brain research and language acquisition.

This is really cool. I don't have much time, and not sure what if any the applications are, but it's really cool. Basically the brain learns nouns and verbs differently and in different parts of the brain. Follow the link!

TPRS

I woke up in the middle of a dream. Not quite sure what the dream was about, probably my thesis.  But the first thought I had was this: TPRS is not really a methodology, it's a philosophy!

TPRS encompasses everything: how to handle classroom management - we never humiliate children, we relate to them as human beings, we never allow them to put other students down, etc.; what to do with the use of L1 (students' first language) - we don't allow it to be spoken in the classroom except for brief grammar lessons lasting no more than a few seconds, we use L1 to translate new structures on the board, etc.; every facet of second language acquisition in a classroom setting is covered.

Which leads me to another rambling thought. I love Dr. Krashen's work. I think he hits the nail on the head regarding second language acquisition. I love his newest thoughts about transparent language rather than 100% comprehension, and about the organic growth of language rather than planned structures in stories. I believe these are ideal situations for language acquisition. But, I don't believe they are ideal in a classroom setting. If I were to truly follow Dr. Krashen's beliefs, I would not be able to teach in a public school.  Because, in a public school, I have a curriculum I am required to follow, lesson plans I must write, I have colleagues who inherit my students every semester and an expectation that they be at similar places as far as the language they have been exposed to. I have 32 students in each class, maintaining +1 for each student while ensuring that the class is comprehensible to all the others, is a daunting task.

classroom management

One of the things I have struggled with the most since starting TPRS in my classes has been classroom management in general and specifically the no-negativity rule. The no-negativity rule or the no-put-down rule is that we do not allow students to express any negativity towards each other or the class.  It has been my Achilles Heel.

I have an image in my mind. TPRS is like paddling a boat. If the students are positive and participating, we are paddling with the current and we go amazing places. If the students are being negative and fighting the process, we are paddling against the current.

So, back to my revelation.

Karen Rowan wrote in the "Green Book" that if a student is negative towards one of his/her peers we simply point out that he/she *must* be mistaken. Obviously he/she is thinking about a *different* student in a *different* class because this student is obviously very smart.

I love this approach. It doesn't humiliate the offending student, and yet it allows no room for negotiation. No wiggle room.  Way better than me getting mad and huffing and puffing that I will not tolerate this kind of behavior.

Back to Basics

I am reading "the Green Book" Fluency Through TPR Storytelling by Blaine Ray and Contee Seely. I picked it up again to begin researching in earnest. (My thesis topic has been approved!)

I am amazed by how much the basics have been escaping me. In my quest to get a story going, to grab the students' interest... I have been going way too fast for many of my slower processors.

The biggest thing I have not been doing is circling enough. But just behind that one is the idea that we should never introduce more than one new fact at a time. I introduce a fact, ask a question, then introduce another fact. I don't give anybody the time to savor the new idea, to truly acquire it.

So, whenever this blizzard ends, I'm going back to the classroom with a renewed sense of purpose. S-L-O-W.... I don't care how many times people say it, it always applies.

I think "slow" and I slow down my speech so students can hear my individual words. I point and pause at the board. But I don't go through the story slowly enough. I rush through as if the end of the story is the goal. As Blaine points out, it isn't the end, it's the journey.

Fun in the classroom

Has anybody ever read anything by Alfie Kohn? He's somewhat of a radical. His research suggests that homework is actually detrimental to students' acquisition of the material. And then there's this article http://www.alfiekohn.org/teaching/edweek/feelbad.htm about having fun in the classroom.

Why is it that our classrooms are filled with such quiet desperation?

Racism

As part of my coursework, I read the book Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? and other conversations about race by Beverly Daniel Tatum. The book is written on a very conversational level, it's not very difficult to read in that sense. But, it was difficult to read on another level. The author points out that we are conditioned not to talk about race, or even to acknowledge differences in race.

