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62 thoughts on “SL/Krashen/CI”
We are on to something now. Beniko herself says over and over that SL is nothing new. However, what is new is her radical application of Krashen’s work to the classroom setting, and her relentless insistence that we purge anything that is not in line with his theory. She has made Tina and I see things that we never saw, the simplicity and ease of CI. I feel like weights have fallen off my teaching this past year. It is an exciting time.
We are onto something now. Beniko herself says over and over that SL is nothing new. However, what is new is her radical application of Krashen’s work to the classroom setting, and her relentless insistence that we purge anything that is not in line with his theory. She has made Tina and I see things that we never saw, the simplicity and ease of CI. I feel like weights have fallen off my teaching this past year. It is an exciting time.
Andrea Alford wrote:
I can’t resist letting you know about an opportunity to meet Beniko Mason and get personal coaching. I got to spend last weekend with her and Tina Hargaden, and I learned SO much about Story Listening. To me, it seems like the easiest and most efficient way to deliver CI. It requires minimal training and the beauty is you don’t need a bunch of materials or extensive training – just access to interesting stories.
I think (and Beniko thinks) that it is the purest form of CI and students get rich, compelling input. Students enjoy it and they progress much faster than using other methods. Also, you can use any story you want, so you can give them rich cultural information for any country or culture, while giving them CI in the target language. AND it requires MUCH LESS prep time, busy work, and grading papers than other methods. I can’t wait to learn more!
It sounds great!!! And if there is anyone else who lives in Germany: There will be a workshop on August 2, 2017, in Erlangen (which is near Nuremburg) on SL with Beniko Mason. You can find the link in the Post “Question”, the last but one comment by Kathrin Shechtman.
Thank you, Udo! Here is the link for the European folks that can’t join Tina and Beniko in the US:
http://www.welovedeutsch.com/story-listening-workshop.html
I love that Beniko specifically says that you don’t need to come back over and over for more and more training with story listening. The book she is finishing plus one in-person workshop should set you up for success. Story Listening has been the best with my ESL students. It has gotten them way more relaxed and focused than anything prior. It’s a tough audience when you teach 1st-8th graders, where about 1/3 – 1/2 in every class is new or a beginner in the classroom L1 and you have to teach them yet another language…
Claire wrote this on Facebook and I have made the same experience, how sweet to have your prep be the bedtime stories you read to your kid to look for new stories to tell. Must be the only good way to “take your work home.”
You said: Must be the only good way to “take your work home”
Very nicely put and I, too, look forward to seeing you.
Quick comment in between classes…I am excited to try SL! Are there any videos of teachers demonstrating? Thanks!!
Carly, in addition to Tina’s stuff, check out Kathrin Shechtman (sp? sorry). She has some great stories on her blog: http://www.welovedeutsch.com/
click the link right on the main page! super fun!
Hey Carly –
Tina has some on our Facebook CI Liftoff YouTube page – all are labeled Story Listening. We’ll have a lot more by the end of the summer as we will be going around doing demos at workshops and videotaping everything.
Thanks Jen and Ben!
Any recommendations on a story to try for the first time? Second year French students…
I’m partial to the three little pigs. It’s Beniko’s suggestion to start em with something simple and familiar.
Maybe it’s worthwhile to start collecting the story resources that successful story listening Ts are using – and if they are using a picture book as a storyboard, then the ISBN or other form of ID.
I’m also thinking that if Ts are using cultural stories – legends, myths, fairly tales, history, etc. that a list of specific resources by language would be very helpful and encourage Ts to get started w/SL!
I demonstrated a SL at our Chicagoland T/CI group this past weekend using an English illustrated version of the Boy who Cried Wolf as my storyboard, which I retold in Spanish. I almost always use visuals – pictures or props w/my young (grades 1-4) learners.
Alisa,
could you tell me how often you do SL (approximately)?
