I feel that stories require so much work and so many of us have invested so much energy in learning how to do them, but, while teaching a reading class today (just a random text that had a picture with it) it occurred to me how very easy the class was to teach. All I had to do was have them read chorally with me, then, after every paragraph, we discussed it in French and then I did some pop-up grammer and then we went to the next paragraph. I could feel the power of it, and yet it was so simple! Now, in that last sentence could be the cure for what ails people who are tar baby-ing it out with stories. Maybe we are putting too much energy into the three steps and all of that when we can get plenty of CI from just reading with our kids in a laid back way. The one major drawback, of course, is the lack of personalization and local fun that we can get going in stories, but note most importantly that we can personalize readings like that and use them as springboards for stories. For example (this really happened in class today):
I was circling the sentence “The daughter is standing on the porch” and one of the questions was “Is Ronald McDonald or the daughter standing on the porch?” and a superstar sitting right next to me looked at me with a straight face and said, “Ronald McDonald was standing on the porch with the daughter”. That was a signal to fly into a story. I almost went, but I held back to stay with the reading. The point here is that it is easy to spin all sorts of bizarre CI out of a reading. We don’t need a story to set up a reading to be able to do that.
This idea is not new, by the way, it is called creating a parallel story. Teachers who use the ultra boring Pobre Ana mini-novel routinely create a parallel text to that book when teaching it just to keep their class form putting dents in their desks with their foreheads and it works. This idea of basing everything on reading is my contribution for today to what Jennifer is experiencing right now, and we want updates on that, Jennifer, you can’t fade out on us back into the book. Right? Can you feel the truth of, whether we are struggling with stories due to our own lack of experience or confidence with the method, or if it is due to a group of ratty ass tenagers who can’t be bothered to engage with us because they have never been taught anything but how to memorize stuff and take notes and tests, reading is a viable option to stories. Just to repeat what I said earlier:
1. get something to read up on the screen.
2. translate it with the class chorally after they spend five minutes or so trying to read it themselves (or in pairs if your kids have enough discipline to work effectively together for five minutes (this is rare).
3. ask questions in L2 about the text, pointing out grammar.
4. Take a deep breath and say to yourself, “This CI stuff is easy if I work from a reading first. I can learn about personalization on a deeper level next summer, or never.”
Skip Crosby sent me this a few weeks ago and it got lost in the queue but here it is. It also relates to the power that reading can bring to kids. At one point the kids were on a roll and Skip almost interrupted but checked himself, and that was a moment of great growth as a teacher. Thanks for this Skip and sorry about the delay on getting it to the others:
Hey Ben,
For sometime since I first heard about having students translate the reading aloud chorally after I read the sentence in Spanish, I have really never gotten it to work. Yesterday something very strange happened with my Sp 1 babies who have NEVER had any language before.
I would read a line and ask for a volunteer to translate. Someone volunteered. Soon however, more than one person would translate along with the volunteer. I was going to “correct them” but a voice told me to let it go. Before I knew it the whole class was responding and translating in unison. It was SO cool!. They got louder and louder and more and more confident. I wonder why that happened? I also wonder why I haven’t been able to get classes to do that when trying to “orchestrate” it?
Anyway, it gave me another reason to tell them how special they are and how they just did something naturally and on their own that I have been trying to get other classes to do for some time….
Just wanted to share and I am very hesitant to share on the stuffy more site. Do you think that list is judgemental?
(just between you and me of course:)
Oh, and How are YOU?
skip
(My response: Skip, I just never learned anything from the list after about 2004. I wanted to learn, but all I read on there was a kind of babble. I think the list got too big, and expressed too many opinions from different people with different ideas of what TPRS/CI means. That is a formula for failure. It is one reason I wanted to have a small private group of commandos who all pretty much agree on what they want, and I don’t care how weird the (rather goofy) term Inner Circle is – I think of it in terms of chivalry and that kind of table with no king, just us knights (Harrell) and knightesses. I think we have that group here now as long as I can continue to keep us small and trusting. So far it’s working! Also, Skip, very minor point, but I don’t read each sentence in L2 out loud before they translate. I think that their minds are locked onto the translation process so that they don’t really hear me if I read each sentence out loud before we all translate together. Hope that makes sense.)