Since I have read it, thoughts just keep permeating and percolating through my consciousness. Mostly though, I see and hear racism everywhere now. Once I thought that racism was nearly non-existent in our modern society. Now I am surrounded by it. Innocuous comments that people say without even thinking reek of it. Comments about "ebonics", comments about customers in restaurants... it sickens me, it saddens me, and in large part, it leaves me feeling confused. What do I, as a white woman, do to stand up to what I see as wrong? How do I point out that these things are not right? That they are racist slurs?

Two thoughts have really stuck with me since I read the book this summer. The first is a conversation the author had with her young son about why some people are black, and how to acknowledge racial differences without being offensive, even with young children. As I talk with my own young children, I think of the conversation she had with her son, and I hope I am teaching him well.

The second thing that really sticks in my mind is that white people don't mean to be racist. The context for this was hiring practices. She writes that often white people will hire white people over other equally qualified candidates without ever realizing that this could be racist. We like to be around people that are similar to us, and so without even realizing our internal biases, we perpetuate old patterns. She went on to say that white people often don't intend to be racist, and if the intention of diversity is clearly made to be a priority at the outset, then this pattern of preference for white candidates is often mitigated.

I was asked to select a student of the month for September. I had two students in mind, when the above thought came ringing through my mind. And then I thought of the board downstairs with the pictures of the students of the month for all the different departments. Most of them were white. Considering the demographics of my school, that isn't too surprising. But, the black students on the board were up there for the vocation and sports, not for the academic classes. I thought about my two students again. They are both fantastic students, with bubbly personalities. They both help their classmates out, are willing to try things they might get wrong, and are happy to play along with my eccentricities. In short, they were equally qualified in my book. One girl is white, the other is black. One girl is an honors student, the other is in AVID (a program designed to help students who might otherwise not be college bound). It doesn't take a genius to guess which girl I picked.

And it has meant so much to her and her family. She told me that it has given her confidence that she can succeed even if she isn't as smart as everybody else.

teaching songs

I made it back from vacation, and have opened up my book TPRS In a Year. First off, what a difference a conference makes in my outlook! I remember feeling frustrated with the whole concept of circling and PQA before, but after attending the workshop last month everything makes so much more sense!

But, the point I wanted to write about was the concept of teaching songs via circling. What a cool concept. I've always struggled with teaching songs because I feel like they are so gimmicky, and kids hate reading the lyrics, they just want to listen to the song! (and understand it)

So, by treating a song like a story, and circling all the major structures prior to turning the stereo on or even telling them its a song, then by the time I do turn the music on, everything is familiar enough.

I loved Ben's idea of teaching the song between Marius and Cosette, I just wish I taught French! LOL I guess I have to start listening to more Spanish music again.

individualized classes

I have another quote from Losing Our Minds. p. 272 "Sometimes teachers offer bright children the opportunity to come up with their own projects, but students shouldn't be expected to develop their own curriculum, particularly before middle or high school ages. Instead, the teacher might ask these childen what they are reading, watching, or doing in their spare time and then use that information to tap into what might constitute an appropriate project."

I thought this quote was great for a couple of reasons. First, it strikes as completely absurd to expect so much maturity from students to not only do their own work but also to create it. I have trouble believing that any teacher finds that an acceptable practice. Second, this just ties right back into TPRS and the personalization. It's a matter of course in a TPRS classroom that the teacher asks students what they have been doing and develops those activities into the primary lesson.

And another quote with the same basic thoughts:

p. 272 "Students like these [highly gifted] are rarely motivated to do something simply because someone else told them they should. Why should they want to do their best on every assignment or project that comes along? In addition, being a mainstreamed student in a regular classroom can squelch these children's motivation to learn. A long day of school, even when non-challenging, can still exhaust one's energy. Materials and topics that are motivating should be provided during -- not after -- the school day in order to be effective."

In fact, why would any student not want this? I don't think this is relegated just to the needs of gifted students, but in fact to all students.

