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Tina on Targets – 2
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16 thoughts on “Tina on Targets – 2”
Hey anyone want to know the Evaluation Update and how it relates to NT?
So Ben and I have been told by many people that using NT work teaching would lead people to lose their jobs.
I want y’all to know that NT work is NOT the reason I have been struggling with my admin. It is her misunderstanding of CI in and best practices in WL teaching in general (especially wanting to see kids “speaking, writing, listening, and reading” from September of first year onward, in every lesson which is, to me, basically emotional and pedagogical malpractice, and anyway they ARE speaking – in one-word answers like Novices SHOULD) and NOT targeting or NT. She could care less about that.
Others’ situations are surely each and every one different, but here is my experience.
I had my mid year review and actually ended up getting fine, if mediocre, marks (mostly 3s “Proficient” – no 4s “Distinguished” – and two 2s “Emerging”, but like I give a rip, I know that the issue is the rubric sucks not that I am not a good strong teacher. As long as I live to teach another year that is OK with me!) She said, I am glad to see you developing in your teaching (meaning now they are reading for SSR, able to do some short output, and writing for their portfolios). I said, what you mean is that my students have developed in THEIR proficiency. But I do not think she gets that.
Honestly I feel like, with what she was looking for, less teacher centered instruction, I would have been sunk with Classic TPRS. Without Ben’s classroom jobs it would have been totally teacher-centered. I was able to point out specific, concrete, real ways the kids are actually running the class. I was able to point out how I am widening the curriculum based on their interests and imaginations and ideas.
My admin was actually shocked to learn that in the past I had gone into class with a list of three structures to focus on. She has an elementary literacy instructional coach background and this is her second year as a vice-principal. So she is really into early literacy and somehow seems to think that my classroom should look a lot like a second grade literacy classroom. Well that is not true, but I do have to say that freeing myself of targeted structures has allowed me to meet some of her demands that I would not have been able to with targets.
She asked me how do I differentiate for the gifted (like 30% of my classes!). Of course, she was ignoring the fact that traditional definitions of giftedness really do not apply to the SLA classroom since many kids who do not get identified as fast processors in regular classes that are based on conscious learning are actually sometimes the superstars of the CI classroom, but I let that argument kinda glide by.
With NT work I was able to say that the language was so rich that the faster processors would have a lot of raw material to work with while the slower ones just got the basics. This did not totally satisfy her as she thinks differentiation means different work, not all of the students feeding from the same bowl but each taking what they are ready for and need at the time.
And she is not really capable of seeing the detailed professional work I am doing at keeping the overall message comprehensible: repeating the “bones” of the language (the HFW) over and over throughout the year, while also putting on feathers and sparkles, words like “jusqu’à” and “tandis que” and “Londres” and “chocolat chaud”, for the faster kids to chew on, yet making the whole comprehensible through gestures, actors, art, and drawing/writing on the board, to keep the slower kids understanding the trajectory of the story.
She cannot see because it looks effortless because I have spent so much time and energy getting good at this. She cannot see because she is blind to what we here know about SLA. She is blind to the unconscious nature of SLA and therefore simply cannot see the rich tapestry we are creating together, the silent building-up in the kids’ brains.
But NT work has saved me in these conversations. It is NOT the cause of the problem, it is a salve for the wound. It actually lets the WL classroom look more like the early literacy classroom. More like what passes for normal school. Because once we throw out the idea of being hammers, hammering pieces of the language into the kids’ brains, we can conduct our classes more like second grade, but slower and more carefully.
Honestly, your average second grade teacher could learn from US, how to make class more engaging, compelling, comprehensible. Your average seventh grade and high school teacher too. I’m talking science teachers, social studies teachers…all teachers who have kids who are acquiring language. And, hello. that is all teachers.
“feeding from the same bowl”
One way to create different bowls is through individual reading. Two options:
1. Self-selected reading, which requires enough books with sufficient variety that students can select.
2. Graded-readers, which provide the same path for all students but they proceed at their own pace.
Is the admin interested in purchasing lots of bowls?
I do that. She wants me to differentiate during the input. Gack.
She lost me. Reading is input.
The talking part. It’s ok. I’m going to keep my job and she’ll see. Or not. Either way I’m just gonna keep on teaching.
