Letters to Kelsey - 3

Kelsey:" I think I now comprehend the idea of circling, but I'm not sure how he is supposed to say what he has when he doesn't have the words for "horse" or "bike" yet.  Should he say it in French, then I write it on the "board"?  (I think I'm just going to have a piece of paper between us to act as the board) for him to refer to?  Or should I not make him talk at all?"

It's okay for him to say "cheval" which shows that he's understood your question. And yes, write it down with the translation.  Horse = cheval.  Then say it.  In TPRS classrooms very short, one or two word answers in the first language are allowed when students don’t have the vocabulary they need.  So they are not kept from participating and you can decide whether it’s a word you want to teach or not.  If you think it useful, you translate the word, put it on the board (or a piece of paper) and refer back to the written translation as often as needed.  This is called "Point and Pause."  You point at the word they need and pause to give time for processing.  What you don't want is a long complicated answer, often with a subordinate clause :-(, because you don't want to get side-tracked.  

And you'll find that there are a lot of English expressions that have been adopted into French.  We call them “transparent”.  (When I use the film "Shawshank Redemption", there's the word "turnout" which I always had a lot of difficulty in explaining to my students.  Then I went to a student's house and she asked where I had parked.  When I explained, she said, "Oh, vous vous êtes garé dans le turnout." She's from the north of France, and it seems that they call the turnout "un turnout". 

Remember, when you start in on your story, you can accept or refuse his suggestions.  It’s always your story.  So, unless he's very interested in horses, I'd prefer bike, because it's used more often.  Keep your vocabulary as high frequency as possible.  If he brings in a French word that you hadn't anticipated, think about how useful it will be before you decide whether or not to go with it.  

Lilou Wants a Cat

This story was created by two students in a private TPRS lesson.  The goal was to use has, wants, gives.

There is a girl.  Her name is Lilou.  She is tall and she has short blond hair.  She has a big pink dog, but she doesn’t have a cat.  She wants a cat.

She goes to Claire’s. Claire has two cats but her cats are big.  Lilou wants a little baby cat.  Claire  doesn’t give a cat to Lilou.  Lilou is sad.

She goes to Miriam’s.  Miriam has four little baby cats.  She has a black cat, but Lilou doesn’t want a black cat. She has a black and white cat, but Lilou doesn’t want a black and white cat.  She has a brown cat, but Lilou doesn’t want a brown cat.  She has a grey striped cat, but Lilou doesn’t want a grey striped cat. Miriam doesn’t give a cat to Lilou.  Lilou is sad.

Lilou goes to Bordeaux by bus.  She goes to a pet shop.  She sees a little orange cat.  She wants the little orange cat.  She gives 44 euros and 37 cents to the man in the pet shop.  He gives the little orange cat to Lilou.  The man has his money and Lilou has her cat.  Everybody is happy.

The End

Letters to Kelsey - 2

Kelsey wanted to know what circling was exactly, if I did it with adults and if it didn't get boring.

This is why at TPRS workshops they put you in the place of a student and teach you a language you don't know, so you can experience how it feels to be a student in a TPRS class.  I did Swedish at one workshop and Mandarin at another.  It may seem boring to you (the teacher) because you understand every word you are saying.  Your student, however, is struggling.  His ears aren't atuned to the language; he's decoding every word you say. When you see that he's no longer struggling, that he's answering your questions easily, that's when you move on in your story, before it has time to become boring.

Yes, I do this with adults in private lessons. With more advanced students I rarely circle, just when there's a particular structure that's giving them problems. Beginners need lots of circling. As Ben says, we never go SLOW enough.  He says we have to hang in there and go so slow it hurts.  You watch your students' eyes to see how well they're understanding. 

Circling :  Make a statement.  Make sure your student understands the statement.  "Jim likes big American cars."  

 Ask  a Yes/no question.           "Does Jim like big American cars?"

 Ask either or questions.           

 "Does Jim like big American cars or does Tom like big American cars?"

 "Does Jim like big American cars or does Jim detest (cognate) big American cars?"