Udo on that question for Alisa I was talking with Beniko last week and that question came up. She said that doing SL all the time is not practical but no set percentage of time was mentioned. I think that we are all going to have to figure out what works best for ourselves as individual teaching artists*. The big new information (colossal in my view and this is just my opinion) is that we want to use it enough to change around the culture in the classroom from one that is based on them feeling as if they have to perform (suggest cute answers, say “OHHH! even if they had no idea what we just said, do the fake hand signals, etc. – all that stuff that we used to do to make our students act as if they are seals performing in a circus) and take that “performance” vibe out of the room and substitute it with a feeling in the room that the kids can pretty much listen not because we require it but because they actually want to. THAT (listening because they want to), is a big thing that SL brings to our classrooms. It is a move towards true interaction and away from feigned student interaction with us. I have observed so many classrooms including my own where before we had SL the vibe in the room was true and honest for those 5 -7 students and fake for the rest of them. It was a true problem in the traditional TPRS, the idea of a few kids ruling the classroom, just like in all the other classrooms in the building. SL makes it so that every kid in the room can enjoy learning the language. The implications of this fact are stupendous. It’s like, as I see it, we have been on a long meandering endless weird trip on a river and finally we have reached the sea. That is what I think SL will do for our movement.
I might add that my book on the Invisibles, which in my view has a similar effect on engaging the kids in a way that rings more true (though not as pure and direct as SL) just went to publication with Teacher’s Discovery with the list of Classroom Rules and the one about Sit up, Square Shoulders, Clear Eyes is one I would remove if I could but it was too late. The reason is that that rule makes them do the barking seal thing in the circus and what SL does is, however they sit, we are finding that the kids listen because they want to. That’s a big change and we should thank Beniko for what she has done and is doing. We should have listened a long time ago, but then we’re not in charge of the timing.
*credit for that fine term: “Moco Loco” Thompson in Beaufort, SC in 2001
I’d be careful with the pre-printed material for SL, to me that’s more story telling than story listening. It’s not quite the same. Telling a story from a book is not the same as SL. I see a lot of things online now that are labeled “Story Listening” and that make me wonder if Beniko would still consider them SL. Not that they can’t be under the umbrella of CI, but often times they seem, at least to me, not really SL. Also, they are often times followed up with extensive exercises and that to me defeats the goal of SL.
We must ask Beniko about this. It is such a subtle point. What actually IS Story Listening? I agree fully with your point Kathrin. I’ll get on the emails right away. The “feeling” that I get from your question is that Story Listening must have a certain cultural or historic or akashic or some kind of deeper human connection – one connected to the collective unconscious minds/shared human experience of the students than just some story about a girl or a boy or an animal. Just my thoughts. I look forward to what BNM says about this great question.
Also Kathrin what you said here is of major importance:
…also, they are often times followed up with extensive exercises and that to me defeats the goal of SL….
It is perhaps because the change that SL is bringing to what we do is not about “doing” all these exercises after the story, all of them pre-planned, but rather letting things emerge in class to the degree that they resonate or do not resonate with what the kids want to talk about and not what the teacher wants to talk about. It’s a pretty big shift and is part of the unlearning process that Emeka mentioned. It is because human conversation must be allowed to be free, as per:
https://benslavic.com/blog/lart-de-la-conversation-and-tprs/
Related:
https://benslavic.com/blog/listen-to-their-hearts/
https://benslavic.com/blog/the-nature-of-conversation/
https://benslavic.com/blog/love-thy-neighbor/
Kathrin, is there really a big difference between ST and SL?
I had never heard of the term “SL” before I joined the PLC. I personally love the “Frog and Toad”-stories and so do my young students. I have made enlarged copies of the pictures, I speak in a dramatic wayand I let them take part in the story by repeating some easy sentences with dramatic effect and they just love to get involved or eg I tell them to knock at the floor if Frog knocks at Toad’s door.
I suppose that’s not SL but im my opinion kids have to just sit and listen too much of their time at school and as long as they want to understand the story that’s fine by me.
