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Report from the Field – Robert Patrick
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65 thoughts on “Report from the Field – Robert Patrick”
Oh man! Let me tell you how awesome all this stuff is! I am so thrilled to be working on in this way and learning all the time. I give much thanks to everyone for the great things we are learning/doing. Two years ago, I would not have thought that I would be doing this and now I am.
I think that it is so true about what Grant said. It’s about helping not about trying to blame or make people change for the sake of change. I know that several years ago, I myself felt quite threatened by what I was hearing others doing with CI even though I had no idea what it was. Now I am excited to be doing it. I hope to move toward more Best Practices every day. It is very terrifying to think about changing what you are doing when you already work so hard. Change often means more work, at least at first. We should be very cognizant of this and be sure to do the things that Bob is doing to help others get there.
So awesome! What more can I say!
Thanks for bringing your expertise to Georgia!! Unfortunately, I won’t be able to attend your sessions, but we need you here!!
Robert,
You wrote: “today I am having an ongoing conversation with a Latin teacher who is trying CI work, but is so torn for why she shouldn’t be asking students to memorize lexical paradigms, etc. ”
You’ve addressed right there one of the reasons why it is so hard for traditional teachers to fully embrace CI. They are stuck in a mold that caters to 4% but leaves behind 96% of the students.
The mold is one that fuels disparities. Grant pointed to the emerging concern on the part of the administrators relating to the lack of equity in education system. Lack of equity that Krashen has been fighting for a while now but that goes into deaf ears.
The mold is also one that perpetrates disparities. Here in the USA we can boast about schools attended by middle and upper class kids as performing among the best in the world all the while ignoring the staggering statistics : 1 out of 5 kids living below poverty level. Not to mention new stats on kids with food insecurities.
We can’t blame teachers who may under better circumstances embrace CI/TPRS. In my department I m the only one out of 18 FL teachers that teaches CI exclusively. Yet I hear my colleagues complain all the time about the kids that are not “learning”. These teachers are aware of the shortcomings of language education nowadays but without the proper infrastructure and support , where and who can they turn to?
I think it was Ben or Susie who had said that out of 10 or 20 people coming out of a conference and totally sold on CI philosophy , 1 will truly stick with CI/TPRS. Without the follow up and support, those teachers eventually quit!
So it will take time and effort at the grass root level with people like you who are willing to go and train and support people out there in the field. It is also up to CI teachers to share and discuss those stats we all love to hate : traditional attrition rates versus retention due to this new way of teaching. It will take time but change is going to come.
Thank you Robert!
It was Susie. I asked her that question in a Starbucks in about 2005 and her response has always stuck with me. It was that out of 100 teachers who attend a workshop, only 1 will honestly try it.
I would add, based on what I have seen, that among 100 of those who honestly try it, only 1 will stick with it to the point where they use it exclusively.
These numbers, if anywhere near accurate, parallel the overall dissing and distorting of Krashen’s hypotheses by most educators to fit their needs and whatever they are thinking and doing at the time. They don’t end up using the method as we discuss it here, but, since they attended a workshop or two, they claim that they use the method.
That is where the confusion and hypocrisy and attacking of us by others is being let in. People are attacking those who misrepresent the method in their classrooms and rightly so, and we get pulled into the fray. There is so much confusion about the term TPRS.
That’s why Robert and DPS and I think skip and others are choosing to use the term TCI, not out of disrespect for Blaine’s monumental discovery, but because the term pisses too many people off, and it shouldn’t, but its misuse has brought that on.
The labels are causing the truth to be misunderstood. It isn’t only the term TPRS. The term comprehensible input is mentioned in SIOP and ELA training programs. They use the term but do they know what the term means or is it just fashionable to use the term?
This situation reminds me, for those old enough to remember, the passage in Annie Hall when Marshall Mcluhan steps out from behind a marquee in front of a theatre and confronts a guy who is quoting him, showing off to his girlfriend. Mcluhan says, “That’s not what I meant at all!” So I think Krashen should do that as well but how much does this man need to defend himself?
In Denver in 2009, he said that TPRS is as close to getting his ideas right as anyone, far closer than anyone else. But, as I keep reflecting on all of this almost insane babel we are all engaged in right now, I am more and more convinced that people who are now jumping on the bandwagon will be among those 99 whom Susie first described to me in 2005.
They may jump on the bandwagon, but many will play out of tune, and many others won’t even have instruments.
Okay, since getting repetitions in is key, do it one more time. What is Comprehensible Input? If you need to (and I think you do) make this question a new thread.
Bob I don’t think it needs to be a thread here bc I doubt if anyone who doesn’t get CI would be in this group. My complaint is with those who bend the term and say it is part of their instruction when in point of fact their instruction is far from comprehensible.
