I apologize for comparing pigs to some of the kids we have to deal with. Anyway, what do we do about these kids? Well, the first thing is to recognize them and figure out if they really pose a threat to our classrooms at the deepest level. The ones who are oppositionally defiant passive aggressive […]
What other behaviors does this oppositional student exhibit with other students during class? Those whom he can reach and bring into his orbit – if the teacher lets him – are only a few of the kids affected by kids like this. But all the kids in the class are affected. The students who want
In language classrooms based on comprensible input, the problem of non-participatory and/or oppositionally defiant students is much worse. In traditional classrooms, students can signal their inability to participate in many ways like by staring at a desk and get away with it. But in CI/TPRS classrooms they can’t do that because the teacher is required by the national proficiency guidelines
People who continue (a la TPRS) to use CI to teach word lists and other old-style curriculums perhaps aren’t thinking deeply enough about it. One person objected that they don’t have enough class time if they do as I suggest of using 15 or 20 minutes per class to teach the traditional curriculum. I counter
We’re busy but feedback is needed. I had advised a teacher to go to the book with two bad classes. Now this has happened: Hi Ben, Since I’ve stopped doing CI in a couple of my classes now due to behavior, I’ve run into further CM problems with one especially. Now the students are bored
The kids whom we are talking about in this discussion of kid pigs/jackals are very rare, and usually, as I suspect is true in other classrooms right now, it is one kid who, if allowed, brings one or two others along with him into a kind of “cell” in the classroom. If we haven’t perked up
Many of us mistakenly think that we can handle those most rare kids if we “just love them” enough. We are wrong. What I said in PQA in a Wink! about Mildred and Kyle and developing alternate personalities with them doesn’t apply to these kids. We put our careers and our sanity on the line when we rush
Just got a nice shout out for the Big CI Book on this site: https://www.spanishplayground.net/comprehensible-input-essential-ci-tools/
Using CI to teach lists of words associated with common exams is a dumb idea. Give the lists separately using part of class and test frequently on them. I have lists of words in semantic set form for this purpose from years ago: Level 1 and 2 Spanish: https://benslavic.com/Posters/spanish-thematic-units.pdf Level 1 and 2 French: https://benslavic.com/Posters/french-thematic-units.pdf
This pig/kid thing is real, rarely talked about in a clear way because the kids who oppose us in this passive aggressive and devastating fashion are so rare. But that they are rare makes their effect on our work no less devastating as we try, sometimes against hope, to teach languages using comprehensible input. I would
This is the second in an eleven part ramble: Is there a “cell of defiance” led by one single kid, a group leader of a few other kids, being built in your classroom right now or already in place? Do such uniquely and intentially troublesome kids really exist? Are the other kids victims because the teacher didn’t stop the defiance in time
