Actually Day 4:
I had read here how Nathan Black allows the kids a short period of time at the beginning of the year to sit wherever they want so that he can spot problem kids, combinations of kids, etc. Then, as needed, we can fix those problems for the next day so that those kids can’t even see each other, and slowly discipline is guaranteed.
I will set up my seating chart in a week or so, but so far I really haven’t had to do anything with discipline because I am working the room, smiling, making eye contact with the kids, personalizing heavily via Circling with Balls, and putting in the rules right now. By rules I mean both my Classroom Rules and Linda/Annick’s Five Finger Rules (see blog entry by that title of a few days ago here).
If you are not going SLOW-Li and using those Five Finger rules, then you are missing out. And thank you Annick for reminding me about those super effective finger rules. The finger roll is a sweet move on a basketball court, and the finger rule is a sweet move in a classroom.
Use them. Every time a kid breaks one, put that finger up. In my school, some of those kids, most of them, are coming from some very rough middle schools. So that finger rule thing is awsome. You will see how awesome when you use them yourself.
So, it is the second day of Circling with Balls. Here is what I covered in 45 minutes today (my three daily classes are level 1 ninth graders):
– plays football (information on the kids’ Circling with Balls cards)
– plays soccer (information on the cards)
– plays basketball (information on the cards)
– does not play football (information on the cards)
– does not play soccer (information on the cards)
– does not play basketball (information on the cards)
– not (pointed to and paused at whenever I say ask that in the Circling)
– but (pointed to and paused at)
– so (pointed to and paused at)
– and (pointed to and paused at)
– is it that? (pointed to and paused at)
– or (pointed to and paused at)
– better than (pointed to and paused at)
– where? (pointed to and paused at)
Look at that list! That is a TON of words for one class. They are in order of how they came up. It was a natural unfolding of words that I did not plan on teaching because I don’t believe that we can target vocabulary when learning a langauge.
The words we use in TPRS must emerge naturally. Targeting vocabulary is nutty. And yet, most of us right now are dutifully writing things like “Greetings” and “Clothing” in content objective templates for this next month’s planning to give to people who know virtually nothing about teaching languages and some of whom have never even heard of Dr. Krashen!
Filling out those forms is hooey. It is not necessary to do so. We can’t give in on Krashen. Like I said in a blog post this morning – if administrators knew how much they tie the hands of teachers who truly line up with Krashen with those eduforms and if they truly understood the research, they would NEVER require such busy work from us. It works for math but NOT for us. This is just a weight we will have to carry until a tipping point is reached. We can do it.
Now, look where the first three words came from – the cards. And where do the smaller words come from? Look carefully. Four of them come from doing Point and Pause and two are on the list of question words. That was plenty for today and I will spend about one third of the class tomorrow reviewing those before going to more cards.
I talked about how Brissa and Nick play soccer and how Roberto plays football and how David plays basketball, but, rather than be stupid and try to teach more stuff at that point, I stayed with those structures for the entire class period. That list of words up there got lots of repetitions, thanks to what I learned at Bryce’s and Linda’s sessions last month.
This is a first year class! So I will not go through that information fast. Now here is a very real secret to being able to talk about four kids doing three sports for an entire class perio:
After I have established and circled what they do, instead of going to another card:
…I COMPARE THOSE KIDS TO ME…
Class, Brissa and Nick play soccer! (circle circle) and then in the circling I say, Class, does le professeur play soccer? They say no and I slyly shake my head up and down and say yes I do! Same with the other sports. By playing all of those sports also it makes it makes it possible for me to do some very efficient circling and get huge amounts of reps, but it also sets something up! It sets up:
…the MAIS Bleater…
How? Well, look at how the circling has been going – first I said that Brissa plays soccer and then I said that I play soccer and now I can say:
…Brissa plays soccer and I play soccer BUT Brissa plays better than me…
Now it’s off to the audition board for that fun. And then, once that job has been richly earned amongst great amounts of laughter which I had to fake stifle because they are being taught with the bleating to goof on administrators, it sets up the teaching of the word “better”.*
(Notice how each new words cascades out of the one before it. I circled the cards, limiting the amount of sports/activities, and then not set up but set up so set up and set up is it that set up or set up better than set up where.. All natural cascading. No forced lists.)
Again – we get more reps by not introducing new structures (if you are doing Circling with Balls, that means that you stay with the kid much longer than you think is appropriate, slow down, and then add that YOU also do those things.
Of course, this key work of Circling with Balls is setting up EVERYTHING for the entire year: rules, barometers (so important with SLOW), teaching to the eyes, how to listen to circling so that the affective filter goes down, you teaching them that this is a game of supplying cute answers, and assigning jobs (see Jobs category on this page). So far two jobs have been filled, the quiz writer and the bleater.
That is what we did today.
*only one class got to where. I explained to them in English not to feel bad if I reject answers a lot this year, that they need lots and lots of repetitions of the same sounds in French (the essence of PQA), and so today with this class, by asking the kick ass question “where”, I was able to reject that Roberto plays soccer at the museum, at school, in the hallway, and finally accept that he plays soccer on the moon. Then the bell rang just as we had a story or at least some serious extended PQA set up! Boy did that kid get some applause for figuring out “what I was thinking” Roberto plays soccer on the moon (like I give a rip).
