Clap the Word

3 thoughts on “Clap the Word”

1. jen

   August 27, 2015 at 11:37 am

   This reminds me of something Nathaniel did last week at our peer coaching session. Not the clapping specifically, but the genuine curiosity, joy and play of the teacher in the moment, playing with the qualities of the word. Playing with sound, rhythm, and inflection in the case of Nathaniel’s lesson.
   I was a structure counter during this lesson. He worked one structure for about 10 minutes in a magical way. Before he even “started” the lesson he had at least 20 reps just from this kind word play in his inimitable Nathaniel cool and calm with a sly grin way of “tasting” the word. He’d kind of mutter the word repeatedly trying out various inflections and sounds as he walked to the board to write something, and sort of muse to himself while “muttering” the word (in this case “murió” / it died). I’m not doing it justice, because it seems like it would be weird and contrived to have a teacher stand up there just saying one word over and over, but this was a captivating lesson from the first moment. Muttering is not really the right description either. He was slow and clear in his pronunciation, but it reminded me a bit of muttering in the way you could be walking and talking to yourself to remember to do something.
   To use a structure meaning “died” and have it be fun and positive only because the teacher specifically elicited the “it died” meaning by using the question word “what” rather than “who” to avoid any potential trauma. Nathaniel was rooted in presence and tuned in immediately when a student said “disco died…” well, that was all it took.
   Anyway, I don’t mean to get off track, but the clapping of the word reminded me of the power sound resonance and quality and the energy of the teacher truly playing around a bit.

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   1. Ben Slavic

      August 27, 2015 at 1:08 pm

      Playing with the fabric and tenor and quality and sound of those words is at the core of this work. It is all just a neurological exploration of meaning and sound in a happy space where the listener/observer cannot help from being fascinated with the sound. It is a very primal thing. The reason many of us are afraid to “go there” with kind of tasting the word, exploring it gutterally and in emotional ways, thereby missing the fun that you saw Nathaniel enjoying there, is because we are all so uptight these days. We think it’s all about the mind and working and it’s all up to us and how good we are at teaching. It’s not. Communication is not about the mind. It is far more complex than that, and the words are merely vehicles for things that are much deeper. We as language teachers think it’s about the words. Krashen has shown that it is not. It’s not about explanation, it’s about exploration. And innocence. It’s a big sound sandbox, and we are afraid to play, because we no longer feel innocent.

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      1. Emeka Debyser

         August 28, 2015 at 11:18 am

         To me, clapping the word sounds like a beautiful way to be completely in the moment while teaching–feeling the language instead of thinking about it. I’m tired of thinking too hard.

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