Unlock with PatreonThe Problem with CI
To view this content, you must be a member of Ben’s Patreon at $10 or more Unlock with PatreonAlready a qualifying Patreon member? Refresh to
Look and Discuss Option for April
Share:
Facebook
Twitter
Pinterest
LinkedIn
Ben Slavic
Get The Latest Updates
Subscribe to Our Mailing List
No spam, notifications only about new products, updates.
Related Posts
CI and the Research (cont.)
To view this content, you must be a member of Ben’s Patreon at $10 or more Unlock with PatreonAlready a qualifying Patreon member? Refresh to
Research Question
To view this content, you must be a member of Ben’s Patreon at $10 or more Unlock with PatreonAlready a qualifying Patreon member? Refresh to
We Have the Research
To view this content, you must be a member of Ben’s Patreon at $10 or more Unlock with PatreonAlready a qualifying Patreon member? Refresh to
38 thoughts on “Look and Discuss Option for April”
Ben,
Would you mind sharing an example of a picture and the structures you used? I really like this and I’ve used it once to set up a chapter in a novel but, I’m having issues with picking structures that are concrete enough for the students to see in the photo or that have not already been acquired. Thanks.
Andrew this is where I differ from those who always want to be in touch with what structures they have taught and what structures they have not taught. I believe so much in the non-targeted approach, even though we have a fraction of the time first language learners have, that I just pick an image, without weighing its merits as containing/offering to the kids new structures. To me, targeting structures beforehand with L and D inhibits mojo.
This point is important – it is my opinion that my mind, because I trust my mind, will be drawn, in the image, to what my students don’t know yet and I will naturally then teach those things. I don’t have to figure out what to teach beforehand. I don’t work well with lists. They make me nervous. I know what my kids know. I don’t need a list to remind me.
So just now in my French 3 class I got a Google image up on the board as they walked in at the start of class of two boys talking with one whose hand was behind his back kind of hiding something. I didn’t teach this level 3 class anything to do with the clothing they had on – I knew that vocabulary had been acquired a long time ago. So I just started asking questions, avoiding stuff I knew they knew. What happened?
Because we were going back and forth talking about the two boys, I got heavily into the terms “which one” and “which ones” and “this one here” and “that one there” and other such pronoun forms. I must have said “this one here” and “that one there” about the two boys at least 150 times, because when it came up for the first time about two minutes into the L and D I realized that it was something they didn’t know/hadn’t yet acquired and so I just made the decision to hammer it and the interrogative pronoun forms. Then half way into class one kid stole a girl’s back pack and on his way to the bathroom hid it in with some French books.
That was all we needed – the Google image and the story of the hidden backpack. I had what I needed, the two boys and all sorts of backpacks in the room and I had my targets and all I had to do was ask questions, remembering in every question and statement to use “celui” and “lequel” and all that. I may have gotten over 250 reps on “celui” and its forms. I was a celui factory today. But I didn’t know I would be until class started.
I hope that answered your question, kind of anyway.
^ That’s what I used to do… ^ but since I don’t have 5 years with the kids, I gotta restrict the vocab more and really stick to a more specific set of structures so that– with this limited pile of stuff– the kids can output earlier. Less stuff, more focus & shorter stories (plus written support via extended readings of “planned” stories + novels) = quicker immediate output. However if I had 5 years I would FULLY go freewheelin’.
Ben, I bet you also have a learned intuition, of sorts, after doing this so many years, from which your belief in the non-targeted approach lies. You probably know intuitively — on the spot and at any given point in the day with any group of students — what structures would be good to teach because you’ve gone through them so often in so many different contexts. You know which structures are high frequency; which structures are good for story telling; which structures are relevant to students’ lives; and which structures help them put their thoughts together.
I feel like I’m building this kind of learned intuition, but I know it will take years in the making.