 "Does Jim like big German cars or does Jim like big American cars?"

 "Does Jim like big American cars or little American cars?"

Each time the student answers with short, one word answers, you nod and repeat the original statement as you would in an ordinary conversation when you agree with the person.

         Ask a question with a negative answer.  

"Does Jim like little Japanese cars?"  

This is called Two for One, because you agree when the student says no, saying "No, Jim doesn't like little Japanese cars.  He likes big American cars."

         

Ask as many Wh- questions as possible.  "Who likes big American cars? What does Jim like?  What kind of car does Jim like?"  When your student has the information, or when he's been trained to use his imagination, you can ask Where? When? Why? How? How many?

Circling is milking one statement for as many repetitions as possible, so the student is understanding and hearing the structures over and over again.  With practice you'll be able to circle in your sleep, and your student will spontaneously use the correct structure that you have been repeating because through the constant repetition his subconscious mind has acquired it.  Even traditional teachers have found circling to be a valuable tool in their kit.  You can use it in the lycée with your students there.

Once you have circled one statement, you can add another to continue the story.  You circle the second statement and then go on to the third, etc.  You can see how it can take an hour to do one simple story.  From time to time you recapitulate the story, and when the student is comfortable with it, you can ask him to "retell" the story.  In the example I gave you it doesn't matter what the man's name is or what he likes or what kind of car he likes.  So those are elements you can get your student to volunteer, so it becomes his story. "Jim" could be his brother or best friend or wife, etc. 

Have a poster with the question words and their translation in front of you or on the wall.  While you are circling, point at the words as you say them, as it will take a long time for them to sink in. The French often confuse where/when.  It helps to have a translation visible until they have really acquired them.

There was nothing wrong with what you did for your first lesson and you're right, you want to build up a vocabulary of what we call "high frequency" words, basic building blocks in any communication.  Did you know that there are 100 words that make up 65% of any written text in English?  However, it's important to understand the difference between "learning" and "acquiring".  Basically, you gave your student some basic vocabulary and told him to learn those words/verbs.  If he's motivated and a hard worker he will spend a lot of time doing it.  But they will not be acquired, because the conscious mind learns vocabulary, rules, etc., but the subconscious mind acquires the language.  When vocabulary is acquired, the student can use it spontaneously, without even thinking about it.  By rough estimation it takes 70 repetitions for a word to become acquired.  Fewer for very high interest words (like cuss words, parts of the female anatomy, etc.) and more for very boring stuff.  Which is why we circle.

We don't present students with lists of pronouns to learn.  That's probably how you and I both learned French, but we're part of the estimated 4% of the population that can learn a foreign language in that abstract way.  And as old as I am, I can still remember that it took me a long time to get those horrible pronouns sorted out.  With TPRS you present pronouns (and everything else) in context.  In a private lesson you'll be using I and you a lot, so your student will learn them first of course.  Then you start a story about Jim, so he'll be hearing he/him/his, always in context.  If your student asks "what does him mean?" you tell him. and circle the sentence with "him" in it.  Later, when you come across "him" again, you ask the student to find the word that means "lui".  another time you'll ask him, "what does 'him' mean?" These are what we call pop-up questions.  I call it homeopathic grammar, because a pop-up question should only last a few seconds.

In your next lesson, be sure you talk about a woman, so you'll be using she, her.

At some point you'll want to talk about more than one person, so you'll have they/them/their.  Much later, you can compare Americans and French people and use "we/us/our". Note that in the story of Pirate the dog, I introduced dialog.  This was to get in I/you.

Krashen believes that our subconscious minds acquire another language when we are so focused on content that we forget it's in another language. This is what we try to do with students, making the stories so fun and interesting that the students forget they're in a different language.  That doesn't happen every time (when it does we call it a "homerun") but Blaine Ray says that "Even bad TPRS is pretty good."   

Letters to Kelsey - 1

I received an e-mail ...
from a young American who is in France as a language assistant. She is going to give private lessons to an adult who needs English for his work.  She asked: 

Would you mind giving me a few pointers for his first lesson? So what do you think?  How should I start?  Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!!