Grant and I have been talking about this. I honestly think that teaching using comprehensible input – that term in lower case – is what Curtain and Met and all the other people who have jumped on the bandwagon mean when they use the term. They say it to get credibility, not because they embrace it fully. It is something that they get in a broad sense and that is all. But since it is a buzz word now they use it, but wrongly. They are misleading a lot of teachers into thinking that their (watered down) version of CI is ok to use and if they use it as sold by Curtain and them they could maybe even continue to use the textbook and do this bogus form of ci at the same time. There is a lot of pride in that stance, not to mention intellectual hubris and not a small degree of disdain, born of ego, of Krashen. Why don’t they get it? They don’t get the unconscious piece, its supreme role in language acquisition.
Krashen’s specific and more precise original intent has, on the other hand, taken flight in the term TCI, an umbrella term to TPRS that will revive and replace it and which conveys the real meaning that Krashen intended – full input for years with the attention of the learner on the meaning and not on the words as well as no forced output until the massive amount of input starts showing up in writing and speech naturally over time, all of it being an unconscious process that reflects the way we learn our first language.
That is what we try to create in our classrooms – real CI. Real CI in my view is adherence, strictly, to the 90% statement and the Interpersonal Skill and the Three Modes and all of that that we have talked about in such detail here on the PLC over the past three or four months. So that is the difference in my view between ci and CI.
And Bob my own formal definition would take me some time to craft. It’s just about all I’ve thought about all these years, especially the part about language acquisition being an unconscious process. I have written so much on that one aspect of real CI, even creating a category for it if anyone wants to go read some of those posts.
Because it is the fact that the unconscious focus on the meaning that really leads to actual acquisition that the Curtains and those others just don’t get. It’s like what I have said here a few times about Krashen being like Jung in that way, how Jung wanted to take depth psychology away from the analytical schools of the day and away from Freud, who didn’t grasp the larger picture of how the unconscious worked in the way Jung did*. Really Bob that is my answer to the question of what CI is, it’s the uconscious piece.
For more on Jung and the role of the unconscious, which defines CI for me: https://benslavic.com/blog/2013/01/21/language-learning-is-an-unconscious-process/
*I apologize if that’s bullshit. I don’t really know Freud in the way I have studied Jung so I could be way off.
I know that I am not doing everything correctly, but I don’t think I am a bandwagon jumper. I started this last year and I am still doing it despite my struggles. Perhaps a refresher, as Bob, suggests. I really want to keep to the research and do the right thing.
I fear that I am screwing up, even when I don’t want to.
Jeff, it’s a process. Not everyone turns into a pro overnight. It takes time to find your own TCI voice and I would say after four years< I am just beginning to wrap my arms around it. And just when I think it's all good… a new issue pops up. It's a lot of trial and error. It is a really collegial endeavor – it takes a village and a lot of reflection on the part of the teacher. The reflective piece is the part I love especially since I have this great space to share the experiences of others and ask as many questions as I need to. Stay close with the other TCI people who are nearby. You are on a path that is constantly evolving as you are evolving as a TCI practitioner.
Chill you are so right, and Ben keeps on reminding us that there are no experts, just practitioners. Although some of you guys definitely have more experience under your belt than newcomers like me, with may be two and a half years trying to figure it out.
Whatever I do in my classes everyday I just ALWAYS preface it with the thought : is this CI, how can I provide enough reps so that it is comprehended by all of my students (unrealistic goal but one I need to keep me in focus)?
This is why the getting together in conferences, peer groups , coaching sessions is paramount IMHO, so we don’t fall off the track, because we are so alone in our daily struggles.
I met chill in San Antonio in 2009 and had been up all nite on a road trip from Denver with Bryce bc we had books to sell so didn’t fly. Chill was about the first person I met and I knew instantly that here was a comrade of like mind and intent. What she says is very accurate that it is a process.
Add to that the idea that what has gotten me personally through these past twelve years of processing at an intense internal level, waking up at nite with new ideas for years and years, is precisely a few people like chill. Starting with Susan Gross.
Not to divert here from the thread, but, to echo Sabrina above, this work is so emotionally hard – let alone the mechanics of it – that without each other, without some kind of support, I don’t think we can do it. It’s just that way. There is something about this work that is far too human to learn from a book how to do.
You are the opposite of a bandwagon jumper, Jeff. What I meant was those who use the term but who mold it to fit their own instructional ideas, many of which conflict with the simple definition that it is any input that is comprehensible.
You are to be admired. As the bandwagon goes by, happy to shout the term about to all who would listen, applying it poorly, you walk quietly along the side of the road, unnoticed.
But you and all of us, really, who know that this work is never done, are doing the real work, the work of heroes. There’s a big difference between misusing the term in a classroom or at some training and trying to get better at it.
