Unlock with PatreonThe Problem with CI
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Something is Happening
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19 thoughts on “Something is Happening”
Wow! Yes. More newbies need to come into it.
This quibbling and drama has been so frustrating to follow. I don’t understand why people are so against it and so caught up in criticism of untargeted input. It reminds me of legacy methods teachers fighting with CI and TPRS teachers. Prior to this year, and prior to attending the workshop in Portland with Ben and Tina this summer, I had been wanting to implement CI and TPRS strategies in my classes for a long time, but I felt overwhelmed and lost and couldn’t wrap my head around it all. Originally, I was so happy to find and the iFLT page. I followed the iFLT Facebook group and learned a lot, got some ideas and explored blogs based on ideas that were being shared there. I went to a Blaine Ray training, I had tried TPRS in my classes, but I still felt overwhelmed and felt like I couldn’t dive in all the way and I didn’t really know how or where to start. It wasn’t until I learned about One Word Images and the Invisibles that I had the confidence to plow forward. I have seen amazing changes in my teaching and in my students and it has been SO EASY! I have been working with non-targeted input since mid September and I only see my students 4 times a week. They have had less than 2 of months of non targeted input. I had some school board members and our district assistant superintendent and director of curriculum and instruction, and my principal and VP visit 2 weeks ago. They were doing learning walks all over the district and were observing student engagement specifically and wanting to see what was happening around the district. I was stressed about the visit and what I was going to do, especially after being reminded 5 times by my principal that they were coming. The night before, I decided to stop stressing and just do what I normally do in a period. I was told by my admin that my class was the “Star of the District” in terms of their visit. They had visited the other high schools and were blown away that in mine they heard no English at all and were amazed at the students responses to all of my questions and they were impressed by their level of engagement. Again, I am a first year CI teacher, and have been working with this just 2 months. I had an observation today and yesterday in my pre-conference, my principal was asking me all kinds of questions because he was so intrigued by what he had seen us do in class. He wanted to know specifically how what I was doing in my classes was different than what they do in other classes. He also told me he had been asking students about how it was different. Then, after my observation, he was all smiles and had lots of positive things to say. I SO agree that TPRS is overwhelming. I was getting overwhelmed with my stories (the 7 level), so I scaled back. I got to the realization that I don’t have to be perfect right away, I can stumble and guess what….they won’t know the difference. Now, I have a skeleton, a framework that I can use as I am building my skills and getting more comfortable. I just rest easy in knowing that a day of me bumbling through a period of providing comprehensible input to my classes is still WAY better for them than teaching from a book (which I haven’t opened all year, by the way). I am a newbie but love the ease of and the freedom that comes with working with non targeted input. So…keep fighting the good fight, Ben, Tina, all of you…what you have shared with us is working! I appreciate this group and the CI liftoff group so much, I am so much happier and so much less stressed.So…keep fighting the good fight, Ben, Tina, all of you…what you have shared with us is working! I appreciate this group and the CI liftoff group so much, I am so much happier and so much less stressed. I don’t know how to convince others and I don’t know what the answer is. I do know that experiencing untargeted input at workshops it and trying it with support and help gave me the faith to move forward. It seems like it has been a leap of faith…not knowing how it would turn out and what my students will be able to to do at the end of the year…but I have faith in the process and trust that what I have seen so far in my students tells me that I am on the right track. For my own mental health, I’m no longer checking in on the iFLT page, as I am not learning much and it just seems like a big waste of time. Cheers.
Great post, Ryann! Way to go!
Ryann you rocked that comment like your Washington Huskies rocked my Colorado Buffaloes last night.
” I got to the realization that I don’t have to be perfect right away, I can stumble and guess what….they won’t know the difference.”
I totally felt this way Ryann my first year. Having this mentality is awesome when it happens. The weight and pressure just comes right off your shoulders. That’s the secret. The students don’t know if you mess up because who messes up when having a conversation?
I am in my second year and having a blast with my French 1 classes with Ben’s OWI and 7 layer stories. It must have been nerve racking having all those heads in your class. So far this year, I have had my beginning teacher supervisor, a restorative justice counselor, a principal, an instructional coach and a new teacher that wants to know more about TPRS.
I too have unjoined the iFLT group… there’s only one group for me.
…who messes up when having a conversation?…
I think I need to start making a collection of Steven Ordiano quotes for a future book.
But you know what? Teachers have been sending the message to kids that they can mess up a conversation for decades. We have to stop that.
Haha. Ben, your blog has been a warm place for my musings. I used to write awful poetry for myself but now I love that this work has been liberating for me. I am sure that I am not the only one.