You're so smart

In Losing Our Minds, there was a quote I found fascinating on p. 273. "Some children think that others admire or respect them for how quickly and well they can do their work. If there is a chance that it will be too hard, they can become paralyzed with fear that they will lose the acceptance and admiration of others, and they don't dare risk it. These children need to be eased into a steadily more challenging and interesting learning environment."

I've read this before, that students who are often told how smart they are will deliberately choose not to be challenged because they interpret smart to mean they know all the answers, and they don't want to lose the compliments.

I know that I try to praise not just the right answers, but also the attempts. I also try to lower the affective filter as much as possible in my class. It isn't so much about knowing the right answers as having some fun and if learning occurs so much the better. (Learning always occurs when students are having fun in a foreign language.... so I am betting on the house.)

let's hear it for meaningless work!

Here's a quote from Losing Our Minds, p. 272: "Teachers commonly complain that gifted students only show effort for what interests them, as though this is a terrible thing. However, when you stop to think about it, most of us exhibit little enthusiasm for repetitive or meaningless work. [...] Teachers will have better success if they discuss the overall goals of the assignment with the children and let them make choices for how they will meet those goals, as well as how they will demonstrate that those goals have been met."

Once again, I am amazed at how well what I have been reading lately about gifted education theory meshes with my views on language acquisition and with what I know of TPRS. Of course students don't want to pay attention to boring, repetitive, meaningless work. Only those high-achievers, internally motivated and authority pleasing students would put up with that. And yet, as teachers, we are constantly surprised by students' lack of work. I especially like the part that points out that as adults we don't relish boring work either. The difference is that as adults we are given the choice to be selective, while our students are not.

Reading

I am currently reading a book entitled Losing Our Minds: Gifted Children Left Behind by Deborah L. Ruf. It is a truly fascinating book that is talking about some of the more typical characteristics and needs of children with different levels of giftedness. The author has divided these students into five levels of giftedness. Level one begins in roughly the 95 - 98th percentile with IQs from approximately 120 - 135. Level four and five are in the 99% percentile and are the true prodigies of our world. I'm reading this as my bedtime reading, so I'm taking my time processing all the information in it. I'm amazed at some of the differences exhibited by children at different levels of giftedness. As a GT teacher, I see it all the time, but I am realizing a little bit more about my own children and my students. Now I just have to figure out how to apply it so that I can better honor and reach those students who are so bright that my classes simply do not have enough meat to engage.

I am left with three main thoughts.

First, how do I adapt what I am learning to my classroom so that I can best reach ALL my students?

Second, I feel bad for all the students who have walked through my class and learned almost nothing because I just didn't know how to reach them (and probably because by the time they reached me in the 7th grade, they'd already given up on school.)

Third, If I'm going to keep up with all this reading and research, shouldn't I be getting a grade, a degree and a salary for it?

I'm light-hearted about it, but I'm seriously wishing I had the time and money to devote to that pursuit right now. But then where would I focus my energy? Second language acquisition? Pedagogy? Gifted? An amalgam of the three? I put in a phone call to a local university today that will let me design my own grad program... wish I may, wish I might...

And with this train of thought is the part of my own personality that is often mistaken by others - that is my passion. When I get truly interested in a topic, like I have this year with TPRS and the GT research, others often think I am upset or overbearing because it becomes a central focus of my life. I light-up, even at conferences, it's like I can suddenly see so far. I got like that at the CCFLT conference this spring. I was talking to these people whose books I have read, and I got so excited, I'm sure I sounded like a freak LOL

Oh well, we'll see where this goes. It's not like I have anything else on my plate these days (husband in a grad program, two toddlers, possibly moving, etc.)

verb or no verb?

I'm wrapping up my district assessments now.

I was noticing in yesterday's classes that some students were not using verbs in their sentences, while others were over-generalizing the use of the third-person singular.

Actually, I always notice this. It's hard not to.

But having just read the article on order of acquisition, it's making perhaps a more profound impact on my thinking process.

