Looking back on this year I remember vPQA and the discussion about exclusive (99%) use of L2 being the two dominant threads of the year. Of course, we continued to refine other things as usual. We got some great discussion on research initiated by Eric and volleyed back to him by Michael and others. It was a game I felt more comfortable watching than taking part in since I didn’t understand most of what they said.
Were there other big topics? Early in the year Catharina wrote some valuable stuff about elementary CI instruction and then over the course of the year Alisa and others supported that, so we can say that elementary CI instruction is getting some good attention here and is doing some real evolving. A few days ago Alisa sent an actual set of Classroom Rules for Elementary Classes poster which is excellent and I will post that here in the next few days. (The queue has been jammed for awhile.) Alisa also shared some correspondence that she had with Helena Curtain which had an interesting tone to it, like she was trying to rope Alisa into her corral and of Alisa is not someone who is going to be roped into a corral. I’ll publish that here as well.
Anything else? Does anyone have any big takeaways from this year that are not listed in the above paragraphs?
I think that those who resonate with vPQA will end up using it a ton next year. I hope everyone has had a chance to sufficiently explore it, but they probably haven’t because March to May is not exactly a down time of the year. So I heartily encourage those who haven’t explored vPQA to do so. There is a lengthy article on the Primer link above or you can just read posts in the Visual PQA category on the right side of this page. If you want some extra power in your tank next year, do it. You’ll be glad you did, to say the least. And don’t forget we will be working on it this summer at iFLT as well.
My beef is with the 98%-99% use of L2 discussion. A few people reported during that months-long discussion (I’m sorry I can’t remember who but I think one was Bryan Whitney) that they had tried this extreme and it was successful for them. (99% L2 use is much different than 95%, which is not enough because of how people REALLY learn languages and also those who say that they use 95% are often at 75% in my opinion.) Many people didn’t comment on that L2 discussion and I wondered why. I have concluded that they wrote off that discussion not just because it was March but also because they didn’t think that they could teach at 99%.
I would like to not let that topic die out for next year. It is because we can’t get away with how much English some of us use in our classes and still call ourselves CI teachers. It’s a subject from this past year that is like a bee in my bonnet (yes, I wear a bonnet sometimes ok not really) and I would like to talk about that as well at iFLT and see if I am wrong on my 99% position (is it impractical in schools with unmotivated students?).
So we need closure on the 99% issue (where we only say in English “What did I just say?” and
What does such and such mean?”). I also say that vPQA is going to surprise some people in the most pleasant way – it’s easy to do, fun, and big time gains result – it’s just a superior way to do Step 1 of TPRS to set up a story, in many ways. And if you do it, make a Haiku deck for the rest of us as per:
Haiku Deck Log-in Information:
Log in: vpqaci@gmail.com
Password: krashenrocks
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