On one hand, Ben’s approach in his class today was non-targeted (He had no planned targets when he started class). But, on the other hand, it strikes me as extremely targeted (in the sense of targeting the kids’ language need, not targeting in the sense of a certain structure to focus on). The fact that Ben had no structure to “get to” going into the class meant he was free to go with the one he did when the need for it came up in the L & D.
In other words, it’s like Ben had a radar screen running in his brain at the beginning of class with all the words being spoken in the room showing up on it until those demonstrative pronouns came up and started blinking as the “target.” Then, the non-targeted input was free to hyper-target on those structures because it (the input) wasn’t busy firing at another structure.
The input was hyper-targeted precisely because it was non-targeted.
Whereas a very pre-planned L & D as far which structures to tie to the image might end up in its very nature being non-targeted because it targets the targets and doesn’t target the target(s) that make(s) sense to focus on in the moment. Does that make sense?
Basically, we get to be improv teaching artists every day, which is awesome.
But I could also understand Chris’s situation above where time is limited and you want to get to output of certain high-frequency structures before allowing room for maybe lower-frequency ones. Especially if your’re expected to produce students who can output such-and-such types of verb tenses and thematic expressions/vocabulary (Barf, obviously).
…especially if you’re expected to produce students who can output such-and-such types of verb tenses and thematic expressions/vocabulary….
The students of traditional teachers can’t do this either. Nobody can. It takes thousands of hours of input for that. That is why we must refuse this expectation. And whose expectation is it?
Traditional teachers spend all their time preparing just a few super achievers to do this and the heck with the others, but we don’t even try to get any of our students to output certain verb tenses, etc. because we know it can’t be done.
I think we need a gut check on refusing to get kids to do things they can’t do. We need to stand up and say that natural speech in various verb tenses in high school cannot be done, with the exception of a few academic freaks. A program should not call for speech output at that level. It is inconsistent with all we know about when output happens. Yet we accept such demands? We need to grow a spine on this point.
Thank you! This is just another reason to add to the long list of why teaching for acquisition (in the Krashen sense) is different from learning (academic subject sense)! TCI calls for new, scientific-based expectations! Especially TPRS teachers working in traditional FL depts need to frequently read Ben’s comment, or else may succumb to the pressures and try to do the impossible, and when they can’t do the impossible, they’ll feel unsuccessful and even revert back to the traditional way.
Even when we target a structure, can 1000+ reps force that “structure” to be acquired? Maybe the vocabulary in the structure, but not the grammar pattern (if late-acquired). And if we get those targeted reps over 2 weeks and don’t get many more reps in the following weeks, then I’ve seen some kids won’t retain even that vocabulary, at least, not recognize it when it’s presented in a new context.
We have to give up control! More and more, I see targets as just ways to stay comprehensible and ways for me to speak more naturally. Then, trust the brain will pick up what it is ready for.
I like Eric’s description of targets- “as just ways to stay comprehensible and ways for me to speak more naturally.” Like our targets aren’t special in and of themselves, but special because they keep us in bounds, like bumpers in bumper bowling. And the pins falling over at the end of the lane stand for the end-of-class bell after a continuous and comprehensible flow of language from a slow rolling trip down the lane between the bumpers.
I agree with what Ben says above -that we must refuse expectations placed on us from above (or from colleagues) for students to do things they are not capable of doing.
I mentioned verb tenses above because of a phone interview I had last week with a district WL supervisor for a middle school French position. The woman told me that students are expected to leave the middle school’s language programs able to conjugate verbs in at least passé composé, present, and near future. Then she asked if I feel confident in making that happen. While my real answer was no, I was able to answer yes due to her question’s lack of specificity (which verbs? able to conjuate in what sense…by memorizing roots and endings or by using in conversation?) After all, if I’m going to have kids to do real language teaching with, I have to get the job first. Of course if I got the job I would NEVER force output of verb forms. I wouldn’t follow the district’s thematic units either, although I would certainly “cover” the vocab/structures of those units on my own timeline, and in no pre-planned order. And I would only bring up the idea of conjugation -maybe – on the very last day of middle school to show them that their teacher is going to bring up this strange thing about roots and endings, but that they already do it without thinking about it.
