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.