More Thoughts After ACTFL

It's amazing - I went to ACTFL this year feeling worn down and like TPRS and Comprehensible Input just can't fit into my mandated curriculum anymore.  After all, the absolutely wonderful novels are not on the approved reading list.  Free and Voluntary Reading is discouraged, and I am supposed to keep my students on grade level reading and writing Common Core standards, even if that means leaving the target language and reading and writing in English.  My storytelling has gotten lackluster, my questions are predictable, my students won't participate... and I wondered "why do I keep fighting the bureaucratic machine"

Now, here I am, a few days post-conference.  The difference is amazing.  I went to some great sessions.  (The trick is don't feel guilty, if a session doesn't seem to fit your needs, leave and find a different one that does!  Another trick is, if there is a time slot with no interesting sessions, hang out in the exhibit hall.  I think I set up camp at the TPRS publishing booth!) 

Randomish thoughts:

I went to a session on writing and the Common Core.  I figured I needed to see what other people are doing.  Well, they advocated staying in the Target Language and *supporting* the standards but by getting our students to be proficient in reading, writing, and thinking in our target language.  How refreshing!  Now if I can just communicate this effectively to the "higher ups"

I already mentioned the embedded reading and cultural reading sessions.  I keep thinking how much more accessible reading will be with the layers of reading.  Start small and build up.

The last session I went to, on Sunday afternoon (yes I got kicked out for last call) was about making homework meaningful.  

I have fallen into the trap of, I guess flipping my classroom in a way.  The high school teachers here all use traditional language learning models.  My students leave my classroom and have to take daily vocabulary and grammar quizzes.  No longer is it about acquisition or communication.  And I have struggled to find a way to balance my beliefs and research with the expectations of my district.  The final exam is also very much based on grammar rules and vocabulary memorization rather than acquisition in the language.  Some of the questions come directly from the student workbooks.  And so, since I do not use the textbook or workbook in class, I assign workbook pages as homework in order to familiarize my students with the layout and expectations of the book's author (and therefore the exam), as well as their future teachers.

Which brings me back to the session.  The presenter used backward planning starting with those "can do" statements in the program (My textbook says things like "students will be able to order food at a cafe") then planning backwards to figure out what instruction with actually be able to get the students to that point.  Her homework reflects that same philosophy.  Rather than assigning the grammar activities because they are there, and are expected, she has students prepare for the oral classwork the following day.  She asks students to "be ready to____" and such activities as "discuss three things you own" in this case, students will be using the verb tener (to have), but the homework focuses on the skill of using it in context rather than isolated lists of verb forms, and students are pressured into doing the homework because they have to stand up in class and speak.

I woke up at five o'clock this morning thinking about homework, my curriculum, and how I can get my pedagogical philosophies to match what I am teaching again..  (I am such a nerd!)  How can I get my students more involved in what they are learning, more vested in it, etc.  Also, if they are truly able to acquire this language, in theory they should be able to do as well on the test.  @martinabex.com @embeddedreading.com

The use of students' L1 in a second language class

Over at Ben Slavic's blog there has been a discussion of using English (L1) in a second language class.  We all know L1 is to be avoided. It says so right in district, state, national standards, research, methodology textbooks, etc.  But, it's that 800 pound gorilla. How do we get rid of it? The students speak it. We speak it. It seems so easy to just slip into English for a few seconds, share a story, explain something, go back to Spanish...

Ben is discovering that, as he experiments with a radical expulsion of English in his French classes, his students are paying more attention, they are using less English themselves, and in fact they are happier and more engaged. We always slip into English thinking we are adressing *their* needs.  But, what if we aren't?  What if English just kills it all?

What if the answer to kids speaking in English is simply for the teacher to speak more in L2? (while maintaining complete transparency, in other words staying always in bounds with the class.)

input vs. output

As much as I believe that we learn through input and not through output, we are scored on the output of our students, and our students are judged by their output. Dictations and Free Writes my way of appeasing those who believe spelling and grammar are the be all and end all in foreign language education, and it is one less thing to fight about.

TPRS students, and the method itself, are frequently judged by how well the students can jump through these hoops that have nothing to do with communication. As I explain to my students at the beginning of the year:

When my toddler tells me "Mommy, look my foots." The fact that he is missing a prepositional phrase and has incorrectly conjugated an irregular verb does not impede my understanding. In fact, my comprehension is not bothered at all. In fact, a foreigner can come up to me on the street corner and ask, "Where hotel?" And although the questions contained no verb, I can understand the phrase completely. On the other hand, somebody could approach me and with perfect diction say something like, "Appear! It is ruling on the west! We should take blankets now before it strikes us and we are watered." The verbs in this section are conjugated correctly. The pronouns are correct. There are no missing words. And yet, communication has been lost.

Students in output oriented classrooms are lauded for their diction, for their conjugation, for their flawless subject/verb agreement. But those things are worthless if the underlying message doesn't make sense. (2 extra credit points for the first person to figure out what I was trying to say in that quote above).

Students in comprehensible input oriented classrooms, on the other hand, are encouraged to stay silent until they are comfortable. They are allowed to make mistakes without fear of reprisal. They say things like they have two foots. But, they say things (which is probably yet another blog).

And then, when they leave my classroom, and they go to Mr. Grammar's class, they are told that they have not learned Spanish because they cannot conjugate and they cannot spell. (Mind you , they can write a 120 word essay in 10 minutes flat and they aren't scared to put themselves out there and try to communicate). And then, Mr. Grammar goes back to the teacher's lounge and says something like, "See? I told you this TPRS thing didn't work. Can you believe these students still say two foots in their second year?" And then, sadly, the kids are slowly weeded out of foreign language.

So, I give dictations, and I use the vocabulary from the textbook, and I teach them their verb charts (kind of), and there are a lot of good things that come out of these activities, but I wonder if I might not see the same gains in spelling and grammar if I just let the kids have fun and read?