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Steve Johnson on Staying in L2
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7 thoughts on “Steve Johnson on Staying in L2”
Oh, cool. Hope people try out the L1 translator and tweak it. One thing I like about it is I don’t have to turn away from the class and if the student needs more time, I can circle some more and come back. My slow processors like the extra time.
And by the way, I am Stu or Steve in “recent comments.” I created the nickname “Stu” in the forum and both are showing up on the PLC. Sorry for the confusion!
This was my first year using classroom jobs. With level 1 students the L2 timer was the most crucial classroom job this year. In my opinion nothing is better than students playfully yelling at the teacher to stay in L2.
At one point I had some figures on the number of minutes for aural L2 input (56% of the school year), reading L2 input (20% of the year), and the unavoidable L1.
Only with the clasroom job every single day of a L2 timer can we even begin to have an idea about how these minutes are ACTUALLY spent. I tired for 90 and fell short. Not during a lesson but during 180 days of doing school.
TPRS lessons can be 90%+ but there is more to class time than just TPRS lessons. Attendance, school announcements, discipline, and visitors all keep L1 alive and strong. I can’t see how traditional teaching will even come close to 90%.
My 2 cents
There will always be some things that have to be done in L1 in the school setting. I have to discuss safety at the beginning of the year, and my first-year students certainly do not have enough language to understand in anything other than English what they need to know.
However, I do as many routines as possible in German.
– I take roll in German by asking students “Who is not here today?” (In German I can ask either “Wer ist heute nicht hier?” or “Wer fehlt heute?” The second version gives students a very useful verb “to be lacking” and also sparks a conversation about the importance of being present because when I say “fehlt”, they hear “fail” and think that I’m saying absentees are failing.
– I greet, thank, and say farewell in German to student “runners” when they bring call slips and other items.
– I tell the student in German what is on a call slip as I hand it over.
– I tell the class in German that we have a guest; one of my goals is to have a routine for greeting guests. I’ve read some things that I think teach students some important social skills and impress visitors.
– When I am having difficulty with something (e.g. the internet is down, I’ve misplaced something, the program I wanted to use is down, the cool website I found the night before is blocked), I mutter about it in German. At that point, of course, I’m not horribly concerned about 100% comprehensibility, but it at least establishes that **everything** is done in German.
– Minor discipline can be done in the target language. By the end of the year my first-year students were answering in chorus my requirement to have a single conversation in German. The exchange went something like this:
Me: Wie viele Konversationen? (How many conversations?)
Students: Eine Konversation! (One conversation!)
Me: Mit? (With?)
Students: Der ganzen Klasse! (The whole class!)
Me: Auf? (In?)
Students: Deutsch!
Me: Na, bitte! (Well, please!)
or
Me: Was spricht man in der Deutschstunde? (What do you speak in German class?)
Students: Deutsch!
Me: So eine Überraschung! Man spricht Deutsch in der Deutschstunde. (What a surprise! You speak German in the German class.)
Of course, after a while they also start being a bit smart-alecky and giving me funny answers like
“Spanisch” or “Russisch” and I feign indignation or start speaking to them in that language and then ask, “Sprechen wir wirklich Spanisch in der Deutschstunde?” (Do we really speak Spanish in the German class?)
At some point I also get to explain to students the difference between saying “Klasse” and “Stunde” or “Unterricht”. For Germans, “Klasse” refers only to the people, so we speak German with the whole “Klasse”. “Stunde” is “period” (literally, hour), and “Unterricht” is “instruction”, but they are used in the way that we use “class” to mean the period and subject.
It is so easy to let L1 encroach on our time, so we have to consciously work against it. My TPRS (and COACH) colleague even goes through her class “rules” in Spanish with her first-year students and uses that as the basis for her first story.
…there will always be some things that have to be done in L1 in the school setting….
Otherwise we would waste vast amounts of instructional minutes, especially in the first two weeks of the year. I tell my kids that on a certain date, like August 22, or whatever, when I feel as if they get the plan, it’s off to 98% Land. I’m going to go head to head with Eric this year on L2 percentage. I’m going head to head with the Jackal.
…nothing is better than students playfully yelling at the teacher to stay in L2….
Another thing I like about the timer is how I have to ask permission for time outs, like a basketball coach asking the ref. When kids are involved in the appearance of shared authority in the classroom, we can say that we have reached a new level of team effort, which greatly lessons the old oppositionally defiant nature of traditional foreign language classrooms.
I also want to not be the one to control the little light on the little piece of wood that looks like it came out of a hardware shop in Georgia 90 years ago (or the Xmas lights around the board that somebody does). If that is done by a student as well, then if we want to speak English we have to ask permission of the Allumeur du Réverbère/Lamplighter as well.
And we better have a good reason to even ask permission. The kids actually help to control the high flow of L2 in class, for real. Kids pick up on this kind of shift in classroom energy. Administrators notice it when they observe. Fear goes down. Learning goes up. Enjoyment increases. Our lives as teachers improve.
Ben,
I love what you said, “the appearance of shared authority.” This is just another reason why I think TPRS/TCI is such an art form. Teachers are in control but we create such a brilliant democracy. FOR THE STUDENT BY THE STUDENT!
Robert…I love your explanation. Thanks for taking the time to write it…also my German just improved 🙂