I will periodically break in with comments here:
Jake: I’ve completed 2 full days of Card Talk. I enjoyed it. I think most of my students enjoyed it, too, or at least understood what was happening. I have a question about what is considered appropriate blurting in CI. For example, in one class I have 3 or 4 gentlemen who were verbally processing what we were talking about. I would ask a question, I’d then get the deer in the headlights looks from the class. I’d do a comprehension check. Good to go there.
Ben: If you are using hand or thumbs up/down comprehension checks, the you are getting a lot of false reads. They lie. Don’t use them. Learn to keep checking eyes instead.
Jake: …then, return to the question. One of these guys would verbally translate what I was asking into English. At the time, I wasn’t sure which rule that would fall under, or if I should squash it. Other guys were doing it also.
Ben: Squash the verbal processing. They are not processing. The are drawing attention to themselves and radically altering the nature of the input in all the other students, hence the deer in the headlights.
Jake: I let it go under the rationale that they were processing (correctly might I add) what we were working with. So, is this inappropriate blurting? Or is this the “appropriate” blurting that’s part of the Din.
Ben: It’s not part of the Din. It’s inappropriate blurting.
Jake: When you talk about it on the blog, it seems like it’s more directed towards students blurting out ideas for stories and such, not about verbal processors.
Ben: I’ve never seen a verbal processor in my entire career. How odd!
Jake: Also, after now having taught each of my classes one time, I am sad. Not with how I taught or with rule enforcement. My sadness is for the students. I am attributing this to the fact that I’m not throwing books and worksheets at them so they can escape (and so I can escape!) or desks on which to put their heads down. During CI, I could see some of my students getting restless, anxious, annoyed, frustrated, etc.
Ben: this was due to their never having had to show up as human being in many or most or all of the other classes they’ve ever had in school. That’s what the change in the family (kids don’t gain conversation skills at the dinner table anymore, and also the focus on testing, has done to us. Important not to blame them or think they’re stupid or that you are doing something wrong. You all have to learn to converse. Their side will be non-verbal. Look up the Art of Conversation category on the right here.
Jake…probably because they were thinking about their phones, their “precious” to borrow from Lord of the Rings.
Ben: No – the phones will disappear when they are more engaged and when they feel more a part of the community, and when they understand at a high level which frees them from the chains of lack of confidence.
Jake:I’m sad because it’s so difficult for them to hold their attention. I’m sad because what I want to offer them, to cruise with me in the CI six-speed instead of spending time looking under the hood, is already in danger because of bad attitudes, isolation, tech inundation, poor social skills, horrible role models, fundamental lack of decency, etc.
Ben: this is very accurate. But all we can do is work on WBYT and guarantee all of them a skilled CI SLOW delivery from you. Remember this: IF THEY DON’T UNDERSTAND, YOU ARE SPEAKING TOO FAST AND ALSO PROBABLY PUTTING TOO MANY NEW WORDS ON THE BOARD DURING CLASS. IF YOU HAVE MORE THAN 5 NEW WORDS ON THE BOARD AT THE END OF CLASS, YOU ARE TEACHING TOO MUCH LANGUAGE.
I simultaneously feel an immense responsibility and an immense feeling of futility. It makes me think that students simply aren’t ready something new, something fresh, something GOOD. Am I throwing pearls before swine??
Ben: I can see where you would think you are before swine but you are not. I felt that way almost all the time in my four decades but now as I look back I can say that not one moment of apparent futility was futile. There was a glorious plan and all I had to do was keep putting one foot in the other in service and then you see things about teaching a language that are far greater than just teaching the language. Your students are capable of everything you want from them, and far more. But when they have never had a class like yours, you have to know exactly what you want to do in teaching them, and the two main things are SLOW and COMPREHENSIBLE. Also if people are still doing TPRS, bless them, maybe it works for them. I had to bail. Why?
Two reasons: lack of true alignment w the research, and not enough precision in training ppl how to do it. Too many loose ends.