Ok. Good. It does not matter if she loses me, as long as they do not lose you.
You are doing a great job out there. And thanks for getting the credit option worked out. I may be taking advantage of it soon.
Btw, Tina, I have an emotional attachment to Portland. My parents first met there. I have an aunt and cousins there. Most important right now, my daughter has been there for over a year.
Hi all,
I wanted to share a little bit about how my admin. viewed my work with NT CI. I am a second-year teacher and this is my first year using CI in general and NT CI. I often times feel clumsy or awkward as everything feels so new, but I have to say, I am having so much more fun this year and am infinitely more relaxed.
My lesson for Spanish 1 focused on Day of the Dead (because students had asked to learn about it)–so we watched a short film, we told a story and finished with write and discuss in a 90 min period. Though she observes they were writing and speaking–it was all by invitation, not forced.
Tina, with respect to how your admin. viewed “differentiation”–my admin had the almost exact opposite response that I wanted to share below. Here is how my administrator responded to demonstrating understanding without forcing output:
“Students demonstrate their knowledge of the concepts through a variety of methods. During the lesson observed, students were using all language modalities, answering questions verbally, in writing, and through gestures. Students are given a variety of ways to show what they know.”
This speaks to the power of CI, especially non-targeted, to address the importance of differentiation. If we force them to speak, insisting on output, doesn’t that go in the face of engaging learners at all levels?
“As seen in the examples, students interact with a variety of materials including technology, music, visuals, text, and speak with each other. Students were observed using all language modalities throughout the lesson.”
Non-targeted CI is inherently differentiated–we don’t have to do anything extra. With Ben’s jobs especially, it is just so obvious and seamless. I’m fortunate that my principal has a background in SLA from teaching ESL for years–Tina, if only admin. could get together and properly educate one another on SLA so that good teachers with ETHICAL practices didn’t have to shoulder the burden of gross misunderstandings. Keep up the good fight!
These are good passages to regurgitate during my conferences with my evaluator. The more we can use their lingo to describe our practice, the better.
“Students demonstrate their knowledge of the concepts through a variety of methods. During the lesson observed, students were using all language modalities, answering questions verbally, in writing, and through gestures. Students are given a variety of ways to show what they know.”
Thanks Elena!
I know I’m dim and too concrete, but please help me understand exactly what we mean by non- targeted. I mean, we know what the highest frequency verb-containing chunks are, and we often naturally circumlocute to keep them in play and stay in bounds (some would say that we target them – without pre-writing them on the board). Does NT mean we don’t know exactly what’s going to emerge naturally, so we use our SLA and T/CI background knowledge to guide the conversation, keeping it compelling and comprehensible, without announcing pre-planned structures?
I agree with Tina that backwards planning for a leveled novel can feel stiff and flat, but we do sometimes use preplanned chunks from predetermined (home run) stories and scripts, Movie Talks, etc. If there’s a guy lifting weights in the video, we’ll prolly need to teach ‘lifting,’ if they don’t already know it! I knew I had to teach ‘lay down’ when I did “The 3 Bears…”
To me the most important feature of NT is the fact that it’s emergent, with the developing story. So the buy-in is sky high – cuz it comes from the kids. We’re creating something together, and that’s a meaningful and rich experience.
Alisa you said, “Does NT mean we don’t know exactly what’s going to emerge naturally, so we use our SLA and T/CI background knowledge to guide the conversation, keeping it compelling and comprehensible, without announcing pre-planned structures?”
I would agree to this IDEA. I say this because I truly believes Ben’s words when he says that this is an art. So, there is nothing set in stone. Story listening to me can also blur with NT. I say this because I may have the general story in my head but the way (the words, expressions) I am going to say makes the story emergent — at least to me. You are telling the story and making sure you are comprehensible as you say with the SLA background and experience with TCI/CI etc…
I think that we can still plan but we are not pre-planning structures. I plan with SL for the general story and I kinda fish for some words here and there but I don’t stress if I forget an event. I even spin a question using simpler vocab with the kids. You could even splice in PQA but not at the expense of FLOW.
Alisa you describe my own version of non-targeted input to perfection above. May I use this in the book I am writing?
