Here is the response made by our PLC member to this person, for those following that thread:
Ben –
Here’s my response to each of her concerns and I also sent her 7 pages of research about CI from the Year 1 book if she wanted to read it.
Dear _________.
Thank you for your email. I can feel real concern for your song in your words and worries. I will address each concern you have.
1. Back to school night: It’s ok that we didn’t meet then. I would love to meet you anytime! Feel free to come 8:00 am-8:15 or after school any day (except Mondays because of collaboration)
2: Can a child with no Spanish experience do well in this class? This class is designed for kids who don’t even know the word ‘uno’ so yes it is possible.
3. What should he work on? His brain is working on the Spanish he heard last class. His job is to listen and comprehend the language that I make comprehensible in class and give me the “STOP‘ signal when he doesn’t understand so I can make it comprehensible. This is his only job and it is very hard work for his brain to be processing comprehensible language that I give in class. This is called rigor and if he listens to comprehend and shows me the STOP sign when he doesn’t understand, that his his hard work.
4. He didn’t understand anything in class today: I have his quiz in front of me and he got 100%. It’s ok for him to feel uncomfortable in the first day of a language class while being in another language. I know he can do it and I will be especially looking out for his comprehension from now on. If he doesn’t understand, it is definitely my fault and he will need to let me know he’s not understanding by using the STOP sign (The It’s over my head sign which is moving your hand over your head) to indicate that he’s not understanding things and that it’s going over his head.
4. If I give an assignment, it will be 100% knowable and doable.
5. There is no book, notes, or notes right now (I do have some that I will give out that are the school district vocabulary curriculum). The “book” is “what interests and creativity the students and I come up with in class”. His job is to listen, comprehend and let me know when he doesn’t comprehend the comprehensible input I’m providing.
6. Doing poorly last year in Spanish is unfortunate but not necessarily an indication of success this year. Last year’s homework involved copying words and memorizing 40 vocabulary word lists (evidence that memorizing language doesn’t work..language must be acquired…I will attach some research for you to read) and completing a dictionary. So if he did bad, he struggles with memorizing or didn’t complete HW. I can’t remember right now but if we want to re look up each assignment and see the reality we can do this.
7. Language takes time. Please remember how many times you had to say ‘foot’ before your child first said foot. Maybe 2-3 years of language input from ages 0-38. Last year all tests (numbers, food, family) had 6 days of prep. The last day spoken test had 10 days of prep (Day 1 of class we started practicing the phrases needed for the last day of class test)
8. Please trust me that I’m trying to do the best language instruction for your student based on research. Please also be patient as I’m always improving and applying techniques that should have been applied for generations so our language instruction actually leads to language acquisition instead of memorization which has been shown to not function.
Thank you for providing your feedback. If you have any other concerns, I would love to address them.