A Great Article by Chris Stoltz

I loved reading Chris' article, not only because of his enthusiasm, but also because of the excellent job he does of describing what TPRS is.  Here's the link:  http://www.bctf.ca/publications/NewsmagArticle.aspx?id=30595

Reading a Novel

Once students have acquired enough vocabulary that they can read short texts with ease and pleasure, it's time to start thinking about reading a novel with them. There are simple TPRS novels which use a very limited vocabulary. I admire the people who create them because I myself could never accept the limitations of writing a complete novel using only 200 words. Sometimes even fewer. And I have never tried to use one of their novels with a class, simply because I have learned in the past that if the material bores me, I'm completely incapable of making it interesting for my students. I may be wrong. I probably am wrong because there are many teachers who use the limited vocabulary books written especially for language learners and have fun doing it.

Personally, I prefer to go to films at that point and use the subtitles as a written text.  After my students have worked through two or three films, they usually have enough confidence that they start watching films in English with English subtitles on their own, and I know the battle is won, that they are now autonomous.

Yet I know that their progress will be faster if they are reading in English for their own pleasure. And I have a few students whose spoken English is excellent but whose written English, while basically correct, is very disappointing. So I've been trying to find a novel that I can read with them. And I remembered a simple little book that I read in a book club some time ago that I enjoyed immensely.  Holes was written by Lous Sachar and is a captivating fable set in modern day Texas. I began using it with a boy who is bright and even gifted, but simply has never learned to read for his own pleasure. He is enjoying the story and occasionally reads ahead to find out what's going to happen. I've already ordered another book by Louis Sachar for him.

So I ordered more copies of the book from Amazon.uk where it's very cheap and started reading it with a group of adults.  They were immediately hooked by the story and I'm now using it with three groups in all. My goal is to show them that with minimum assistance from me they can read a complete novel in English. I want to be able to cover at least a chapter an hour and not to draw the activity out too long.  I'm hoping that as we progress, they'll be able to read one or more chapters on their own. 

Louis Sachar's style is simple but not dumbed down.  His heroes are young boys and he uses language they could use but his narrator avoids slang.  A typical page of text contains about twelve words that my students might not know. A typical chapter is four-five pages long.  Some are much shorter.

Before the lesson I write down the words or expressions that I think may be difficult for my students. I group them by page, in the order they are found and highlight in red the ones that are high frequency. Before reading the first page, we go over the 12 words and I give them a quick definition or explanation for each one.  I do a bit of circling and PQA with the high frequency words and ask if they have any special interest or associations with the others. Usually there are not more than three or four high-frequency words on a page and I explain that I don't consider the others very important, unless they're of interest to the students for a particular reason. 

We then begin reading the text, translating as we read.  Each student does a sentence, but if there is anything difficult in it, I step in and help them over the hard places. As we go, we discuss the situation and the characters in English. I often ask them what they expect to happen next or what they think of the characters, and of course on the very next page they discover that things are not what they seem.  This is Louis Sachar's charm. His story never goes where it seems to be going. The first chapter is entitled Camp Green Lake.  The first sentence of the chapter is: There is no lake at Camp Green Lake.  That sets the tone for the rest of the story where nobody is what they first seem to be.

It would be possible to use Embedded texts with the novel, but I'm afraid that reading three texts instead of one would slow us down and make the activity too laborious.  My goal is to make reading in English a pleasant activity so that they will want to continue reading other books on their own.  I'm not insisting that they acquire all the words we see. If a word is high frequency we'll be seeing it again and again and again, and it will eventually be acquired.  If it's not high frequency, it doesn't matter. Basically, I'm doing what Susie Gross called "reading lickety-split."  So far the students are loving it and I'm having fun seeing them grapple successfully with a good book that was not written specifically for language learners.

A Few Tips from an Old Timer

As we start in on the new school year, the moretprs forum and Ben Slavic’s blog are discussing the issue that never fails to come up at this time of the year (and in November when students and teachers start getting weary, and in March when it seems like spring will never come): the issue of classroom management.

Some teachers believe that maintaining discipline is more difficult with TPRS because we require so much participation and group responses from students.  My own experience was the opposite. When I began personalizing my classes, getting my students involved by talking with them about themselves, they were easier to manage because they were more engaged.  Also I believe that they felt respected and the main reason that students act up is to gain someone’s respect, not necessarily the teacher’s.

So here are a few tips that may help younger teachers who are trying to get their “sealegs”.

Number One: Smile! It's scientifically proven that we feel happy when we smile, and that happy feeling will communicate itself to your students, who will have to struggle not to smile back at you.  Anything you do to get your students to smile will help with your class management.  If they are always greeted with a smile, they will look forward to coming to your class.

Number Two: Keep smiling! When a student is acting up, trying to

push your buttons, give him a fond smile, thinking "buddy, I've seen hundreds like you, and you've never met anyone like me before."  It’s Fred Jones’ Queen Victoria expression, but with a little smile added.  Don't say it, just think it, and believe me, he'll get the message.  By not reacting with anger, you will destablilize him and give yourself time to consider how you are going to deal with his behavior.

Number Three: Don't allow students to insult each other, even if they say they're just joking. From day one, I tell my students that there is only one rule in my classroom and it is Respect.  I expect them to respect me, just as I show respect for them, and I expect them to respect each other.  If some quiet teasing between buddies starts up, I immediately stop and ask them if that sounds like respect. When they see you are serious about this one thing, you'll have the entire class in the palm of your hand.  I think most people crave respect even more than love.  A class where mutual respect is the rule is a safe haven for them.

