I wrote the following yesterday as a comment to something Mike said, but want to make it a blog here so I can reference it later to see how true it is. For yesterday’s classes, not using English at all was a great shot in the arm, and perhaps a sleeper, not just for me, but for many of us who are frustrated with how TPRS works for us. Here’s what I wrote yesterday:
The 800 pound gorilla in my classroom for the past nine years that I never fully respected nor even saw properly, and who, as a result beat the heck out of me on a daily basis trying to get me to understand, in his friendly gorilla way, that speaking English when I do CI is bad bad bad and the cause of an entire litany of bad things that have crept into my teaching over the years, or, in fact, were always there! Strange how some of us, me in particular, take so long to learn. Today, I did A TON of CI in L2 and was almost fanatical about avoiding the use of English.
The immediate and somewhat surprising result was that I found myself aggressively teaching to their eyes. Kind of a strange thing to say but very true. It’s true, the less English, the more teaching to the eyes, like big time.
The other result was that I taught approximately ten times, to estimate conservatively, more French – more like fifty times more French. I never woulda thunk that the non-use of English would turn out to be THE sine qua non of TPRS skills. But it is. Now I fully get that it really is.
I have to add that discipline was noticeably better. The uptick was not as high as the amount of powerful CI I got going, but it was at least five times better. Makes sense, because with the increased eye contact, the absence of English contributed to a sense of focus that basically didn’t allow for any discipline issues.
The kids did well with it, and I was very proud of them, but I may need to remember a daily beach ball break in each class because it is very intense (bathrooms visits can be done then because they disrupt much more when L2 is in full force). It may be a few days before they get used to this change.
I is my full intent, as I sit here today, that this will be the norm for the rest of the year. This is a most unexpected change, and I need not overplan like last weekend (in that really long blog born of the now vanished February funk). All I have to do is speak the target language in the classroom! Dang dang double dang! Quelle frickin’ surprise!
The non-use of English is not just another thing to try to master, it is the main jumbo giant cheese factor of all time, in my vision of today. I feel as if this past week has been a major turning point, a truly major change, maybe even THE major change, in my career as a TPRS teacher. No hyperbole on that last statement.
I’ll run all this by Bryce – I get to have lunch with him across town a little later today.