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Krashen – 2
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5 thoughts on “Krashen – 2”
Translating is tricky for me, and I’ve generally avoided it in the past (only writing translations on the board of a handful of key vocabulary words).
I limit translation primarily because my ELLs (English Language Learners) do not read or write their native language. But this is a little different. It seems like choral translating is similar to interpreting, which may be helpful for beginning ELLs.
One of my groups is homogeneous enough (9 out of 10 Spanish speakers) that I’m interested in how this would work in my classroom.
And I make no great claims about the language benefits of choral and other forms of translation. I’m no longer so much about language gains via CI as much as I am into finding better and better ways to get through a class with a bunch of teenagers who don’t necessarily want to be in the room with me, which is a far cry from the purposes of Krashen’s original research. The CI approach is certainly and without any doubts the best way to do this, but I think we’ve taken it too far in one direction.
In order to make some sense of the airport lesson in Avancemos 2, we create a Gouin Series (a series of activities that occur naturally, in a particular order, like following a recipe or the daily get-ready-in-the-morning routine).
I passed out a series for getting to, and going through the airport, written to include words from the lesson. We worked through the meaning of the Spanish.*
The HW was to make flashcards with Sp sentence on one side and English on back. In class, they will shuffle the stack, lay them out on the desk, and put them in order. If not sure what a sentence means, the English is on the back. For more aural input, I can call out the order and they can put them in order by what I say.
We also have a PPT with the expressions and accompanying photos, which we can use to Look and Discuss our way through the airport.
I began the lesson using the following to create stories:
1. wanted to travel
2. traveled to
3. wanted to buy jewelry
Hopefully, this story will put the airport activity in a bigger context of “the king” (or the “she-bear”) travelling to Egypt/Africa because of a desire to buy jewelry.
*What got me to share this here was the response the students had about going over the entire series to help them in an interactive way with the meaning, popping up grammar, keeping vocab in context, and providing continuous aural input. They were so appreciative of knowing the meaning of it all.
Well, we will see where this leads.
Guessing games can be a form of problem-solving. There may be something memorable about guessing the gender of words in English. And the guesses are limited (kind of like guessing whether the sock you are holding up is the left or the right, if not one then maybe the other). Or, in the case (or is it gender?) with neuters, if you have a drawer with blue and brown socks, How many do we have to pull out before we get a pair (if you don’t get a pair after 2 socks, you definitely will with the third sock).
It is a weird thing to realize that Spanish and French don’t really have a neuter “it.” It is just a bunch of hims and hers and hes and shes.
And maybe a benefit of something like this is that students can talk about something about the language is such a way that they think they “learned” something, language trivia: books are hes and quizzes are shes. Weird stuff that make people think you really know something.
You guys need someone like Mark Twain to put the whole gender, number, and case business in order. Consider his “The Tale of the Fishwife and Its Sad Fate” from The awful German language:
I capitalize the nouns, in the German (and ancient English) fashion.
It is a bleak Day. Hear the Rain, how he pours, and the Hail, how he rattles; and see the Snow, how he drifts along, and of the Mud, how deep he is! Ah the poor Fishwife, it is stuck fast in the Mire; it has dropped its Basket of Fishes; and its Hands have been cut by the Scales as it seized some of the falling Creatures; and one Scale has even got into its Eye, and it cannot get her out. It opens its Mouth to cry for Help; but if any Sound comes out of him, alas he is drowned by the raging of the Storm. And now a Tomcat has got one of the Fishes and she will surely escape with him. No, she bites off a Fin, she holds her in her Mouth — will she swallow her? No, the Fishwife’s brave Mother-dog deserts his Puppies and rescues the Fin — which he eats, himself, as his Reward. O, horror, the Lightning has struck the Fish-basket; he sets him on Fire; see the Flame, how she licks the doomed Utensil with her red and angry Tongue; now she attacks the helpless Fishwife’s Foot — she burns him up, all but the big Toe, and even she is partly consumed; and still she spreads, still she waves her fiery Tongues; she attacks the Fishwife’s Leg and destroys it; she attacks its Hand and destroys her also; she attacks the Fishwife’s Leg and destroys her also; she attacks its Body and consumes him; she wreathes herself about its Heart and it is consumed; next about its Breast, and in a Moment she is a Cinder; now she reaches its Neck — he goes; now its Chin — it goes; now its Nose — she goes. In another Moment, except Help come, the Fishwife will be no more. Time presses — is there none to succor and save? Yes! Joy, joy, with flying Feet the she-Englishwoman comes! But alas, the generous she-Female is too late: where now is the fated Fishwife? It has ceased from its Sufferings, it has gone to a better Land; all that is left of it for its loved Ones to lament over, is this poor smoldering Ash-heap. Ah, woeful, woeful Ash-heap! Let us take him up tenderly, reverently, upon the lowly Shovel, and bear him to his long Rest, with the Prayer that when he rises again it will be a Realm where he will have one good square responsible Sex, and have it all to himself, instead of having a mangy lot of assorted Sexes scattered all over him in Spots.
https://www.cs.utah.edu/~gback/awfgrmlg.html