Michelle Metcalfe

5 thoughts on “Michelle Metcalfe”

1. Brigitte

   October 22, 2012 at 5:41 pm

   Hi Michelle,

   Welcome to this amazing community. I am so excited to hear that you teach IB and that you are trying to align the expectations of that curriculum with TPRS/CI. While I have yet to teach an upper level course (right now, it’s levels 1 – 3 for me), I am always curious to find out how others implement CI for those classes. So, please don’t lack the courage to fill us all in on what you have been doing in that regard. Can’t wait to hear from you!

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2. Sabrina Janczak

   October 22, 2012 at 9:22 pm

   Michele,

   I want to second Brigitte in welcoming you here! What an amazing bio, and being the daughter of the founding chairperson of the original Greenpeace movement totally rocks!!!!
   I too am curious about how you implement your IB curriculum in line with CI philosophy. I too teach IB I as a combined honors 2 French class and pre IB combined with honors 1 French. I have not modified my teaching/curriculum for my IB students b/c I find that CI works very well with mixed classes. However, I give my IB kids much more reading , which is the way I differentiate. My rationale being that if the goal of our teaching is to get our kids to some communicative competence and lead them to a journey towards fluency, what better methods exists out there but CI? This question can be read both as a rethorical question and a genuine one. The only difference I can think of would be the themes that are explored in the IB curricula.
   I went to an AP training last year and was so happy to see that they have somewhat aligned with ACTFL and grammar is no longer the focus of instruction. That being said, much more needs to be done if they want to grow the number of successful AP language students. I think that IB has done that as well, correct me if I m wrong.
   So if you would please, when you have time tell us how you approach IB teaching, without compromising CI, that would be GREAT!
   Thanks.

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   1. Michele

      October 23, 2012 at 8:32 am

      Sabrina,

      Different Michele here (I think the Micheles and Michelles on this list need to form a club, or at least agree to meet for a coffee next summer in Dallas or somewhere)…

      And I also want to hear from Michelle M about IB, but I had to laugh when I read what you are doing with IB. I am doing the same thing: I have stacked classes, and the IB and AP kids just fall into the groups wherever they fit. Last year I had one kid doing HL IB and one doing SL during my first year class. They’d hang around for the beginning, and join in if they thought they needed work on the structures (they would retell from perspective, or change everything into participles, or move it into subjunctive). But then I had selected some books for them to read, and they would slink off to the library and read those or do their research for their topics. Sometimes they’d have to come back in and do a presentation (comprehensibly) on their reading for the first-year kids. Other than that, they just met with me once a week at lunch to talk about their reading. They both scored really high. The SL kid has just been moved to a tutor position at her college, since she is too high for any classes. Their parents thanked me. The kids and I could honestly say that they did all the work. I don’t know that the parents believed me, but reading for at least an hour a day seemed to be key. It’s possible that having to re-read and then condense the material for the first-year kids also did something to help them, in the same way that all this reading and re-working around structures has improved my language abilities since I started TPRS.

      These were both highly motivated kids, but still…I felt like such a lazy teacher all year for them, so apologetic, and then they scored higher than any other kids ever have.

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      1. Sabrina Janczak

         October 23, 2012 at 9:42 am

         Michele,
         Thanks so much for your response. You nailed it! Motivation. That is the key word, without which kids cannot do well IMHO. I was just talking to Judy (in France) about that this weekend, and she also agreed that motivation is key for any kid to succeed. Luckily these IB kids are 0ften motivated!

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3. Laurie

   October 23, 2012 at 4:51 am

   So glad to have you here Michelle! (Sorry for the brevity, but life is crazy lately!) Sounds like we have so much to learn from you!!!

   with love,
   Laurie

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