I usually don’t do any follow up activities bc I have the feeling that if we do, they sooner or later get the idea that the story is just an intro to the real work – in other words, they feel cheated.
Udo, I definitely think there is a big difference. Beniko coined her method SL, because it’s not just story telling and she wanted there to be a difference. ST is what you do when you tell your kids at home a story, too. It’s for the sake of the story, not really for the sake of language acquisition. The reason you never heard about it is, well most of us haven’t until Beniko came to Agen last year and showed us what she did in a quick demo. She’s very passionate about her work and some of us went to try it in our own classrooms (with huge success), which then, because of Facebook pages and this PLC, spread.
Further down, I replied to Alisa what I think is essential to SL. One thing that is very different from what you describe is the drawing and writing of keywords in SL. Only if they see the words written will they make the connection between the spoken and written word, which leads to FVR down the road. And it’s really keywords, not the whole story either.
Kids do sit a lot and have to work, but this differs in that they are not required to do anything but listen. No questions, nada. It’s hard work for sure, especially since in education we tend to go to one extreme and then another. So any frontal teaching is now seen as bad and old-fashioned and group work is pushed, but there is a time for just listening and it’s a valuable and underestimated skill to have that is applicable to so many situations in life. And when the kids are engrossed in the story (and they are if the story and comprehension level is chosen correctly), they will sit and listen happily. After the story have them move with TPR or some kind of brain break. Also you start with shorter stories and train them for longer ones, you won’t be able to start with a 45 minute story.
I think what’s really important to keep in mind is that Story Listening is a very specific term, coined by a professional researcher and teacher, exactly for the reason as not to confuse it with Story Telling.
Thanks , that’s very helpful.
Just as an FYI, I have sent what I wrote to Beniko and she agreed with it. I wanted to make sure of that, because I am just using it in class, she’s the one with the extensive research and I didn’t want to write something incorrect.
One other distinction to keep in mind, SL is a research based method – not an activity – to deliver CI. Therefore it is not done every once in a while, but as often as every class, to see the big gains in acquisition that Beniko’s research shows.
…to see the big gains in acquisition that Beniko’s research show….
Kathrin we saw a clip of Tina doing SL in a level 1 MS class in January and she was SO FAST. But not a peep from the kids for at least 30 minutes. So they were getting it and Tina verified that. I could tell they were totally getting it. A teacher asked how it was possible and the point we made was that she was able to go so fast in January like that because she went so SLOW in August and it all just ratcheted up naturally, but in a way that 99% of CI teachers would never believe bc it is such a weird idea that they could improve like that. SL is so fascinating to me now. My gosh it’s the secret beans. And don’t tell me that there are no magic beans because every morning I drink some ground up magic beans and they restore me to life! (Credit: a sign in the Teacher’s Lounge of the Fifth Grade Center of Ladue, Mo)
and she didn’t even start SL in August, but later in the year. (of course there was the other CI stuff, such as invisibles). I was most amazed by my “loud kids’ ” spontaneous output in L2 that occurred naturally and showed that they acquired words I said maybe 3 times in another story and how well they made connections between stories. Though output is not a part of SL, the natural, unforced occurrences of output are amazing. That and just watching their faces show all the emotions during the stories. It’s just beautiful.
I was just asked to teach my colleague and friend German. She wants me to teach her just like I teach her first graders. Starting that in May with her and a couple of her friends. Just telling stories, helping a friend out. 🙂 I need someone to do this with me in Spanish….
Kathrin your embracing SL after last summer was a big deal. Your video and then one by Tina have convinced me that the greatest gains come from SL. It is so different from TPRS! The kids pick up so much unconsciously when they are focused on a story.
That is so true! All we do is talk at a normal pace and BIG chunks of language go into their unconscious minds and it is so much faster than TPRS because the mind can handle it if done in the way Beniko says.