I am now also using “comprehended input” 🙂
(I need to give credit as Sabrina did but cannot for the life of me remember the person’s name – sorry)
Skip ,
his name is Mark Knowles. And Skip thank you , I sooo agree with this change in terminology , that is why I keep on bringing it up.
Krashen agreed that comprehended is more accurate. They are the same to me. I’d have a hard time saying comprehended input after all these years of the other way.
The problem is that “they” have stolen the word and made it something it shouldn’t be. The Spanish demo I saw at my CI workshop by Frank Troyan was presented as an example of comprehensible input – but it was NOT comprehended by me.
I have heard other teachers say that the input presented by “Structured Input” is not comprehensible either… and yet “they” continue using the term CI….
So, Unless the CI were comprehended by ALL it could not be called CI…
I like it… (I’ll keep working on Ben, Sabrina, he’ll come around… I will have him practice saying it in Dallas! 🙂 🙂 🙂
Skip,
Ben’s not going to Dallas! But yeah let’s keep on working on him!
That’s what he says now, but I haven’t lost hope. I will think of more reasons for him to go (besides practicing saying “comprehended input” 🙂
Ben,
How can you not agree in the difference in terminology?????
Like Skip said, people use the word comprehensible when it may only be comprehensible to them and not to the recipients whom it is addressed to.
I’ll try. It’s weird. I wasn’t going to even try, but when I saw the five questions marks up there, I decided I had to at least try.
Thanks for the laugh, Ben!
Why I’m not switching to “comprehended input”:
“Comprehended” is in the past, that is, something that is an accomplished fact. Although I can do my best to be comprehensible, I cannot ultimately control whether input is comprehended by every student. We can most of the time for most of the students, but some kids don’t want to play the game. Their lack of participation does not lessen the value of the input, but it is not comprehended by them.
It is our job to be comprehensible and to check frequently to see whether, indeed, it has been comprehended.
I don’t think changing the word will solve the problem. If the change catches on, soon the masses will use the new term, yet still provide input that is not comprehensible to many of their students. We need to clarify, as Sabrina did, input must be comprehensible to the recipients.
Like.
Okay, Ben likes it but…… may I push a bit? 🙂
Rita, you say: “Although I can do my best to be comprehensible, I cannot ultimately control whether input is comprehended by every student. We can most of the time for most of the students, but some kids don’t want to play the game. Their lack of participation does not lessen the value of the input, but it is not comprehended by them. ”
But I would ask, are we able to claim that for those students (who won’t play the game” the CI was “comprehensible” If it had been they would have comprehended, right? So using the word “comprehensible” really does not solve the problem either.. It just allows teachers to say ‘it was comprehensible, you just didn’t do what was necessary to comprehend it.¨
That is what the Chinese sample lesson was like for me. I could not comprehend the Chinese words for the animals…. The presenter, however, used this as an example of “comprehensible input” I would also add that when Linda Li taught, everything she said was comprehended by me. Now, the instructor of the workshop would point to other students in the class who did understand the Chinese words for the animals as evidence that it was comprehensible…. That would not, however, change that fact that for me it was not comprehended.
The reason this is so important to me is because I am sure that more and more teachers are using CI when they mean “immersion” and immersion is, as Terry Waltz says, “language waterboarding.”
I think that Comprehended Input would:
1. send the message that unless the input were comprehended it is not CI
2. put more of the responsibility for comprehensibility on the teacher…
I am becoming more and more like Ben, working through issues and understanding better through writing about them…..
Skip,
I don’t know why there was no reply possible to your last comment in response to Rita so I’ll put it here. I agree with you wholeheartedly with your answer to Rita.
I want to quote Mark Knowles here b/c he is the one who brought this up:
” But it was not until I started to become acquainted with Ben Slavic’s work at the iFLT in Breckenridge this summer that I began to re-evaluate the concept of Comprehensible Input. It seems to me that the term itself does not capture exactly what we seek in our classrooms. That is because we must ask ourselves, comprehensible to whom, and how often? Would it be too late to rename what we really seek, “Comprehended Input,” knowing at the same time that we will always be beset by a margin of doubt about whether something is fully comprehended? Otherwise, meaning is not negotiable, and I believe meaning, by definition, is always negotiable.
Here is the link if you want to read the whole article , it’s definitely worth reading:
https://benslavic.com/blog/2012/11/25/mark-knowles/
I’ve started using it as well. When talking to people who are either clueless or only beginning to have an inkling of an idea about second language acquisition (as opposed to learning), I am starting to ask the question, “Comprehensible to whom?” Also, when I think of it in terms of “Comprehended Input” it puts me into more meaningful interaction with my students. My job is to be as certain as I can that they have comprehended; their job is to tell me whether they have comprehended or not.