Number Four: Always be honest with your students.  If you make a mistake, admit it and apologize.  This is how you earn their respect and let them know that you truly respect them.

Number Five: When you are asking a student to change his behavior, or to do something they don't particularly want to do, say please.  Say it firmly, and make it clear that they don't really have a choice, but say it as politely as you would to any adult.  When they comply, say thank you. I think the one big advantage that experienced teachers have over new teachers is confidence that students will comply with your requests.  If you ask for something, but don't really believe they're going to give in, they can read it written all over you. If you assume that they are going to accept your leadership, they will.

Number Six:  If you do encounter a really tough customer, a teacher's nightmare, be assured that they have more problems than you would even want to imagine. Try to see past the tough shell that they're displaying to the inner frightened child that doesn't dare take off their armor. And chalk the worst ones, the ones you never get through to, up to a learning experience.  If nothing else, it will help you realize how inoffensive all the others are.  And you'll be a better teacher.  I had a nightmare class my second year in the lycée.  Even experienced shop teachers admitted that some of the boys in the class frightened them.  The teachers were able to force the headmaster to convoke a disciplinary commission, whereas he proudly boasted that in nine years he had never had to hold one.  I survived but none of the problem cases returned to our school the following year.  Some of them were in prison.  After that, I could tell the difference between a student who was testing my limits and a true delinquent.

Number Seven:  Don’t panic.  You prepared a wonderful lesson and realize when you get to class that you left something indispensable at home.  You prepared a wonderful lesson and the class is brooding about a horrible math test and just not playing the game.  You prepared a wonderful lesson about the boy who has a pink jet, and he’s absent.  Or you were up all night with a sick baby and didn’t have time to prepare a wonderful lesson.  Whatever.  You speak the language and they don’t.  Talk to them, chat them up, find out more about them and little by little you’ll see a path through the woods.  Some of my best lessons have come from those “Oh, dear!  What can I do now?” moments.  Don’t be afraid to improvise.  If it falls flat, well, your wonderful lesson might very well have fallen flat too.  Kids don’t expect every day to be fantastic.  They’ll remember you kindly if there were a few fantastic classes.

Too many mistakes? Too little comprehensible input

Students who are learning English make many mistakes, of course.  But one of the most difficult things for them to master is the difference between countable and uncountable nouns and when to use much or many.  Even advanced students have problems choosing the right words. In a recent workshop at TESOL Strasbourg's Spring Day, Fiona Mauchline showed us an interesting exercise, which was getting students to write personalized poems with the following template:

        I have too many ............ and too few .............

        I have too much ............ and too little ...........
I have enough ................. but I don't have enough .............

I talked with some of my students about what they had too much and too little of, what they had too many and too few of, and they came up with sentences like these:

I have too much homework and too little time.

       I have too much sport and too little rest.

I have too many cookies and too few jars of Nutella.

       I have too many flies and too few fly-swatters.

I have enough swim-suits but I don’t have enough sun.

I have enough time for shopping but I don’t have enough money.

I have enough ice-cubes but I don’t have enough whiskey.

I thought the results were positive, but that there hadn't been enough repetition for them to actually acquire the structures.
So I decided to add in a TPRS style story.  I had used one in the past about a boy who had too many cats and too few baskets.  We came up with the following story:

There was a teenager whose name was James.  He won one hundred and fifty-five gold fish at the fair, but the merchant didn’t give him enough bowls.  He had a problem.  He had too many gold fish and too few bowls.  Moreover he had too little fish food and he didn’t have enough money to buy fish food.  So his fish were very hungry.

Fortunately he met a beautiful teen-aged girl whose name was Angela.  She had a problem too.  She had too few gold fish and too many bowls.  Also she had too much fish food.  James and Angela lived happily ever after and had many little gold fish.

At our next meeting, I'm going to ask them to develop the story, adding in details and some dialog. Why did Angela have too many bowls? We'll get many more repetitions and by then I think that they will have heard the target structures enough times that they will have started to acquire them.  

What is my goal in this type of work?  It is not to ensure that my students will never ever make a mistake when they have to choose between many and much. They will occasionally make the wrong choice.  But I believe that it is when they stop to think about it that they risk making the error.  With enough input, their subconscious will make the right choice, simply because it "sounds right".  It's the inner ear that we try to develop with TPRS.

My New Blog

I have a new blog which is better organized and more accessible.  

A TPRS Witch

You can find it at http://tprswitch.jimdo.com

Or just google TPRS Witch

Project based learning, Bill Gates and Speed Lessoning

As I explained, my Friday afternoon class is writing a novel.  We now have four characters, Vincent Team, Johnny Spider, Jackson Sixteen and James Blonde. They are bachelors who live in a large Georgetown mansion.  Their professions are secret agent, FBI undercover agent, bank guard and body guard. We have decided on their ages, their physical descriptions and their personalities.  We also discovered what kind of cars our heroes drive, and the ecologists would be horrified.  When they're not behind the wheel of a Jaguar or a luxury model Landrover, they're on a Bugatti motorcycle. Does such a thing exist?

The next step was to identify the problem that they had to solve.  It appears that Bill Gates disappeared on Friday, the 21st of December, 2012, and every Friday since then an important and influential person has disappeared, every time from a different country.  We began the list of vanished personalities, and for our next lesson the boys will do research to complete the list. They are to bring a short description in English of the missing persons.