The success of TPRS has been so limited bc of the targeting and the tying of it all to a curriculum. Neither the Invisibles nor SL tie anything to anything. It is just language to get to meaning and for the fun of it.
In Tina’s video, which we showed to our group in St. Louis, it was a first year group of 7th graders and they sat through at least 30 min. of Tina talking fast, much faster than one could believe, and yet the kids were quiet and focused, just breathing in the story.
A participant asked Tina if she had done that fast pace (the video was made in Jan.) all year and she said that she started with like 5 seconds between each WORD in August. So to see her going so fast and keeping the class involved only five months later has made me into a bigger believer in SL than I was before.
The stunning gains, Kathrin, are not on the radar of most of us. I woke up this morning in amazement at how it works – I had been thinking about it when I was sleeping I guess. I want to write an article about it. I think that I have never seen anything with such power, because it bypasses everything that until now we have considered important. It just goes scooting straight into major gains as you describe here:
…my “loud kids’ ” spontaneous output in L2 that occurred naturally and showed that they acquired words I said maybe 3 times in another story and how well they made connections between stories….
I know what I want to write about this but it is so simple and subtle I don’t know if I can put it into words. It is something unbelievable. In the same way that SL completely conquers conscious meddling in the language acquisition process, so also it defies description by regular old teachers like me.
Ben you wrote, “Kathrin we saw a clip of Tina doing SL in a level 1 MS class in January and she was SO FAST.”
I can attest to the same thing with my French II, as I do more SL with them than my French 1. When I do the same story, for me it is important that I do go slow with them… however, French 1 has not done SL as often and this is the reason my I still keep SL at a medium pace.
Actually my energy is even higher than when storyasking because I am much more focused on management especially since MS students have Spring Fever these days.
Alisa, Jillane Baros has compiled a list of links for SL resources. Check out her blog: http://jillanebaros.weebly.com
I am about to start doing a few Grimm’s tales, focusing on super creepy (which I hate but I know Ss love) and also ones that have been adapted to Disney. My school (a high school ) has a HUGE population of Disney lovers. Maybe every school does, but I never noticed it this much. I wonder if it is the high level of trauma in the community and the fact that those films are predictable and create a good feeling with happy endings??? Last week my level 4 kids begged to listen to Disney songs in Spanish, so we just went to youtube and I found a bunch of them and we listened and read lyrics. They were so excited! These are juniors and seniors, half of them are boys!
Since the big spring musical is Disney’s Little Mermaid, and I have several cast members in class, we’ll read an embedded “original” version, and then compare to the Disney version for part of our conversation. The upper level kids (or whoever wants ) will have the opportunity to read the original version in all its flowery language (Spanish translation, obviously). I know there are a couple kids in my level 4 who are ready for that, but most will read an embedded version.
jen, you think that scary Grimm’s tales are creepy but that Disney stuff, that stuff gives me the creeps. I grew up near the Disneyland area and never developed a taste for it. It’s so good that you are always focused on the kids. Keep it up Jen!
It bet the kids would love it too, to hear the original version of their beloved Disney movie. I have done this before as a project where they then drew a DVD cover for the original tale to show how different it is from the Disney version. Cinderella and the cut off toes is a great example… or Rapunzel and the prince walking around the thorn bushes getting his eyes pecked out. Sure let’s them see why fairy tales were NOT written for kids – and those are the more harmless ones.
I’m a bit confused and await clarification from BNM, too.
To clear up confusion about what I’ve been doing, I retell stories occasionally (per Udo’s query) and have only begun to experiment and tap it’s true potential. I saw Tina do “The 3 Little Pigs” and thought “The Boy who cried wolf” would be good too, as it has all that repetition (plus it’s a part of Carols new novice-level novel, Brandon Tells the Truth). I did not use any pre-printed material. I found an illustrated English book of The boy…Wolf,” and proceeded to ignore and not show that text, but rather the pictures ONLY, as a kind of a storyboard guide. I find that having a visual to follow for the younguns is extremely helpful!