This afternoon I was talking to our former Department Chair, and she said that one of her frustrations is that whenever she would mention what I am doing in German, someone would always say, “Oh, I’ve been doing that for 20 years!” This usually came from the most grammar-driven teachers present. Definitely a cognitive disjunct – and probably cognitive dissonance that is being hidden. She also gave me a copy of a report from a consult team recommending the “Communicative Approach” and how to help teachers become more “communicative”. AUGH! (as Charlie Brown would say) What that says is that my district hasn’t even arrived at the communicative approach, let alone Comprehensible Input, to say nothing of Comprehended Input.
I am reminded of an article I recently read – and a conversation I recently had – about music. The article was about whether and how people can come to love music they initially hate. The answer is yes – with repeated exposure and greater understanding. The conversation had to do with introducing music based on the twelve-tone (chromatic) scale to groups traditionally acquainted with the pentatonic scale. In both the article and the conversation, one of the points was that initially people do not even hear the new intervals; at some point they must learn to hear differently. One example is the “blues” note that is standard fair in pop music. It entered mainstream music through Rhythm and Blues – which was universally denounced by white, mainstream musicians as being harsh and discordant and unmusical. They had to learn to hear it, then they had to learn to understand it before they could learn to like it.
What I need to be certain is present in the right way. I am where I am, not because I am any smarter or better than my colleagues, but because I have walked a path that they have not yet walked. It’s such a beautiful and rewarding journey that I want them to make it, too. I can only point the way and encourage them to make the journey. (But that doesn’t mean I will water down the message.)
And I agree that this group is my true PLC, no matter what my district would like to see. There are just too few other like-minded individuals, even among my TCI-friendly colleagues to have the same kind of collaboration that goes on here.
As I was sitting in my Standards Based Assessment and Instruction workshop from 9-1:15 on Saturday, I looked around and had an “ah ha” moment after listening to how many people thought that practice lead to proficiency…
I really think the target audience has got to be students in student teacher programs. I asked permission two years ago to have one class in which I would present TCI. The teacher allowed me to do so… This year she asked me if I would return. I did.
Last week one of the students in that class (someone who will be teaching Spanish in some school in the fall) emailed me to ask if she could come observe my class. She said that she had so many questions and wanted to learn more about TCI… She is going to observe me in April
I have contacted Bates college to ask the same thing but never heard from them..
There are very few students each time. Our programs are very small. It is, however, something…
I know everyone is very busy but I would encourage you to reach out to university people to offer a presentation on TCI…
Equity and disparity. These are issues that have been driving me for most of my career. Just today my student teacher and I were talking about this very issue. We have several students that we KNOW in a traditional Latin classroom would be failing right now. Our most difficult students have a C and are showing up to talk with us about what they need to do to stay on board. When this happens, it makes me feel like we are beginning to address issues of equity and disparity. One of the most difficult took time to tell me today, after checking on her grade and talking with me about what she needed to do to stay on top of things, that her probation officer had suspected she wouldn’t pass a drug test, but she did pass, and now the PO trusts her more. She was proud to tell me this. Point? She trusts me. She has found in doing CI work in Latin that she can trust me. She wants to come back tomorrow. If they don’t want to come back tomorrow, it doesn’t matter what we do or why we do it.
Robert,
I teach in an urban school in Chicago . In my high school, there are over 400 homeless kids, and what kills me is that I don’t know if any are in my classes or not. When I think about it, I want to scream but it would be pointless. What you are doing, what we are doing: showing our kids we care and can make a difference in their lives by connecting with them on a human level and showing them they count is more than what politicians do…..
Sabrina, I teach Latin in South Atlanta, and it always pains me to learn when a student is homeless. The only way I’ve been able to learn is from the school social workers and attendance clerks.
One question, do you have a problem with getting them to come to class? My homeless students are chronic ditchers, and have been since the school year started. It has been extremely difficult to get buy in from these kids, because they have much bigger problems to worry about. Plus they are never here.
And Bob – How do you get even the most recalcitrant kids to buy in? Students in my classes tell me it is pretty easy to do well if you show up and try. I offer many repetitions and make up work, extra credit etc…, but it seems like nothing isn’t enough for the serial ditchers and kids who just don’t care whether they graduate or not. This may be a problem that goes deeper into my school’s culture, but it always seems important to me to think about.
If I can make a personal connection with a kid, I can get him/her to feel that there is someone at school who cares about them, and in some cases it may be the only person who does so anywhere.
Then, keeping in mind what you said about their load being too heavy to include attention to a language class, I do my best to let it go. I am not a social worker and can’t do that job and teach as well.
When they are in class, I praise them. When they are not (esp. when they are gifted as so many are, right?), I try to let it go. I don’t think about the AP kid I am not getting to train. I think prayerfully that their lives unfold in a better direction. I can’t do anything else.
Teaching is about all those little moments when we instantly, faster than even we notice, must decide to engage our heart or not. If we engage too much and too often, we destroy our own ability to be effective, as we have often said here. It’s what Merton said:
“To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone with everything is to succumb to violence. The frenzy of the activist neutralizes his work for peace. It destroys the fruitfulness of his own work, because it kills the root of inner wisdom which makes work fruitful.”
