Corazón

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13 thoughts on “Corazón”

  1. So, I’m wondering, how do you put down the sword, when somebody (administration) keeps checking to make sure it’s sharpened and in use?

    Is it the best for the kids?

    Well, I have two minds on that. First, if you’re dealing with a good teacher, absolutely. (And I’m a master of creating lesson plans after the fact 🙂 )But, I have worked with teachers who never had lesson plans, and those students suffered because the teaching was hit or miss. Some students have left 8th grade with 8 years of history/social studies/theme, and still have never heard of the three branches of government! Now, that’s a different field, and perhaps we don’t have as many discrete facts we are expected to convey, but you can see the potential problem with no plans or no way of having teachers be accountable. The assumption we make is that all our colleagues are professionals who care as much as we do, and so lesson plans, curriculum maps and the like are superfluous paperwork designed to keep us busy. Until that problem has been solved, I am sure that we will have that “necessary” evil of lesson plans in our lives. The question in my mind is not, do I really need to have these things? The question in my mind is, OK, somebody is requiring me to have these things, how do I make them work with this fantastic way of teaching? Because really, TPRS is the most non-linear way of teaching I’ve ever encountered 🙂

  2. “To the man who has a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.” -Mark Twain

    As applied to traditional language teaching:

    man = traditional language teacher
    hammer = explicit grammar lessons/text book/conjugation charts/rules
    problem = 96% of language students
    nail = improper conjugation/lack of agreement in gender or number/missing accent marks (and the list goes on) (it’s quite a nail…)

    TPRS language teaching:
    “To the LANGUAGE TEACHER who has a HEART, every LANGUAGE STUDENT SOUNDS like A BEAUTIFUL BALLAD.”

  3. Jennfier about four months ago on the list I talked about our Jefferson County pacing guides. They dovetail really well with the free form that is TPRS. I hope I didn’t send the message that I don’t connect my instruction to a curriculum – I do. I worked on the vertical team since last June (!) to help create them, and as a TPRS teacher it was the best thing I could have done. Hope that is clarified. The key thing I need to say here is that just because I want to just talk to the kids in L2 doesn’t mean I don’t have a lesson plan for each class, one connected to the aforementioned pacing guides.

    Maybe what I wrote about those pacing guides is searchable on the listserve. Or at some point I could re-describe the process of exactly how I connect my lesson plans to the district mandated pacing guides. It would require pages here to explain. But the pacing guides work.

    There are other factors in this discussion: the SWBLT you choose to use on your board, the weekly schedule I live by, etc. The subject of lesson plans is a huge topic. But, no, I ain’t no hippie on lesson plans and I agree with your example of the history lesson. Districts have every right to hold us accountable for the specifics of what we teach.

    By the way, I got a real LOL on that first smily face comment. It was very funny. Hee hee.

    Wow Inga. That is very strong and I read it as extremely true, esp. the 96% thing. Nicely done and very edgy.

    Ben

  4. connect my instruction to a curriculum – I do. I worked on the vertical team since last June (!) to help create them, and as a TPRS teacher it was the best thing I could have done.

    I have looked for the result of that work on your school (district) website but the “sequencing” link doesn’t seem to work. Is that curriculum work something that could be shared here? I ask because that is exactly what we are working on at this moment.
    thanks

  5. Yes Skip and I am currently waiting for that link, for starters, from Danielle or Diana. If we can tie this thing down by sharing across districts, it would be a major step forward. But, as Diana told me, it is a massive amount of information, and we need to make sure we are clear about our intentions and goals. My interpretetation of this is that we need to find a way to fit new state and ACTFL standards into existing frameworks, but the nature of frameworks may vary from state to state (depending on how much the textbook lobby has been able to avoid the 1983 ACTRL guidelines in that state) so it becomes problematic. Let’s just see how this develops naturally – when school cranks up again we can maybe get some energy going on it. I know Danielle is working on it now in Tennessee. And then there is Robert in CA working on the three modes of communication from the national standards and how they fit into all of this, which is how we started our summer discussion in this blog space. Big stuff. Maybe too big, so we just let it ride and see where the bus goes.