I used this class in a "Speed Lessoning" exercise at the TESOL workshop in Toulouse.  My colleagues came up with the idea of preparing a map of the world showing our missing persons, such as you would find in the crime room of a police investigation.  I like the idea and will try it, complete with thumb tacks and strings. We can post notes on the wall as we gather clues.

What is Speed Lessoning?  Paul Scanlan, a charming fellow from New Zealand, put us in groups of three.  Each person was to present the group with a class and the others had 20 minutes to help him prepare a lesson for the class.  After 20 minutes, we helped the second person prepare a lesson for a different class and then on to the third person.  Paul gave us a phrase to use if our partners were going off on a tack that didn't suit us and our teaching style.  "Maybe not this time."  I liked the idea of being able to reject ideas without giving offense.  In an hour my group had three lessons prepared and ready to roll.  One was for university students studying American institutions, another for post baccalaureate students who would be selling farm equipment and the third for my middle school boys. Talk about variety!

It was a very enriching experience. It's true that outsiders can give you a fresh look and perspective on your classes.  This would be an interesting exercise to try in the staff room of a large school.

Project Based Learning and TPRS

There are four boys in my Friday afternoon class.  We began working together last November and they, their parents and I are very pleased with their progress.  We’ve done lots of stories and read stories created by other groups. They are a great group, enthusiastic and confident about their English since their grades have improved in school. But recently I’ve wondered if the stories weren’t becoming a little too much of a routine.  So last Friday I told them that we are going to write a novel.

They were immediately enthused. I explained that each of them would have an avatar (No, you don’t have to be blue…) and we spent the rest of the hour inventing names and descriptions of three of the characters.  There’s James Blond, the secret agent, Jackson Sixteen, a body guard, and my favorite, Vincent Team.  (With a French pronunciation that’s vingt centimes.) Next week we’ll finish the description of the fourth character and decide upon the Problem.  Then every week we’ll create a story of their adventures as they try to solve the Problem.

I foresee that there will be lots of travelling. And that I’m going to ask them to research sites in English about the places we go, so that we can work in some local color. There will be opportunities to talk about history and different cultures.  I’m already excited about seeing them next Friday and it’s only Sunday.

In a Nutshell

Why don't they know their irregular verbs?  Why do they always drop the -s on third person singular verbs?  Why do they confuse "his" and "her"? Why do they never use the vocabulary that they regurgitated for a test? 

So many teachers put the blame on their students.  "They don't study."  "They don't work."  After all, all they have to do is learn the vocabulary and learn the grammar rules, and they will be fluent, right? 

Yet, I've seen students who worked very hard with little reward.  The first year I taught in a lycée I had two girls who memorized the entire page and a half of text for a test.  That they failed.  They could recite any part of the text, but they didn't understand it, so they had been unable to answer my questions. As Michael Jordan said, "You can practice shooting eight hours a day, but if your technique is wrong, all you will become is very good at shooting wrong."

Stephen Krashen's theory of comprehensible input is the only explanation I've ever found for so many students' lack of success.  

Krashen says, "Direct or explicit instruction is hypothesized to result in conscious learning, not subconscious acquisition.  If this hypothesis is correct, language acquisition theory predicts that the effect of explicit instruction will appear only when three conditions for the use of conscious learning (Monitor use) are met.  When the second language performer (1) consciously knows the rule, (2) has time to think about the rule, and (3) is focused on form.  So far, research results are consistent with these three predictions for grammar instruction." (Krashen, 1982, 2003)

Even if conscientious students have understood and learned the rule, conditions 2 and 3 are not met in a situation of oral communication.  There's no time to think and the focus is on meaning rather than form. And, as so many students will tell you, since they did not grasp what the other person said, they don't know which rule they need to use, even if it happens to be one that they have learned.  

Basically, this means that time spent on explicit grammar instruction is better used by furnishing quality input to our students in order to allow for subconscious acquisition.  We focus on meaning; we make it both compelling and comprehensible. Students are engaged and when they realize that they understand without thinking about it, lights go on in their eyes.  They feel successful and want more.  This is instrinsic motivation and the best classroom management tool there is.

There's a new Witch on the Blog!

In order to make information about TPRS and workshops in Europe readily available, I've created a new site: 

http://tprswitch.jimdo.com/  

I will continue to post articles here and my talented daughter will create a link from the new site to this blog, so that readers can go from one to the other.

Let me know what you think.

More on TPRS corrections

Two of my adult classes are watching the movie, Shawshank Redemption.  Last week we watched the sequence that showed Brooks, the old prison librarian, being released after fifty years inside the grey stone walls of Shawshank. It's very much a story within a story and after some discussion they were able to retell what happened to Brooks.  Since they seemed moved by Brooks' plight, I asked them to write a summary of the scene and send it to me by email. 

These are highly motivated adults, so I received their summaries several days before our next class.  That gave me time to edit their work.  The most frequent mistakes were with prepositions. And some of them had looked "se pendre" up in the dictionary and found "to hang oneself."  So they stated that "Brooks hanged oneself."

I printed three corrected versions of the summary on my computer and returned them to the students without naming the authors. I asked them to read the three versions and ask any questions they had.  As before, I saw students reading attentively, comparing the different ways of describing the scene and the different vocabulary choices.  There were few questions, but they were pertinent. Someone asked about "Brooks hanged himself" and I explained that "oneself" is used only with the infinitive and is rarely found outside the dictionary. 