I’m not in control.
Related: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bd2B6SjMh_w
Thanks for the advice Ben! Just one thing – the students at my school are VERY negative. Much more negative than any I taught in CA or IL. How do you heap the praise on them without getting other students to instantly reply negatively?
For example – One of my homeless students/chronic ditchers, whenever she walks into class – the other students start making fun of her. It always takes a few minutes of me telling them to stop, and that they have to play nice. Is there a better way?
My invisible internal response to seeing someone bullying a homeless kid is to kick the shit out of the bully. My professional response is to act and not depend on myself to get them to stop.
Obviously they don’t respect the classroom teacher in this kind of situation since they have certainly gotten away with it a lot more than they have been called on it.
Since you indicate that this is a daily event, I would – tomorrow – have security or somebody from Restorative Justice or an AP or ANYONE in a disciplinary school safety capacity at the door, out of sight. When the abuse starts, I nod at the door, in sweep the people who deal with that sort of thing, they pull the bullies out, and you go on with your lesson.
Having been apprised of the situation, they handle it completely, with phone calls to parents. You get to teach. This is serious. The victim needs you to step big and fast on this one. Dude you have to act.
Daniel,
I don’t know who my homeless students are and can only speculate…
Just thinking about it is very painful to me.
It kills me that in this country, the supposedly richest and most advanced and powerful country in the world there are children who are left behind , with no place to sleep and food insecurities….. I just can’t comprehend it.
There are no social nets put in place, it’s left up to the people and not the governement. I agree with capitalism and freedom of enterprise as an ideal to a certain degree up until it clashes and when the social disparities become so monumental.
The idea that many people are living below the poverty level, making $ 7.50 minimum wage an hour and a CEO takes a golden bonus of 20 million for letting thousands of people out of jobs is unfathomable to me. If we were in 1789 I would have perished under the barricades for fighting inequalities but here all I can do is silently cry for all those kids…….
I am originally from France, and I lived all my life with the guarantees of social protections and health care for all citizens because we were all born equal, regardless of…..
Sorry I m a socialist/social democrat at heart. I know I know I m not supposed to talk politics on this blog so I ‘ll just leave it here.
I have a few chronic ditchers and it is hard to get buy ins, but my philosophy is to never give up.
I have a kid with ADD, a chronic ditcher and who when he comes to class
looks like he doesn’t do much. I ‘ve given him jobs, allowed him to contribute to no avail. Up until Tuesday when he said he wanted to move closer to me so he could be more focused!!! So I did, let s see how it goes today (I wasn’t in school yesterday).
So I guess my 2 cents here is for you to keep on trying……
I meant I saw that kid on Monday.
I am right here with you Sabrina. It must be supreme culture shock for you having to live with our attitudes towards any kind of social safety net. I am glad to hear your advice. It makes me know that what I am doing is right and that it will not always be fruitless. We can’t give up on these kids, as easy as it would be. Also – if the student you mentioned does start showing up, paying attention, and participating – how are you going to deal with how far behind he is in comparison to your other students? It seems to me that such a kid would need hope that they could pass to really turn themselves around.
Daniel,
the beauty of this method is that anyone can hop on , no matter where they are with the language. That is why mixed classes work so well . We make every structure we teach be COMPREHENDED by all students at all times. The rest is gravy. Bearnaise or Hollandaise!
Thank God that students have teachers that care as you two do. The truth is that these kids are not “chronic-ditchers.” They are actually kids with no bed, no shower, no closet, no clean clothes and often they have made an enormous effort to get to school. Many of them are also responsible for younger siblings. Do you choose leaving your baby sister alone or do you go to school? The fact that they actually show up, when they KNOW that classmates will make fun of them and teachers (not you) will harass them, is remarkable.
Daniel, draw a HARD line about the mockery. HARD. If we only make one disciplinary stand, this is the one to make. Is it the culture of your school that this attitude is accepted? If not, seek the support of your disciplinarian etc. If it is, you can still norm your classes with your students. Stand firm. Remind yourself, and them if necessary, that thousands of teachers around the country do NOT ALLOW that kind of behavior. Tell them that you care too much about them to allow them to behave that way. As you build a relationship of respect with each of them, it will eventually spill over into a class-wide behavior. Be firm, but be patient, it takes time.
with love,
Laurie
Daniel, I concur with Laurie. In fact, at some point we drew up a process of dealing with that exact type of mockery and bullying.
Who knows where it’s at?
The longer I teach the more I am able to decipher what I need to be hard-nosed about and what I can let go of. This is DEFINITELY one of the things I am no longer willing to let slip. From the first instance I stop class and clarify for all that this class is about using language to communicate, laugh and enjoy our time together as a learning community. Using language as a weapon is not tolerated.
