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Coo-Coo
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5 thoughts on “Coo-Coo”
well, it was a poo-poo kind of day for me today with one of my classes! I am reading them a novella right now, and gave them a pre- and post-test on vocabulary in context the other day (not a “test” but a formative assessment for me) It was sentences from the story and they had pre-test what they thought the underlined words were in the sentences (which were from the book) I then had them read the chapter the sentences came out of and asked them to know try to figure out the words from the whole context of the chapter (words we have been using ALL year!) we then went through it and I verified the “real” meaning in context. most were great with it! then I gave them a “cloze” test with a paragraph from the chapter we read, with 4 (FOUR!) verbs in the third-person. I had one student get only 4 out of 15 correct! he is a freshman, and constantly finds fault whenever he does not understand something – it’s always my fault! “where’s our textbook? why can’t we take it home?” (I provide them with vocab lists from the text, per his request) “I thought our quiz was on other verbs, you didn’t tell us which ones it was, I would’ve studied the right list!” “we’re all over the place, I never know what we’re studying” “these stories are so stupid, how can I understand them, they don’t make sense! why would an elephant eat lunch with a fish???” then in regard to the cloze test: “why don’t you give us better tests? why not a reading and see if we can understand it? ask us questions about it?” I told him I do give him tests like that, but that this is another form of a comprehension test. “well, I don’t know how sentences are made up, so I don’t where to put those words!!” (after I went over it on the board.)
then my next block of students did a GREAT job on the same quiz. and you know what I realized? the first block only has 4 students in it that have been with me since September. the second block? only has 4 students that have NOT been with me since September!!!! so, most of this semester with the first block was trying to indoctrinate them to this new “way” of acquiring a language, and they kept resisting and sucked the life out of me and the rest of the class. my second block? they LOVED it and couldn’t get enough stories out of me!! I am also so much further ahead with the second block – i’m now ready to coast for the next two weeks with THEM, but with block 1 I am still stressing over lesson plans for the next two weeks, and a test EVERY day because they just won’t “jump on board”. (a senior I have in that class came in after school today and told me he is amazed at my patience with “those kids.” hahaha!!!
thanks for listening to me rant! had to get it out before going to bed!
This reveals so much. We must norm our classes ourselves as soon as we can. If we can’t, bc they didn’t start out with us first, and they say stuff like that kid said to you, who is hearing it at the dinner table from his parents, we must be poised and ready to either respond or ignore, depending on the situation.
I know that the topic of being confronted about the method has been discussed at length here over the years. But I don’t know where to find the posts that address that. Maybe the TPRS vs. Traditional category or the one on Administrator/Teacher/Parent Re-education.
I will write out the senteneces from that kid below. Anyone with a nice calm and succinct response, pls. write it below. We all need to be ready and know how to response to such unfathomable rudeness.
Were it a unique child, that would be one thing. But it’s not. We all have to deal with this to some extent. So here are the sentences that MB wrote, and, by the way MB either Bryce or I will be meeting you at the airport after all. We are working on setting that up for those who arrive on Sunday for the iFLT conference.
• “Where’s our textbook? Why can’t we take it home?”
• “I thought our quiz was on other verbs, you didn’t tell us which ones it was, I would’ve studied the right list!”
• “We’re all over the place, I never know what we’re studying”
• “These stories are so stupid, how can I understand them, they don’t make sense! why would an elephant eat lunch with a fish???”
• “Why don’t you give us better tests? Why not a reading and see if we can understand it? Ask us questions about it?”
Again, what I am looking for here are succinct clear answers that a kid like this, bless his heart, can understand. If you read them carefully, they are works of art in terms of their levels of aggression (from a child!) and ignorance. I honestly can’t think of any good zingers so maybe someone else can.
As I read these questions, I seem to hear one of my students, who always wants to know “what’s going to be on the test” so he can memorize things. Perhaps one response to such students is that when you have a conversation with someone, whatever the language, no one tells you ahead of time what vocabulary they’ll be using. That you don’t prepare for such a conversation by memorizing lists. Communicating in a foreign language is being able to catch whatever they throw at you and make some kind of sense out of it. Which is why it’s necessary to be “all over the place.” I think there’s even some justification to the “stupid stories” in that. You don’t expect an elephant to be dining with a fish, so you can’t just guess that “poisson” means fish. The bizarre aspect of the stories helps students to retain words, because the image of an elephant dining with a fish is memorable, but also it obliges the students to construct meanings that are not predictable.
Today’s update: yesterday I went to Guidance about that boy and requested a meeting with his mother – afterschool Tuesday. His counselor is totally with me!
TODAY in class: I had them review their notebooks about what we “covered” this year and I wrote it all down on the board. One kid, who has not done ANYTHING all semester, but has been attentive (not doing anything = no class assignments, no tests, no projects – NADA!!!! and Mom will not respond to ANY teacher!) But, anyway, he said today (and he IS gifted I think – just not identified as such because he won’t do anything to show it!!!) “WOW. We learned a LOT this semester!!! You know, as we were going through the semester I didn’t think that I was learning anything. Now, we’re reading this book, and I am not saying this to kiss butt -REALLY!- but I am shocked and amazed that I can UNDERSTAND this book!!!! I mean, seriously, I never in a hundred years would have thought that I would be able to read a BOOK in a FOREIGN language!!! You are such a great teacher!!!”
–GO FIGURE!
Ain’t it. This is a cautionary tale. We can’t let these children and their parents get to us. We follow our stars. We are fully aligned with the research. What’s not to love?