I haven’t dropped the iFLT page, and I don’t plan to, but not because I am learning that much, but because I am not going to stop pushing for best practices. I agree with Dr. Krashen we need to come together to push back against skill-based instruction, but just because we have a common problem, does not change my belief in CI. What I find silly is that Skills Teachers and those who push back against NTCI use the same arguments. Which makes dismantling them rather easy. They make claims like the classroom setting is not like the setting of L1 acquisition. Our students are not motivated like L1 learners or adults. There is not enough time to learn that way. Targeting helps me do my job. These are all well and good, but they DO NOTHING to change the way humans acquire language. This is all bunk. The context, the setting, the learners do NOT matter. Contextualized, Compelling, Comprehensible Input is the only way we acquire language. Everything else basically results in Language-Like Behavior. . IF your goal is for your students to complete tasks in class, then it does not matter. However, if you are teaching for proficiency, teaching toward real language acquisition, then this is something like trying to play a CD on a record player. You can put the disk on the turn-table, and you can even get it to spin, but you won’t be playing music. The resulting output that learners produce will not be real language, but instead merely language-like behavior. This is similar to memorizing dates in History class and then forgetting them after you take the quiz. The goal should be to create a complex network of information in the mind/brain that we call language. I will not stop believing that and I will not stop saying that. Just my two cents.
This is now a Primer article.
Daaamn Russ! You need to pass me some of that fire. My supervisor chooses not to see the light so he’s having me reflect on how data and end of lesson assessment can improve instruction. Now that’s bunks. I deliver nearly 37 mins of ci in a 45 min class isnt that enough.
Steven the reason he said those things is because that is what they teach administrators to say to teachers in schools, to “reflect on the data”. I mean, he literally missed what you were doing so entirely that that is the only thing he could say. No blame.
Totally agree with Ben here, Steven. Sounds like with this supervisor you just need to give him what he wants (and don’t spend much time or effort on it) and let him go on his merry way until he is drawn back to your classes because your students and their parents speak so highly of you.
Steven I feel ya there. Yeah, dude, I am providing 40-50 minutes daily of pure unadulterated jolly and fun CI that is carefully crafted to appeal to the young and maintain the sanity of the old. But APPARENTLY THAT IS NOT ENOUGH!
I just had another observation and my principal was FINALLY HAPPY. Of course, I had to basically manage a shitload of extra work because she wants to see us reading, writing, listening, and speaking in one class period. So I started with SSR and then I slapped a reading I made based on a story we told last week with the Invisibles, an adorable five-level story about a rock, some paper, and a pair of scissors who were in the Underworld of Sydney, Australia (which is really really cold instead of really, really hot, like normal hell, being upside down and such) which was overseen by a devil named Box R. Shorts. The three friends made Mr. Shorts madder tha he already was when they dared to address him as “tu” not “vous” so he went to Fred Meyer to get more ice to further cool it down for the poor freezin’ souls in Hell but the scissors realized she could cut the rope that tied the three together, so they escaped and went to Costco for coacoa to warm up and there was Mr. Shorts, still looking for ice. They challenged him to a game of Rock, Paper, Scissors (what else!) which of course he lost. So he was sent to real Hell – without any ice even! Poor thing.
Of course, the absolutely blazing creativity of the story would have been lost on her, as the words would have been coming out of my mouth and therefore too teacher centered.
But anyways, we read for SSR then I basically Read and Discussed the story, then I had them write the main ideas in L1 on a copy of the story, then I gave them these little conversation cards with random questions on them in L2 that would elicit one-word Novice-type questions (“What is your favorite supermarket?” “What do you like better – classical or modern music?” etc.)
Then we celebrated Carson’s birthday and class was over.
As they left they turned in:
1. Clipboards
2. Pencils
3. The conversation cards
4. SSR books
5. The story
Whereas normally they turn in:
SSR Books
Soooooo, lots of work for Tina, lots of materials to handle, and a good bit of of transition time, for what? To avoid the “problem” of sitting in community talking and creating together for an uninterrupted stretch of time, at the ability level of a Novice? Whatever. What-EVRR.
At least she thinks I am “growing”. What-EVRRRRR.
I told her recently, when she said that her goal was to help me move from Developing to Proficient on her dumb beloved Danielson rubric that that was all fine and dandy but my goal was to move my KIDS to higher proficiency and then, when they were ready to do more output, then they would make ME look “proficient”.
