Unlock with PatreonThe Problem with CI
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Anne Matava
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7 thoughts on “Anne Matava”
Just a quick correction: in the final paragraph, everything should be underlined after the sentence in which the panda bear starts to eat Ben.
I think the end of stories should be left wide open for the students.
Ben, you have suggested several times that stories should be done in the past tense and the reading in the present. Do you say that because you teach French? I teach EFL and I can’t see any reason why I shouldn’t do the story in the present and read in the past. Actually it seems more natural to me to stay in the present while we create the story like a film crew / script writers, and look back to it afterwards. Not to mention the fact that using the past or the present seems almost entirely arbitrary. While concentrating on meaning, students don’t seem to distinguish between the two. (I am of course talking about beginners for whom the distinction has not crystallised yet.)
I go back and forth with this. And sometimes, if I tell a story in the present, I will write it in the present. Likewise sometimes, if I tell it in the past, I will write in the past. I have no set method for this, because as you said, it seems “arbitrary” sometimes to me.
If I have actors up and acting out the story, it seems incredibly arbitrary and discordant to be telling the story in the past, so I usually tell the story in the present. Then I review what happened in the past and write the story either in the past or the present. At some point I will probably write a story or two in the future.
I have no hard data or statistics on effectiveness, but so far it seems to be working for my German students with not too much confusion about tenses. Of course, when they read the story they almost always read in the past tense, no matter what I write. So, writing in the past but narrating in the present seems the most “natural” to me. (One time when I started getting insistent on reading in the present, the class actually said, “Yeah, yeah, we know – but it sounds better in the past when we read.”)
I wonder whether anyone else has this happening: the more advanced they are, the more my kids are telling stories that go from past to present in the same story. Yesterday we had a story about a wizard who said something to make a tree fall down, and there was an argument and the kids had this: “Marie says that the wizard said X, but she’s not right! Megan says that he said Y, and she was in the house with the wizard, so she’s right.” The kids will almost always translate all the reading into the past, and that gives me a chance to say, “says, or said?” and then they pick the right one. I actually like the fact that they’re making that mistake. It makes it easier to repeat the question and compare the grammar often.
Botond when I have a Matava script in front of me, which basically guarantees me and my students a free ride into a fun story, I may hit the PQA really hard for a large part or maybe even all of that class period. Said PQA is done in the present tense, generally. So that’s a lot of present tense dialogue between me and my students.
Then, if we were to start the story also in the present tense, and crank out another hour of CI in the present, that would be a ton of Step 1 and Step 2 CI in the present tense.
Then, were we to do the reading of the story in the past tense, with spin off discussions in the present tense (PQA and spinoffs are generally in the present tense), then it would be only during the time spent reading when our kids would be processing in the past tense, and that processing would be visual only.
To review that scenario: the students then wouldn’t hear the past tense during that time doing Step 1 PQA. They wouldn’t hear it during the Step 2 story, if the story were asked in the present tense. Nor would they hear the past tense during the Step 3 reading class, unless maybe by chance one of the spin off discussions went in that direction, which isn’t likely. So, in order to make sure the kids hear a good blend of all three tenses, in terms of time distribution/exposure to the sounds of the past tense forms, I ask the stories in the past tense.
Now, that is one answer. Answer #2 is: Susan Gross told me to do it that way. That’s the simple answer. Susan has always guided me accurately through the tough decisions and the confusing stuff about TPRS, and she is clear on the use of the past tense in stories.
I don’t have to think about this question any more, personally. Watching my kids this year handle level two CI discussion after a year of hearing stories in the past tense forms, seeing their strength in these tenses, has me convinced that, for me, it works best for me if I ask the stories in the past.
We also talked about this in summer of 2009. Here are two links to that discussion:
https://benslavic.com/blog/?p=3530
https://benslavic.com/blog/?p=1099
Von Ray said once that he does the oral stories in the past and the readings in the present because the students need so much repetition in the past. Past is more complicated in Spanish than English. So maybe in English it is better to just go with what sounds natural… I haven’t done as many stories as pqa so I’m more often in the present.