Another series of emails, the third such collection, among the Latinists, but it applies to all of us. It is about Jeff’s organizing himself against attacks by ignorant people, but there is also a valuable thread about reading in here as well. There are lots of little gold nuggets in here. Jeff starts the exchanges with a nice candid report from the field:
Dear all,
I wanted to update everyone where I am with this. I was able to get one of my administrator to observe me this week. She came in and watched for the entire period. The energy was good and the participation was awesome. What was amazing was how much understanding and fun were happening. We really we doing great. Today, she sat down with me and gave me her “evaluation.” I’m not sure how she would be able to evaluate what I am doing. The cool thing was that she leaned over to a student and asked him what something meant and while he is not the strongest student, he told her the meaning and it was awesome! However, I am being forced to cowtow to parents and the old ways. Here is what she said: See her points below. 1. You are developing positive relationships with students. You are passionate about your subject area,and are effective in creating a positive environment in your classroom. Your energy level, sense of humor and genuine care for students is evident. 2. I appreciate the time you have spent dedicated to research in foreign language education. The students are immersed in the language in your classroom and you take special care to relate the language to them to keep a high level of engagement. The students also need targeted resources to complete at home in order to practice what they have been immersed in the classroom. Share with me your ideas for “homework” plan by Friday, December 14, 2012. 3. Continue to evaluate your practices specifically in regard to middle level learners. Spend some time talking with a content subject leader at Nagel specifically in the area of grade book analysis and assessing student learning in both formative and summative ways. Share with me your findings from this meeting by December 20, 2012. Okay, my assessment: She doesn’t care about what I am doing. She wants to make the parents happy. The parents want their kids to have homework and it is my job to give them that homework. I tried to explain to her that language learning is an unconscious process and that I don’t want to go against the research that tells us that we need to be doing. I have offered to show her the research and even talk with parents, No response. So now, I need some help (again) with coming up with what she wants. Thank you in advance. I also want to say that I am weary. I am not a quitter and I won’t give up, but wow, I am exhausted. The only person doing the research and the best practices is me. If it weren’t for you guys, I’d be failing miserably. I will continue on, but it is really weighing on me.
Jeff
Robert (Patrick) responded:
Dear Jeff,
Thank you for taking the time to keep us in the loop. First, I want to acknowledge the exhaustion. It is real and it is earned. You nailed it when you said that you were the only one doing the research and the best practices, and you are being “punished” for doing it. Wear the black eye with honor. This kind of thing is exhausting. I know what the inside of those trenches smell and look like. I am sorry to say that some of it is necessary. I will speak for myself. This kind of relentless work and the ensuing exhaustion were necessary for me. I could not simply go do the typical Latin teacher thing anymore, so all that work over the years (and I still do some of it) was to justify in my own head and heart that what I was doing was good, best practices, and that there were supporting philosophies and studies. I can hold the line when I know I’ve got good stuff behind me. I think the requirement for homework and assessment stuff is easier to fix than it may seem. Clearly, your Admin hasn’t done her homework on the homework studies and is more willing to keep forcing bad practices on student rather than face down parents who are living the lie (that homework is useful). What can be useful to students who are learning language in a CI room is to re-read stories. So, nightly, assign students to read stories that you worked on 2-3 weeks ago. And, to make it even juicier for the parents, send them with the same story to read 2-3 nights in a row, out loud to a parent who must sign a Latin Reading HW chart. I hope it’s obvious that all of what I have just suggested is largely for the parents. The students are NOT to translate, but to read the story aloud to the parents, the same story 2-3 nights in a row, one that is 2-3 weeks old. It will be easy for them. They will get more repetitions. It won’t take long, and the parents will have to get involved in this Latin “homework.” I have to run at this point, but my approach for assessments is to create something on paper that looks like what you do in class every day. There are a number of ways to do this, formatively and summatively. I’m sure the others will have ideas to share as well. Hang in there.
Bob
Then David added:
Jeff, Thanks for sharing. I don’t have a lot of time right at the moment, but just had a couple thoughts: 1. Bob, I like the homework idea, but I think maybe the kids should translate instead, at least for level 1s, because I see this as a type of forced output. Just thinking here… for level 2 and up, I don’t see much problem with reading outloud and translation may “prove” to the parents that the kids are learning the material. Other thoughts on this? I just say: KEEP THE PARENT INVOLVEMENT PIECE! YES! 2. I remember some great ideas about a year or so bounced around on the blog for people who “had” to assign homework. Robert Harrell especially had some awesome ideas that were not much work for the teacher, since that’s the last thing you need with your busy schedule. Running a CI classroom with full investment from the teacher is plenty of work load for anyone.
