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The Thrill is Gone
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8 thoughts on “The Thrill is Gone”
This is most interesting:
..will we hear former CI students also claim that they had four years of language and still can’t say anything?….
I’m afraid this has already happened, and it means that CI hasn’t really worked out as people 20 years ago thought it would.
However, I don’t agree with Robert that the reason for the current weak state of CI is because schools have crushed it. That is certainly part of the equation, but in my opinion the TPRS train went off the rails around 2008 or 2009, when it embraced the targeted input method.
This really did a number on Blaine’s original (and much more intuitive) method. The result has been that current language departments are not filled with authentic CI teachers but hybrids of CI teachers and traditional teachers who call themselves CI teachers.
Worse, these hybrid teachers, who haven’t really been able to make CI work in physical classrooms, are really going splat with how they use CI in online setting. This is a fact. Every day I hear from freaked out teachers who simply don’t know what they are going to do online this year.
The old animosities still exist. People still argue the merits of this vs. that – for example targeted vs. non-targeting, circling vs. not circling. The same trainers from 15 and even 20 years ago still train people new to the method, and the new trainers – no comment on that except God please help us all.
The method, so changed now from Blaine’s original vision, is simply not working. The result is language departments claiming to do CI but not doing CI at all. I could write so much about that.
We’ll just leave it at that for now. But at this point we are now in 2020, one can say with accuracy that the original enthusiasm that filled the years between 1995 and 2010 has been tempered. The thrill is gone.
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=the+thrill+is+gone+bb+king
This is very discouraging.
Carol haven’t you felt it going in this direction since the heady days of Breckenridge when you and Jody and I drove up from the airport to iFLT one summer like kids going to summer camp? I don’t mean my comments to be discouraging. Rather, I would rather look at what has happened directly in the eyes, call it out, and then find a way to fix it. I’m sending you my newest book. I have answers, esp. for the online debacle. Real answers. I mean, why is everybody pretending that the new version of TPRS works? What?
I’m finding that the principles are the same in online and in person. For me what has worked best online are non-targeted movietalks.
I have one all online day per week. The other days are hybrid. On the hybrid days we are doing Card Talk into tableau vivant or into story. I’m using actors, 6 feet apart, sanitizing props and I have my class artist wearing gloves.
It’s working out. 🙂
I do believe there are aspects of Blaine’s approach that do work- but TPRS as a system is boring. I ate lunch at his table at NTPRS last year and he was suggesting to ask if the character has an addiction. Is it a big addiction or a mini-addiction? It’s a cool way to get some funny stories.
I think some TPRS skills can be good to newbies who have never provided CI to students, but non-targeted is ultimately what aligns with the research.
Krashen now advocates Storylistening as THE WAY now, but I have found that Storylistening (which actually advocates NOT checking for understanding) does not work for complete beginners but only for more advanced students. The Invisibles is the way to go, period. Any other TPRS or Storylistening stuff is just a supplement to the real work of the Invisibles.
Greg said:
…[Story Listening] does not work for complete beginners but only for more advanced students….
Exactly. Beniko developed it for and with college students. That’s why she told me on the phone in 2018 that in a secondary school setting she would recommend 80% Invisibles and 20% SL. Earlier in the call I had suggested 50%/50%….
What Beniko said thus bears out precisely what you said here:
…any other TPRS or Story Listening stuff is just a supplement to the real work of the Invisibles……
With this new e-learning and hybrid model. I am finding that if I “Write and Discuss” while we are asking the story, it’s the best for the students who can’t really see what is going on in the classroom from home (the camera is in the back of the room and is purposely far away where students can’t be individually identified).
How does the camera in the back of the room work? Not sure I understand….
Camera in the back of the room just shows a kind of birds eye view of the classroom but you really can’t see any of the classroom posters well or really be able to identify people’s faces. I think the idea is just to try to create connectedness to the class. The camera in the front of the room is currently at a weird angle so as not to be useful. Going to be asking maintenance to move it for me. So currently my go to is the screen sharing.