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Targeted vs. Untargeted
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15 thoughts on “Targeted vs. Untargeted”
It also depends on the students too. It is like looking at them through a smoky windowpane and then getting out the Windex. The structures were in the WAY of seeing the kids. Not completely in the way, just THERE, and yes you can get fine results with targets. Just like I recently saw that people are getting results with OWL. So I will just share some of my experiences.
I always wanted to go untargeted, for my whole time with TPRS. Well, since I learned that it was out there, that it was a thing. I would find myself not finishing stories because we would find more interesting topics and other structures would emerge. But those stories were boring for the kids because they kinda dragged on and on. I would spend a ton of time on circling the character. I found that when we would talk about the KIDS then there would be more sparkle in the eyes in the room and I could just simply talk to them slowly and carefully, watching them for breakdown in their comprehension, and there was more interest. So I craved that in my stories. More engagement, more connection.
Then this year happened, and in January or so Ben started putting together a whole recipe for untargeted stories, here on the blog. And I tried it and I loved it and I realized that the kids were more present, it was more engaging, and I was finishing stories fast and they were lots of fun.
That is my story. Will everyone adopt untargeted CI as their main way? I doubt it. But I have to agree with Ben above here:
“we never know what language kids will acquire from our input, so it makes the whole discussion kind of overblown. Use either one – your kids will learn a ton of the language”
The issue for me is the effect on MY MIND, my ability to connect. I find, for me, that it is a happier way to show up in class. And if Momma ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy, right?
…if Momma ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy….
If I were a Michael Valentine Smith dude who just arrived in this strange land from outer space, I would want to live in the country that coined that phrase. Those are the people I would want to be around. That would put me around South Carolina/Georgia. That expression reveals the greatness of the people who created it. What a great land we live in!
“Those are the people I would want to be around. That would put me around South Carolina/Georgia.”
South Carolina and Georgia are really good friends. They produce amazing things together and make a really great team.
South Carolina is a little more pristinely heart-shaped (and she’s kind of full of herself too). But Georgia has some silly, whimsical edges and she is so much fun. Together, they are both quite beautiful.
Where South Carolina and Georgia meet is the only place I wanna be.
I think I mentioned that I went to university in South Carolina. Of course, to get there we had to change planes in Atlanta; and when we could get away for fun it was to Stone Mountain or Six Flags over Georgia, occasionally underground Atlanta. I think your description is pretty accurate, Claire.
Currently I am reading Stephen Camarata’s book The Intuitive Parent. Some of his findings and insights will make their way into my “Toward a Philosophy of Teaching” blog posts. When I have finished them, I’m going to gather them together into a book, edit and format everything, and then publish it as “The Intuitive Language Teacher: why the only thing your students need is you (and Comprehensible Input)”
Look forward to it, Robert. I bet it would make great book for a PD book club. I was thinking about that the other day, as a way to promote language learning. I having been toying with doing that. The books that occurred to me were Ray/Contee’s “TPR Storyingtelling” and Ben’s “The Big CI book.”
Another idea was to use weekly Tea w/ BVP as a PLC focus.
“The Intuitive Language Teacher” sounds like it will be another great source.
Speaking of PD opportunities…
August 3-4, Amy Marshall, who is a fairly new member of the blog, will be offering a 10-hour (two day) TPRS workshop. So, I did something 2 years ago. Laurie did a slam dunk last year. It is Amy’s turn this year. And all of this is happening at a time that in a sneaky, underhanded, closed-door effort the HS was forced to do a curriculum mapping sham(e) by copying from the Table of Contents to the District form.
While the blog is about Targeted vs. untargeted, we went straight to Shackled, but Amy came through the back door with Unshackled.
Appropriate to this, as well as, to the Trees theme:
For there is hope of a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again, and that the tender branch thereof will not cease. Job 14:7
Where is that workshop? That is exciting news and I like the quote from Job too. Now there was a man who took a lickin’ and kept on tickin’.
Dudley Middle School
Dudley, Massachusetts
(south of Worcester, MA
“Extra! Extra! Read all about it! It’s the Intuitive Language Teacher book by Robert Harrell!
“The Intuitive Language Teacher: why the only thing your students need is you (and Comprehensible Input)”
What a great title. Tina has suggested that the colon means it’s serious.
If it has a colon in the title and it was written by Robert Harrell… it’s SERIOUS!
I haven’t seen it yet but knowing what I know about Robert this could be one of the great books of the century for foreign language teachers.
” The structures were in the WAY of seeing the kids. ”
Agreed.
I read this as “The structures are in the way of assessing the kids authentically.”
They are a means to an end. We should leave them off our assessments (only assess for comprehension of stories, not did you get the targets I wanted you to get) and our curriculum documents (if possible).
When training people in Denver Public Schools, Diana Noonan would always help a struggling teacher by asking, “What are you teaching?” And the teacher would have to say, “runs” or “gives” or something. I always wanted them to say to her, “The kids!” I’m gonna get fly swatted on this point when I get home.
In a faculty meeting about 10 years ago, the then principal, asked several of us “What do you teaching? We answered by our subjects, Spanish, Algebra, Chemistry, etc. Then he shouted, “No. You teach children.” My first reaction was, “You tricked us. Kids are “who’s” not “what’s.” But since I have been on the blog it has become so clear that we engage the students by teaching the subject material (the interests of the kids) to the kids.
It seemed like a cheap trick, but rings truer with each passing month.
It also serves as a reminder that administrators who were never good at languages are more our friends than former FL teachers who never made the transition into the 21st century.
“The most dangerous thing about an academic education is that it enables my tendency to over-intellectualize stuff, to get lost in abstract thinking instead of simply paying attention to what’s going on in front of me.”
– David Foster Wallace