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The Gap Is Too Wide
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17 thoughts on “The Gap Is Too Wide”
When people naturally acquire language from different resources, and when that very difference infuses lnaguage with color and interest, why must it be that all students must emerge with leveled knowledge?
Ben get real. The answer to that pie in the sky question is that schools want it that way so shut up and do it. Just go ahead with your bad ass plan for April and May.
Administrator: “What are the students learning in your class?”
Teacher: “They are learning how to understand the spoken and written language.”
Administrator: “Yes, but what are they learning?”
Teacher: “They are learning that they can succeed at the language.”
Administrator: “Yes, but what are they learning?”
Teacher: “They are learning how to listen and over time they will learn the language.”
Administrator: “Do they know all the numbers and colors?”
Teacher: “No.”
Administrator: “You’re fired.”
Ben, no one is going to fire you!
Linda I didn’t mean me but that little imaginary dialogue describes situations that actually exist in many schools where many of our PLC members find that dialogue as a real thing every day. That would be tough.
The do not know all of the numbers in a textbook driven class (or textbook-straitjacketed, see Larry below). They know 1-12, and after that, they make up forms (*diez y tres instead of trece), and stumble to combine poorly learned multiples of 10 and 100. Had their teachers repeatedly used exaggerated numbers a la Blaine (and other means of CI of numbers), they would not have this textbook induced speech difficulty.
The answer to “Do they know all of the numbers?” is “Well, we covered them. If they had just…” And so they remain covered in the eyes of the students, but the administrator is satisfied.
Ben,
This is an interesting discussion at a time when I’m dealing with a new job that does not have a scope and sequence, does not have a mission statement for learning languages, does not have cohesiveness with methodologies. I find it uniquely interesting to not have supervisors asking for these things.
What a mess when there isn’t a balance approach!
Dude. Ben, I LOVE this post. And agree with everything you so articulately said!
Departments that try to assess more frequently (after each 2-4 week unit) are not aligning with what we know about language acquisition and proficiency development, namely that it takes a lot of time and students have their own internal syllabus that is in control of the process, regardless of what unit in the book the teacher is on! The content in the textbook curriculum does not reflect what it means to teach for proficiency. Not to mention that most teachers don’t assess what has been acquired, but assess something else. There is no clear alignment of goal, approach, assessment, and content. This is perpetuated by textbooks, admin pressures, teacher ignorance, etc.
Goal: Communication
Approach: principles based on Krashen’s hypotheses
Assessment: fluency & proficiency based
Content: whole language input based on high-frequency + personal need
I am reading Asher’s “Learning . . .” book and he describes the trouble he had in getting funding for his TPR research, because this teaching tool could not be understood on paper. You had to experience/observe it to understand it and to believe it. Sound familiar? So Asher made videos in order to solicit funding and to report on his studies.
The point about video is a good one. Seeing the difference is really huge.
My own experience: I’d seen videos from “stellar” skill-building, partner practice-type classrooms — there’s a whole PBS series of these available online still I think. But then seeing video of Ben’s summer French classes from years ago and the level of REAL communication and real language flying around in there had me entranced. Also, experiencing that in person for the first time with Katya Paukova with Russian years ago. I felt surrounded by the new language in a comfortable way instead of looking at the language as an outsider.
” I felt surrounded by the new language in a comfortable way instead of looking at the language as an outsider.”
Nice, Diane! That’s exactly how we want our students to feel. 🙂
It makes one wonder where we would be if Asher had not had a Master’s in Television Journalism from U of Houston. He would not have gotten the funding and the interest garnered in what he was doing. No TPR. No TPRS. No practical channel for diffusion of CI thinking. No 90%+ to appeal to…
Hi Eric,
LOVED what you said above!!
Mike, I’ve been in this kind of situation for several years now, actually since I adopted TPRS. It is quite nice. I can’t imagine the increase in stress and doubt I imagine I’d have daily if it were a textbook-grammarsyllabus-aligned department or even a thematically-aligned department.
I’m going to be incrementally working on a mission statement that my admin can consider adopting, so that they are put in a good position to hire another TCI teacher if I leave here. I like the language Grant’s district adopted, particularly the part about believing every student can acquire language and succeed at all levels. I also really like what Eric just wrote above. Did you just come up with that Eric?
Jim, if you refer to the alignment piece, I wrote a FL goals/standards document last year. It’s still rough draft. I need to dumb it down. I also outlined a theory-to-practice guide based on this alignment, but that project got put on the back burner.
I’ve done both scenes. In one high school I had the freedom to do TPRS. One year I taught a young man who was an eleventh grader. The following year he was a senior. During the summer between them, he got to travel to South Florida, where he had opportunity to speak some Spanish. Some native speakers there asked him, “Where did you learn to speak Spanish? You speak it very well.” He told them.
I’ve also taught where we had to wear the straightjacket of textbook-driven instruction. The “what” drove the “how.” I slipped in TPRS as often as I could. But the students didn’t learn as well.
“straightjacket of textbook-driven instruction”… love it Larry!
I’m glad you like it, Jim. That’s how it felt, right???