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Report from the Field – Polly Fuller
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10 thoughts on “Report from the Field – Polly Fuller”
Right on, Polly. If they like it and understand it, and you are giving them zillions of reps of relevant CI, they are learning. Go forth and go on.
Chris
YES! It is so great to read your post! Totally not hokey! I feel like we are bringing and modeling humanity and balance into the lives of our students. We are walking the walk in a way that we could not in the old way. So excited for you đ
Thanks for sharing, Polly!
“I also feel that many students are learning for the first time how to âbe humanâ and interact in a classroom that values people over results”…
It’s so good to hear you say this because it captures the ‘turning of my soul’ that’s happened as a result of using TPRS/ TCI, Carol Gaab first introducing me to it, going to the iFLT conference, and most importantly, this PLC.
Sean it IS a turning of the soul. It has been for me. TPRS has had the audacity to confront me with the notion that I could be happy in my classroom. After 24 robotic AP teaching years, when I first heard about TPRS, that was a big idea to swallow – that I could be happy as a teacher and it could carry over into other aspects of my life. Wow.
And yet, that is exactly what is happening and continues to happen as I realize each day in each class that I can either open up my heart to my kids and draw their hearts out into the CI process and we can be happy together that day in that class staying in the target language, or we could do it the old dry way where I was the expert and there was so much English and yadda yadda.
Love this recent post from James by the way, also describing a turning of the heart:
https://benslavic.com/blog/report-from-the-field-james-hosler-4/
Also Bradley Donaldson wrote this here last September:
https://benslavic.com/blog/report-from-the-field-bradley-donaldson-2/
Trust me, tears never welled up in my eyes when I used to teach in power mode about the pluperfect subjunctive to smart white rich kids. And yet over the past 13 years of doing TPRS/CI I have, like Bradley, had on occasion to run into the hallway to let a few tears come into my eyes and then come back into the room and look at the kids and tell them through my wiped away tears that I have worked so hard on this story stuff and what they just did, that retell by Jose over there, has made me realize that my work has been worth it, has been good and justified, and please forgive me for crying but hey, it’s not the worst thing in the world for a class to see a teacher cry, because it shows that we are people and it also shows that life can be real, that we can feel real things and strong emotions, even in a building full of robotic interactions and sadness.
I’m the Tin Man. I always had a heart but I never knew it. But it took people like Susan Gross and Blaine Ray and Laurie Clarcq and Jason Fritze to remind me of it, and to show me how I could become real. I am the Tin Man and I am the Velveteen Rabbit. I’m all of it. Call it touchy feely. I don’t care. Call me a tree hugger of language instruction. That is to me a proud thing to be.
So I am stating to y’all – who are going through the same thing, going through your own turnings of the soul – that I am happy not to be stuck by the side of the road waiting, waiting for Dorothy (Susan Gross) and the Lion (Blaine Ray) and the Scarecrow (Jason Fritze) to come by and make my teaching real with their oil can, and that they did come along with their oil can and now I can move and do real things in my classroom.
Related: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-RHfXZkT1g
Wow. We’re so happy for you!
Thanks for all the words of encouragement. I truly value all of the comments and guidance this site provides. May you all have a good week!
“I also feel that many students are learning for the first time how to âbe humanâ and interact in a classroom that values people over results.”
Not only did you create an environment for that to happen you allowed it to happen in another language. That’s amazing. Especially when so much of what happens in language teaching is so mechanical and meaningless.
In a freshman class today, I asked each student, “What MidYear Exam do you have this afternoon?” and “What will it be like?” (easy/difficult/a surprise). Then I wished them luck. It did not strike me as a high interest activity. But they listened to each others responses. They were respectful and interested.
After that we talked about the structure / content of tomorrow’s Spanish Exam. They want to have a good grade so they did OK with that. I did it so that we could say that we reviewed for the exam.
Then I had them open their books. I do this to before a “common exam” to help them see in the book the connection between the text and “common exam.” We worked through an exercise together orally. Everything fell apart. This was not human. It was mechanical. It was not Spanish. It was standard talk in English about the Spanish exercise. It was figure out what kind of linguistic manipulation must be performed. It made me glad that the exam will be over tomorrow and we can go back to being human.
“This was not human. It was mechanical. It was not Spanish. It was standard talk in English about the Spanish exercise. It was figure out what kind of linguistic manipulation must be performed.”
This kind of thing from a textbook & workbook were what made me switch to CI. Yuck! Linguistic manipulation is just the kind of thing.
…everything fell apart. This was not human. It was mechanical. It was not Spanish. It was standard talk in English about the Spanish exercise. It was figure out what kind of linguistic manipulation must be performed….
Wow. Reading this made my socks roll up and down.
^ wow ^
Blaine told us his District mandated grammar teaching at one point. So he made a kid stand up and read the ÂĄDĂme! text explanations aloud while he took attendance đ