But what a strange expectation. It strikes me as so abstract. What does the ability to conjugate verbs in the past, present, and future -in and of itself – have to do with anything? Even dressed up in snazzy games and projects, how is that expectation even remotely meaningful? Conjugating verbs in different tenses is just a natural result (but an afterthought!) of using the language to communicate about things which actually MATTER. It’s not an objective, it’s a side-effect. Conjugating verbs in different tenses as an objective isn’t worthy of one second of a kid’s time in a school building, which is why most kids wouldn’t give it one (maybe many seconds in the “school mode” of their brain, but not one in the “this is me” section of their brains.
Yesterday, Jon want pizza.
Yesterday, Jon had want pizza.
Today, Jon want pizza.
Right now, Jon is want pizza.
Tomorrow, Jon want pizza.
Jon want that Jill eat pizza.
Every sentence above is comprehensible. If kids knew just 1 verb form of just 1 verb tense, they could communicate with that verb. But, traditionalists insist on them learning every conjugation (I count 44 different conjugations for 1 verb in Spanish. 66 if you count all the conjugations of the past & present perfects and progressives). If you group Spanish verbs into categories by present tense pattern, which is how they are traditionally taught, then you’d have 16+ categories, which would require at least 16 mnemonic devices, right traditionalists? 😉 And that’s in the present tense alone.
I forget who, Laurie Clarcq? Skip Crosby? who gave us the example of the TPRS Spanish teacher who had a student come to him on the first day and say: “o, as, a, amos, aís, an” and the TPRS teacher was thinking the kid was greeting him in Chinese. HAHA!
The traditionalist will argue that the learning/knowledge of the verb tenses will pay off in the long-term (delayed gratification). Meanwhile, the kids finish 4 years with almost no ability to communicate. My understanding is that even the Communicative Approach (CA) was the result of rejecting grammar instruction, but grammarians adopted the Presentation, Practice, Produce (PPP) model, which is grammar in a communicative costume.
I think that as the FL pedagogy shifts further from grammar and more to communicative competence, the next battle, after grammarians go extinct, will be against output and the myth that “output practice makes perfect” in a FL.
“….the TPRS Spanish teacher who had a student come to him on the first day and say: “o, as, a, amos, aís, an” and the TPRS teacher was thinking the kid was greeting him in Chinese.”
I just enjoyed a nice long laugh imagining this scene. Poor kid.
And, YES to your examples of perfectly comprehensible “incorrect” sentences, Eric!!! Why would anyone overtly correct such clearly communicated statements? Those sentences are correct to me!
From what I’ve learned about “communicative” teaching’s evolution, they did reject the present, practice produce model (direct instruction) because it was boring and stupid and ineffective. As I understand it, communicative teaching means “acquiring the target language by using it to negotiate meaning and needs.” In other words, it’s output-based from the get-go and it relies on peer modeling during practice (= bad input). tho’ CA teachers say “errors are part of learning and they disappear.”
I’ve never seen “true” communicative teaching. Every example of it I’ve seen or read about follows this pattern:
— intro thematic vocab via video/audio then list (or vice-versa)
— provide examples in TL so students see meaning
— explain grammar
— practice orally then in worksheets
— then practice via writing
— throw in some listening (usually worksheet-based).
— exam
You can fool most of the people most of the time but you can’t fool Chris. I’ve never understood the term Communicative Approach actually. I love the way you dispel the myth Chris.
Sounds like my colleagues, if you add games, activities, and projects as well.
Eric wrote: Every sentence above is comprehensible. If kids knew just 1 verb form of just 1 verb tense, they could communicate with that verb.
When I lived in Germany, I knew a guy who communicated only in the infinitive. Everyone understood him, and he got what he needed. It wasn’t elegant, but it was effective for him, and he was satisfied.