Oh, and the doc we created, when someone posts it here, was created mid year. Many of us made that change the NEXT DAY. Don’t wait till the next year to make a change. We are agile and fleet of foot here, making significant improvements to what we do on the fly, as the say.
I don’t think this is the doc but it is germane to the discussion:
https://benslavic.com/blog/2012/10/29/mean-kids/
That is a good point to make Laurie – these students are humans too and deserve more dignity than the term “chronic ditchers creates.” As far as the mockery goes – it is only the tip of the iceberg as far as the kind of violence and disrespect prevalent at my school. We’ve had massive fights every day this week – sometimes we even have ridiculous (think American Grafitti) style food fights in our cafeteria. Yesterday, in one of my colleagues rooms, several students were BEATING each other, so hard it took 4 adults (2 are men ~250 pounds) to break it up. They pulled each others’ hair almost completely out. Guess what punishment they got? A 3 day suspension – in school. In other districts, such rowdy students are being led away in handcuffs.
Wow. We forget what it is like to be a teacher, or a student, in an atmosphere like this. You have my utmost respect for working in these conditions. You may have to really be patient, you may never really see the results of your efforts, but it is worth it. They need you.
with love,
Laurie
Triple ditto Sabrina on that question Daniel. They are NEVER BEHIND as long as they try. It is OUR JOB to make sure they understand. What if the other kids say class is now too slow? They have no case. They always lie about how much they understand, anyway. They claim to be bored bc they get it, but, by slowing down for the kid who has missed a month, as long as they are trying, it works. All learn. Nice slow CI.
Here is an extreme example. I have a girl from Mexico who just made the hard decision of coming to Lincoln instead of staying in Mexico with her parents. She just arrived at the winter break. She never had a French class. But she wants to be a language teacher some day. She is studying Korean on her own and Chinese with Miss Chen across the hallway. She is in Chinese 1 and French 2. Why French 2? Because French 1 is with another teacher and I won’t let her go there. Because she is not behind with me. She is honored by me in class. I pay attention to her all the time. I bring her into stories even when she doesn’t want to be bc I know the difference between a kid who really doesn’t want to be talked about and one who feigns resistance. The language department, at our end of the long Lincoln hallway, is her haven in life. She has a constant smile on her face when she is in our part of the building. Here she is welcome. Here she is valued for her potential greatness as a teacher. Or I could have told her that she was behind bc we have already done 47 chapters in some book. I could have done that but I didn’t. Because I have chosen CI over stupidity.
Here’s a thought about how people claim falsely that they do “TPRS” – make them get certified in it.
This happened in the world of indoor biking where a guy created “Spinning” (vs. “indoor cycling” in a gym). In indoor cycling you might get one instructor doing one thing and one doing another and there’s no consistency and it confuses you.
Maybe Blaine should just start handing out certificates for people who pass his criteria. Just throwing this out there. I am not suggesting it. It’s a discussion we haven’t had – certified TCI teachers. How weird is that?
I’m replying to my own comment about certification for teachers who use CI. It’s not going to happen, and for the same reason that they don’t certify jazz musicians. A band teacher might need certification, but not a jazz musician.
Related: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKgit-li8Jg
Ben, We need a thread for enrollment data here. Nothing too fancy, but accurate.
I remember the first time I heard Robert Harrell talk about his awesome increase from 13% retention over 4 years to 75% retention. I remember thinking, yeah, whatevs.
If Bob has 25% retention up from essentially 0% that’s frickin amazing. If Bob’s colleagues have noticed a similar trend, we need to know. We need to have this type of information handy. If we say it’ll increase college readiness, we need proof. That’s one form of proof.
Bob, send me some harder figures grantboulanger at gmail so I can add them to Darcy’s. I have a meeting Monday where I’ll need them. If your colleagues can do the same, please do. Robert Harrell, if you’re reading, you too. If it’s not the kind of thing that’s suitable for the blog then I’ll collect them and share the doc w/ whomever wants it.
“And three people do it, three, can you imagine, three people walking in
singin a bar of Alice’s Restaurant and walking out. They may think it’s an
organization. And can you, can you imagine fifty people a day,I said
fifty people a day walking in singin a bar of Alice’s Restaurant and
walking out. And friends they may thinks it’s a movement.”
How can this work? If you want to collect data only on retention rates alone, which is a fantastic idea, how do we make that happen here?
We have enough teachers here to get a good running start on this. Moretprs folks could add in stuff. So how?
The way I did it was to look at my enrollment in level 1 in a particular year (say 2006). Then I got rid of all but the freshmen – after all a junior has no possibility of being in the program in four years. Next I looked at the enrollment in level 4/AP four years later. I also factored out students that I knew had left the school because of transfer, moving away, expulsion. Then I compared the number of students who began as freshmen and were still at the school with the number of students enrolled in 4/AP that year. (I also took out from the enrolled total any students who transferred into the program from elsewhere.)