I have this rubric I'm supposed to use to score each child. One of the categories on it is verb conjugation. And now I hate that some students who have come so far this year will be dinged so hard on this exam simply because they just aren't "there" yet. I am reminded, once again, that in the educational system we are just expecting that all students will learn the same material at the same pace all year long. Even in my school where we thrive on individualization, we still have this expectation.

order of acquisition

More thoughts on Susan Gross' article "Order of Acquisition"

First to give credit where it is due, "order of acquisition" is one of Krashen's hypotheses. The article is explaining the hypothesis and talking about its practical implications.

Grammatical features of a language are acquired in a predictable pattern, although there is no way to list all the grammatical features of any language - there are too many!

In English, the order of acquisition for verb morphemes is -ing, regular past tense, irregular past tense, 3rd person present tense -s.

In Spanish, some uses of the subjunctive are acquired before some uses of gender.

The problem with this, as I see it, is that traditional classes don't allow for this natural acquisition process. We teach specific grammatical features each year, and expect students to learn and internalize these structures, even when they aren't in the natural order! For instance, we teach present tense in first year, but past tense is not until second year. Or, although we all know that young children tend to drop the verb in sentences, we fault our students heavily for doing the same thing.

The examples in the article are that first children do not use the copular verb at all. Sentences will be similar to "Tommy tall."

Second, there is a gerneralization of the verb. In English students will use the verb "is" for everything, in Spanish they use the verb "es" whether the sentence is in first, second or third person is irrelevant.

Although there is a natural order for acquisition, Susan reaffirms the fact that we should not shelter the grammar input from students. Which is, of course, what we traditionally do. We only speak or provide reading materials in the present tense for the entire first year. Only when students have mastered this concept do we begin to think about other tenses, and even then we stay in the shadow of the land of present tense, using complex verbs for future tense and recent past.

She points out the fallacy of waiting to provide input until a child is ready for the next stage. Young children would never acquire their first language - or at least not as quickly - if parents waited to provide input until their children were ready to progress.

In TPRS, we are urged to shelter vocabulary, not grammar. Although even that isn't as sheltered as in a traditional class. Or, rather, it's sheltered in a different way. In a TPRS classroom, students are not expected to memorize long lists of vocabulary words, but vocabulary is presented in the class through comprehensible stories. For the most part, we focus on the high frequency words of the language (duh!) but we also allow for student interest (like erizo - hedgehog, I never would have learned that one if a student had not wanted to talk about his pet in class.) Students are also exposed to many vocabulary words through their reading. I think the sheltering of vocabulary is more in what we repeat, and what we expect students to be able to learn.

fossilized grammar

I was reading Susan Gross' site the other day and read one of her articles - "Order of Acquisition." In it she talks about allowing the students to make mistakes, but to keep providing them with accurate input.

I can remember reading in some of my language acquisition classes, millenia ago, that if students are allowed to persist in an error, that error will fossilize. Susan's assertion is that the error will only fossilize if the input is not correct, or (I am assuming) if the input is not frequent and comprehensible. But that puts an amazing amount of pressure on me. As a non-native speaker who hasn't spoken beyond the level of middle school students in nearly a decade, I know my grammar is rusty. Even when I am speaking in the target language, and providing plenty of comprehensible input, I am risking allowing students to fossilize my mistakes!

The article is only four pages long and is an easy read. There was a lot in it! But this was one of those points that stuck with me probably because it taps into a fear of mine that I'm not a good enough teacher. I will post more on this article later.

On a side note, now that I'm documenting all my readings and thoughts here, I am noticing how much I really am reading professionally! I always thought I was a slacker. No wonder I haven't made it through Ben Slavic's book, TPRS in a Year, yet.

reading and visualizing

One more thing from the article I read yesterday is that the authors mentioned how the students felt successful when they were able to read and see the pictures in their heads. This is exactly what Jeffrey Freed was writing about, and has been mentioned on the moreTPRS listserv as well.

There was an entire conversation on the listserv about how one of the problems poor readers may have is that they are not forming the pictures in their heads, how they may not even know that is what good readers do. And so, as teachers, part of our job is to model that skill.

