On Early Speech Output

5 thoughts on “On Early Speech Output”

1. Karen W.

   January 23, 2013 at 10:10 am

   I have a friend who is also teaching Spanish 1 this year and she says that her kids are all talking like crazy. She does the natural method of no English whatsoever or rather as little English as possible but certainly never does any translating. Her philosophy is that we never needed translation to learn English. I see that to be true with TPR and miming. All the kids know how to say sientense and levantense and I have never told them what it means.
   I feel like I am missing something. Am I wrong to not force speech? (We do do free writes on fridays which my Spanish 1s DOMINATE over my grammer and vocab regurgitating Spanish 2 kids–so I guess I force output in the written form). My dorky-dork AP that was harassing my earlier this year says that output is also input because as they are saying it they are hearing. However, if they are saying it incorrectly and they do not get corrected then they are going to learn whatever it is wrong. I feel demoralized in so many ways.

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2. Jody

   January 23, 2013 at 10:59 am

   “the natural method of no English whatsoever or rather as little English as possible but certainly never does any translating”

   This is not the natural method. This might be CI if the kids understand what she’s saying. Otherwise, it is incomprehensible input. What does “talking like crazy” mean? How many are talking like crazy? This is all so nebulous as to mean nothing. I can see how it could make you anxious about your own teaching.

   I have to tell you that tpr leaves lots of room for misinterpretation. I’ve been doing it for almost 35 years so I know what I’m talking about. You might be seriously surprised to find out that some kids really think, “levantense” means. None of them know that it is the third person plural command form. They say it for “everything” that has to do with “getting up” with all persons and all tenses. TPR has great power and great limitations.

   I believe you are right about “incorrect output” not contributing to language acquisition. However, I don’t believe that correcting them will improve that scenario. I think it just gives you information about where they are in the acquisition process and your need to give them more “correct input”–quite different than correcting them.

   I often notice that when a student incorrectly outputs (is that a term?), those students who are faster processors and acquirers often give me the “eye”–as in, “Hey, Teacher, she said that wrong. What are you going to do?” I like the Susie Gross method of saying to the “wrong output kid”, “Yes, you’re getting it!” (because you are responding to the meaning of the message, not the accuracy of the grammar or pronunciation). Then, of course, she repeats to them how it is correctly said without ever drawing attention to their errors. I give the 4%ers the “eye” back–meaning I caught it and fixed it and keep your mouth shut, please. I DO believe it is important that not too much “incorrect” speech is being heard by the students. It is input, and it’s incorrect. Bad combo. If you, the teacher, are hearing incorrect speech, it’s time for more input, less output.

   It seems as though the idea of this teacher’s self-professed success is derailing you inside. Are you able to observe her class and see for yourself what is really going on in the classroom? Of course, if the teacher knows she’s being observed, you may not be EXACTLY what usually goes on. You’ll certainly get a picture of how many kids are truly understanding, what the real level of output is, and how exactly the teacher is or is not making her input comprehensible. If there is something to learn from this teacher, observing her might help. If there is nothing to learn from this person, you’ll find that out, too. If you can’t personally attend her class, could you convince her to videotape the class and view it with you some time?

   I have little help for you with an administrator with these ideas. The formula is simple: Correct input eventually leads to correct output. It is a long and imprecise process as per differences in learner processing speed, student’s own grasp of his/her first language (social and academic), learning differences, etc. Incorrect output is a signal to the teacher that more correct input is needed–not a signal to encourage more incorrect output or “correct” the student.

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3. Sabrina Sebban-Janczak

   January 23, 2013 at 11:17 am

   Karen,

   You are not missing anything. You are ahead of everyone who thinks that no English whatsoever ( immersion or submersion as Jody so eloquently often refers to) will yield to better results than with the minimal help of english as commonly used in CI/TPRS classes.

   I recently watched an early video of Steven Krashen in which he asked that same question . Then he went on demonstrating it by talking in German for 2 minutes and asking the audience if they thought this was a good class and then compared it with a 2 minutes german speech in which he used non verbal and hands gestures to convey the meaning of his message. Needless to say that everyone in the audience picked the second version ( kind of what you refered to with your TPR example ) .

   Here is the link:
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4K11o19YNvk

   But his answer was that yes, staying in the language solely would yield to acquiring it , the difference being that it would take much, much longer.

   Seeing that we don’t have the luxury of time (600 hours average for 4 years of high school) , we revert to minimal usage of english to facilitate comprehension, or quick comprehension checks.

   The whole point of doing TPRS /CI is that we teach with/by comprehension and not towards it. Because if its not comprehended (credit Mark Knowles), it can not be acquired.

   Karen , you are a pioneer and that means you have to suffer, sorry.

   One consolation perhaps : we re in the same boat.

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4. Sabrina Sebban-Janczak

   January 23, 2013 at 12:35 pm

   Karen,

   One more thing :

   you say: “My dorky-dork AP that was harassing my earlier this year says that output is also input because as they are saying it they are hearing.”

   Has this person observed you ? If not , can you get her/him/it /(probably an it b/c sounds like a very robotic comment) to come and watch you ?
   Can you give her/him/it a 15 minutes demonstration?

   I believe that we need to be in the shoe of the student to really start understanding this whole thing and to be able to peel the layers off. For those of us fortunate enough to have been in the shoes of the student (in conferences etc…) we can appreciate this. But for a person like that with no apparent knowledge of how the process of SLA works, it is in my eyes very arrogant to make such claims.

   “Output is also input b/c they are hearing it” : what output is she/he talking about?
   forced output ???? Rote memorization?
   Have her memorize a few lines or a short poem and ask her questions and see if she can answer…. I doubt it

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5. Ben Slavic

   January 23, 2013 at 1:27 pm

   To pick up on what Jody said, this teacher is basically not bringing any gains to her kids. They may be talking like crazy, but it is babble. It can’t be otherwise. Language acquisition doesn’t work that way. They are like cars in those demolition derbies where the cars just end up destroyed. We, on the other hand, get cars going at high speeds on the language autobahn. It is so different. For you to be disturbed by such irresponsible wingnut talk is a shame. I’m sorry. You should not be concerning yourself with this.

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