survival language at that point for most everybody but the showoffs.
But at times when I’m teaching and the class attention gets rather mushy, even with regular quizzes at the end of class, I pivot and ask them to do a quick retell based on the words on the board at that moment. I don’t kid myself that this output is contributing mightily to their language development, but it does contribute mightily to their attention they give to the input they are receiving, which does help their language development.
If I am staying in bounds and sticking closely to the hurricane rods of my target phrases on the board, they are able to do this because I’m leaving easily accessible resources for them to recombine. Do some kids fudge their retells and try and run out the clock rather than retell? Of course, but I notice that my barometer students rarely play that game and even enjoy the ability to flex their wings a bit.
I generally start freewrites towards the end of the first year, and do it once or twice a month thereafter. I need that output to let me know where they are and to let them know where they are. But if I do it in the spirit of “OK, you guys are good enough that you’re ready for the next level” my kids have risen wonderfully to the challenge. Is that attitude naturally occuring? Of course not; I’ve been pumping them up since day 1 of German I, pointing out how good they are getting, and the attitude of “bring it on” develops only over time. But my current German IIs love doing freewrites because they know they can do it. They have succeeded so often at it, that their confidence is self-sustaining based on their past success, rather than just my cheerleading.
So, to sum up my ramble, I’d come down on the issue with the position that while output can definitely be overdone too early, I need an “output club” in my golf bag. Because I teach in a public school, take-all-comers environment, I need to prod as well as entice. I won’t force graded output down people’s throats too early, but challenges are necessary to both manage a classroom and manage growth. Early output may not serve major linguistic ends, but it does serve a social purpose. Good enough for me.
Jody, I agree, but the comment that got my attention was the part about personalization. The teacher probably thinks it’s the output practice when really it’s the fact that the tweets are tuned to the individuals.
And Nathan, I agree too!