Kelsey

My reply: 

I have similar students.  I'm attaching stories that I did with them.  If he hasn't studied since 5ème, you should consider him a beginner.  I would start with has/ wants/ gives as structures.  These are high frequency verbs that will come into almost all your following lessons.

Do you understand about circling?  I wish you were closer to me so I could demonstrate.  But there are videos of Ben Slavic in class, which can help you to get an idea, too.  And there are several blogs which help a lot.  Ben Slavic has lots of resources that are free.  It's too bad you didn't get his book.  It’s worth every penny because it takes you through the whole process a step at a time. I probably should ask him for a commission, but he has a wonderful knack for asking important questions and coming up with well-expressed, comprehensible answers.

Your student may want to say has got instead of has.  All the French manuals teach has got.  I think this is unfortunate because it leads to a lot of confusion and mistakes, so I steer away from that and teach has - doesn't have - do you have? so that the structure will work with all the other verbs they learn, whereas has got is a dead end and it’s so high frequency that they are sure to pick it up later anyway.

I'm also attaching a poster with the question words which I give to my students and point to throughout the lesson. The principle is quite simple. You present has/ have and explain that they mean a/ai, as,avons, avez, ont. This is a good time to explain that English is simpler than French and it only gets complicated when you try to compare the two grammars.  Then you ask him if he has....whatever.  Ideally a word he already knows or a cognate or a brand name.  An I-pad?  a guitar?  Whatever he might have and that interests him.  You can fish around and try several things until you see his eyes light up and you know you're talking about something that interests him.  You talk about who has it and who doesn't have it and you circle, circle, circle.  You can work in colors and numbers and sizes at this point.  I have two big white cats and you have one little black cat, etc. You try to speak English all the time, but you also want him to understand everything you say. If you see a blank look, you "sandwich" the part he didn't understand.  That is you say it in English, then in French and then in English again, so he's hearing the translation between two repetitions of the English word.  After a couple times, the blank look will go away.  Hopefully.  

Once you've decided that he has/doesn't have something, you talk about who wants it. and you circle the structure wants in the same way. If he doesn't have something he wants, you've got the beginning of a story.  Then you move on to gives.  You can see in the Stories document what a group of twelve year old boys (in 5ème) did with this.  It usually takes about an hour to build up a story.  At any point if you can work in some genuine conversation that is 100% comprehensible, you'll both be well on your way to success.  The best TPRS teachers "just chat" with their students.

For the next hour you can either type up the story you made together, or a different one that uses the same vocabulary. You read the story a sentence at a time.

  I ask beginners to translate the sentence, which helps me verify that they are understanding and understanding correctly. I know that some teachers scorn translation because it has been much abused.  In the past that's all traditional teachers did in class and I'm old enough to remember such classes.  In my junior year I was taking both Latin and Spanish from the same teacher.  In both classes we memorized lists of vocabulary, translated a text and answered questions about the text.  In short she taught Spanish with the same method she used to teach a dead language.

What is different with TPRS is that you use translation to be sure that the student understands, and I find that it helps to clarify a lot of misunderstandings. Without translation, students will take a long time to distinguish between looks at / sees, listens / hears, etc.

But we only translate one sentence at a time. Then we circle the sentence.  One sentence can produce over fifteen questions.  Be careful not to ask for complete sentences when he answers.  A one word answer shows that he understands the question.  Otherwise he just repeats the original sentence back to you over and over again.  Which doesn’t show that he understands and is “chiant” as one student told me.  (translation = f-king boring)

Basically, that's a TPRS lesson.  Step one is presenting the three structures, Step two is asking personalized questions using the structures and moving on into a story.  Step three is the reading.  For "homework" I make up crossword puzzles using the vocabulary, so they go back and reread the story to find the words that will fit into the puzzle.  I give adults homework because otherwise they may not do anything with English until the next lesson.  But homework should always be getting them to listen to something or to read something, never output (writing).

I hope this helps.  Good luck!