We had a custodian at my school who asked me every day, “You go home now?” He also communicated with a single verb tense.
I know that we as teachers want our students to be able to do more; we want them to approach native fluency. However, given the choice between a student who communicates effectively with one verb tense and a student who doesn’t communicate at all with multiple conjugations, I will go with the communicator. At least he won’t starve in a foreign country.
Eric also wrote, … grammarians adopted the Presentation, Practice, Produce (PPP) model, which is grammar in a communicative costume.
This is dead on, and I see it throughout my district. The “communicative approach” is simply a re-packaging of grammar. Well said, Eric.
“o, as, a, amos, áis, an” A parent said that to me once. I was perplexed for a bit. But the real problem is the resulting mis-communication and confusion that results.
Divorced from a real word, the endings “o, as, a, an” are pronounced as if they were stressed the final syllable. This is misinformation. haBLO (he spoke) is a a past tense stress pattern. The present tense stress pattern is HAblo (I speak). This is mis-communication.
Again, the present tense stress pattern is HAbla (he speaks). The past pattern is haBLA (this is a meaningless utterance). But this is confusing: the non-verbal message is past tense, the verbal message is present tense. The result is a grammar-driven output that no native says. It is conflicting, but meaningless, utterance.
In Spanish we use the proverb, No hay atajo sin trabajo: there is no shortcut without (some) work. Sufficient CI is a lot of work which cannot be bypassed with simplistic detached-ending shortcuts.
The school nurse mentioned to me today that she speaks “Zen” Spanish. When I looked puzzled, she said you know, no past and no future. Only the present. Ha ha!
It truly is insane. The weird thing is that schools recognize this for English language learners. That even WITH immersion for a whole school day, ELLs need years before they reach intermediate-advanced fluency.
Somehow that has not translated to FL instruction and we’re supposed to have kids that can produce spontaneous speech at the drop of a hat when, for example, I see them for 3 hours a week.
We recently received instructions for our district’s proficiency test (the NY state one), and specifically they said 8th graders usually have 216 instructional hours, max. And while I like the reading and listening portions of the test (60% of the test) because they cast a wide net – and even the writing (10%) is fair – the speaking portion is worth 30% and it is no walk in the park.
Thank you Greg for pointing out that I do target structures, just not the way every one else does. That’s a great point. It’s my style, and makes me the least nervous. We all get to do it differently. As long as we are speaking to them in the language and they are process and understanding, and there is no static from another base language messing up the magical cranking process of the deeper mind as it flows along doing what it does as long as all it hears is the TL, all is well.
Sounds very kungfu!
It does. I needed the reminder that a structure need not be a verb all the time. Duh. Thanks for the explanation.
Andrew
I use L&D ALL the time. Works great. If it’s Pauvre Anne/Pobre Ana we are reading, here’s what I do (for say Ch1 where Anne/Ana is complaining about her “problems” (e.g. Mom is yelling):
a) pick structures– “yells” and “gets annoyed” (grita, se enoja)
b) google an image of “Mom yelling at boy” (and “Dad yelling at girl”) & put ONE on projector
c) write 2 sentences on board including structures, “The Mom yells at her son” and “the son/Mom gets annoyed”
d) Circle the first sentence while pointing at the image and at relevant parts of sentence. Aim for 20-30 reps of “yells at”– which could include PQA (I write “does your M/D yell at you?” and “My M/D yells at me” on board for kids to answer). You can also say and discuss and ask about anything else in the image– clothes, colours, location bla bla bla. (Sometimes these turn into mini stories or scenes)
e) for 2nd picture, start with first structure…but this time it’s “Dad yells at girl” and then add 2nd sturcture while pointing at it and at image. Circle the 1st a bit, then circle 2nd a lot more.
One thing I have noticed with L&D is it works best when they end up with written support– they need to see this stuff in writing in a story or novel to start to pick it up.