I think that making comic strips, six-panel stories, or acting all help with this process. The students are then asked to take what is written and translate it into something visual, either pictures or actions which the rest of the class can then see.

Sustained Silent Reading

I'm a little behind in my reading. I just read the April edition of the Language Educator, which is the magazine published by ACTFL. In it there was an article on using sustained silent reading in the classroom. The teacher, Elba Rivas de White, began using a sustained silent reading as an option in her classroom three years ago. It was funded by a GT (gifted and talented) grant, but she was surprised to see that many of her high-performing and GT students did not opt into the program. They chose to continue with the morning warm-ups. She used the Escalofríos series (Goosebumps) because the material was fairly predictable, high interest, and most of the students were familiar with the material in English.

At the end of the year she was thinking the program was a failure, but students' comments made her rethink that. She modified the program in the second year to make it mandatory for all students. She increased the book collection going from ABCs to El Hobbit (just like my collection!) This time she made Fridays reading day and students read for the entire class period. She had required questions students had to answer including which book they read, why they picked it, what part they liked best, and predicting what would happen in the next week. She found that many students lacked confidence in the beginning and would opt for easier books, while some of her weaker students diligently worked their way through her most difficult books. She had a D level student who went from an ABC book to Harry Potter y la Piedra Filosofal. At the end of the year she found that the students had increased their use of complex grammatical structures and were using more vocabulary. 90% of her students also reported that tests and exams were now easier for them. The student who started off with a D, rose to nearly a B in the course of one semester.

The article referenced her third year with the program as well, although they were more of the same. The students began with low level books, and some of the students who jumped quickly to books she thought were too difficult for them showed the most gains. In the third year she added some current magazine subscriptions. Students were able to read according to their own interests and some students who had never paid attention or worked for their grades before showed a remarkable turn-around.

In the third year she allowed students to quietly discuss their books while they were reading, checking for meaning, oredicting, etc. She discovered that these discussions were often beneficial. She mentions that the reading program addresses all 3 of the Communication standards of the Standards for Foreign Language Learning. She mentions also that other standards can also be covered especially the Communities standard.

I enjoyed reading the article because it is confirmation again that this works. It's one thing to hear about something at a conference. It's another thing to try it in your own classroom and see it working. It's still something else to see articles about the same approach in professional literature. We have a parent at my school who is complaining in the elementary level that because time is so limited, students shouldn't waste time with watching cartoons or reading, they should solely focus on grammar. (How boring would that be?) Anyway, articles like this give us more ammunition behind us for when parents do question what we are doing.

Rules for working with right-brained children

(Rules taken from Jeffrey Freed's book Right-brained Children in a Left-brained World, comments, thoughts and interpretations my own.)

Don’t pressure – these students tend to be very perfectionistic and will self-sabotage or give up if they don’t perceive they will do well.

I can remember being in middle school and high school and getting good grades in every class except math. I didn’t even try to get good grades in math. I wouldn’t do the homework, I wouldn’t study. Why not? Because I had it in my brain that it didn’t matter how hard I tried, I would not be able to get an A. I couldn’t get it perfect. So why bother trying?

I see the same thing in my students day after day. If they think that it is unattainable, whether the “it” is fluency or a good grade, they won’t even try.

Use positive reinforcement – reward effort not necessarily the right answers. The results will come later, after the foundation has been laid. If you don’t help them gain confidence, they won’t get to the results.

TPRS has this covered because we insist on the silent period and have such a small emphasis on output. They don’t need to get the right answers.

Aim high – believe in the child’s abilities. Don’t give up on them just because they aren’t the standard “A” student. These kids have amazing potential if somebody just has the patience to help them unlock it. They will do anything for somebody who has faith in them.

Also, just because these students can’t necessarily show you all the steps they used to get to the result doesn’t mean they don’t get it. Sometimes, if you have them slow down to write out each step as they get to it, they lose their train of thought and can’t get it back. If you absolutely need to see the steps they used, have them solve the problem, and then go back and retrace their steps.

