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We Learn Languages Unconsciously 6 – Tractors
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5 thoughts on “We Learn Languages Unconsciously 6 – Tractors”
Yes! Oh man, if we had more language instruction at an earlier age and those teachers really got behind comprehensible input, it would be AMAZING. I feel so happy to be at the forefront of this change / battle. One teacher, one student at a time is how we have to progress. Which reminds me that I need to get in touch with one of the grade school teachers around here to keep talking to him about TPRS/CI. We can do this! Thanks for all this inspiration right now Ben. It’s really important :).
Sad that the primary school practitioners seem to have such limited time with their kids. Haha, grammar. I am using the movie “The Umbrellas of Cherbourg” as I try to work out movie talk with my level 2 classes. I have a fair number of honors kids in that class. They tolerate stories, but I am sure that some of them harbor the thought that they are not really learning. It’s not hard enough, we can’t complain enough about how hard and impossible French is, etc. Sad. Anyway, I am really focusing on the structures and trying to get lots of reps on both past tenses, encouraging them to look for patterns. Trying to keep the grammar contrastive with the focus on change of form yields change in meaning, one brilliant quiet boy came to life and asked a question which led to the preceding direct object pronoun – you all know! It’s the thing that we could never teach using the textbook and it’s really more important in writing so it’s all about editing as Krashen explains. Anyway, I saw a sparkle in the eyes of my 4%ers – oh boy, after all this time, she’s gonna crack the code! The others just ignored me as if I were speaking martian. I will keep popping it up in reading, but the different reactions to your “grammar man” or the siren song of the “Bon Usage” was pretty funny:)
Carol if you had them in level 1 last year and they are like that, I would set them into some serious reading. Just a feeling on that one. But the thing is, what percent wants the grammar? I know those kids. They are unnecessarily prideful. I really don’t like the feeling. I know what you are describing there. They are just ever so smart but they are completely ignorant on how we acquire languages, or they don’t want to go there, bc that doesn’t go along with how they see themselves fitting into your classroom (i.e. they would have to change).
Can’t you send them to a grammar teacher next year and they can all be happy and become good editors of French next year while the other kids just keep hearing all that that CI and make the real gains as a result?
A colleague — nonTPRS– had prep recovery on Fri last block so I invited her in to watch a story with my beginners. The PQA was good but the story bombed. So I cut it short and ended it in location 2, ditched the details about exta characters, etc. But I got my zillion reps in so not a total write off.
Later my colleague said “interesting but must be exhausting.” I thought, OK, true…but I don’t have to wear myself out with bullshit grammar worksheet marking, or wondering who copied whose homework, or hacking through a googled project. I guess I don’t have the luxury of sitting on my ass catching up on email while the kids beaver away at worksheets or those idiotic tapes/CDs.
But I DO have the luxury of every day when I walk in there– Monday first block and Fri last excepted, ha ha– of seeing something new happen. I am literally NEVER going to have the same class twice. How refreshing is that?
I think lots of ppl don’t ditch the Grammar Tractor cos of the sunk costs factor. Plus, TPRS is frikkkn’ WEIRD…”ya and so the pregnant Mexican cat needed an iPhone to talk to her cat friends in Africa” is a weird thing to have to explain to others. I am psyched to TPRS, but I realise that my two dominant personality traits– not giving a f**k about what others think, and having the world’s weirdest sense of humour– make me perfect for TPRS, and that other ppl just may not be tempermentally suited to it.
Ok now where were we? Ah yes. Cecilia the pregnant three-toothed purple cat can’t find her iPhone…
Your colleague misses the point. Your students were focused on a message. Hers spend their time focused on words. Your students will acquire and more and more as you hone your skills. Hers will acquire nothing because she has no skills except those needed to deliver instructional services.
And it’s not about how exhausting it is. Once you’ve been doing it for awhile Chris, just as we all have in this group over time, you wiull learn that the level of energy you expend can be cut down drastically.
Exhausting. Right. Can she say boring?