This from a group member who would like some feedback from the group:
Ben,
I have been working with my classes to move toward using CI much more. I used to use very traditional methods. For example, I had a Powerpoint with examples of the grammatical topic. We would cover the grammatical topic and see some examples. We would then do a number of non-CI activities, like substitution drills, verb form drills. composition. We would then read the chapter story from the book. Most students would struggle to read and understand it. Not very often did they seem interested. The stories are not related to anything that they are doing. They are about slaves and about seeing Rome. These things are less interesting to many students. While the book I use is a huge improvement over what we used to do 30 or more years ago, it is still a far way from reaching many students. However, I have come upon an interesting phenomenon: resistance.
Many of my students are enjoying what we are doing, but several are upset that I am not giving them the standard methods that I was using. I think that it has more to do with fear of change than anything else. I admit that I am just learning CI methods. I am not awesome at them, but as I read, bad CI is better than no CI. I failed early on with these kids to get the personalization that the classroom requires. I didn’t get to know them in a way that they feel like they can trust me. Now I sense fear and anxiety in them, mostly because they are afraid that they will lose the school game: they won’t get the grades they want, the won’t be able to do worksheets and boring unimportant work that they are used to doing. How sad is that! They want to be given worthless worksheets. They want mediocrity. It’s what they crave. I can’t believe it! I think that I have been doing more teaching and the students more learning during this last month than I have done all year. Wow! I can now say that your personalization piece is very important. It is what develops trust with the students that is so necessary for our work. I will definitely start over better next year and not rush that piece.
Today I realized how much better I can be and how ineffective I was before. Now, if I could only gain my student’s trust.
My response: The first thing is to get them some easy grades from simple CI. Do you now have a student write a quiz and then one who writes a story and a third who does the art work? And the first one, the quiz writer, during the story or PQA or whatever you can do to talk to them for even ten or fifteen minutes, anything, writes the quiz and soon you have an easy quiz with yes or no answers and they all really do well on that right there at the end of class bc the discussion just happened, and then the next day you take the story writer’s version of what you talked about and make a reading with it, again using really simple yes/no questions.
So in those two days most kids get two quiz grades of A and they relax a little. But that is not the real reason for their not wanting to do this – they just don’t know how. I love the courage you display now at the end of the year, it will pay off big next year. Every few minutes you put yourself out there and practice the CI for next year is great experience and it takes courage. And to do it with a group that hasn’t been trained since the beginning of the year is very very difficult so you are doing great!
Another thing you can do is to tell them that, according to the new language standards, teachers are now required to teach using the language over 90% of the time, and tell them that you need their help in making this work. I do that and it seems to spark a human reaction in them, and they help.
Also, get your most fearful kids and catch them in the hallway and tell them that you need their help in class with this new change that you have to do. You can say how difficult it is for you and you certainly understand how it must be a real challenge for themb as well, but there is no way out since next year it has to be with 90% of the time spent in the language.
Just be open about it. Make them see it as a challenge to respond to. Don’t get into a long lecture about it in class, just say that you need every single minute of the rest of the year now to practice staying in the language. Make sure they know that there will be no other grades except those easy listening quizzes at the end of class written by their classmates and on the readings.
You can also give them a “participation” grade (bogus term but you need it right now). Have a Rules Chart up on the wall and tell them that all they have to do is those things – really just try their best to listen attentively – that’s all – and they will get an A every day now for the rest of the year.
Just last week, one of my kids, who had had French in middle school and so knew what the traditional method was and who also happened to be very smart, asked me if I would be his teacher next year. I asked why he asked and he said that it was because he learned “a ton” more this year than last, and he did it with no homework and no big tests and all he had to do was come to class and sit and listen for an easy A. T
ell your kids that story or somehow make it clear to them that in the new way next year there will be no homework or tests and all they have to do is listen and the hard work burden is all on you since you are the one being paid. Kids really see this as fair and it appeals to them as honest. Again, just be honest about this change.
Another thing is that you absolutely must do is make it clear to them that if they don’t understand it is your fault. And it is. My feeling is that this entire thing has little to do with them and is mostly because you are going too fast for them to understand.
Please report back to me in a private email in a few days about how going slowly made you feel that you were going too slowly, way too slowly, but how they loved it bc when you did that they could understand. That would be great to hear from you. I feel strongly that the real problem here is your going too fast.
Those things may help for starters. Other ideas from the group are most welcome. This is kind of a big deal for the person involved.