Greg was unable to post this as a comment so here it is as a post:
(First, forgive my ramblings – if I edited myself as much as I want to I would never post anything on the PLC. One of my new year resolutions is to edit myself less and just speak my mind…)
So I think I’m going to just go laboriously slow (in my mind) for the rest of the year. I’m guilty already of trying to get the three structures “covered” so we can get to making the story. I’ve even been writing them all on the board to start with, but no more of that. From now on the only thing that will be on the board on the first day of starting a new story will be one structure. And that will be the only thing on the board until it has been repeated 100 times. Glad I’m reading this before jumping into another story and drowning my kids and myself.
In a related key, I wanted to comment on this issue of “covering” curriculum which is THE THING (besides shortening attention spans, uncaring teachers, what Ben calls “cyborg” children, etc., etc.) that is ruining schools today. I’ve been thinking a lot about this ever since having my eyes opened to the simplicity of TPRS/CI and doing away with the bustle of silly activities/lessons/worksheets/lesson plans.
To be more specific, I think that SLOW and ACQUISITION can potentially apply to all subjects in school. I took so many classes in high school and college where we just FLEW threw everything. I noticed this especially in English, history, and other humanities classes. In these classes, which usually had mile-long syllabii, I usually had the feeling that I wasn’t really learning anything. To delve deep into one piece of literature and explore the world of its author, time period, events that influenced the author, etc. to the extent that I usually wanted to was not possible because I had to keep up with the syllabus. Maybe I’m an exception, but I remember little to nothing about this material I flew through -except for maybe which authors I remember liking/disliking. Now that I’m not constrained by “finishing the assignment” I often go back and read works from college and enjoy taking my time to peruse them with all the time in the world to reflect and appreciate the beauty I couldn’t fully appreciate in college.
Is this “coverage” not the thing that has made school a depressing drudgery for most American kids today? Looking back it’s THE thing that made me become unenthused with school, except for a few brilliant teachers I had who rebelled against the system. Why does a kid have to read a book in English class or study an event in history? Because there’s an assignment due on it or a test coming up which will test what they’re SUPPOSED TO have gotten out of it. Or, if the curriculum or teacher is more new-agey, maybe the kid just has to keep a reading journal and expound on a key quote they select from each page (a lot of English teachers at my school require these). Which sounds good, until these reading journals are GRADED! Furthermore, what if what I read inspires me to paint a picture, or compose a piece of music, or start an event in my community, or finally have a hard conversation with someone which I’ve been putting off, or just fills me with joy, or helps me process something that happened in my life? Or what if I just want to discuss the book I’ve read and not have to do some silly assignment where I’m REQUIRED to find a certain number of quotes and explain what they mean to me personally? Or worse, study the book because it’s going to show up on the end of grade test. I guess the problem largely has to do with grading (?). I.e., the teacher has to (because it’s school) have something concrete to base a grade on for the grade book.
But I think what we’re doing with TPRS/CI really will bring a good, caring teaching (back?) into not only language classes, but to education as a whole. To corellate this all with one of our terms, what if teachers across the board were freed to really focus on acquisition and not coverage? (by doing away with testing?) What if an English teacher was free to read a good novel with one of her classes and not have to require busy-work like projects and papers which 90% of kids just B.S. and do the night before anyway? Just take time to read a book and discuss it in class without rushing. No lesson on each chapter. No “what literary device is the author using here” kind of questions. Just talking about what resonates with the kids from what they read. Whoever wants to talk can talk (no forced output…some kids learn a lot just from listening to their classmates talk…I know I always did).
One more thing (almost done here): One thing I would imagine a lot of “teachers” objecting to with all this is that if there is no concrete assignment, some kids won’t “get” the material. Which brings me to another cool component of what we’re doing in language classes: Krashen’s natural order. Let’s say an English teacher is teaching Shakespeare’s Macbeth. I do think that the teacher could have a role in clarifying the language or background information to help the text come alive for students (Just like we have to ensure EVERYTHING is comprehensible and go slow). But, let’s say a teacher wants to teach something about one of the character’s motivations. If I’m a kid in that class who has never experienced even a hint of what the character is going through, I am probably not going to be able to acquire or internalize that character’s point of view, no matter how good my imagination is. And doing a project on said character is not going to make it happen either. But if I come back to Macbeth later in life after I’ve had more life experience, I might be able to sympathize right away with that character. That is, I don’t learn something because my teacher or the state has decided it’s time for me to learn it. I learn something because I’m ready to learn it.
So, why not spread what we’re doing to other subjects in school? Do away with the idea that every single kid must learn X, Y, and Z at the same time and through the same routes.
Does any of this make sense? Forgive my ramblings, but just thinking out loud here about how what we on the PLC are doing every day in our classrooms has way more impact-potential than just foreign language teaching. We are bringing life and humanity and beauty into schools (I’m a romantic…) as we learn to forget about “covering” the beloved curriculum because coverage never has and never will equate to real learning (acquisition).