Report from the Field – David Maust

2 thoughts on “Report from the Field – David Maust”

1. Robert Harrell

   August 31, 2012 at 8:06 pm

   Two years ago I made exactly that mistake with a student, only the sport was baseball. Even worse, since it was baseball, I didn’t get a visual cue. The student’s mother sent me an e-mail, explaining that her son no longer played on the baseball team and was embarrassed by the attention. I apologized to both the parent and the student, found other ways to make him the hero, and moved on.

   The student is signed up for German 3 this year.

   So, from experience I can tell you that “ya did good”.

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2. David Maust

   September 1, 2012 at 10:25 am

   Thanks guys, makes me feel better. Here’s a little follow-up.

   To answer Ben’s question, “When you asked him why he didn’t have a jersey, was it in L2 or L2?” I was at first asking in L2 but when I realized I was probably putting him in an awkward position I quietly asked him aside in English if he was on the team. When he said no, then I stopped and made my apology to him and the class.

   For class the next day, I started fresh with a new story about a guitar player and worked back the affirmative parts of Brian’s story when I would circle – going back and forth between stories, but not overdoing it. Everyone went along with it and Brian seemed to be fine and probably happy to be acknowledged but not standing up in front of the class with too much attention. I felt like the class was trusting the story making again too, and trusting that I cared about them and wasn’t trying to embarrass anyone. Despite the blunder from the day before, we recovered and things felt safe. I learned a big lesson too from all of this: don’t over-manage the story but let the kids have more control over it with their cute answers.

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