Pick a quiet place – these students can be highly distracted. If they need to concentrate, make sure they have a quiet place to do it in. (Ironically, they are often the loudest students, thus ensuring that once they are done nobody else can concentrate)

This is one of the areas that TPRS gets dinged for, but I think it’s really about classroom management. Just because we are having fun while we are learning does not mean that we let the kids run wild, be undisciplined or disrespectful.

Don’t insist that he sit still – especially if the child has ADHD, he may actually need to move in order to be able to think well.

Kinesthetic. How much more kinesthetic can it be than to have your students up and acting out your stories as you tell them?

Of course, that whole sitting still thing is one of my pet peeves. During quiet class instruction, I despise when kids fidget or tap…. The best I can seem to do is provide time in class where it is permissible to get up and move.

Choose material that is novel and relevant – right-brained children often shut-down when they are bored or find the material too predictable. They can often rise to the challenge of something even a few years ahead of where they are, if it is new and pertains to them in a meaningful way.

Isn’t this everything that TPRS stands for? Personalize what we are teaching so that it is relevant. Use student ideas so that it is novel…

Give him the big picture – it’s hard for right-brained children to see details, or to care about them much even if they do see them. Trying to get them to learn detail by detail is a painstaking process much like pulling teeth without Novocain. On the other hand, if these children can see the big picture, they can often either pick up those details, or see the need for them and go back to learn them. These kids may pick up sorts by watching others play for a while until they have internalized a lot of the rules.

This is a principle idea of TPRS as well. We don’t teach the language detail by detail. We teach the language through speaking it and reading it, and then we pull the details out through circling or pop-up lessons.

Use humor – Laughter is a good de-stressor. Right-brained, gifted, and ADHD kids often have a very mature sense of humor – they get jokes and puns that many of their peers don’t. By incorporating humor liberally, we can help reduce the stress in the class, and lower affective barriers.

This ties in to Krashen’s theories about affective filters and how students cannot learn if their affective filter is high. We need to find a way to get students to relax and enjoy the process. The only thing we really have to be careful of is not to be mean-spirited or overly sarcastic in our humor. Not only do we have the fact that not all students will be able to find the humor in our jokes, but as human beings, I think, we tend to be more self-conscious when we are stressed. So, if a student is not feeling confident in class, and there is a joke directed at him, then he is more likely to take it personally. Of course, I don’t have any research to back me up on this one, just my own theories of life.

Teach him how to make a mental picture in his head – We’ve all heard about visual learners versus auditory learners. One of the things I learned from Jeffrey Freed is that it isn’t about how information is input as much as it is about how it is stored. A visual learner can learn from an auditory lecture, if he pictures what he is hearing. If words are a weaker area for these students, doesn’t having them build a picture to TL word correlation make much more sense than going from TL to first language to picture?

Visual Learners

I teach a lot of right-brained visual thinkers. One of the things that was most attractive about TPR and TPRS to me initially was how right-brained friendly they are.

Currently I am reading Right-brained Children in a Left-brained World by Jeffrey Freed. I 've had a lot of thoughts about how his ideas mesh with TPRS, but haven't spent much time considering it in detail, mostly because I am reading the book in bed as I fall asleep. (I'm alternating that with El Hobbit - there's nothing quite like right-brained, Spanish speaking trolls running through your dreams, let me tell you!)

Anyway, Jeffrey Freed has a lot of tips on how to teach things that tend to be difficult to these students, like math facts or accurate spelling. One particular strategy jumped out at me as being very foreign language classroom friendly. The teacher and the student both have the same two words. They are competing to write the shortest sentence with those two words in it, and they must write their sentence correctly. I was thinking we could adapt that to having two teams in the class and relay race style have them come to the board, get their slips of paper with their two words, and write them on the board. A similar strategy I just ran across was a verb ladder game - there are two "ladders" drawn on the board and teams have to compete to fill in the conjugations of the verb until they have climbed the ladder.