My numbers are not going to look as good currently as they did a couple of years ago because of staffing and scheduling decisions that were made by administration. For example, my level 2 class will never reach level 4 in high school because they are all juniors and seniors in level two. Half of the class will graduate at the end of the year. The other half will graduate in one more year.
These are important points. If we don’t normalize the data as per Robert’s suggestions, it won’t mean much.
Our retention rate in Spanish is between 40 and 50%. Unheard of in a small district in a cornfield. :o) And it continues to go up every year.
Huzzah!!! To all of you on this thread and another Huzzah! to Bob Patrick for stepping out even farther on the diving board..you won’t regret it and so many people will benefit!!
with love,
Laurie
Our retention rate in Spanish is between 40 and 50%. Unheard of in a small district in a cornfield.
Unheard of in a suburban or urban district as well. Great job, Laurie.
I am thinking of the kind of stuff that Darcy and Bob Patrick have put out there, but with some kind of hard numbers behind them. The last thing we need is to throw around meaningless statistics that, when tested, prove less potent than intended.
Each person here would have to make up their mind on what are the best numbers to get. If you are the only Latin, German, Chinese teacher, you can harvest your own retention numbers. You can harvest your own AP pass rates, etc. How many entered level 1 in year X. How many entered level 4 in year X+3?
If you’re looking to get a baseline, I would send an email to the data keeper at your school that says something like this:
—
Dear ,
In an effort to determine a baseline for our equity initiatives, we are looking to get a full picture of enrollment trends in world language over the last several years. We would like to see initial enrollment numbers for all levels of all languages and their end enrollment numbers at years end. For example, French 1 in 2007 had X enrolled in September and X enrolled at end of year in July.
We do not need names, but we do need to be able to break down by gender and ethnicity. If it’s possible, we are interested in a calculated avg. GPA of enrolled students at all levels as well.
—
This would give you the data you need to determine retention/attrition rates for each language, hopefully for at least 2 or 3 four year cycles –
Then you have your baseline and can make projections and goals against them.
I would be interested in collecting data in a document that shows increased retention over time, increased enrollment of boys or students of color in upper levels, increased performance on AP or IB tests over time, etc. with you, the person submitting the data, holding on to the cold hard numbers.
Was typing when Robert posted. yes. Normalizing the data is a critical piece that I didn’t include.
Grant,
How can we make an argument for retention rates increasing over time due to CI instruction unless every teacher is teaching using TCI? In what district is this happening? Perhaps DPS, or in small districts where the one teacher teaches all levels ? So when normalizing the data, this factor should also be taken into account, otherwise the numbers will be invalid.
Exactly, Sabrina. I just had this very conversation with our chairman a couple of days ago. My students go to a traditional teachers and only the 4%ers are retained beyond level 3.
I think Grant is thinking along the lines of the current baseline data nationally, and comparing to that. Or, like Bob and Robert, comparing it to the programs they took over. Current traditional instruction rates are what? Roughly five years ago, the last time I checked, they were at roughly 75% left in level 2, 30% left in level 3 and 4% left in level 4 (all languages).
We don’t need to get too crazy with this. It’s just that many of us have seen huge spikes in enrollment after we do even a few shitty years of stories, so we need to find a way to just get those numbers down in a chart in some way. I guess here is a good place to do it, Grant.
Maybe we can just keep this thread alive here with an article the content of which I can just take from your original comment here tonite on it, and see if anyone here would mind starting to track their own numbers in their own schools over the next four years, or to provide us with any data they have now.
We have Robert, Bob’s and Laurie’s for starters. We could record the numbers the way Robert did. And just do our best. It’s just for us, right? Blaine tried to get some stuff together on AP scores and TPRS in about 2002 and it failed.
Not that the scores weren’t there, they were, even back then, but nobody could handle the collection piece. Now that data is like fool’s gold, perhaps it could be easier to collect. Maybe we should just keep it in house here.
Nobody who is skeptical is going to get excited about changing to TCI just because they see a bunch of questionable data anyway. I don’t think anything will get people interested in CI except for one thing – keeping their jobs. Unless they have that vision, that je ne sais quoi, that pulls them to CI instruction.
But what if the situation is so hostile towards second languages that EVEN TCI can’t help retention numbers?
In 1999 when it opened, Poland Regional HS had 9.5 second language teachers in a building of 550 students. We offered ASL, French, Latin and Spanish. We offered French and Spanish in 1 of the 3 middle schools in the district.
14 years Later student numbers are down by about 100:
1. We offer Spanish at the high school – French was the last to be cut 3 years ago.
2. We have 3 Spanish teachers.
3. AP classes are being pushed HARD – even to sophomores – really good Spanish students are asking for an independent in Spanish 3 because they cannot fit it into their schedules due to the 3 AP courses they HAVE to take.