I also use props and make drawing when we are creating our own story, and I wrote a few months ago abt retelling “The 3 Bears” with a ‘story stage’ – 3 lil stuffed bears sitting on chairs; a lil table w/3 bowls on it – and the kids listened/watched as I told and pointed to the items…then they acted it out! while I retold it! These are some ways to adapt SL to the youngest novice audiences.
To me the drawing of the key events/people/things in the story is essential to SL for beginners. It has the build in process time and creates suspense because you have to wait and see what the teacher is drawing. Drawing is magical no matter how good it is. Having pages from a book (with pre-printed I was referring to anything like book pages, printed materials, slides), for me at least, takes some of this away. There is too much visual info at ones and it’s harder to concentrate on the one picture that often goes along with a lot of text/information. I also think it might be easier to tune out and just focus on the picture rather than the words. It’s also harder to make sure to give those processing breaks. I really just love the drawing part of SL, I think it’s genius.
Then adding the keywords to add a reading aspect (which is how SL leads into FVR) is another crucial element. I do this even with my first graders and even though many of them can’t read. It exposes them to the written German word and that’s the goal.
I have had my first graders act the story out (WITHOUT words or they could speak in L1) afterwards. The little ones love that kind of stuff, though I didn’t do it much, because not everyone likes it, I gave it as an option for a “retell” because not all my students share L1 and obviously in first grade doing a summary in L1 is also not an option. They could also draw instead or draw and add words from the board if they chose.
What I love about SL is, no matter what grade you so it with, it doesn’t really need adaption. The little ones love it as much as the older ones (I don’t teach HS, but in my 1st-8th grade it was a HUGE hit). It works like nothing else (OK, TPR to a degree maybe) when you don’t have a common L1 in the classroom.
I didn’t mean that a certain group of stories won’t work. I think anything you know as a teacher will get the kids attention because it’s creepy/weird/funny/outrageous/silly/scary/… will work fine. I loved Richard Munsch’s stories for the lower grades and they are just straight up weird. I personalized them sometimes with kids’ names because I knew some kids would love to be the star of the story (not everyone’s cup of tea either). I just think a lot of times I read blogs about SL and then they are writing about having the kids add detail and asking questions and that to me is straight up TPRS, not SL. I really was more referring to using actual book pages.
Fascinating discussion!
I’ve been a little selfish myself with SL. I chose to do Star Wars Episode 4 — the synopsis. Kathrin wrote, “Drawing is magical no matter how good it is.” Students had such a laugh when I drew R2-D2 and C3PO. They continued focusing however. It was like a ripple in the space/time continuum. The epitome of the subconscious process of SLA.
Just this week I told my French 2 students a true life story, with name changes. It was a story about how in 1999 during summer vacation, my brother totaled his 1964 mustang.
Kathrin, this discussion is highly motivating. Maybe I’ll give SL a try before August 2nd, although I feel I’m rather bad at drawing (partly thanks to my arts teacher at highschool).
Any suggestion for follow-up activieties for my 4th grade (who have had ESL from year 1 on) apart from drawing. I suppose there might be one or two students who would dare a retell.
Udo, since the language you are using during SL is very rich, I would not do a retell in English. They could retell (spoken/written) in German (L1). You are not shooting for 100% transparency, but rather to make the story as a whole comprehensible to your students. They should be able to tell you what happened in the story in L1.
There really are no activities and exercises for SL, because Beniko wanted close to 100% CI with no or very little (L1 retell) accountability. The kids will get very good at listening and enjoying the story. My first graders could easily listen to and focus on a 20 minute story. “Die Bremer Stadtmusikanten” was much longer and they were very focused.
The quality of your drawings won’t matter much, they will be excited to see what you are drawing no matter what. And if it’s really bad, laugh with them at it. 🙂
In terms of langauge used, I had just beginners this year and the language in the stories was way above what you would traditionally expect in a beginner class. Here are some of my examples of my stories, since I know you’ll understand the German. (I work at an international school and with many of my students, I don’t have a common L1, because they are English beginners as well)
http://www.welovedeutsch.com/story-listening
Thanks again, Kathrin!!!