No one asked about the prepositions which I had changed.  And I doubt that there is any satisfactory answer to why we get in a car and get on a train.  I believe that prepositions have to be acquired one structure at a time and that these students are not yet ready for an explanation about the difference between dynamic and static prepositions in English. I'm satisfied that they read the correct expressions over several times, so that their subconscious will stock up those repetitions. When they have absorbed enough repetitions, the correct preposition will pop into their mind when needed. I did note a problem with "afraid of" and will begin the next class by asking them what they are afraid of and get in as many repetitions as I can.

I'm also pleased to see that all of the students did the homework with a certain evident pleasure.  They now know that I am not going to embarrass them in front of their friends by giving a lecture on "frequent mistakes".  Those who want to nitpick can compare my edited version with their original and bring their questions to the next class, if they have any.  I find it far more effective to save my explanations for when they formulate a question, rather than giving the explanation first, whether or not they have any questions.  The Dogma people talk about emergeant language.  I believe that emergeant language produces questions and that's the ideal moment to supply the appropriate answers.  Giving answers and explanations that have not been sollicited is like trying to feed a baby bird that has its beak closed.  

With a larger class I would choose three papers, one very basic, one more complex and the best paper of the lot.  Then I would "edit" them so that there are no mistakes and type them up.  Bingo! We now have an embedded reading.  (I understand that this is how Laurie Clarq first started doing embedded reading.)  When you give your students the three edited versions, you tell them that they were written by students in the class but not who.  They'll want to figure it out and you will see them reading closely.  Each time I'm amazed at how attentively students read texts written by their classmates and how willing they are to read the same story three or four times.  I call that compelling comprehensible input.  I answer any questions about structures and vocabulary, smiling like the cat that ate the cream because I know that they're going to retain my answers to their questions.  If there were frequent mistakes that you corrected and no one asks why, it means they're just not seeing them yet.  You may want to target those structures in your next lesson. 

One thing I have learned from horse riding is that it's much more effective to teach a horse how to do something right than to teach it not to do something wrong.  When we point out mistakes we're teaching our students not to do something wrong.  When we give them correct input, we're teaching them to do it right.

You never know!

It's so easy to be negative about "unmotivated kids".  The ones that slouch in their seats in the last row and dare  you to teach them anything.  Yet, in many years of teaching, I've seen some surprising things.  I've learned that sometimes we do get through their armor of indifference even when we don't see anything happening.  I'd like to share a couple of anecdotes with you.

My first year in a French lycée I had a student who was failing and was indifferent and even aggressive in class.  A couple years later I noticed someone standing outside the school who looked vaguely familiar.  I smiled and he came up to me and told me his story.  He had dropped out of school but was now back and was proud to tell me that he was going to retake the baccalaureate exam and was dating one of my star students.  It took me a while to realize that he was the guy with the bleached mohawk, the one who had said he was going to kill me when he got a very low grade and whose mother was too busy to come in and talk to me. He was so pleased to see me and to let me know that he was now on the right track that you would have thought he and I had had a great relationship.

Just recently I went to Toulouse and took the subway with an American friend.  We were speaking in English and a man standing near me asked if I wasn't from Agen. He looked like he was in his early thirties and said he had been my student many years ago, adding that he doubted I remembered him because he had been very weak in English.  He has a lot less hair now, but when he talked about his class, a post-bac class doing mechanical engineering that could care less about English, I  remembered that it had been a "learning experience".  In those days I wasn't using TPRS and couldn't understand why they didn't know their irregular verbs. He did remember that I had invited a New Zealand rugby player to come in and talk to them.  

A few days later I received an e-mail from him.  He had called up the lycée and managed to convince a secretary to give him my address.  He asked if I would look over his English CV.  I agreed and discovered that he has traveled to Wales and to Australia in order to improve his English, which was quite adequate, and I found few corrections to make.  Later I received a nice thank you card in the mail.  

Neither of these boys learned much English from me.  I considered the one as an exceptionally hostile student and the other was part of a very difficult class, one of those classes that makes you wonder if you were cut out to be a teacher.  

If I'm honest, I have to admit that I failed with both of these boys. But what they have taught me, what lifts my heart and makes me smile, is that both of them went out of their way to let me know that they were more than the guy slouching in the back of the room with a scowl on his face, that they had grown up and learned a few lessons and there were no hard feelings.  So I tell myself that something must have gotten through.  And the next time I meet someone who just dares you to try to teach him something, I'll remember and be a little bit more patient, a little bit more aware of the nice guy hiding inside the tough guy shell.  You just never know.

The End Result

I have a good friend who lives about half an hour from Brighton. She is now retired and is very active in local activities. I had been thinking that it would be good for some of my adult students to be in a situation where they could practice their English. Since I had been able to organize school exchanges while I was teaching in a French lycée, I thought it might be possible to do the same thing for adults.

I discussed it with my friend and she asked around to find out who would want to participate in an exchange with a few French people who were learning English.  There was a good response and one of her friends came to us in March.  A couple in my Thursday group hosted her and the three of them got along very well.  So she took back a glowing report about her welcome and the Lot and Garonne area.

Last Saturday I went to Toulouse with five adult students to take the plane to England. Three were kindergarten teachers who have been studying English with me for almost three years.  The other two were a retired couple who used English when they were living abroad but had had few or no formal lessons until this year.  It is a very pleasant group and I was looking forward to our trip.


