…the click didn’t happen without a certain ring but the other thing was that the boldest boy ran around fourteen times but it didn’t work when the captain began to sing….
That’s what it sounds like to our students when we don’t go slowly enough, and when we don’t check for comprehension at every turn with millions of yes/no single answer questions.
Sitting in a language class and not understanding what the teacher is saying is truly a miserable existence, and entirely preventable. I(f the teacher can’t handle the speed needed to reach ALL the students in the room, then problems in many forms will surface, and that will happen just a few weeks into the year and never go away.
When the student doesn’t understand, it just gets worse every day, as some retreat and some attack, unhappy in their lack of comprehension, and feeling fear. If the so-called TPRS teacher doesn’t slow down and work with one goal, that of making the student comfortable with the pace of what is being said, it’s time to quit with comprehension based instruction – you’ll be better off teaching grammar.
Comprehension based instruction that is too fast causes discipline problems because it puts kids in a state of fear and so they have to retreat or attack. Good old grammar instruction out of a book doesn’t cause any fear in the kid – it just puts them into a self-induced coma.
Interestingly, it’s not cumulative, in the sense that if the teacher blows it with half the students one day (an unpardonable sin), but slows down enough so that everyone gets it the next day (sin forgiven), the lost students can be brought back into the flow of the class and feel thus honored and be successful on the quiz that day, and they can read the reading and do well on that quiz and discussion, and all is forgiven.
However, if the so-called TPRS teacher just concludes that the kid not getting it is stupid and lazy (another unpardonable sin, a cardinal sin for a teacher), they make a grave mistake. They must redirect and find the pace of the class, and slow down and check for comprehension at every turn with millions of yes/no single answer questions.
I know, I know, we only say this here about once a week. We need to say it every day. We need to remember that if we don’t go so slowly that it makes us almost crazy, and if we don’t check for understanding at every turn with millions of yes/no single answer questions, then we might as well go sell insurance or something, for all the good it will do our students and us – a split class is no class, just like a split country is no country.
Here’s the deal. You want some serious discipline problems this year? Go too fast. Serious discipline problems guaranteed.