4. The district has saved a LOT of money!
I am meeting with my principal after vacation to discus a strategy to stage a comeback……. Any suggestions?
Oh, I forgot to mention that students must take two years of Spanish – it is a graduation requirement.
We have 25 students in Spanish 3 this year…. only 3 in level 4. Last year there were 5 in level 4.
…really good Spanish students are asking for an independent in Spanish 3 because they cannot fit it into their schedules due to the 3 AP courses they HAVE to take….
This is what I am facing at Lincoln right now.
YOUR retention rates, Skip, is why we are planning to come visit you! haha!!! Currently we have 4 students in Level 3 Spanish! French has more, AND they have around 15 in a 4/5 class. We only had a SPanish 5 class this year with 6 students.
I currently have 18 students in my Level 2B class; my colleague has 12 I think. I am trying to recruit them for Level 3 — genuinely complimenting them and nudging them toward taking it because they ARE good!!! They then smile and “consider” it. I am not lying to them — bc they ARE good at Spanish! I just don’t think anyone has told them they were good at something before!!
I had the opportunity to see a poster of Maslow Hierarchy of Needs while in a waiting room today — #1. Food, shelter, #2. Safety #3. Belonging/Love #4. Self-Worth #5. Self-Actualized
Since I started teaching with TCI I see that transformation in my room now — and it isn’t too hard to accomplish if you just put LOVE as your top priority as those kids walk into your room! I sure do hope that some of those remarkable students come back next year for Level 3, because they are SO MUCH FUN!! they truly brighten my days!!! (but ONLY since I started to teach with TCI! )
So…..what other means do you all use to boost your retention rates???
“Nobody who is skeptical is going to get excited about changing to TCI just because they see a bunch of questionable data anyway.”
Of course you are right. And maybe even pretending we can collect something of value is stupid. But, the naysayers claim “we’re doing that already” and “that won’t work” and at some point a person has to call their bluff and say, “if Laurie can do it “in a small district in a cornfield” why the hell is it <10% retention here? Where, or where in the world is a 4% retention rate considered successful?
The data is just a challenge to get admin and others to set better, measurable goals. Enrollment can be tracked and, as Skip alludes to, it ultimately means our jobs. Why anyone would not want to increase their own job security is beyond me.
If there's a way to do it better people must be willing to give it a fair and honest attempt. If they're not willing, they need to be exposed.
Grant I’ve done some number crunching this morning and some of it is a bit reconstructed, but this is very close. The more recent numbers are more reliable. I’ve put in the numbers for the year I inherited the program from the previous teacher as well. I’ve figured freshmen in Latin 1 and seniors in the fourth year (whether Latin 4 or AP–in our program, we currently encourage Latin 4 and discourage AP, as the Latin AP exam is not really language work, but . . . don’t get me started).
2001–freshmen = 50
2005–seniors = 1 –.2 (point 2) percent retention.
2007–102 freshmen
2011–10 seniors–9.8 percent retention
2008–110 freshmen
2012–15 seniors–13.6 percent retention
2009–125 freshmen
2013–30 seniors–24 percent retention
2010–112 freshmen
2014–29 seniors enrolled–25.6 percent retention
We are enjoying incremental growth in the retention rate.
I have concerns for the forces outside our control, just as Skip does, though they don’t seem as dire, yet, as he describes. The State of GA has gradually increased required courses, squeezing out available electives so that in the senior year, students are being forced to choose advanced language courses or advanced fine arts/technology courses. In our school of 2700 students (9-12) we have highly competitive teams in all of those areas, so students want to take advanced courses in languages, in the arts, and in technology. They cannot do all and take their required courses. At some point, they have to choose. Very sad.
Bob, this is great stuff. Thank you! This kind of stuff adds validity to the argument that personalizing the classroom is a key component to increasing proficiency. When kids stay in a program, with the same one or two teachers no less, they’re staying in because the work beign done is MEANINGFUL and RELEVANT to them!
I wonder who else, in similar situations, might have some compelling numbers like this?
Great numbers. We need to remember this for “when attacked” and/or “re-education of Admins and Parents.”
Same where I am. I often lose kids to schedule conflicts. When you are dealing with already small numbers and loose a few, it really hurts the data.
We are going to loose a few as well next year, due to budget reasons. My chairman informed me that he will have to cut kids who had signed up for German 1 from the program, so they won’t have to create a second section. One section is all we seem to be able to “afford”. So, 30 max in level 1 (7th grade)- not very encouraging when I think about the numbers as they move through the system all the way to AP. No matter how many hoops I jump through, no matter how much the kids are learning, no matter how much they love the language, in the end – money talks. This is what frustrates me the most!