We arrived late Saturday and found our hosts at Gatwick airport waiting for us.  Sunday everyone was able to sleep in and get acquainted with their English hosts. I was staying with my friend, so we were able to talk about our favorite author, Ursula K. Le Guin and get caught up. We took a walk around the village and met up with some of my students and their hosts.  I was able to see that everyone was enjoying themselves.  What about the infamous British weather?  It was glorious throughout our stay, prompting our hosts to say that we had brought it with us.

That evening all the hosts and their guests came to have drinks and snacks and we enjoyed pleasant small talk.  Whereas my friend had been expecting little clusters, it turned out that everyone spontaneously moved the chairs so that we were all included in a general conversation, all in English, with my students carrying their weight. I saw that we were off to a good start.

On Monday, some went to Brighton and others explored the local area.  During the afternoon my friend took me to a nice tea shop where I had a giant scone and clotted cream.  I couldn't possibly finish the scone, so we asked for a doggy bag, which is acceptable in England but not in France. That evening we were all invited to one of the hosts' home for a typical English meal: a curry takeout.  It was delicious and again the conversation was relaxed and general and all  in English.

Tuesday morning the teachers and I were given a tour of the local primary school.  They were very interested in seeing how the school was organized and comparing it to the French system.  The headmaster gave us the tour himself and then took us to the staff room and offered us tea and coffee.  Some of the students went to Brighton during the afternoon and others hiked and went to the tea shop that served giant scones.

In the evening we met in the local pub and sampled typical British pub food.  It was very good and my students will be now be able to defend British cuisine in France.  Then there were lots of hugs and good-byes, since it was our last evening in England.  But my students are all counting on being able to host their new British friends in the near future.

Some of our kind hosts got up at three the next morning so that they could drive us to Gatwick in time for our plane.  And by eleven we were back in France.  Each of my students told me more than once that they had had a wonderful time and thanked me. I felt that I had done little more than get the ball rolling, since the English hosts had done such a great job of making us feel welcome.  I'm not sure how often, or even if, this kind of trip can be duplicated, but it was definitely worthwhile.  More than anything else, I enjoyed hearing my students speak up and express themselves, stating their ideas, thoughts and feelings on a variety of subjects.  This is what every language teacher hopes to see some day.

Laurie Clarq's Great Big Heart

For many years I've admired the posts of Laurie Clarq on the moretprs forum.  Whenever the debate got heated, she would intervene and calmly state the opposing positions in a way that allowed everyone to see what the positive aspects of each were and how they could be reconciled. Her attitude is so fundamentally positive that you soon realize how sincere her signature is.  She signs all her posts and messages ... Love, Laurie. I always enjoy reading her blog and I admire the way that even in the midst of a busy teacher's day she finds time to post a few words, often a few inspiring words. I think her students are blessed to have such a teacher.

Recently she told us about her Senior and Junior classes, who are preparing for their first ever oral speaking assessment.  Her story goes a long way in affirming the "leap of faith" that TPRS teachers make, our belief that Comprehensible Input will result in advanced speaking abilities.  Here's the link so you can visit Laurie's blog and get a taste of her calm serenity.  http://blog.heartsforteaching.com/2013/04/22/flipping-the-switch-2.aspx

Greg was Awesome!

I want to share this report from Greg with you.  He's an amazing teacher who was ready to quit the profession and was looking for another job when he discovered TPRS/CI just three months ago.  He has not yet been to a workshop, but decided to dive right in and try it.  Ben Slavic and every one else on Ben's PLC has been encouraging him and trying to answer his many questions.

"I have to share some good news from an observation today – especially some great reactions from an administrator.

I’ve had several good days since I started using CI, but today tops them all.  Never before have I felt so elated after a day at school.  Except after the last day of school last year, but that was for completely different reasons.

My observation today was of a French 1 class.  They are 32 kids, in about their 10th week of TPRS/CI instruction and they are FULLLLLL of energy, which we are getting better and better at rallying into something productive (much slower than I would prefer, but I’m grateful nonetheless). This period is split, so we have class for 45 minutes, kids go to lunch, then they come back for 45 more minutes of class…a nice built-in brain break every day (Or just a wild rampage when they come back all sugared/caffeined/hormoned-up from lunch).  The AP came in today about 10 minutes into the start of class.  We were just getting started on asking the third scene of a story we had started two days ago.

The script is the one Ben came up with on a train and posted on here a few days ago [is sitting across from / looks like / is trying to / one must not].  I was a little apprehensive with the AP seeing this story becuase the kids made the main character “Herbert le Pervert” and another character was “Chester Mo Lester” (really did not want to allow that last one and probably shouldn’t have, but the whole class practically demanded we keep it and I made them keep everything else PG).  By the way, those 4 structures are awesome – so much fun to be had with those.

Our agenda was: 1) finish asking scene 3 of the story we started two days ago -lunch- 2)  choral translation of story text off smartboard 3) class retell prompted by my questions, using artist’s illustration on old school overhead projector 4) take volunteers for individual retells, either whole story or as many scenes as you want.  Skip this step if no one wants to volunteer.  (Individual retells only added today to show the kids off to the AP and sell this method) 5) Quick Quiz.