David
And John said:
I agree with David that written translation is a better idea for year 1 (and even year 2) students than reading aloud. As for parent involvement, the student could then read their translation to the parent, while the parent looks at the Latin text. If someone was FORCING me to give homework, the first thing I would do is send home culture and derivative worksheets for the textbook. Send home kids with a copy of the book (or a link to online resources) and have them learn something about the Romans, or look up English words and find their Latin derivatives. This is work that they can do on their own, and enjoy doing, and you won’t have to devote class time to these important but non-acquisition-supporting activities. AND, this kind of work will impress parents who want “rigor” and most parents can help them with this kind of work and/or be involved.
John
Bob then asked a question about translation work as homework: “Why would you have beginners translate for parents who are clueless about how this works?”
And David responded:
My main reason for not having kids read Latin outloud as beginners is trying to avoid forced production. I’ll explain a little about where I’m at with this and that may help you see my thinking. A year ago, I would have had beginners doing oral repetition after me in class all the time, and reading outloud at home too, if I was forced to give homework. When I attended NTPRS I saw this non production issue in a new way. When I practiced teaching in the coaching sessions I was told to not have the students repeat after me – no force production. I was dumbfounded then – I had always had kids repeat after me, from the first day. The main reasons that I could discern for not forcing production were: that the brain just needs the silence of the mouth to acquire in those first hundred plus hours of hearing the language, and the brain needs to internalize the sounds to correctly reproduce them in speech later (much later), and the affective filter goes way down when a learner is not even thinking about feeling a need to produce the language. I experienced this first hand at Linda Li’s Mandarin demo of TPRS. Wow! All I COULD do was sit there and listen. THAT was a full time job for my brain right then. I was listening to every syllable, scanning word walls when my brain didn’t know a word, and feeling this sensation after hearing the word (after much repetition) and starting to have this instinctive urge to start uttering it myself – first quietly to myself, while sitting there listening. That was all the convincing I needed to not force production this year. And it has been so positive! Classroom discipline is better, I can tell kids’ affective filters are down, and just as many people volunteer to try to talk as before and no one feels bad or guilty for not producing. And I notice that when I ask questions in Latin that require a Latin word and kids answer in English (which is certainly allowed), everything feels natural and I can affirm them and then just ask the class then “quomodo dicitur Latine?” and they give it to me after everyone’s had a few additional seconds to process, or I say it. There is so much more “flow” in my class with no forced production. There is more quietness for acquisition and more gesturing – which is great too, giving those idle hands something to do. So, my thinking is, if I’m not doing forced production in class and it works great, why would I do it at home? Hope that helps you with where I’m coming from. And just to clarify – I have my kids do choral translation all the time, just not choral reading in the language. And if I had to give kids, I probably wouldn’t make them do written translation, but just orally translate to their parents.
Valeatis, David
John added:
David has said a lot of what I would have said, and more. From what I learned at NTPRS and from Ben’s blog, here are a few key points against having students read Latin aloud on their own. Input leads to output, even with pronunciation. Also, this goes back to the ACTFL’s “classical standards” document, which basically “allows” Latin teachers to sustitute reading aloud for spoken production. The whole reading aloud thing is something we Latin teachers have to let go of. My Mandarin colleague down the hall has his students reciting and repeating military style. It is all about tradition of instruction, and has nothing to do with effectiveness. When students do not understand what they are reading and are not absolutely sure how to pronounce the words from hearing all the words hundreds of times, it has a negative impact on both acquisition and pronunciation. And we will get plenty of this kind of output from the superstars if we ask for volunteers, who will in turn be providing their classmates with more CI. Translation of a text they already understand, however, I’m guessing is as close to independent CI work that we can get. Also, by having students translate easy texts for their parents, they are showing those parents skills that will impress them, and make us look good. As far as beginners are concerned, I don’t think there is anything we can have them do on their own that will promote acquisition anywhere near on the level of hearing CI in class spoken by us. This “teacher centered” aspect of CI classrooms makes Kohn’s arguments against homework all the more relevant for language teachers than for the other content areas. I hope this makes sense.