Since I haven’t expierienced the language gains that are mentioned in the PLC, I’m still a little worried about output. Up to now I was convinced that once the first students begin to speak English, you need to encourage this as much as possible bc only by actually using the language and not just comprehending it will they achieve some fluency.
In my view the Silent Period should be respected as possibly lasting years and years. It’s just that way.
What about those children who try out their L2 of their own accord, shouldn’t we try to encourage them and if so how do YOU go about this business of encouragement?
They blurt something out. It is great. It is the beginnings of speech. But why swoop in and encourage them? Their deeper mind cannot keep producing that kind of blurting speech just because the teacher encourages them. Encouragement tries to make an unconscious process conscious. It trips the mind to get involved. Go search the terms Krashen and Monitor and Affective Filter. Kids don’t learn because we encourage them. They learn because we drown them in conmprhensible in put like KS did in her video w those little ones. Don’t encourage them bc it is a camouflaged way of taking the process away from the pristine subtly of unconscious speech output. How tricky is the mind!
And thank you again!!
You really foster my motivation to try to go all the way with CI according to the research.
I can’t wait to meet you and Beniko in August face to face.
You know that Tina and I and Beniko are not coming to Germany, right? We can’t this year. We hope to come there in 2018. So we may see you in one of the East Coast cities? One thing, just listen to Kathrin. She is a true expert, a master. Learn from her.
Correction, Beniko IS coming to Germany in August. Just to there is no confusion. The workshop in August is still going on, Udo!
Yes thank you for that correction Kathrin!
…100% CI with no or very little (L1 retell) accountability….
This is one of the key power factors in SL. No accountability frees up the mind do absorb faster. Accountability is stupid.
A voice said, just now: “I know, Ben, but don’t go saying that to actual adults!”
But it is…
I know, but apparently the big people don’t like it when we say things like that. We have to be careful.
Ben, my heart says YES!!! acountability is so stupid, none of us was held accountable while aquiring/learning their mother tongue bc all adults know that healthy children will get the language anyway, but my conscious mind is still nagging: School is different, think about the little time the kids spend in the L2. If you don’t hold them accountable, like it’s done in all the other subjects, the kids won’t take the lessons seriously, they won’t learn enough, not to mention the parents who will start calling you night and day bc you are too revolutionary and they just can’t cope with this too free CI-approach, and what about yourself as a teacher, are you really doing your job? Are you working hard enough? …..
But my inner child is working on what my heart says!!!
I have spontaneous output in L2 in some classes during SL. I never discourage it, but I also don’t actively ask for it. It just happens.
As for accountability… they are enjoying the class and the stories, they forget they are supposed to learn anything. You don’t need to hold someone accountable for what they enjoy. It’s different from other subjects, yes, it’s better! 🙂 And either way, we can’t force acquisition. You can force learning, but memorizing for quizzes and learning rules does not lead to acquisition. You won’t be better of, you’ll understand less in the long run.
Great and important reply, Kathrin. I wonder how many language teachers really get what you said. No wonder our profession is in such trouble and has been for so long. The research is being ignored.
…if you don’t hold them accountable, like it’s done in all the other subjects, the kids won’t take the lessons seriously….
But they can’t actually acquire the language – and I say this thinking of the research – if there is an underlying current in their language experience of “I’m gonna get a grade on this.” It doesn’t work that way.
The kids in Kathrin’s non-targeted SL video were so happy and it was all in German. That is what language acquisition looks like in terms of the research. In some respects, Beniko’s work is more important than Krashen’s right now, because her work in SL is rock solid and nobody gets to tinker with it, like has happened since 2013 with SK and Tina can prove that.
So we can align with the research in our instruction or hold them accountable. In the first case, they acquire, but in the second, everyone in the room is wasting their time. That is what my forty years in this field have taught me.
