Such a big discussion we have been having this year so far on blurting! I would like to continue it with an untested suggestion.
I have a tripod in my classroom with big paper on it:
In addition to preventing my kids from saying one word of English during CI discussion, I am going to try to stop asking for time outs. The CI will be rolling along and then all of a sudden I get a cool idea and ask the timer for a time out and then it just unravels from there. All I have to do is write the cool idea on the tripod pad of paper and get back to the CI without any break in it.
Can’t wait to try it out. Anybody who wants to try it with my and report back here is welcome to do so.
My original goal was to keep the timeouts short during the 30 min. that I have set for a goal for all my classes (then they get a break), but I can’t keep them short. So it is just as much my fault as it is theirs that we go off the tracks.
To be clear, during the CI the kids are allowed to speak English in response to the questions:
What does___ mean?
What did I just say?
But that is all.
This discussion about blurting is the most important discussion of all with no exceptions. Why do all this work to learn how to teach like this and then have some kid ruin it all by blurting? One blurt is as bad as a thousand if you think about it because it invites more. My new motto is, “Stop the first blurt and you stop them all.”