Chris
Essentially, a MovieTalk is a story series of L&D. Doing L&D with 1 image is like prepping a class for MT, like we do with CWB to prep kids for PQA, and OWI to prep for stories.
I’m glad you post this now, because I was just reading a criticism of TPRS in that culture is less a part of class. That is true at least in my classes. Now, I know we could argue that communication, the first “C,” is our primary goal and that if we can’t talk about culture in the TL, then we can’t talk about culture. L&D is an exciting opportunity for CI & Culture. I wonder if we could get an L&D “Culture Curriculum,” i.e. a series of pictures per TL that do the best to capture culture and major historical events. . . anyone have some of these pics for Spanish or know what the best cultural/historical topics would be to search for in Google Images? Last year I started to do this: looking for 10 of the most powerful images from Spanish history. I L&D’d the Battle of Puebla (5 de Mayo) and I got a picture behind the legend of how the Aztecs built Mexico City on a lake.
Great idea! Main challenge will be using high-frequ vocab in “historical/cultural” L&D. Kids won’t really need to acquire “to sacrifice by ripping a beating heart out” 😉 but could use something like “was constructed.”
Perhaps these 10 most powerful images in ___(your L2)____ could be best represented through classic works of art. I’ve had some success doing L&D with Salvador Dali’s The Temptation of St. Anthony when introducing the structure “it seems like”.
I’m glad I copied all the classical paintings on the CD from the textbook at my old school. Sometimes it’s hard to find good, clean, crisp copies of artwork on the internet.
If you’re interested in Spanish artwork with strong social justice themes, check out Colectivo Cultural “Son y Arte on Facebook. I used to get pics from them and other art collective sights.
geez, sorry for the italics mess on the post above.
hahahaha, nice structure Chris. I bet they’d remember that one!
I have started doing more and more of what you say here, Chris:
“One thing I have noticed with L&D is it works best when they end up with written support– they need to see this stuff in writing in a story or novel to start to pick it up.”
That’s step 3 (reading)! I put my screenshots from MT or pictures from L&D into PPT and have a text box at the bottom of the slide. I think having the visual with the text boosts comprehension and interest! You could add text as you go, but I’ve been taking time to prepare my captions before class.
I thought I’d take this opportunity to praise the L&D as a first activity to do for the day (perhaps after just a minute or two settle kids down and talk about the weather or whatever is going on that day).
In fact, I’ve now found a good very-beginning-of-class routine in spending a minute or two to connect with the kids about whatever as they come in, then once they’ve settled in I put up an image on the projector. As they take a minute to look at the image and absorb what it’s showing, I take attendance. Then we jump into L&D.
I really do this every day. The image is sometimes of students, or what a student drew the day before, or of DJ Augustine of the Chicago Bulls who is replacing D. Rose nicely as of late… whatever is relevant.
A friend recently showed me a picture of an elephant painting a picture. It may be fun for class, for all those of you who love elephants 🙂 I didn’t know they could do this, but apparently it’s a common tourist event in Thailand. Google has lots of them.
“Traditional teachers spend all their time preparing just a few super achievers to do this and the heck with the others”
This was so apparent at the last planning meeting where all the WL language teachers (7 of us) in my district met. I heard multiple teachers talk about weeding kids out. When I called them on it, they tried to use “nicer” language but the idea was still exactly the same. I asked them why all those kids should take our classes at all, if we’re just going to treat them like weeds. Why bother? My coworkers think that weeding kids out is a fact of life. It bothered me and I spoke my mind, but I’m not sure how much people actually heard.
Cheers to you Carla for speaking up! It is a matter of social justice, what you are confronting. It is really unfortunate that these teachers are in positions of power where they can actually take action on pulling out the “weeds”. Who wants their manicured lawns full of pesticides (referring to Herr Harrell’s and Ben’s analogy the other day) anyways.
Awesome. I used to think the same thing. Now– provided they pay attention– I can teach anyone a second language.