What the heck ever. Steven, your comment was music to my ears: I have the skills to provide kid-centered, engaging-to-most, happy, joyful CI for dozens of minutes on end, which is EXACTLY WHAT THEY NEED, and yet I am supposed to take a step up by taking a step back from that.
Whatever, she is satisfied that I can actually do something besides that, so I guess she is going to be offa my back for a while. Sean you are so right, I will juts lay low and wait for the parents and kids’ results to speak for me. And it does not hurt that Dr. Krashen will be giving a talk to the parents next summer at the Cascadia conference in June right up the street. 😀
I can’t agree more with this. I went to a Blaine Ray workshop, heck he even came to my class and observed me because I didn’t have anyone nearby doing CI based stuff. While I mean absolutely no disrespect to him, it’s just not my thing. I couldn’t get fully invested with his style, because it’s just not me. I have to be me when I’m teaching my kids or I just don’t connect. TPRS and those stories just weren’t my cup of tea. I liked the idea of it, but implementation fell short of excellence for me because I just didn’t feel authentic.
So I’ve got kind of a hybrid thing of multiple CI things going on right now and it’s working. My kids seem happy (as happy as stressed out teens at a super high performing school are) and I’m as happy as I’m going to get not staying at home with my own kids (which I’m going to be honest, I really miss a lot, but oh well on that front).
It’s nice to have this community to come back to after having felt out of the teacher loop for two years. 🙂
I so agree with you, Suzanne! This should be our ultimate goal, being able to teach full time AND spend quality time with family and/or loved ones. Maybe Ben’s next book will be titled, “How To Teach So You Can Enjoy Being With Your Family”
That is what his books always were for me. A lifeline to sanity! Of course I also had English Language Arts and Social Studies. It was because of the ease and happiness his books showed me in French teaching that I worked hard to become a full-time World Language teacher. And I am so glad I did…most of the time, and ALL of the time in my classroom! It only is the darn adults that get all up in my grill. With the kids I am happy happy happy!
Last week and this week I’m doing nothing but OWI with all my classes, grades 1 through 4. I had never done it before but all the talk here and Tina’s vids were so excellent I just had to dive in! I modified for my young audience by doing the first OWI drawing myself, as I stand face to face w/my kids. I ask a detail, they tell me and I draw it (badly but who cares?) -sometimes I have them hum in a crazy way while I draw. The kids are so incredibly engaged the entire time. They are practically shaking in their seats before the “big reveal” (I have them do a drumroll on their laps). I don’t pre-teach any structures or words, but establish meaning as they come up on the front whiteboard part of the easel. To me it feels l like what I’ve always done, just without the pre-established targets. THat’s the only diff – what is the big deal? I guess I dunno if I’d start out doing this – but clearly it can be done!! Tina and Ben proved it!
I’ve tried it in my Hebrew classes as well. Those 4th through 7th graders love it, too. It allows for lots of contextualized reps of some of the highest frequency super 7 verbs: There is, has/doesn’t have; is, wants, likes. Then, when you start weaving a story, you can slather on ‘goes,’ ‘says,’ etc.
I’ve not been to the FB page (I’m not on FB yet) but I can’t imagine any conscientious CI teacher finding fault with Tina’s vids!
I’m gonna stay away from there for now, cover my eyes, and hum in a crazy way. I’m sending Ben the first graders’ OWI’s. There’s Cloudy the sad cloud and his happy friend, Twinkle; Then there’s Hattie the hat, with a mask, a pig nose, an angry mouth, one long leg and one foot with no leg; and my personal fave, K.K. el queque (yes they’re homonyms!) -a 1st grader came up w/that name!!!-KK is upset that a knife has come to cut him on his 1st birthday…
What fun!
Alisa it’s too bad your kids are too young to do jobs in the Hub D group of kids in an Invisibles class. For example, screen shots of Cloudy and Twinkle and Hattie would all be sent to the Archivist who would send them to the Curator for the Invisibles Hall of Fame, which stays on your website for posterity and when the kids are 40 they go back to the site and revisit their childhood memories. Maybe some bored parents can come in from time to time and function at some of those jobs, mainly the Videographer, to get artifacts for the end of the year. It would also require parents to make a year end reader, the kind Jim Tripp told us about here about six years ago. That is where you take the drawings and put them on one side with the written story on the right and so each year you get that many more free books into your classroom library.
Yes, I will have to do all the video-recording, and compiling for books, mementos. I’ll take it! I’m thinking the OWI’s are the starting point for stories and I have kids illustrate scenes. I’ll keep y’all posted on how the projects flesh out, and if/how I’m able to incorporate any jobs at this level.