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Report from the Field – Lori Belinsky
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6 thoughts on “Report from the Field – Lori Belinsky”
Challenging the book companies to cite the research they use when creating the book made me think of David challenging Goliath. I could just see the book companies looking at you, swiping aside the question, and saying, “I’m bigger than you.”
…how do I step back a little bit and regain their confidence yet still challenge them?…
When 15 kids understand and 5 are out of it, that is a split class. Those 5, in my opinion, cannot be remediated at this point in March. Overall, I think you maybe let them go on too many occasions so far this year and this is the result. It may be that they need to be removed from the program at least for next year. My sense is that they are lost. No blame no foul. We do our best. Sometimes we are constantly trying to do too much for kids who would rather be watching T.V. But that’s another topic.
I know that we always talk about how this method reaches everybody. Not really. There has to be something in them that is receptive to what is being offered them. It is hard knowing when to work on helping a kid regain confidence. But for there to be confidence, there must have first been at least some degree of intent to succeed on the part of the student.
To help a little with the first question about textbooks and publishers, I remembered that Susan Gross has a great article about what to consider when adopting a new textbook (from a CI/TPRS standpoint). Here’s the link: http://susangrosstprs.com/articles/TEXTBOOKADOPTION.pdf it might help!
As for the students that have behavioral problems, maybe (and this is just a maybe as I don’t know the students/school/situation personally) they are shutting down because they already feel too challenged and are giving up. I know that I have recently had the realization that my students are not understanding every single thing all of the time, which means for me that I need to: (1) point and pause more, (2) go slower, which is helped by (1), and also (3) I need to ask more questions to individual students and not just the whole class. And they need to be questions that I KNOW they can answer (i.e. yes/no, either/or questions, which are easier (BUT still challenging for some students!!). I think, again, I read this idea in an article of Susan’s. It may be difficult to do this late in the semester, but maybe your students will see that you’re not going to give up on them and if they can feel even a small sense of success, then maybe you can build on that.
Also, Ben’s PQA book is wonderful. And it’s all about talking about the kids. About what they’re interested in. Getting to know them and what they like. I think that connection is so important and it’s great that we can do that through the target language. Something I know I need to work on next year is making sure that students KNOW that my whole goal for the 45 minutes that I have them is to just talk about ONE kid. Maybe two. Their interests. What they’re good at. I think PQA is such fertile CI ground and a really good way to hone your circling skills.
Anyway, those are just my two cents (and kind of ramble-y, but it’s late). Good luck with everything and keep us updated on how things go!
This is what I would love to ask text book reps:
“How do humans learn a second language and how do your materials support that process”?
Then I would like to ask how using their materials will allow me to meet ACTFL guidelines by ensuring that 90% of my instruction time is spent delivering CI
I would then like to say that I had heard that humans don’t learn L2 they acquire them and ask them if they could explain the difference….
that would be fun for me 🙂
Love that! Have to write that down. This confrontation will come soon, is my personal feeling and even though we are really David against Goliath, I think it’s a good idea to start thinking about rhetoric.
Lori, email me christopherroberts9@gmail.com . I have tons of research articles accumulated related to either TPRS or input-based instruction (due to my Master’s paper right now). I can email them to you in a zip file.