TPRS is the statue of liberty of language teaching. Give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses…
Chris, I often (read: except Friday afternoons) thought the same way my first year of teaching. I had a very short, two week honeymoon period with my students that turned into a nightmare when I realized I had not a clue what I was doing…I just figured I’d teach them like I learned French in HS (my student teaching was in HS chorus). I remember several classes where I spent whole, 90 min blocks trying to get my kids through one little list of ten vocab words. I told the kids off once and walked out, slammed the door, and took a break in the hallway. I walked to an AP’s office one morning a few months in, just a few minutes before class, to tell her I couldn’t do it that day, could someone cover my classes. Thank God she wasn’t in her office and I had to go back to my room and teach. I had a few kids tell me to f*** off and walk out of my room, probably rightly so. Eventually I grew to have a strained love-hate relationship with my kids that semester, and there was almost literally no French taught AT ALL. And then it all repeated the second semester. And then the first semester of the next year.
So you can imagine my relief when I stumbled through the door here halfway through my second year at that school. I’m grateful I didn’t start teaching at a school with very academically motivated students, or my grammar teaching might have felt successful enough to make me think I could refine it and be successful long-term. Now I look forward to getting kids with a track-record of academic failure so I can try to give them a class they’ll be good at and enjoy. Good thing CI choo-choo made a stop for me!
^ great story ^
Today on Twitter there was a dude on #langchat saying “my students connect with culture but not with grammar”
NO FRIKKIN’ KIDDING, BUDDY!
It doesn’t matter how “fun” we make grammar bla bla bla…if we aren’t using real, interesting language, we get nowhere. I did for 13 years. I will FOREVER be graeful to Michelle Metcalfe, Adriana Ramirez, Bess Underhill, Ben Slavic and Blaine Ray for opening my eyes.
Same here. I taught 18 years traditionaly with a twist. I believed in TPRS when I first heard of it but couldn’t figure it out in the real classroom. I feel so blessed that when I got the internet at home moretprs jumped up and I learned about storyasking instead of storytelling. My life, as well as my students lives, are changed and I am so grateful for that community and this one. People change people.
Greg said, “I’m grateful I didn’t start teaching at a school with very academically motivated students, or my grammar teaching might have felt successful enough to make me think I could refine it and be successful long-term.”
This really resonated with me. I was a 4%’er and I might have taken the bait and ran with it earlier this year if my kids had actually studied their 80 decontextualized vocabulary words per chapter to pass my quizzes.
…I asked them why all those kids should take our classes at all, if we’re just going to treat them like weeds….
Good for you Carla. Well done. Bravo. Weeds. Our kids who are not superstars are weeds. Well how about that.
I second Ben’s bravo for speaking your mind, Carla! I imagine if pressed for a rationale for “weeding out” non-superstar students on up the levels, those teachers might say it’s for the benefit of students who “really care” and deserve to be in a class that really challenges them, etc (It always seems like it’s language teachers who are so fond of making this comment). But I think no matter how much this type of teacher might say or believe it’s “for the students,” there’s got to be an underlying people-pleasing need somewhere under that facade, even if so deep that the teacher’s not even self-aware of it. The longing to have what they see as a “superstar” class -a class that will reflect well on them as a teacher and fill whatever void it is in their life that they seek to fill by pleasing people. It’s infuriating that professionals, teachers, people’s who’s career choice is centered on HELPING people so arrogantly demean very capable kids -just because those children won’t learn the way those teachers teach, and therefore won’t result in that “sparkling” classroom that gives them the satisfaction of being praised as “successful” and “good teachers”.
The analogy isn’t perfect because a “healthy” (as in normal) student would be more so a NON-grammar learner, but those teachers are like doctors who would weed out their most unhealthy patients because 1) it’s easier to treat healthy patients and 2) having really healthy patients would make their practice look good. It’s just ridiculous. But of course, the only person we are able to change is ourself. So good for you Carla for gently, but UNMISTAKABLY, confronting your colleagues with the truth while you wait for their change.