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Report from the Field
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9 thoughts on “Report from the Field”
What Joe’s plan about starting a story about a dog that goes somewhere and something happens makes me think how much trust there is in that (certainly non-targeted) stance.
Trust. There’s that word again. Bob Patrick and I had a conversation once – he has written about that word a lot in various places – how it is all about trust. Like ALL of it. It is because teaching with trust is a reflection of living with trust, that everything will be o.k. and that we are being taken care of and protected.
Elena Overvold is here in Tuscon from Portland. While talking about the Invisibles yesterday I expressed concern (doubt, lack of trust) to her and Tina about how a story might not ALWAYS have a clear problem and solution. Elena told me that there will always be a problem, that there are problems, many delicious ones, inherent in every story, and that they really will come up ALL THE TIME and so not to doubt. Her message was to trust that a problem (hard to create sometimes in a story, as I sometimes think when I am weak) and solution (much easier to create, because we can just have the world explode if need be) will always be there.
When people like Bob Patrick and Elena Overvold say to trust things, I need to listen to that. I need to listen to anyone who tells me to trust more, not just in this work but in life.
It is my experience that good problems come up in over 90% of the Invisibles stories I start. It often depends on who the students are, obviously. A really gnarly and negative group of kids can effortlessly destroy a story before it even begins, just by being their nasty ass selves in my classroom. That is why the first week of school must be totally devoted to classroom management via community building. I am working on a Bite Size Book book (CI Liftoff teachable.com page) as fast as I can right now on The First Week of School in that interest.
So we can trust or not when we go through the first four levels of an Invisibles story. What will all of us do this year? Express fear (the opposite of trust) and therefore do what fear-based people do, go overboard with the data collection data and spend too much time fretting about the research? Or will we just go in and trust that language will find a way through all of the first six Invisibles questioning levels? R
Really, we kind of have to choose which one we are going to hitch our horses to. Science isn’t Everything. I choose to trust in God and His angels when I teach. I choose to trust that I can make a good story from an image.
That might mean starting the story having first thought about the image and then roughing out a possible plot before I start the story – I would do that with rough kids – or it might mean just starting to talk about the image in the Town Meeting in full trust mode. Both still involve trusting, the only way to teach. God has a way of helping, in my experience. He does.
Hi everyone,
I already started school and on our rotation schedule (kind of like a block schedule), we are already on day #3. The following is a video of my Spanish 2 College Prep class (it’s the class of kids that is the “remedial track”, the kids that are told they are “not good at language” and therefore can only take 2 years- by the way that is changing this year….if they pass an exit exam they can go on to Spanish 3….and I’m in charge of the exit exam, kids WILL pass. No one is going to be told that they can’t take a language anymore.).
These kids had one year with an “eclectic” teacher who is actually a decent teacher althougth tends to be traditional with the grammar syllabus. She did do Pobre Ana with them last year. That being said it was not a CI class for them last year, so last year’s vocab “practice” has made input more comprehensible this year but still they need the same type of input my Spanish 1’s need.
It’s kind of like Spanish 1.5 in TPRS years so I’m not going AS slow as in Spanish 1
Anyway here’s a video of my last class which I think went well. A new hire colleague was in the room and I was trying to show him a variety of activities which he could do right away (We haven’t gotten him out to a conference yet, but that’s coming).
I think I’m getting better at PQA and I couldn’t do it without Tina and Ben. I think watching Tina’s videos has really helped me to learn how to go slower and interact with students. I’m kind of going for an eclectic CI which is a hybrid of NT Ben and T2 Ben. The DBL (Daily Behavior Log) is a Craig Sheehy thing.
https://youtu.be/lI-ZKBM-HLY
Spanish 2 CP on 8/16/17 (Calendar talk, PQA followup, “reading from the back of the room”, “reader leader choral translation, circling with tennis ball and creation of tennis character, PQA intro to Cecilia Movietalk, Total Physical Response)
Anyway, let me know what y’all think!
I noticed that you are going quick but there energy is there. Reflecting on my own practice, I feel that it is important to balance the rate of speech and our energy. Everyday is a marathon.
You wrote:
“It’s kind of like Spanish 1.5 in TPRS years so I’m not going AS slow as in Spanish 1”
I believe that students still need a “refresher” after summer. So, going slow enough that they understand the messages is still important.
Kudos on your gesturing and showing a nice Krashen video!
Thanks for the compliment and feedback.
Hey Greg just checking in that I am in and out of internet use on this trip and so will get to looking at this asap. Back in a plane tomorrow to MN. Happy that you sent it because we used to do this sort of thing a lot and then we slowly stopped. I can’t understand why we don’t use tech to share videos more often – it is like a gift, a free conference right here online, from which we can share and grow, along the picture is worth a thousand words idea. That was a hint to the group.
Greg I am in the Tuscon airport and Tina and I looked at the first 20 min. of the class. We would suggest that you try the “Invisibles Star” sequence of activities that I came up with AFTER we left Chicago. We found that it gives more continuity to the instruction. But using that would depend on your decision as to how much you want to buy into the non-targeting thing. We also noticed that you are having kids count reps and we are not doing that anymore.
Thanks for your feedback. Is there a blog post with the Invisible Star sequence?
For now I am only having a student count reps of Grant Boulanger’s rejoinders just because the kids have fun with it. My colleague did that last year and the kids were so into the rejoinders that one student who went to Costa Rica on a service trip and actually used some of those in context with native speakers and the native speakers thought they were really good. Grant Boulanger now uses that quote from the student on his site. Also administration liked that rejoinder competition a lot.
In subsequent lessons (we’ve only had three since this is the first week) I took the “circling with balls” and turned them into a mini-situation. Then I took that mini-situation and I went through the seven step story process (the one that you use for OWI/Invisibles). That went very well. It was kind of an improvisation.
Hi Greg.
Yes. Once you have the 7 steps ( or 5 in the beginning or story that drags) you can do this with anything. Card talk etc… I would ask the class some PQA questions like “what did you do this weekend?” then I would spin off stories using the same sequence with the student being both the highlight and the profe 2. Kinda like choose your own adventure. I enjoy it.
I’m looking forward to watching your video, Greg! I will get to it I’m sure as we get a few more days of school under us.