When the kids left for lunch, the AP commented “This is so entertaining, but I wish I could understand French.” Also, he said he loves the checklist and that he’s going to steal it (Thanks Bryce Hedstrom and Susan Gross! and Robert, I thought my AP would like to have a bunch of things to check off, but I do like the conciseness of your checklist and plan on using it as a checking tool for myself).  Then he asked what level of French it was and I told him French 1.  He said, “Wait, this is French 1?  Really?” 

Ha…I can’t believe it myself (to bring myself back to the ground, today was an unusually shining class).  He also said “It’s interesting – the class feels very casual, but you obviously have a lot of structure in place and the kids know what’s expected of them.”  Well, all of the credit for that comment goes to you all on this PLC.  He then asked about storytelling, which he seemed very interested in, and I said it’s something that a lot of WL teachers around the world are using and that I found out about it through an online community.  I’ll be telling him about “Ben Slavic’s PLC”, TPRS/CI, Krashen, and anything else he wants to know about during my post-conference next week.  I have some preparation to do!

The best part is, the AP said he wanted to come back and watch the second half of class after lunch if he could make it.  What?! 

We had just finished choral translation when the AP made it back.  Then we did a class retell/Q+A type thing prompted by my questions, with the illustration.  That flowed very nicely and took quite a while because I asked a lot of questions.  Then I asked for individual retells of the whole story or as much as they wanted to do.  I asked several times, because I knew that several kids would be able to do it alone.  Finally, TJ raised his hand to volunteer.  He said two or three sentences with PERFECT pronunciation, flow, and confidence, and asked if he should continue.  I very enthusiastically said “Oui, exact!  Très bien!  Continue!” He kept on trucking and the kids got AMAZINGLY still. 

Before I knew it, he had beautifully retold the entire story.  I couldn’t help but have a huge smile on my face.  But my favorite part is this:  right before he got to the end, I was getting ready to ask the kids to applaud for 10 seconds, but before he even finished his last word my whole class voluntarily erupted into a huge applause.  That unrequested applause for their classmate will ring in my ears for a long time, as well as TJ’s smile while he retold the story and his classmates’ smiles when they applauded. 

The feeling of happiness, support, and success in the room at that moment is THE highlight of my first two years of teaching.  I literally felt like I was dreaming.  I thought it would be years before I felt this way during a class.  I know not every day will be this thrilling, but I am so grateful for today.  The AP left with about 2 minutes to go of class, we squeezed in our Quiz, and then I praised them all as they filed out for such a good class.

Lastly, the AP sent me an email tonight that says,

“Fantastic job today.  I couldn’t believe it was a French 1 class!  I look forward to talking with you next week.”

I only wish I had a video of some of my classes pre-CI so that you all could understand how absurdly unlikely it is that I would have an email like this from an AP in my inbox.

A huge thank you to you all.  Thank you on behalf of my students.  Thank you Ben Slavic.  Thank you Stephen Krashen, Blaine Ray, Alfi Kohn, et al.  Thanks French people for your great language and sorry for frequently butchering it.  Thank you God."

An International TPRS Story

Not long ago I was offered a lovely present by two kind friends. Emilie is French and teaches English in France.  She wants to know more about TPRS. Sabrina is also French and she teaches French in a school in Chicago.  An active member on Ben Slavic’s PLC, her insight and enthusiasm about TPRS have often been precious to older, more experienced teachers.

Not too long ago someone on the PLC suggested that we could make videos of several classes making stories with the same structures and compare them.  They called it a class competition, but Ben realized that it would be a competition where everyone won.

I regretted no longer having a class to try it with.  Emilie offered to lend me one of hers and to try it herself in another class.  Sabrina took us up on it and sent us three structures for our stories: cut class- come here right now – has got to go.

It took some time to get permission from the “proviseure” (headmistress) and parents, but before long I found myself standing in front of a “seconde” class in my old lycée.  Since I didn’t know the students we asked them to make cards with their names on them and I was pleasantly surprised to see that they not only did it but remembered to bring them and set them out on the tables without being asked. Our first session was not filmed since we were doing the PQA (Personalized Questions and Answers) that day and intended to film only the story.  Hindsight tells me that it would have been just as interesting to film the PQA, since the ideas that developed into our story came out of the PQA.

I thought it might be necessary to give a short explanation in French, so I briefly explained what we were going to do and told them that their prime responsibility was to let me know if they didn’t understand.  During the following hour with a different class, Emilie gave the same explanation in English, which told me that the explanation in French wasn’t necessary.  Yet, I feel that the fact that I made it clear from the beginning that it was important to me, a stranger they had not met before, that they understand everything I said helped establish a “rapport” that might not have existed if I had started out directly in English. 

So we began talking about who cut classes and I thought for a while that we were going to fall flat on our faces.  This was a good, serious class of capable and ambitious students. They don’t cut classes.  Or at least they weren’t about to admit it in front of teachers. So I went for the conditional and asked them which class they would cut, if they ever cut a class.  And there was a pretty unanimous agreement that it would be math.  The poor math teacher obviously is having a rough year.

So we went around, asking different students if they would cut Spanish or history or English or math or physics, and we came to a tall, pretty girl and there was some giggling and knowing looks and I suspect that she does cut class from time to time.  So I began asking why she cuts class.  No one noticed that I was no longer using the conditional.  I asked where she goes when she cuts class and who she cuts class with.

We soon had her meeting Johnny Depp in the park instead of going to math class.  And I went on to PQA the other structures, keeping the idea of Johnny Depp for our story the next day.

