Chris said this in talking about a thread started by Eric Herman about the use of L1 in the classroom:
…I’ll just randomly say funny, weird, random things in English which then turn into 1-2 minute random rants or conversations in English that I then have to get away from and get back into Spanish mode….
Yes well said Chris it is the random blurting in L1 that I can’t resist. And Eric made the point that it builds relationships, and I fully agree so it is not the worst thing in the world.
Joe Dzietzic, our great young Spanish teacher in DPS, agrees. However, Diana says only in level 1 should we do that.
But then we have a French teacher in DPS, Reuben Vyn, whose scores are off the chart, who literally never leaves the TL. And he builds great relationships with his kids. Same with Mark Mullany. Both just plain stay in the TL all the time with their kids and they have great relationships with them. (Diana and Sabrina and Paul and I talked about this very topic last night and those points were made by Diana.)
But that leaves me and you and our other L1 blurters who can’t do that out in the cold. I’ll admit it, I can’t do it. There I said it:
“Hi, my name is Ben and I can’t stay in the target language.”
“Hi Ben.”
Now Reuben’s scores clearly show that (two years ago) he basically proved without a doubt that really staying in the TL is the way to get ridiculous scores because his bar graph was ridiculously ahead of everyone in all categories on the DPS exit that year. His kids were at the very bottom of the socio-economic spectrum in Denver and the IB students in his school, George Washington, didn’t even come remotely close to his scores.
So what to do? For me it goes back to mental health. Knowing that staying in the target language is the best by far for gains, we have to weigh the situation we are in. We are not in a setting with motivated people. Last nite Sabrina told us that she is working with Mark Knowles at CU/Boulder using CI and that the professors and researchers are just in love with what they are experiencing in her CI French class. Now there I would find it easy to get myself motivated to stay in the TL. But I have some kids who resemble concrete blocks and it is hard for a teacher to get motivated to do something as difficult as staying in the TL when talking to a concrete block.
To me the motivation factor is huge. Why should we be motivated enough to stay in the TL when our students for the most part are not motivated and do not appreciate what they are experiencing – to them it is just another class and they take what we do for granted – so that to push and push and push for CI is just not something I can do. Sorry. Pay me six figures and I’ll think about it. It’s hard to explain. Maybe somebody can relate.
Anyway, we all are individual teaching artists and we practice our work in our own ways. If I can’t stay in the TL in class, I won’t. I accept that. I’ve come a long way, however, from the days when I first started with TPRS and I spent half the class in English.
I have gotten better at it. Especially now, with the Ten Minute Deal that I have been using lately, I am getting some really strong ten minute periods in the TL with only a few short four second clarifications. I can do it for ten minutes but not for forty. That’s where I’m at with this. I would rather get four really high quality ten minute periods in a fifty minute period than do what I used to do, always lying to myself about how much I was staying in the TL.
Plus on the Ten Minute Deal the teacher-student bond I have with my timer is off the chart. He takes it very seriously, signals me at the five and ten minute marks in a serious way with a hand signal and a look, and the rest of the class gets really focused because they know that they only have to do it for ten minutes and then we let the air out of the balloon for a few moments before starting another ten minute period.
Give me motivated and intelligent and funny adults and we have a whole new situation. Now that would be fun! Sabrina says it’s a blast.
(And congratulations to Mark Knowles, our own PLC member, who like Bob Patrick at the University of Georgia, is bringing this stuff hard and fast to the ivory towers of academia. Bob, by the way, recently shared with me the good news that he has been asked to continue his work teaching CI to graduate students in education at UGA. I’ll share that as a Report from the Field after I post this.