Video CI Training – Joe Dziedzic – #1

3 thoughts on “Video CI Training – Joe Dziedzic – #1”

1. Eric Herman

   November 8, 2015 at 9:51 am

   PQA in classic TPRS is targeted. Not sheltered. It may be the one step in TPRS that is most explicitly trying to teach something. I think it makes communication challenging and fake. Contextualizing targets is different from communication. How often do we have a conversation with people and try to repeat one word/phrase in every sentence?
   Then, consider the purpose of circling. Is it to communicate or teach something? Do the questions we ask only have one right answer? (hence “meaningful” and not “communicative” as Paulston defines it). Can the questions be answered simply by matching sounds and not really understanding? Don’t others get the eye-glaze from the students when we circle something?

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2. Ben Slavic

   November 8, 2015 at 11:19 am

   Eric each of the four questions in your second paragraph above is of great importance. Esp. the 3rd one here:
   …can the questions be answered simply by matching sounds and not really understanding?…,
   So I’ll transfer this comment into a post and perhaps we can start a thread here as to the value of PQA. Your comment above clearly has within it the seeds of either dropping PQA from TPRS or at least redefining its role in our TPRS classroom sequence. I’m feelin’ it – we’d only have to do the Two Step with TPRS now – a much easier dance!
   This certainly answers a lot of questions (no pun intended) about PQA. As in, why does it fall flat so much of the time? (We used to think it was just bad structures that didn’t “lend themselves” to PQA) which in the light of our recent discussion here really meant that PQA didn’t “lend itself to communication”.)
   Which in turn may explain the “mystery” of PQA (which I tried to answer by writing an entire book about it), when in reality there may be no mystery at all. It may not be the teacher’s failure to do it (“I can’t do PQA” is almost a chant at the conferences) but in reality an inherent failure of PQA itself as a mode of communication for the reasons you give above.
   If we drop PQA from the menu, then that first hellish step of trying to get a story going for lots of people would be eliminated and people could just start class by getting up an actor. This could change things for lots of teachers because PQA has cut some pretty good people down at the knees for a long time now.

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   1. Michele

      November 8, 2015 at 9:02 pm

      I’m going to take the opposite tack. I’m working on fewer and fewer structures these days, and in fact have moved from a focus on verb structures in the advanced classes to just one grammatically-based phrase that I am targeting over the course of several weeks, one that the kids know I’m targeting, meanwhile talking about a general theme (partly because of the powerpoint ideas).
      For those of us like me who have a hard time staying on track, having a target keeps the kids sane. They want to know what they’re supposed to be acquiring. At the beginning with a Russian class, knowing that ultimately I’m going to be using all the Sweet Sixteen verbs and avoiding others gives me and the students something to hang onto. And I like PQA. As long as I’m enjoying my kids and choosing HF structures, there’s a whole world to ask them about. Lots of our group culture comes out of those PQA sessions. Heck, going into a story right away means that I’m losing sight of some of my kids. Getting information during PQA brings them all together.
      Maybe I feel better with PQA because it is so structured. I am a shy person, but I do want to get to know my students. PQA gives me the excuse. Eric has a good point: ” It may be the one step in TPRS that is most explicitly trying to teach something. I think it makes communication challenging and fake.” … On the other hand, we taught our child with Asperger’s “FORM”: ask people about their families, their organizations, their recreation, and (when you feel completely safe) about their motivation. I’ve used that advice many times over the years when I feel shy in a crowd. PQA gives me and kids a similar basis for discussion, and may well be teaching them tricks for having conversations in this world of electronic communication.

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