I asked who told them “come here right now” and when and why.  Parents told them to come here right now to set the table, or feed the dog or to stop playing video games.

That context easily led into asking what they have got to do in school, what they have got to do at home, etc.  I had assigned structure counters, a secretary and a quiz writer at the beginning, so we ended up with the ten question quiz.  I was a bit disappointed that I had only 23 repetitions of “has got to”, because I felt I had worked in quite a bit more, but I’m not sure the counter understood that every repetition counts, even that of students and my echoes. 

I then watched Emilie with a different class do PQA with the same three structures.  It was interesting to see how a different class can react in different ways.  The second class was livelier and not at all shy about saying what they do when they cut class or at a loss for ideas.  They go to the swimming pool or soccer matches or the café or to see a girl friend.

It was also interesting to see how similar and how different Emilie and I were in our approaches.  I was there to model TPRS for her, but at the same time I was learning.  She had no trouble in staying in English (our TL) all the time and even gave the instructions and explanations at the beginning in English.  I wonder if teachers like me whose TL is their native tongue are not too easily tempted to switch to the students’ first language simply to prove they can, and sometimes as a way to get around the frustration of not being understood.

After the first session spent presenting the new structures, we were ready to do a class story. I brought in props, a fluffy pink boa given to me years ago by Karen Rowan, and some weird glasses that my grandchildren had left at the house.  The pink boa was for the girl who wanted to cut class so she could meet Johnny Depp and the glasses were for the teacher.  Props always make the story more fun and visual.  Boas are wonderful because they are so easy to put on and immediately the girl has a new personality.  I think props can also help the students to feel more at ease standing up in front of the class, since it’s obvious that they are playing a role, so they can be less inhibited. If I were to do it again, I would bring in a teacher’s coat, the uniform of all French teachers for generations and still worn by a few nostalgics.

So our star in the pink boa wanted to cut math class so she could go to the restaurant with Johnny Depp, but the math teacher saw her and told her to “come here, right now.”  She told him she had to go to the doctor because she had a headache, but he didn’t believe her and she had to go to math class.  Then she tried to cut Spanish class and told the teacher that she had to go to the dentist because she had a toothache.  She didn’t believe her, so she had to go to Spanish class.  Then she wanted to cut history class, but the teacher saw her and told her to come here right now.  I intervened and told the class that obviously our star was not a good actress because no one believed her lies.  So perhaps she should try telling the truth.  So she told the history teacher that she had to go to the restaurant to meet Johnny Depp.  And the history teacher let her go, asking her to bring him back Johnny Depp’s autograph.  The boy said he didn’t like Johnny Depp, so I asked the class why he wanted the autograph and of course they decided he wanted to sell it.  So everyone was happy.

After we wrapped up the story and retold it, I asked the students to write their story in ten minutes. They successfully used the target structures in their fluency writing and Emilie reported that the following week they had no trouble understanding and using them correctly.  She reported that her good students found the activity “easy”, perhaps too easy, but the weaker students obviously felt successful in being able to understand and write up the story.

In all, it was a very rich experience.  I really enjoyed being in front of a “real” class again.  Last year I worked only with small remedial groups, so it’s been a while.  I’m now waiting to hear from Sabrina and Emilie about how the kids reacted to watching their peers make up stories in a different language.  I suspect that seeing the process from another angle will help them understand why we do what we do.

Most of all, having watched Emilie and Sabrina teach the same lesson, I saw things that I like, things that I’d like to adopt.  I think this is a great way to share and grow in our professional development, an excellent way to observe other teachers and pick up little tricks and gestures that we can incorporate in our daily practice.  Sabrina asked me for a report and I told her that such “class competitions” would be an excellent way for isolated teachers who can not easily observe a colleague who uses TPRS to try their wings, using the same structures and modeling their class sessions on the video. 

Back in the saddle

Recently my friend Emilie let me teach two sessions with one of her classes.  It was part of an experiment, an idea from Ben Slavic’s Professional Learning Community.  I was to do PQA (Personalized Questions and Answers) and a class story.  Then, using me as a model, Emilie would do the same with another class and we would send the videos to a class in Chicago that had used the same structures and let the classes compare their stories.

I’ve written a long report about the experiment, but first of all I want to say how grateful I am to Emilie for giving me a chance to stand in front of a class again.  I enjoyed myself immensely. I do so miss the buzz that comes from having to move an entire class along the path, catching the stray doggies and getting them all moving in the same direction, at different speeds perhaps, but making sure that they all progress.

At present I teach sitting down, usually with just one or two students.  It’s more intimate and I’m able to see their individual progress more clearly.  I no longer have to give grades and that is such a liberating feeling.  I smile and say “good job” when a student does something they were not able to do before and they beam back at me.  When they make a mistake, I do what a good trainer does with a dog or a horse.  I ignore it.  When you think of how much of a teacher’s time is taken up by “corrections” and marking and registering grades and talking about grades with other teachers, parents and the administration, and when you think of how much better that time and energy could be spent preparing lessons, you realize that Alfie Kohn is a genius.

So, thank you, Emilie, for the privilege of teaching your class.  And to all my former students, forgive me for the grades I was obliged to give to you.  No relationship can be reduced to a number, least of all the relationship between teachers and their students.

I fixed it!

I have had problems getting the Paypal button to work for the TPRS Workshop in Agen.  It is at last functioning.  The problems were due to the bank being slow and to instructions being less than crystal  to an elderly neophyte.  It now appears to be functioning.

