I am about 5 weeks from finishing up my first year as a new CI teacher and it has been a great journey. It is a beautiful thing to hear my Chinese 1 kids telling their friends that Chinese class is fun and that partly explains why enrollment in Chinese has just increased from 63 this year to 100 next year. It is also because there is no workbook homework. The students tell their friends that there isn’t much homework in Chinese and I am getting some flack for not assigning much homework. But what I tell the other teachers is that it takes an a lot of time for the students to prepare for their reading and writing quizzes. They just don’t think of it as homework. They review their character writing and reread the stories we have done in class to make sure they understand. They don’t have to do much if anything to prepare for a listening quiz and, guess what, they all ace those because they are paying attention in class. The affective filter is down because they are having fun and they are learning. CI is a beautiful gift but hard to explain to other teachers who bristle at the idea that, if I am doing my job, they will know the material when the quiz hits, not because they had to learn it by doing homework.
So last week the teacher preparing our awards ceremony came to me and said, “You have too many kids on the list for awards night. You are only supposed to have 3 or 4 from each class.” I protested that they all had earned their place on the list, earning the A grades and getting at least B+ on the mid year exam. My Advanced kids’ exam was as hard as anything I ever had in college. She was nice about it but said I had to take it to the principal. I did and he gave me the “okay.” I am one of the few teachers he hasn’t observed this year because he doesn’t think he needs to.
Now comes a new problem. You work hard, you see your kids making great progress; kids are happy, parents are happy, principal is happy, I am happy. But Spanish just lost a Spanish 1 class for next year and too many kids who should have gone on to Advanced Spanish have opted for Chinese 1 in junior or senior year. The retiring French teacher congratulated me with disdain in her voice for the fact that Chinese was the only foreign language class listed in the school paper in an article titled, “Five Classes You Should Take Before You Graduate.” It came from a survey of seniors. I am fortunate that I work in a department of colleagues who get along pretty well but I also fear that a lack of understanding of the method has led them to whisper that Chinese class is “easy” and that is why students are taking it. So I told my seniors that they need to email me with info on where they place in college Chinese classes because I am pretty sure these Advanced kids are going to test out of two years of college Chinese. They actually love reading and are fearless about tackling whatever gets thrown at them.
Sorry for the long message but it is reflection time. I am still not that good at CI and look forward to the day when I am more experienced but the method is full proof and I won’t go back no matter how many jealous poison arrows fly my way. Thanks everybody for helping to make success possible for my kids.