Teaching at the Upper Levels

5 thoughts on “Teaching at the Upper Levels”

1. James Hosler

   October 18, 2013 at 9:55 am

   I have realized between last year and this year that I owe more to my level 3/4 students than to use them as the way to prove how great of a teacher I am. I don’t train them with CI during levels 1 and 2 to be better at typical 3/4-type projects than the students of a traditional teacher. They need two more years of CI. They deserve two more years of CI. The plan you’ve offered here, Ben, is beautiful.

   “We have enough on our plates at the lower levels, where all the action is.”

   We need to remember, though, that even if the plan you have described looks simple, there is still plenty of action. Tons more than in any eclectic, “communicative” level 3/4 class where the kids are just memorizing and manipulating units of language around like Legos. Light reading and discussion is the high road to fluency. It is not easy. Their brains are quite literally exploding at every moment.

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2. Ben Slavic

   October 18, 2013 at 10:05 am

   True dat. Thank you for hearing what I am really saying, that as we get deeper and deeper into this way of teaching, we need to really take seriously everyone’s mental health. And realizing that the kids are not advanced is a big deal to how we teach at that level. Thanks for the support on this point, especially, James:

   …I don’t train them with CI during levels 1 and 2 to be better at typical 3/4-type projects….

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3. Chill

   October 18, 2013 at 2:02 pm

   The best compliment I ever got from a student was the day he walked through the door and said: “I love this class, I can truly relax here.” Ben I sent this to you as a forward, but I might as well cut and paste here. I just got this email from a recent grad who is in a French class at the University of Charleston. Part of their test includes writing a story or comment on a topic!

   Hi! It’s Eve! Just writing to tell you that the stories that you have your students write for French are extremely helpful. In my French class here at college we have a story portion on each test in which we must write about a topic or create a story. Because of all the writing experience I have, this is extremely easy for me, while for others it is the most difficult. I just thought you’d love to hear that what you’re doing in class is extremely helpful for upper level French classes.
   See you soon!

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4. lori f

   October 20, 2013 at 5:53 pm

   I needed this. Thanks. I need to lighten up; I can see that now. I had forgotten about the images, although I am using the easy readers as SSR–not every day, because a few of the girls were complaining. They had a different teacher last year for Spanish III, and I was quite frustrated with them at first because they seemed to have lost ground last year rather than gained anything.

   It is going better now after the first quarter, but I have been expecting too much out of them in the way of writing and speaking. But that is what they’ve asked me for–they want to write and speak better. They want to be ready for college classes in Spanish. But they’ll only have two years of CI…I don’t want to disillusion them.

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5. Ben Slavic

   October 20, 2013 at 7:27 pm

   Maybe if they understood how long it takes.

   And in terms of levels of difficulty the way I understand Krashen is that they should read so that the input is easy, which takes pressure off the conscious analytical mind, which wants to try to figure everything out and break everything down, whereas this whole comprehensible input thing is all about ease. Like Susan Gross says, it has to be like a movie in their minds.

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