  6. “we can only teach them unconsciously with our hearts.”

    Well, yes and no. You know how when you walk into a room and you feel the vibe? It is there. Sometimes it is party! Sometimes it is calm. sometimes you know that something not good just went down.

    That is the unconcious brain in our hearts picking up on what has been sent out by others unconciously (and sometimes consciously). (yeah the heart has a brain signal that goes to the brain carrying information not just about pumping blood).

    I think you can conciously teach them with your heart. You take a breath before you begin your class. My teacher takes four. We do it with her. Our brains are ready to absorb. (If a student doesn’t breathe with you trust me, they will).

    Then you start speaking. In the language of love what you targeted for the day. You have a plan–it’s just flexible to allow for your classroom to participate with you in the plan. It’s not wide open. You have to circle back to help make all the reps and to keep the ripples in the pond from fading too far from the source.

    And when you are done with the class, you take the time to thank them for their attention and presence, that you appreciated them being there with you today and allowing you to share with them what you love–conversations in a language you are all learning better– before you give the test and they rush out the door to the next teacher.

    This is teaching with the intent of heart first. The resource for those curious minds is “HeartMath.” The research is there listed out for those who need that. And don’t let the Math scare you. It is about the intensity of intentionality and how the heart percieves first, far more and faster than the brain.

  7. Thank you for the important clarification, Kate. My intent to come from loving heart space is a conscious one, but their acquisition occurs unconsciously as a result of the safe space thus created.

  8. “To the LANGUAGE TEACHER who has a HEART, every LANGUAGE STUDENT SOUNDS like A BEAUTIFUL BALLAD.”

    Inga, is this quote attributable to you? If not, to whom? I’d like to use it in an upcoming presentation.

    Thanks.

  9. Just talk to the kids. Not talk at them. Talk to them. I’m finally doing this in my middle school classes. This happens when the class gets normed and they buy in and they will communicate with you. I am relaxing more. I am starting to sincerely WANT to create a story and WANT to talk with all my students. I always did TPRS, because I know it’s the best way to acquire, but in those classes that do their 50% my motive has changed: I do TPRS, because I want to talk to my kids! I can do that in my 7th and 8th grade classes. I feel like we spend a lot of time in the Pure Land.

    As for my younger grades, I’ve decided I need to spend a lot of time on TPR. That’s what I did today in 3rd and 4th grade. We spent 30 minutes on 9 words. And it was a blast. And then I’ll start the OWI.

    In my older grades I’m mixing the CWB Questionnaire with the Special Person activity. Every day a different student sits in the hot seat and gets to be interviewed and gets a story about him/her spinned out of that PQA.

    1. Thank you, Eric, for supporting this group so much. Just talk to them. I wish it were possible with all of my classes. I am so grateful to my 12th graders, my pioneers and superstars, for showing me that it is perfectly doable with a class that has bought in. I thanked them in summer during their official farewell ceremony (more than half of the class is now in our final class to pass their A-level-exam) with these words:
      “Life is often difficult at school, and there is not one day like the other. Teachers have to cope with so many problems that it is no longer possible to just teach a language. It is the quality of the human relationship between teachers and students that counts. Real communication is necessary, not a fake one based on boring manuals.
      Thank you, class, for making my day ever so often. Thank you for comforting me when I have to struggle the class before. Thank you for calming me when I am upset. Thank you for showing me each day that it is possible to just talk to one another. Thank you for your good will, your kindness and your trust. Thank you for inspiring me. Thank you for accepting me as your teacher.”

      1. Beautiful Martin.

        I sometimes started class in L1 asking the kids for help. I’d tell them I wanted to get better at teaching but couldn’t do it without their help. I’d teach them French and they would “show” me how best to achieve that. This was with early elementary kids. May not work so well in upper school.

    1. Yes Martin and thank you for that. It is Baudelaire. Here’s the line:

      Horrible vie ! Horrible ville ! Récapitulons la journée : avoir vu plusieurs hommes de lettres, dont l’un m’a demandé si l’on pouvait aller en Russie par voie de terre (il prenait sans doute la Russie pour une île) …

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