A nice check-in report from Emeka:
Dear Ben,
I am finally taking a moment to reflect on this last year of really delving into teaching with CI and want to thank you, Ben and the online community. I’ve spent countless hours reading and trying to learn and I know I still need a lot of practice, but I’m more motivated than ever. After 9 years of teaching, I feel like I’m finally doing something that will last. This summer I can barely stop thinking about it and how excited I am to try it again. A few things I’ve really taken away:
– All my students were more likely to experience success than when I used a more grammar-based, vocab-list approach. This hit home the day one of my students (IEP, learning disabilities) raised her hand and broke out in a few complete sentences in French. Not memorized sentences, but acquired language she had put together by herself. She and other students like her have amazed me.
– The importance of SLOW. This hit home the week in March when I was very sick. I could barely talk, so I was physically forced to slow down. I had to pause between phrases and this gave me more time to point. Students understood! We had our best week of comprehension and creativity that week.
– How much it helps to have a community–I gave a “demonstration” of a very short story to my colleagues and had another teacher spend time observing my classes. We are slowly building a community of teachers who want to help and learn from each other in my district. The only ways I’ve felt more confident trying this are by seeing other teachers do it and then practicing myself. We cut down our “pacing guide” of required vocab by hundreds of words this summer and made it based on the most common words. My administrators are also showing me support. Slowly, positive changes are being made! Again, I appreciate seeing what other teachers are doing on the PLC and it consistently gives me the courage to keep trying. Even if I feel like what I did in a day or class period was boring, or it fell flat, or it was just “merde” I still have a sense of peace knowing that I was speaking in French and students were understanding it. I want to encourage other teachers to continue helping each other, because I know I need it! This job is DIFFICULT.
I’m looking forward to attending iFLT in a few weeks and meeting some of my inspirations!
Thank you again for changing the course of my career and basically my life!
Emeka Debyser
Kalamazoo, Michigan