I wrote this in a comment to Bryce’s post but will add it here so I can put it in a category for search purposes:
I doubt that Krashen ever said anything like, “Oh, and by the way, just throw in whatever English you need into the CI to keep things going.”
Rather, those little English openings are really pathways to chaos. They invite and allow way more English from the kids than is good for the overall acquisition/CI process. I am not alone in thinking that I was doing TPRS when really I was doing highly watered down TPRS when I allowed those little bits of English in. Great. It’s only taken me nine years to learn this.
Have you ever taken a straw envelope and scrunched it up like a closed slinky and then put a few drops of water on it and then it expands like into a worm? That is what a few drops of English do in our classrooms.
I’m done with it. I’m going up to about 97% L2. The rules on my classroom wall now look, therefore, like this:
1. Listen with the intent to understand.
2. Use notebooks to suggest cute answers.
3. Use no English.
4. Sit up…Squared shoulders….Clear eyes.
5. Do your 50%.
6. Actors – synchronize actions with my words.
On rule two I won’t give them little whiteboards because they will certainly be abused. Instead, I ask them to write whatever English sideways on one of the pages in their composition books (in which they take various notes during class) and hold it up. There have been two very positive results on that. First, it cuts down on the two word English suggestions, which eliminates any English, obviously. Second, the kids who really have the best cute suggestions are the only ones who actually make the effort to write them down. Therefore, the quality of the suggestions goes way up. It really worked this past week.
In what specific circumstances, then, have I been allowing English? Well, first, there are some brilliant kids who really want to know certain things. I let them ask in English. The big mistake there is to let any kid do that. Most of the time, if you let anyone ask such questions, if they know that they can do that anytime, you end up with way too many such English interruptions. A disaster, really. I am getting good at allowing about one or less of such English interruptions – I know when the requests for clarification are real. The other time I let them use English is when I ask them “What did I just say?” And the third is after “What does such and such mean”, as I do single word comprehension checks. I am really really limiting pop up grammar as well. It’s all in the spirit of what you say above, Bryce, of going well above 90% if we are to honor Krashen’s original and undisputable premises.
On rule two I won’t give them little whiteboards because they will certainly be abused. Instead, I ask them to write whatever English sideways on one of the pages in their composition books (in which they take various notes during class) and hold it up. There have been two very positive results on that. First, it cuts down on the two word English suggestions, which eliminates any English, obviously. Second, the kids who really have the best cute suggestions are the only ones who actually make the effort to write them down. Therefore, the quality of the suggestions goes way up. It really worked this past week.
In what specific circumstances, then, have I been allowing English? Well, first, there are some brilliant kids who really want to know certain things. I let them ask in English. The big mistake there is to let any kid do that. Most of the time, if you let anyone ask such questions, if they know that they can do that anytime, you end up with way too many such English interruptions. A disaster, really. I am getting good at allowing about one or less of such English interruptions – I know when the requests for clarification are real. The other time I let them use English is when I ask them “What did I just say?” And the third is after “What does such and such mean”, as I do single word comprehension checks. I am really really limiting pop up grammar as well.
That’s because in my past life I was a grammar head and I tend to overexplain. (No! Ben! You don’t say! You? Overexplain?) Last night a bunch of us were having dinner and me and Diane got into a shouting match over the pluperfect subjunctive and some other dumb ass rule while Paul Kirshling sat there and in his flawless French just spoke it all. Then Little Joey Krashen pointed out to Amy Teran (Teran Principle of Slowality) that the three of us were modeling the entire point for CI right there.
So those changes in what I am doing, Bryce, are all in the spirit of what you say above, of going well above 90% if we are to honor Krashen’s original and undisputable premises and to, for me perhaps, begin to do TPRS properly.
In addition, I am done with the Word List bullshit. All of this takes us back to Blaine’s original design. He tells us to do some vocabulary building for about six weeks using the (100, 200?) highest frequency words, but then I got stupid and tried to take the beginning of class all year to get five words in, thinking it would expand their vocabularies. But, really, unless the words are embedded in meaningful and interesting comprehensible input, they don’t stick. They have to be high frequency or highly repeated low frequency words to stick. Duh!
Other teachers tell me that the two words of English really work for them, and they do those five words a day, as well, and that is great because TPRS is exactly what works best for and there is no magic formula for any one person, but, for me now, I am making these changes.
A third thing that I can do without is the SSR at the beginning of class for ten minutes. I think it is great that they read silently, indeed, it is one of the pillars of Krashen’s design. But, the reason I was doing it was to count tardies academically and it just got to be too much of a pain in the ass to keep up with. Besides, East High has kick ass deans who will deal with the tardies – all I have to do is ask.
Yesterday in one class on a beautiful snowy Denver day our windows were open and we heard some sirens and I asked, as if very concerned, if those were the firemen? Or the police? Pointed and paused, got some good reps on firemen, almost got a chant going – CI straight with no chaser.
CI bell to bell. I’m learning.