Unlock with PatreonThe Problem with CI
To view this content, you must be a member of Ben’s Patreon at $10 or more Unlock with PatreonAlready a qualifying Patreon member? Refresh to
Report from the Field – Dana Miller-Kitch
Share:
Facebook
Twitter
Pinterest
LinkedIn
Ben Slavic
Get The Latest Updates
Subscribe to Our Mailing List
No spam, notifications only about new products, updates.
Related Posts
CI and the Research (cont.)
To view this content, you must be a member of Ben’s Patreon at $10 or more Unlock with PatreonAlready a qualifying Patreon member? Refresh to
Research Question
To view this content, you must be a member of Ben’s Patreon at $10 or more Unlock with PatreonAlready a qualifying Patreon member? Refresh to
We Have the Research
To view this content, you must be a member of Ben’s Patreon at $10 or more Unlock with PatreonAlready a qualifying Patreon member? Refresh to
12 thoughts on “Report from the Field – Dana Miller-Kitch”
This is kind of unrelated but may help some people doing the Invisibles – Dana tried to make up a character DURING a story. It was rough, she said. So the breakthrough point that she shared with me and that may help others is to ALWAYS start a story with a character that has already been created in advance, either by the group (OWI) or by an individual student.
Can you speak more about the Keeper of the Vocabulary job? I am starting OWI and Invisibles this year after doing mostly targeted CI. Thanks!
In some school buildings it is necessary to put on a front as if learning is going on and making lists is perfect to do that, even though such lists have very little to do with actually building vocabulary in another language. Krashen has made this quite clear, stating as further evidence of his Input Hypothesis that we acquire vocabulary and spelling by listening reading and that is enough.
So I suggested somewhere in the book on the Invisibles that we have a kid noting down every new word in every class. I can see where Dana would be doing that since I taught in the same school (the same students) that she is in in New Delhi. I know those parents and they NEED lists of words. So, not to answer for Dana here but just throwing in a comment, having a kid that lists all new words that occur in each class, and eventually putting them on the class website, keeps parents happy. Dana might do well to even test on them, in that school!
My position is that in June the same words will have been learned at each level, if not in the same order. I refer on this claim to everything Krashen has written about the Natural Order of Acquisition Hypothesis.
Beth, I created that job because the students asked at the beginning of the year what they could do if they wanted to do extra outside of class. So I used a Google Doc template – I think it came from Bryce Hedstrom (I’ve forgotten again!!!) – to do it. The date on top and then two columns – French on one side and English translation in the other. I’ve given one student editing access and that student adds any new vocabulary to it every class. I’ve posted it to the Google Classroom so it’s always there, along with the OWI descriptions and the stories. Students can go in any time and practice. I’ve assigned a Review-to-Date as homework once as I figure it won’t hurt the kids once in a while to go over the info. And it allows one student to feel super special about their contribution to class.
I think everyone should do this Dana. It is a premier CYA move. You can always test them on this information for those classes that might like that. You can call it up at parent meetings. You can eat up minutes on days when you don’t feel like teaching by projecting it in the front of the room and cover the English words and just go down the list and have them translate. They love lists bc it makes them feel as if they are learning. This is an excellent idea.
So, just wanted to say that when parents asked me what their child could do at home (we had conferences this week), I told them that they could be reviewing vocabulary, character descriptions and stories that are linked on Google Classroom. I had no extra work to do to get stuff ready – the material is already there. Plus, I told them that we’ll be having summarize assessments next week so they could review these documents if they’d like to feel more prepared. I also told them they could sign out books from our classroom library for more reading input.
That would be SUMMATIVE, not summarize. 🙂
So nice. By the way Dana I have all three of your posts ready to go. The queue has gotten jammed again so I will put them off until next week. I am thrilled that the very classroom in New Delhi where this all started is being continued there, thanks to your fine mind and wonderful dedication to our craft. You are to be congratulated for all you’ve done in the last six months. I remember when I first arrived in Delhi and sampled the air and looked around outside the Embassy compound, I got a little freaked out. You are a person I would go to war with, and in fact in a very real sense we have!
Thanks for the kind words, Ben. I have a feeling it might be a bit of a war when it comes to having to write curriculum and do vertical alignment. However, Tina’s Cycle of Assessment will help me there. I may be coming to all of you again in a few weeks needing support and advice on how to deal with the “necessary” things in our school.
The air isn’t too bad yet but it’ll be awful soon. This will be the test as to whether or not I’ll be able to stay here long term or not. As for what it’s like to live here, it wasn’t a surprise for me. After having lived in Pakistan and Sri Lanka, very little surprises me. The good thing is that I live on campus so if I don’t feel like dealing with traffic, I can stay in my little bubble and have groceries delivered here. I do hate the traffic but I knew coming here, to a city of 26 million, that it would suck. 🙁 I will enjoy my time back in Canada even more when I can breathe beautiful air!
Well if they still have the same robotic one-size-fits-all-for-all-subjects curriculum team there at the American Embassy School they won’t like it. They will like you but they won’t get you, you are above their level of awareness re SLA. I had a tough relationship with them – I can’t remember if I shared that with you in Phila. It is written up here but I can’t find it. It would be in the March/April archives of 2016. Linda Li snuck under their notice but her smile is better than mine.
We have a windy bright 70 degree going on here in Denver and I consciously thanked God for it a few hours ago. My experience there in Delhi taught me a lot about appreciating what we have here. I read somewhere that the 26 million people is just in the metro area. The larger area, up towards Pakistan and all, has 56 million.
Dana I just did a fact check and they have it at 19,000,000. So not that bad, right? Here is something that deeply alarmed me:
866 females per 1000 males