John
Then Bob responded:
I appreciate both of your responses. I trust what you learned at NTPRS and I understand what you are saying. Here were my concerns: 1. I guess I didn’t think of having kids read old stories (I kept saying 2-3 weeks old) as forced production. My kids love to go back and read old stories “because they are so easy!”. That’s what I was pushing for, and having them translate old stories would work just as well in that regard. 2. I reacted at the suggestion of translating for their parents precisely because the parents that Jeffrey is dealing with are after the kind of Latin instruction they had. I wondered if some of these parents might not try to take over and manage how their children are translating. I do choral translation all the time, too, but that is SO different from the tedious, solitary, word for word translation that we were all forced through. Talk about forced output (of a different kind, I know, but it was so painful and boring). I didn’t want to have this conversation in front of Jeffrey. He’s too stressed right now as it is without having to listen to me question what the two of you said. BTW, soon I will post to you all, and maybe the list, what I am gathering from my students. I have them put their timed writes in a folder all semester, and then at the end of the semester, I give them guided instruction for looking at what’s in their folder and to write some reflections on their own Latin learning. It’s fascinating stuff. They really do understand why I am asking them to do things a certain way, and they really understand why it works. They are also reminding me of some things. More later.
Bob
John then responded:
Bob,
On point 1, I don’t think there is anything wrong with having kids read old stories, however reading them out-loud is the thing that concerns me. Silent reading I see as input, but oral reading as a form of output, at least in terms of pronunciation. I think some of my kids feel put on the spot if I ask them to read in Latin and I could see this feeling happening in front of a parent too. Just having a lot of subconscious familiarity with the language will help out loud reading happen without any problem at a later point in the learning of the language. There’s just a big change I’ve witnessed in comprehensibility, classroom conduct and behavior and even student attitude (as in much improved) that I in part contribute to the no-forced-output policy. It’s a different year with no-forced-output. I can’t explain it all, but I’m experiencing it. I understand what you mean on point 2, and I hadn’t thought about it like this – parents starting to manage how their kids interact with Latin. I also hesitate to shoulder kids with a written translation, since these become so boring. And I agree, the arduous word by word oral translation is a type of forced output. Choral translation has a completely different feel to it, and I would argue is best used only when I can deliver it in a context of a lot of Latin CI. So I usually read a paragraph in Latin, circle some, do some comp. checks, trans. of phrases to individuals. Then we do a choral trans. Then I go back to the same reading in Latin a and circle, or put up a pic. the kids have made and ask oral questions without the text up there, etc. (the main point here being: the choral trans. is seated between two blocks of CI in the target language. I’m thinking John’s suggestion of cultural and derivative stuff in English is a good option for homework, or before I had my kids keep a reading log. But… with the reading log, I seriously doubted most of the kids truthfully read in Latin. My students even told me directly that the reading log was a waste of time because everyone just lied. I believe it too and don’t doubt it especially since they have so much homework in other classes. So it was a huge pain, I got upset because grades were falling when kids didn’t turn in the log and it was all just a big waste of time in my opinion for most kids.That’s one of the reasons I don’t assign homework – I know the majority of it is just copied or done with no effort. One other kid had another observation. They said, “Maust! Why did you give us a reading log? Reading logs make kids NOT want to read. I want to read when I don’t HAVE to read.” And this kid was smart and an avid reader. -David “Maust! Why did you give us a reading log? Reading logs make kids NOT want to read. I want to read when I don’t HAVE to read.” And this kid was smart and an avid reader.” This is pure Krashen!
John
Then Jeff wrote:
Any thought on this formative/summative assessment thing? I do comprehension checks. I give quick quizzes as per ben and John’s video. I’m not sure what more she wants? I’m thinking maybe a combo of translation a story and derivatives for homework. I might even throw in some culture. I have to jump through the hoop. I welcome all your support and help! jeff
And Bob responded:
Jeff,
If kids keep a log of their reading/translating at home, you certainly could give them a “formative” assessment grade for that. You can also do some of these for formative assessments: 1. Pass out of class–in which you ask them 5 simple items from that class period, particularly thing you KNOW they heard over and over. It might be the 4 new words you circled all period. They hand it to you as they walk out of class (I do it on little quarter sheets of paper), and they are quick to grade. 2. Timed writes. I have students count their words and put it on the sheet and toss it into a folder with their name on it which I keep. You can give a formative assessment on that, or save them like I do and have them do a mid semester or semester end self-analysis of what they see in the folder. 3. After you have asked, told, read, re-read a story, give a simple 10 question quiz over it. Let them grade their own paper as you go over it. Less work for you, and it provides immediate review. More repetitions. For a summative assessment, I include 2 stories we have read with comprehension questions in Latin and multiple choice answers; in context grammar questions; culture questions all in English, multiple choice because the culture material in our texts is all in English; and a section of English derivatives which we have worked on in class and reviewed. Hope this helps.
Bob