So that those who wanted to pay with the button and couldn't won't be penalized, I'm extending the early bird deadline to Wednesday, April 10th.  After that the price will be 395 euros.

A TPRS Workshop in France! Don't miss it!

I'm reposting this because people were having trouble finding the original post.

There will be a TPRS workshop in Agen, France in August, 2013. As far as I know, this is the first TPRS workshop to be held in France.

I have been able to organize this opportunity for teachers in France with Teri Wiechart, who coaches at NTPRS.  Alike Last from the Netherlands and Lynnette St George from Wheaton Academy near Chicago are in on the adventure too.

When?

August 6^th – August 10^th, 2013

Morning sessions 9:00 am – 12:00 am

Afternoon sessions 2:30 pm – 5:30 pm

Why?

Teachers of English as a foreign language in France or elsewhere will discover TPRS in sessions where they are taught a new language with the method and then they will learn to use it in training sessions with students.

This international workshop is also designed for teachers of French as a foreign language who wish to visit France while improving their teaching skills with TPRS.  Teachers of other languages are welcome. Both beginners and advanced users of the method will benefit from being coached by our experienced staff.

Where?

Agen lies in the Garonne valley in Southwest France at the heart of a rich agricultural area.  You can get to Agen by high speed train (TGV). The trip takes about an hour from either Bordeaux or Toulouse and a little over four hours from Paris.  The site of the workshop is within easy walking distance of the main shopping area, a dozen hotels and the train station. There is a free bus to get around the city center every twelve minutes.

Prices at downtown hotels range from 25 euros to 125 euros a night. You can get a decent meal for 12 euros in numerous excellent restaurants. For more information you can visit the Tourist Office site:   http://www.ot-agen.org/

Who?

Teri Wiechart

Teri Wiechart worked as a French teacher at Delphos Jefferson High School from 1975 to 2010.  Since then she has been working as a consultant to the Ohio Department of Education, working on updating the learning standards for Ohio’s K-12 students and implementing the new standards.

She has been a TPRS/CI trainer since 2001, working as a Presenter and Coach at the National TPRS Conference since 2007.  She has also served as the coaching coordinator at the International Forum for Language Teachers, 2010, 2012, and 2013. Teri has a Masters of the Arts in Teaching and she studied abroad at l’Université de Strasbourg. She is currently President of the Ohio Foreign Language Association.

Lynnette St George

Lynnette St. George grew up in a French-American family in New England in a community infused with multi-cultural influences  from France and Canada. Lynnette holds 2 Masters degrees, an MATL from Nova Southeastern University in Miami in Florida and an MA in French with a specialization in pedagogy and linguistics from L’école française of Middlebury College. She recently adapted the novel Le nouvel Houdini and its teacher's guide for TPRS publishing. Currently, Lynnette is the head of World Languages at Wheaton Academy, a Christian prep high school in the Chicago suburbs. Lynnette is a frequently requested speaker at professional conferences as well as a guest lecturer for University methods classes. 

Alike Last

Alike Last lives in the Netherlands. She is a French teacher and organization psychologist. She introduced TPRS in the Netherlands in 2007 and organized several TPRS workshops for Blaine Ray and Susan Gross in the Netherlands. Alike Last initiated network meetings for Dutch and Belgian TPRS teachers who are interested in TPRS and she is co-founder of a Dutch platform for TPRS. Alike Last bases her French lessons on Multiple Intelligences and she teaches French with TPR and TPRS to adolescents at a Hotel school and in her own language institute she teaches French to adults. Alike Last is also a TPRS-teacher trainer and in 2012 she gave several workshops at the NTPRS in Las Vegas, one with Bryce Hedstrom, called: "The art and genius of going slowly".

Judy Dubois

Judith Logsdon-Dubois began teaching English to French speakers in 1967 as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Cameroon.  Married to François Dubois, she moved to France in 1984 with their four children.  She began teaching adult learners in 1986 and earned a Masters and then a DEA in English Literature and Civilization from the University of Bordeaux III.  In 1991 she began teaching translation and American literature at the DEPAA, an antenna of the University of Bordeaux for future English teachers.  In1995 she passed the French civil service exam for teachers and obtained the aggrégation in 1997. She taught at the Lycée Jean-Baptiste de Baudre in Agen from 1996 to 2012.  She is a published author and since her retirement has been giving private lessons and travelling around France to talk about TPRS. She has led TPRS workshops in France and in Switzerland.

What?

The workshop program will be centered around experiencing the method, first as a student, learning Dutch from Alike Last in Fluency Fast sessions, then observing experienced teachers work with real students, and finally practicing with the same students while being coached.  There will be sessions on classroom management, Embedded Reading, working with films, Krashen’s underlying theories, and French literature and culture. Considerable time will be spent in debriefing sessions, so that there will be more back and forth communication between the presenters and the participants than can be handled in larger programs.  On Saturday afternoon, August 10^th, there will be an optional  walking tour of Agen.

We will help participants to find lodging if requested, but we cannot advance the cost of booking a hotel.

How Much?

For five days, morning and afternoon sessions, the price is 395 euros. We are deliberately keeping the price much lower than is usual for a five day workshop with such highly qualified presenters in order to encourage European teachers to discover TPRS. We are able to offer this exceptional price only because of the generosity of our workshop presenters who hope to see TPRS develop in Europe as it has in the United States.