Unlock with PatreonThe Problem with CI
To view this content, you must be a member of Ben’s Patreon at $10 or more Unlock with PatreonAlready a qualifying Patreon member? Refresh to
Carl Jung
Share:
Facebook
Twitter
Pinterest
LinkedIn
Ben Slavic
Get The Latest Updates
Subscribe to Our Mailing List
No spam, notifications only about new products, updates.
Related Posts
CI and the Research (cont.)
To view this content, you must be a member of Ben’s Patreon at $10 or more Unlock with PatreonAlready a qualifying Patreon member? Refresh to
Research Question
To view this content, you must be a member of Ben’s Patreon at $10 or more Unlock with PatreonAlready a qualifying Patreon member? Refresh to
We Have the Research
To view this content, you must be a member of Ben’s Patreon at $10 or more Unlock with PatreonAlready a qualifying Patreon member? Refresh to
5 thoughts on “Carl Jung”
Right on target as far as I am concerned, Ben. I have spent 23 years fighting against the teacher that is the hated image. I think you offer an excellent understanding of why so many teachers resist TPRS. Let’s be honest. If you show up to do CI work in your language classroom, daily you are agreeing to show up vulnerable. CI work is not a one way street. It depends on what the students in front of us bring to us and how they respond to us. We won’t know how the lesson goes until we are in the midst of it. Forget lesson plans. And too many teachers are too afraid of that kind of vulnerability. Some days, I am too afraid, too. Most days, I take a deep breath and plunge in. The results can be delightful. And, some days, the results leave me wondering: what the shit was that?
It’s just very exciting, either way.
I’m scared all the time pretty much. But it is a much different kind of fear. It is a fear like climbing a mountain. I was much more scared teaching grammar. That was really scary.
The main thing is that the results, as you say, can be delightful and are very often thus. That didn’t happen when I was using the textbook, which was more than scary – it was hellish.
Not to sound too groovy (I just got back from California), but if we can stay in the moment in front of the kids/students, rather than (unconsciously?) bring the litany of accountability, planning, evaluation etc. to our lesson, then we can avoid the fear trap.
Again, I thank my lucky stars to be working with younger kids, such that parents and admin are a lil looser about ‘outcomes.’
Sometimes there’s a great conversational vibe and spark of creativity in the air, and we can ride that wave and feel so successful. But like any conversation, anywhere, it can have lulls, awkwardness, misunderstanding, frustration. If we conduct our convo with as much humanity – love, respect, friendship as possible, hopefully the fear can be sublimated!
Alisa staying in the moment is my favorite skill. It requires heart. You describe it as I do – we do not leave the moment that has been created in the story. We do not digress. We do this to keep the comprehensible input alive. The way to make sure we do this is to:
– teach the student and not the language.
– stay on the sentence until it parallels the original story – see the conclusion of this book for details on how to do this.
– milk in extra details via circling, making sure that the details are connected to the lives of your students.
Staying in the moment may be the most challenging of all the comprehensible input skills because it involves going against so much of what we have all been taught as teachers, which is be in charge, drive the story, say the right thing at the right time, be funny, etc. The fact is that if the teacher is the one driving everything forward, there is no “space” for the kids to join in the game.
Most importantly, if the details of the story are not provided by the students, they will not be interested in the story. The instructor must create spaces via artful questioning that allow for those spaces to be filled by students’ answers that are interesting to them.
I agree with all that has been said so far. When my admins misunderstand what I do and the rationale behind it, as they often do, my latest key phrase is “collaboration between pupils and the teacher to create a problem-solving narrative that is driven by pupil ideas and characters.” My admins often misunderstand that as well because it is so different from the traditional hierarchy in a British classroom but at least it can start a conversation.
In my eyes, TPRS/CI is a path that actually leads towards what schools claim to have as their goals and purpose for existence and that scares folk. Getting what we want is a scary experience for many people because all of a sudden we don’t have a plan or target to aim for anymore. We get the shiny trophy…then what? I find that so interesting.
As for being fearless in the classroom, I believe that just trying TPRS is building fearlessness. Slowly becoming more ok with the fact that some classes will soar and others will crash and burn (like Bob’s well-put “What the shit was that?”) is to be developing fearlessness. Coming to class ready to try CI is the victory, not having amazing classes where kids acquire every word we say. In my opinion, anyway.