Joseph Justiss (what a cool name!) asks an important question about use of L1 by students in answering our questions:
Ben:
I have a question on One Word Images. The kids are giving suggestions in L1 right? Or do they have to give cute answers in Latin? Or will they give it in English and I write it on the board in Latin?
House
There is a house.
What color is the house?
Then here they say red, yellow, or whatever and I write it in L2? I’m confused a bit.
Does PQA work the same way? They give English answers and I build a story in the target language from their English answers?
If not, how could it be in Latin if they don’t know the Latin words yet?
My response:
Joseph first note that although your question refers to One Word Images it covers everything we do: stories, PQA, etc. – everything. Just to make that point.
This is a very good question. It is a problem for all of us and your description of it is spot on and I think we can all benefit from addressing it as a group in the comment fields below.
The key thought for me here is that in this method we have ostensibly taught every single word they need to have in order to respond to our questions. To say it in another way, if we haven’t taught them the word yet, they can’t use it.
So, in a story, for example, the only new words would be the target structures. And in PQA, we would be careful to never allow into the discussion a word they don’t already know.
But this is impossible in reality, as language is just too varied and unpredictable for that to work in am actual classroom, or anywhere, for that matter. Note that in the acquisition of L1, the child is exposed to countless more repetitions of words than we can possible give them, and it is in those countless repetitions that language is actually acquired. We can’t get countless reps, and so we run into awkward issues like this one as we hammer out the details of how this stuff actually can work for us.
The non-use of L1 is key to this work and something Blaine has always insisted on – no responses in L1. I disagreed with him and for about four years (about eight or nine years ago) allowed my kids to answer in English with no limits. That was wrong. It sent us into all kinds of use of English and was a bad move on my part. We must stay in L2. That is all there is to it. The CI flow is so much better when we do!
So that takes us back to your question, how to orchestrate an answer if they don’t know a word.
What I try to do is SUGGEST answers. Like with the colors – the example you gave – it is easy, because the (Teacher’s Discovery) number/color chart is on the wall – I point to a color and say it and they say yes or no and I accept or reject their answer. No need to write anything down because they will learn how to spell those colors by reading chapter books.
Now, what if I have nothing to point to and therefore cannot suggest anything myself and I don’t know what they are thinking and I won’t let them speak English? In that case, I let some L1 answers slip in but I act like they were in L2.
But only a few. When a class starts throwing out answers all over the room in L1, which some classes with lots of jerks do, I slam that down. It has to be a quiet answer from a nearby kid that kind of floats in unnoticed, if that makes sense. The kid kind of has to sneak the English answer in.
Do you see the ruse? It’s the only thing I have figured out that works. So in other words they say “Ireland” in English because they don’t know how to say it in French and if I like it (have you noticed how we like some cute answers and not others? – those are the ones to “accept”) I say it in French and – ignoring that it was in L1 – immediately turn and write on the board using no L1 myself:
Ireland – Irlande
and look at the student approvingly and ask for a round of applause for him or her because they figured out exactly what I was thinking (!) – or so they think – and I go on.
So I ignore the transgression but keep trying to send the message that no English is allowed. Over time, the younger ones get better and when they are in level 2 they have such strong vocabularies that then at that level you can be much more insistent on no L1 answers at all.
That’s what I do and remember we all do this differently.
