These are the keys to everything:
1. Circling – it has to become automatic. There are some hokey videos by me on the topic of Circling on the Videos hard link at the top of this page.
2. We have to slow down so much that it is awkward. We just don’t do that, no matter how hard we try, and so we fail to get the class engaged, with the instant discipline issues that come with that failure. Why does this happen? It is because we forget that we have command of the language but that our students don’t.
3. We have to constantly stay in bounds. Our whiteboard should ideally have no new words on it (maybe one or two) at the end of the lesson. If our white board is cluttered we are going out of bounds. We have to particularly limit new verbs.
(I personally teach new verbs in the first five minutes of class from a Verb Wall, three or so per day when I feel like it. Those verbs are not connected to the lesson/story for that day – it is just something I do to start class sometimes. We really TPR them. By the end of the year we want all the verbs on the wall to be our close friends, with one zinger gesture for each of them. Yes, people, verbs can be the friends and not the enemies of language students! It depends on how we introduce them, and if they are allowed to get to know our students in a fun way, as in any relationship.)
4. We must constantly check for understanding by getting strong choral responses to every question. These responses should be in the form of yes or no answers, for the most part, or single word answers like “red” or “angry” or “romantically” but mainly just “yes” or “no”.
Since repetition is the key to all learning, I will repeat, the four main reasons why I think TPRS fails for us when it doesn’t have to. We fricking don’t:
- circle enough – we don’t think the need it. THEY NEED IT.
- go slowly enough – we just get in the habit of going just too fast for our students.
- stay in bounds – dragged forward too fast by a few students, we add just a few too many new words in and it sinks our CI schooners.
- check for understanding – we forget to constantly check for a strong choral response via one word answers. We suck at that. I suck at that and you suck at that. Let’s be honest. What we do is we get our minds thinking about circling and we have our slow thing kind of going on and we are careful to stay in bounds and for some reason we just don’t seem to have big enough brains to add in – right there in class – the fourth thing of checking for understanding (see vCU in the categories for the details). We can juggle three but not four balls in the air. Fine, but it will cost us. We need to practice with four balls in the air! To repeat, the four balls are circling, slow, staying in bounds, and checking for understanding. You want success this coming year? Do the four, not the three. Huge. Can you tell I’m speaking for my own sorry self when I get in class and forget to insist on a strong response from the group? How can I make it clear how intent I am on thinking of vCU next year and actually doing it? Hmmm. I could keep ranting here. Hey, if it helps I will do it. I need to rant on about how vCU is the fourth brother of the clan without whom we suck as teachers. Here they are again –
- circling (ok that has got to be automatic, y’all)
- SLOW (also must become automatic)
- staying in bounds (really, it too must become automatic)
- vCU (if I ever get to where vCU is automatic in my teaching I will have done something great). End rant.
When we don’t do all of these four things – a shitty thing indeed – we think that the method doesn’t work and, worst of all, we have totally unnecessary discipline problems!
I am so glad that we can put our attention to this core issue here. Why? Because if we just forget everything else and put our attention to only these four things, I can practically guarantee that all of our problems with TPRS/CI instruction and classroom management will disappear as if overnight.
Related:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7dBMYUyRAQ
