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.
The Problem with CI
Jeffrey Sachs was asked what the difference between people in Norway and in the U.S. was. He responded that people in Norway are happy and
3 thoughts on “My New TPRS Rules”
How about doing SSR only once or twice a week?
How about doing SSR only once or twice a week and having the kids choose 2 or 3 books that interest them?
How about doing SSR only once or twice a week and having the kids choose 2 or 3 books that interest them from a well-stocked class library?
How about doing SSR only once or twice a week and having the kids choose 2 or 3 books that interest them from a well-stocked class library and that are at their level?
How about doing SSR only once or twice a week and having the kids choose 2 or 3 books that interest them from a well-stocked class library and that are at their level? You could also ask 2 0r 3 kids a month to bring in some other material that they’ve found (internet, public or school library, at home) and would like to contribute to the class collection.
How about doing SSR only once or twice a week and having the kids choose 2 or 3 books that interest them from a well-stocked class library and that are at their level? You could also ask 2 0r 3 kids a month to bring in some other material that they’ve found (internet, public or school library, at home) and would like to contribute to the class collection. You could also refresh your class collection by rotating books with other language teachers’ collections.
How about doing SSR only once or twice a week and having the kids choose 2 or 3 books that interest them from a well-stocked class library and that are at their level? You could also ask 2 0r 3 kids a month to bring in some other material that they’ve found (internet, public or school library, at home) and would like to contribute to the class collection. You could also refresh your class collection by rotating books with other language teachers’ collections. How about relaxing with the class on your really busy day, reading quietly, letting the kick ass deans deal with the tardies and getting CI bell to bell?
Can you tell I’m trying out the embedded reading ideas from Laurie this week?
A couple ideas that have worked for me.
Norm
FVR was actually THE thing that converted me to TPRS. Thanks Bryce! Come to think of it, I’m not sure it was FVR, or Bryce… (CCFLT), or just that Bryce did such a kick-butt presentation on FVR and reading aloud to the kids.
I do FVR at least once every five days (A/B rotation, so I create my own “week” of five days). The kids walk into my room, see that we are doing FVR, and select their book/books . Once the bell rings, and everybody has a seat, we sit down and read for ten minutes. My kids don’t LOVE it, but then one of the most common threads I found in the student surveys was that many of my students do not like reading in English either.
I don’t do reading logs. I let the kids self-select their reading material. They can read the same material multiple times, they can read different things each week, they can read really easy books, or really difficult books. I don’t moderate the selections (although sometimes if I see a kid struggling, I pull a book off the shelf I think may be easier, and put it on his/her desk.) I would love to let them sit comfortably wherever they wanted, but my classroom, and the school environment don’t allow for that. But, it’s ten minutes of just reading for no other sake than reading. I walk around, reading myself. Right now, i am reading Prince Caspian, the kids are thrilled to notice that I am also reading in Spanish, and many of them are impressed at the “difficult” book I am reading (it’s a young adult novel, not that difficult really, but hey )
Sometimes I ask them to give me a fist-to-five of how much they understood. Sometimes I have asked them to share something they learned. Tiburón means shark. Derek Jeter played football.
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.”
Nope… he said… (and this is IMPORTANT because it is a SIGNIFICANT change from the original definition of The Natural Approach)….
Is First Language Use in the Foreign Language Classroom Good or Bad?
It Depends.
Dr. Stephen Krashen, http://www.IJFLT.com, Winter, ’06
Contrary to semi-popular opinion, the Comprehension Hypothesis does not forbid the use of the fi rst language in the second language classroom. It does, however, provide guidelines. It predicts that the use of the first language will
help second language development if it results in more comprehensible input, and will hurt second language development when it results in less
comprehensible input.
Providing Background Knowledge
The first language helps when it provides background knowledge that functions to make second language input more comprehensible. This
can happen in several ways: It happens when the first language is used to
provide background knowledge through discussion or reading. When teachers know that a topic needs to be discussed in class that is unusually complex or unfamiliar, a short presentation or set of readings in the first language can be of great help. A few minutes or a page or two on relevant aspects of the history of
Mexico, for example, can transform a discussion of Cortez from one that is opaque to one that is transparent. This kind of background is, of course,
most useful when teachers know that all or nearly all students will require it.
Bilingual education relies on the same principle: In bilingual programs, students are given background knowledge in the first language in order to make
subsequent instruction delivered in the second language more comprehensible (Krashen, 1996).
Is First Language Use in the Foreign Language Classroom
Good or Bad?
It Depends.
The first language can also help when it is used during a lesson as a quick explanation. Comprehension difficulties can arise in unpredictable places
and students differ in their need for background knowledge. The fi rst language can be used as needed for quick explanations in the middle of discussions
when some students are having trouble, and when it is not easy to paraphrase and use other means of providing context.
There is also nothing wrong with providing a quick translation for a problematic word that is central to a discussion. Providing the translation may or may not
contribute very much to the acquisition of the meaning of the translated word, but it can help make the entire discussion more comprehensible.
The first language is misused when teachers provide so much information that there is no reason to continue the discussion in the second language.
It is also misused when teachers provide so many brief explanations and translations that it is difficult to keep track of the message. If this intervention is considered to be necessary, the topic may not be right. It has been hypothesized that the acquirer needs to be so interested in the message (or “lost in the book”) that he or she temporarily “forgets” that the message is in another language. When translations are excessive, the spell is broken.
Dr. Krashen is professor Emeritus, University of
Southern California and a published author and
speaker on second language acquisition, reading and
bilingual education. http://www.sdkrashen.com.