If you agree with this description of non-targeted input, Ben:
Does NT mean we don’t know exactly what’s going to emerge naturally, so we use our SLA and T/CI background knowledge to guide the conversation, keeping it compelling and comprehensible, without announcing pre-planned structures?
Then it sounds like a teacher needs some T/CI background (i.e., circling experience, classic TPRS experience) to be able to successfully launch into non-targeted input instruction. Don’t it?
I wonder how much of what has happened was developed to work within the constraints of textbooks, word lists, grammar “topics,” and other conventional.
One thing I remember was that I started using vocabulary that I had not used before with students. Certain words become important that are irrelevant to the grammar syllabus, like “there is/are” and connecting words.
1. The word for “there is” came up in a common exam discussion recently. The conventional grammar teacher with years of experience confused it with “it is.”
This person (who is big on accuracy for kids) does not process “there is” because it has no use in a paradigm. In Spanish “there are” is the same word as “there is” (“hay” -sounds like ‘eye’), so there is not even a plural. There is not reason to use “there is” if there isn’t anything to say. There is no OWI, no invisible, no special person. There is just a chart, and since that is obvious to everyone in the room it is superfluous to point it out in any language.
2. Connectors also became more important with strings of meaning to connect.
The training showed me how to talk to beginners (all my students) in L2 that they understand. Again, Why did I need that? Because nothing had prepared me for that.
What if teacher training had been, “Here is how you talk to someone who doesn’t know the language you are teaching them”?
But even so, we land a job where language is an afterthought, and all is measured by cover the just right amount of text, doing projects, grammar explanations (and don’t mess with the order of the paradigm), word lists. A lot of what developed was trying to break out of our own mindsets. But a lot was also a way to survive in the mindsets of others. I am thankful for all of you who have kept plugging away at this in the best ways you have figured out.
Don’t feel snookered, Ben. It has been a hard learning curve. We may never know what we could have foregone in the process. But the morass was such that is has taken a lot of people a lot of energy in trying to find what works best to get CI to our students. I hope we find that more people can do it more readily and with clear results.
Just a stray thought on the word wall discussion: It is when we work with language that emerges from the students’ interests and imaginations that words are retained, and not because they are posted on a wall. When we listen to a symphony, we don’t post a list of all the musical notes which make it up on the wall. Just as musical notes can only exist in context, so also it is in context that we use and retain words for true enjoyment of the symphony/language.
Another thing, Sean, is that whoever wrote that passage you quoted is thinking in terms of their skills as a teacher, and not about the interests of the students. The belief is that if they just master certain skills (this goes really deep in Classic TPRS), then everything will be ok and they will succeed. But maybe it has less to do with their skill set (moms don’t even HAVE a skill set that they learned at a conference) than it has to do with just getting something that is really interesting to the kids going in the classroom, while doing so in a loving and happy way. Classic TPRS is so focused on skills and expert worship that they forgot how simple this work is. This point makes me think of Beniko again. Her message, one based on so much high quality research, is not a complicated one at all. It may be too simple!
Sean, I think that tprs skills are common ground that many of us have. I however do not have the classical tprs skills ingrained in me… or rather it isnt dogma to me. When I saw new teachers at Ben’s conference doing OWI, it was magic. Some were using their bodies and handd alot, others were going slowly and teaching to the eyes and others were making sure to point and pause. These skills to me are in TRPS but are not exclusive to it, we ensure they are comprehensible. If we focus on classic tprs we can limit ourselves. I think NT can manifest in MANY ways, there needs to be more experimentation.
I had a weird experience. My 2nd year students said what want something different. OK I said. How about you send me a picture so I can project it on the projector then you will be interviewed. I asked them what should we ask. All my students gave lame questions but they were REALLY invested in finding out the basic information from each other like favorite food, favorite class, favorite drink, pets etc… I wrote these notes on a doc projected with the students picture. I asked emergent questions like how old were you in this picture, do you really wear glasses? Etc… going slow and comprehensible and minimal circling. When it came time to read, I wrote it in the 1st person as an autobiography. When students rated the reading, most rated it 5/5 or 4/5. Our stories on a bad day get 2/5 or 3/5. We can talk about whatever. I don’t like to resist the 17 students I have in this French 2.