Awesome reply, Ben.
When I read your posts and comments I always feel that your whole heart and mind is into this. You and the other PLC members have already given so much to me that I can’t put it in appropriate words.
By the way I’ve ordered SK’s book on reading. And in my exam paper at university, some 30 years ago, I worked on language aquisition and as a part of that on Krashen’s theories – think of that! But somehow I couldn’t get deeply at the necessary inferences and got side-tracked through the massive training in the traditinal methods which you had to master in order to pass the second exam and become a full-fledged teacher who could work at a state school.
I’ve been turning my back on this “education” since I became a Waldorf teacher but it’s high time for me to turn all the way. I only need to think how I can get the parents on my side. Any unbeatable ideas for this?
It is easy to get the parents on your side. When they talk about nothing but your class at dinner, the parents are happy. Why do the students do this? Because they love learning a language in your classroom. Why? Because you make it so simple for them. You pull the branh of the cherry tree down to them so they can eat their fill of good cherries. You do not push the branch up out of reach of all but a few of them. We will keep working on how to do that. Then one day it will all be clear. You will see how deeply easy and simple this work is. We have been on a twenty year acid trip in TPRS. Now it’s time to wash the dishes, clean everything up, and let the Divine in. It is a new day.
Dude pick a story that goes deep into the collective unconscious of mankind. Then pare it down to super simple, really super simple. Like ten sentences. That’s the first thing. Then grab a marker and go say a sentence and draw things as the emerge into the story. So you are talking and drawing to clarify. Don’t speak as slowly as you speak in regular stories. The freaky part is that they will understand. Tina where is the link to the story you told that we watched in St. Louis? That’s about as complicated as it is. Kathrin what am I leaving out?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LgN8OnwyHo&t=33s
There ya go.
Tina, I’m mpressed bc I suppose your students really comprehend.
How much French did they have before bc I tried to get it and failed hugely except very few words. Of course my comprehension of French is practically zero.
They had, if I may answer for Tina and pls correct me, massive input via the Invisibles and SL. That is all she did from August 2016. It works. We need not be tinkering. Just provide the input and get out of the way. That is what that post I put here about a month ago says, about how we deliver food to the kitchen of the unconscious mind but we don’t get to go in and help the Chef.
Yes they had had nothing but French, French, French all the time. Also, they did not understand EVERY WORD. That is not my goal any more. Two yers ago I never would have tried to tell such a story. I have changed a good deal. I used to pause and point to EVERYTHING.
Ben, you said: “Pick a story that goes deep into the collective unconscious of mankind.”
I really like that one and I believe strongly that merriment and fun are part of said unconscious. So I would regard Kathrin’s SL “Schneeballschlacht (snowball fight)” as a successful example.
Udo I haven’t talked to Beniko or Tina about this, but I feel that the reason SL works so well is because it bypasses the conscious faculty so well ONLY BECAUSE of the rich cultural and linguistic fabric that literally goes from the voice of the speaker to the deeper collective minds (Jung) of the listeners. So whether the learner is five years old or fifty doesn’t matter, because their deeper minds, which defy age, are listening. So we can thus see Tina’s or Kathrin’s young kids “understanding” the content even if it seems fast to us. That is how I explain it. Thus the need for authentic rich cultural texts. Because they soften and water and activate the soil of the deeper mind. This lays to waste what TPRS has become, which as Tina said today is no longer really aligned with Krashen at all.
I’m with you on that. And the beauty of it is, if kids,especially the younger ones, feel they know/understand what’s going on, they happily go along without bothering about understanding every word bc they are used to this when they are listening to adults talking to each other.
At the moment I’m also watching videos where Krashen is talking about the power of reading and about language acquisition – terrific stuff! I highly recommend it to anyone who hasn’t met him face to face. And for me as a non-native speaker of English, I love his clear, melodic pronunciation and his sense of humour.