Of Trees and Forests 2

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8 thoughts on “Of Trees and Forests 2”

  1. I was looking for a good place to put this comment. I think here would be best because it’s always a struggle for me to miss the forest for the trees. What really has been bugging me about my baby steps into TPRS is what happens to student acquisition when one is NOT GOOD AT IT. I have to believe that no one does this perfectly the first time that they try it. I know that I am making tons of mistakes. I know that I am not getting enough repetitions, try as I might. So what happens then? What happens to these “guinea pig” students at the end of the year, when they move on to their Spanish classes with my colleagues?

    I am making an effort to fix discipline problems, I am battling a grade set-up that many of you have told me is bologna. I am recovering my TPRS teaching after a 2-week hiatus into the textbook. (I know, it was cowardly….but I’m trying for a comeback.) I haven’t assigned homework in days and days for any of my classes, really. Why? I’ve read all of your discussions on the uselessness of homework. But I still have homework as 25% of my grading as per department policy.

    Today, I was chatting with my supervisor and we got on the topic of grades. I cannot believe it but she actually offered this information to me without my having brought it up: she wants to have a department discussion about how we have grades set up AND she is totally in agreement with the frustration homework causes-the whole Alfie Kohn thing. I couldn’t believe it. My mouth almost dropped open. I got very excited….but then in my head, I ‘heard’ some of your ‘voices’ urging me to be cautious about how much to believe in it. I told her I had printouts of information on the topic (i.e. Alfie’s research on homework and the Interpersonal Communication Rubrics we’ve discussed, in my own words.)

    When I showed up at her office at the time we arranged to discuss it all in private, before she actually starts talks with my colleagues……..I had to leave because she had someone in her office. ::dejected face::

    I don’t know. I guess I’m just blabbing now. I just am worried that all this blood, sweat and tears work is going to amount to a mess at the end of the year. For everyone. And if my students aren’t prepared BECAUSE of my newness at this, it will be proof to everyone that receives my students that I never knew what I was doing.

    We had off yesterday due to the damage made from the sudden snowstorm 2 days ago. Many kids (and teachers, though I got lucky) have been living without power, heat, etc. for days. Hotels are booked full. Today, many kids were out. I PQA’d the following terms:

    anoche: last night
    tiene electricidad: s/he has electricity
    tiene frio: s/he is cold

    TPRS allowed me to take what was on everyone’s minds anyway and turn it into my lesson plan. I fumbled around. I failed to repeat the phrases as much as was necessary for acquisition. I made huge mistakes, I’m sure. But I managed to crack some smiles and the rooms I was in began to feel a little more lighthearted.

    …But the whole purpose of this post can be summed up in one question: Is it enough? Am I really teaching them anything? I think TPRS has one downfall: the gift of student free-speech doesn’t come until the end. Traditional teachers that have students memorize lists can at least pretend they’re doing something when they hear that rote-speech.

    Sorry for the length of this. I just needed to vent. Any suggestions are welcomed of course, as always.

    1. Thanks for putting words to what I’ve so often felt–am I failing my students because I’m not enough of a pro at this? Will my students suffer because I’m not another Susan Gross? If I’m not good enough, is it still “good enough”?

      I don’t think about this on good days, but on bad days…..

      1. Even imperfectly-delivered input on your worst days is often more comprehensible input than on any textbook day. :o) Pre-tprs it’s “answerable”input (gee I know that the answer to ¿Cómo estás? is Bien but I don’t have to know what it means) Post-tprs it’s comprensible input and interactive responses!

        with love,
        Laurie

    2. Here is a sentence built on a faulty premise:

      …if my students aren’t prepared BECAUSE of my newness at this, it will be proof to everyone that receives my students that I never knew what I was doing….

      Prepared by whose standards? By my count, Jennifer, even if you were to deliver ten minutes or less effective, meaningful and interesting comprehensible input in eachclass, still wasting the rest of the period, you would be roughly ten minutes on the plus side of how much the traditionally trained kids are getting. Those kids are not being prepared! Authentically prepared students is what CI brings and what the book and all that nonsense do NOT bring. So your students WILL BE PREPARED, as expressed beautifully by Laurie’s iceberg image. Iceberg…lettuce be confident in knowing that when we try to deliver CI, we are doing the best we can for our kids.

      I don’t mean to diss what you and Lori say, but hey, what are your options now? You know that being prepared is a relative term, and those who look prepared ARE NOT, the only truly prepared kids being the ones whose teacher at least tried to use the target language in the classroom in spite of all fears.

      That happened today to me. I doubted if I was getting through to my sugared out, end of the day, kids as I droned on and on in L2 about what they did last night. It was boring. But I remembered Laurie or someone at a conference telling me that even bad CI is better than no CI and that kept me going, keeping me droning on in spite of my own boredom. They were hearing the language.

      And, by the way, your point is making the case for the use of video on this site, to speed up everybody’s learning curve.

  2. It IS enough. One of the things that you will come to understand is that teaching with TPRS is like building an iceberg. LOTS of work happens below sea level. Your work is building there. And, because it is input, rather than learning two things will happen: 1) It will stay where you put it. 2) It will actually ATTRACT more language to it!!! I can see that you know this instinctively, but let me reassure you that it IS happening!
    with love,
    Laurie

  3. Jennifer, as for the homework 25% requirement, there are ways around this that do not entail changing the school’s policy, which you may or not be able/willing to get involved in. I believe it was the nerf gun guy (was it Skip?) who said that he answers all questions with the word wall: what’s your curriculum? The “master vocabulary list,” ditto for homework, student independent work, make-up extra work, etc. Whatever it may be, you can simply say something like: “students are expected to review the “master vocabulary list” weekly on their own and demonstrate their work through formal and informal class assessments blah blah blah.” Then apply one of the mini quizzes to the homework grade. You can also do this for the class stories, as per Ben’s weekly curriculum, which suggests handing out the reading over the weekend and having a translation test on Mon or Tue. This can easily be tweaked to go into the homework category. The point is, you probably have more flexibility within your school’s grading policy than you think, if you word it carefully enough. If administrators are going to make this into a game, we need to learn how to play it to our (and our students’) advantage.

  4. If you really get to where you feel you need a 25% homework grade, do the thematic units. Put them online. Give tests on them. It’s all explained somewhere on this site. I did it to make it look like I gave homework. But they weren’t learning anything. Just doing homework, and only about 20% of them were doing it. But it sure faked out my bosses. I don’t do it anymore.

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