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Time to Draw the Curtain?
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10 thoughts on “Time to Draw the Curtain?”
My 2nd years– who had no CI last year– now (after 5 months of TORS/CI) write as well as my beginners, who have only ever had CI. Adriana Ramírez’ TPRS results at Semi in White Rock l are so good that the whole department is trying to retool for CI, except for a few fossils who would rather hand out worksheets that would allow them time to monitor their portfolios while the kids beaver away at conjugating avoir or whatever.
Our District funds action research projects and in 14-15, Adriana and I are going to study how well TPRS/CI works by comparing two “communicative” Spanish classrooms with two TPRS/CI classrooms. We are gonna hopefully have some good Canadian data to throw at Curtain, heh heh 😉
What this post makes me think aloud is this:
There is a very fine line between misunderstanding someone’s words and distorting them. It is sad that these two ladies distort Krashen’s work (voluntarily or not).
So many people misunderstand the work of Krashen. Can’t blame them really, it takes a certain open-mindedness, a paradigm shift to accept that we as TEACHERS ARE NOT IN CONTROL OF the acquisition process for our students. We need to surrender to that fact. We need to accept/realize/understand that language acquisition is an unconscious and involuntary process that will happen in time given the right amount of CI. Most people on this blog are lucky b/c we live and breathe CI as per Krashen and Ray’s findings, and most of us have made that paradigm shift.
We are also implementing this to various degree based on our circumstances within the constraints of our schools. I think that we must understand and be tolerant to the fact that we are still a minority and we can only bring meaningful change by becoming loud advocates for what we know is true and good for students of languages. Most language teachers are not that lucky, they teach using traditional methods and they don’t even know about Krashen or CI. In my school I try to invite other teachers to watch me and sloooooowly talk about Krashen and CI. We don’t want to electrocute them, it’s too big of an electro shock for a lot of them.
Going back to Met and Curtain. There is a word for people who do these kinds of actions to manipulate people: they are called demagogues. But usually demagogues are very aware of what they do, b/c they are politically motivated or narcissistic.
I’m not familiar with Mimi and Curtain’s claims as I have never met or heard them talk, but from what I hear from people on this blog who have, it seems like they are pretty vocal about their sets of beliefs.
So what I’d like to know is this:
1) Are Mimi and Helena misinterpreting Krashen’s words, in which case we need to enlighten them and open us a courteous and intelligent debate/discussion with them.
2) Or are they distorting Krashen’s research findings and implications as demagogues would do. BTW the definition of a demagogue is this: “A political leader who seeks support by appealing to popular desires and prejudices rather than by using rational argument.”
Lastly, I wonder if Krashen is aware of this, and how he feels about it…..
I think you should read their work for yourself. Helena Curtain has her own wiki with tons of articles. When I read them, I don’t see a disconnect w/Krashen at all. I just see a disconnect with the reality of teaching and her ideas. In my opinion, she really gives no concrete advice on actually HOW to get from her recommendations to acquisition. Sorry, thematic units don’t work. Very young children may/do tolerate quite a bit of incomprehensible input because we don’t require them to do too much with language or content, but older learners either do not put up with it or they completely space out and/or become discipline problems. The only big difference (and I actually think it’s quite small in reality) is that she believes translating is bad. CI/TPRS is not based on translating so I really think this is a non issue in the end.
How is Helena Curtain connected to textbooks? I don’t glean that from anything I read about her. I always connect her to these things: Immersion education (thousands of hours of input), ELL education (thousands of hours of input), and FLES (cute thematic units for little ones). Her name just doesn’t register for me in terms of importance or real experience with high-school textbook FL programs.
I don’t know much about Ms. Met myself. Should we be lumping the two of them in the same bucket? Guess I need to find out more about her.
BTW-I’m not defending HC’s ideas. They don’t work in real life. I just don’t see a big disconnect w/Krashen’s theories and the way she states her ideas.
Jody,
I agree and would rather talk about her work intelligently (having read her) rather than through mere hearsay. So I will do just that when time permits.
Jody, how does one access her Wiki pages?
http://helenacurtainswiki.wikispaces.com/
Thanks Jody 🙂
Has Stephen Krashen been directly in discussion with Helena Curtain and Mimi Met? It would be interesting to hear.
I feel like they’re starting from different points (in addition to other differences). I have no experience with Mimi Met. After hearing Helena Curtain speak at a conference last December, I took away several main points of difference. She wanted us to create & use thematic units (which she said made content compelling…), English use as a final resort rather than a tool to aid comprehension, and student output from the beginning often with partner practice and manipulatives. She spoke a lot about ACTFL’s proficiency levels and goals for various lengths of time for study of different languages and showed a variety of school district’s goals and figures. She spoke about modes of communication, expecting them all to be part of classes from the beginning of language instruction.
She used the concept of comprehensible input but also expected output without questioning its value in acquisition, and that bothered me. That’s the point at which I feel she differs most with TPRS/CI approaches. I wish that she would reconsider that. In fact, it all bothered me so much as I thought it all over that my French teacher colleague asked me what was wrong a couple days later. I explained about how forced output doesn’t lead to acquisition and that personalization of the class as a key to making things compelling to them. (I didn’t like the thematic units either. Let’s make the theme the kids themselves! That’s compelling!)
Just read this after writing my long-winded response to HC. I agree with you. You explain the disconnect well. I taught in an immersion program for years using thematic units because kids HAD to get school content and language content simultaneously. I just don’t think it translates to 45 minutes a day programs. Doesn’t work.
Curtain’s problem– vis à vis the output issue– is a misinterpretation of he research behind then”communicative” approach.
People who researched then”communicative” approach broadly concluded that it was the negotiation for meaning in the TL that fosters acquisition. This is true…IF THE LEARNER’S INTERLOCUTOR IS A NATIVE (or competent) SPEAKER DELIVERING COMPREHENSIBLE INPUT. If you have a pair of learners hacking away at the TL, or a native/competent teacher delivering incomprehensible input, NONE of that research applies.
The research into the communicative method also failed to asnwer one basic question: is it the “negotiation for meaning” or the reps that teach the learner?
E.g. Chris on his first trip to Mexico asks “¿tienes avocados?” to market vendors, all of whom say no. After ten tries and hearing “no tenemos” a Mexican with some English points out that “avocado” sounds like “abogado” (lawyer) 😉 and that the right word is “palta” or “aguacate.” Chris gets out his traveler’s notebook, copies it down, and asks a few more vendors. Did he learn “tenemos” and “palta” by negotiating, or because he heard each item 15 times?