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An Army Apart
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13 thoughts on “An Army Apart”
I thought you had misunderstood me when I wrote “I’m lost” but after reading this, now I’m not so sure. You’ve painted such a vivid picture with the battlefield analogy.
Jennifer,
I am right there with you. I feel really lost too. The feeling gives me so much anxiety – too much anxiety. I just want to know where I am going with this in my classes. I feel pretty good about it with my French I’s and OK with my French II’s. It’s my III’s and IV’s that I am so lost that I cannot see in front of me. They are not where they need to be having had 2 and 3 years of crappy CI. I’ve had them their whole careers so I can vouch for its crappy implementation. If I had someone else’s plan to follow (someone that has had proven success) I would feel much better about my situation. I know that really good CI doesn’t need a plan, but my personality does; and right now the anxiety is killing me. Thanks for letting me vent and thanks for the support.
Andrea Westphal
Hey Andrea and Jennifer…
I actually find that I do need a plan for good CI if my kids are dragging/lagging. It’s hard to know what to do with them, and I’ve got a similar issue right now in my intermediate class, where I have some really weak level four kids who can read pretty well but are lazy, and some brand new level 2 SpEd kids, mixed with the rest of the level 1/2/3 students. Teaching them all so that they can all acquire is challenging!
Here is my plan.
First, I pick a text I want to read with those kids, any text. In the first two paragraphs, I pick out any structures I think might give them trouble. I might do a pre-test on these, TL to L1, or the other way around. I might even ask them to translate the first paragraphs as best as possible, to find out what they know and don’t know. They don’t get any dictionaries or help from friends. (If you do this, save the pre-test, because it will be illuminating to compare it with a post-test.)
Then I start working with the high-frequency structures, two or three at a time. I use Anne Matava stories or some that the kids and I create (because these HF words will be everywhere). Good stories will entertain everyone, at every level. I go super slowly, asking the superstars to re-tell, to put into other tenses, to tell from other perspectives. I also might do a parallel text with the kids by asking them the basic structure of the text I want to read. I did this recently when I wanted my class to read a Soviet text about the Moscow Metro; the students came up with a text on flying car stations. Doing that on a regular basis lets those doubting upper-level kids realize that I am getting to their “higher level” texts, even the ones in their textbook. They feel more secure that they are learning something, and I can be more secure that they will actually acquire something.
Once I’ve worked through all the structures, and they’ve read the class story/stories, I take a look at the original text. Can they read it yet? If it’s still going to be challenging, I create an embedded reading with it. (Note that this is the first real on-your-own “teacher work” I have to do…I could have typed up the class story/stories with them as dictation on class time and created the pre-test just by glancing at the text and jotting the words on the board as class started.)
Making an embedded reading means typing out the paragraphs in question, then copying them and deleting one-third of the details in successive versions so that I am down to the bare bones of the text. I read that first version with them, comparing it to the class story and everything else I would do with a text. They need to draw it, to act it, so that I am sure they have the same picture in their heads. Then I can proceed to the next version and repeat. Finally, I read the actual text with them. They think it’s easy. I give them a quiz (see Martina Bex on her four-level quiz, unless they simply translate again) and repeat the whole process with the next section of text. This could mean that two paragraphs might take me two weeks in class, but I have a complete plan now.
I find that if I have truly picked high-frequency structures in a text, the structures will show up often in songs and children’s poems, in news reports and fashion stories. They might not show up as often in a textbook…anyway, what I’m trying to say is that I can continue to do the other typical things my classroom enjoys: sing a song, learn a poem, talk about school and local events, and those structures will come up. I needn’t make any changes to the rest of my routine.
There are many more things I can do to “stretch out” the activities and have more CI with just two or three structures. (Go to my blog, click on “MJ’s TPRS collection” in the right sidebar, search for “Vera’s weekly sequence,” and that will give you more ideas if you need them.) I am currently on my fourth lesson with my adult class with the single structure, “He has a problem,” so I can tell you that any structure can go forever, generating new stories and activities.
Michele, Thank you so much for clarifying “embedded reading” here. I always just type up the entire story (from what my story writer jots down in class) and then give it to them to read and translate. Doing it in small steps I guess takes more time but ensures that everyone will understand. Love it.
Thank you so much for your response Michele. I am always wanting to know how everyone else gets CI to work for them. Thanks again!
Hugs to you two ladies, and anyone else in your situation. Remember, even if you had a plan, you could only go forward one step at a time. What you would actually do, with or without a plan, is exactly the same. Take one step/class/day at a time.
So just keep doing that. Pasito a pasito.
with love,
Laurie
Thanks Laurie.
Thank you Laurie!
Hi Laurie,
Hope you had time to rest from your travels and that all is well back to school.
I can’t remember where you want us to send you our stories that could be embedded . Is there a place on your website or did you want them in a private email and then you place them wherever they need to be?
All is well!! Glad you got back home safely as well!!! Send them to me at lclarcq@rochester.rr.com or post as a comment on the site…either way I’ll get them!!
I am overwhelmed with ideas for my classes and don’t have enough time!! So good to see everyone this weekend!
with love,
Laurie
Thanks for this post! I’m feeling really overwhelmed and I’ve lost some of my motivation right now, but I read this blog daily and it reminds me to keep going strong with CI. I’m a one woman foreign language department and sometimes I think it would be so easy to go back and teach the old way, but I refuse. When I listen to my many awesome students talk to each other in Spanish just because they want to, and they actually make sense, I’m reminded why I teach this way. Before they may have been quizzing each other on verb conjugations. Ugh! I have to remember to focus on those students and not the few bad ones that I have. Just writing this gives me a little motivation that I need to go through my day today.
Thank you again,
Kristen
This is definitely resonating with me as well after my lessons today! Thanks for the analogy Ben!
Ben, thanks for re-posting this and other previous threads. It is helpful to be reminded of so many things.
Currently I am not having a tough time but enjoying my students immensely. Today one of my students did an excellent job of throwing herself on the floor and having a tantrum. (It was part of the script from an Anne Matava story.) Originally she was playing a different role, but the guy who was supposed to have the tantrum was too inhibited, so she asked, “Can I do it?” And she did.
In my 3/4/AP class we spent the period looking at German linguistic history: dialects, Grimm’s Law, sound shifts, etc. – all in German. And this was because the students asked for it. Total engagement. I’m amazed by them.
In first year we generated a nice story from “spielt” (plays – which we have been working on for about three weeks now) and “möchte” (would like). In one class one volleyball player went from Mars to the moon to play volleyball with her friend, rejecting Kobe Bryant and Venus Williams as partners along the way. In the other class it was two basketball players who finally got together, much to Beyonce’s chagrin. We also made clear to everyone that one of the guys is “Amar” and not “Omar”. (There was some confusion about that.)
My student teacher is doing well and totally on board with comprehensible input teaching. We get to talk about the why of what I do, and she says it makes total sense to her.
Other students from the local university have come by to observe and are totally blown away by the degree of engagement and amount of German flowing around the room.
I’m helping gather the troops for the charge.
Using another metaphor, I was struck today by how the inside of a comprehensible input classroom is bigger than the outside. (Read “The Last Battle” by CS Lewis for the reference.) Some of our colleagues are like the dwarves who refuse to accept reality; they don’t want to be “taken in” and so cannot be “taken out” of their pigsty. But for those who have experienced the Pure Land (to use an old term of Ben’s), the cry is “Farther in and higher up!” And the inside keeps expanding.