2022 MLTA NSW Conference – Memory

17 Jul 202218 Jul 2022Leave a comment

Have you realised how much I enjoy Languages education research? I consider myself incredibly fortunate to have had the opportunity to begin my Masters of Education; Languages fulltime as it gave me time to broaden my understandings of language learning and teaching. I am also incredibly thankful that I studied simultaneously with a wonderful TCI/TPRS colleague, Bu Heather, as it allowed us to discuss various aspects of Languages research from a TCI/TPRS perspective.

Yesterday I attended the 2022 MLTA NSW conference with one of my brilliant colleagues, Bu Asti. We were delighted to hear Steve Smith speak. I first heard him talking on Liam Printer’s The Motivated Classroom podcast. I highly recommend listening to Liam’s podcasts– they contain a great balance of research and practical ideas for language teachers working with middle primary aged students and above. Can you imagine how ecstatic I was when Steve Smith began his webinar by introducing us to memory research and how it applies to Languages!

Staying on top of research requires not only considerable time but also a certain headset. In this post, I will focus generally on outlining how memory works through teasing out iconic research, some of which dates back to 1885! I hope while reading this, you can reflect on your own teaching practise to determine the extent your practice aligns with accepted understandings of memory.

This post attempts to explore aspects of the research Steve discussed in his webinar. I have found memory research so useful and I wished I had known more about it earlier in my teaching career. I have expanded on several of the points Steve made using either the book ‘Cognitive Psychology and Instruction’ (Bruning, Schraw & Norby. 2011) or relevant SLA (Second Language Acquisition) research. I hope this post is readable and most of all, helps you understand why informed practice leads to sucessful learning!

Steve Smith has taught French in the UK for 30+ years. He has co-authored several books with Gianfranco Conti, one of which is “Memory; What Every Language Teacher Should Know’ ($45.54 on Amazon). What a great title! Here he is with his wife talking briefly about this book.

Ebbinghaus

Steven began the webinar by explaining Ebbinghaus’ Forgetting Curve which illustrates how quickly newly introduced information fades over time. Isn’t it astouding!

source; https://www.coachingwithnlp.co/forgetting-curve/

Ebbinghaus also hypothesised on the link between stress and remembering; something I think we would all agree with. Removing stress from learning is imperative. For many students, speaking/writing (output) can be stressful. For me, as a new learner, speaking in the target language produces an instant memory blank! Stephen Krashen‘s theory of second language acquisition is based on five hypotheses; one of which is the Affective Filter Hypothesis. This hypothesis states that several factors including low motivation, low self-esteem, anxiety, introversion, and inhibition impact on acquisition. Thus, the ideal state for language learning is when the affective filter is so low that learners are completely unaware that they are immersed in the target language.

For language teachers, being aware of Ebbinghaus’ research is critical. To avoid new vocabulary fading, fast, quirky repetitions will significantly help to delay the ‘decay’. In a TCI/TPRS lesson, this can be achieved through numerous comprehensible questions and answers in the target language to incorporate the target structure in ways that appeal to and/or are meaningful to the learners. With my young learners, I love doing this with quirky images of cognates that faciliatate discussion incorporating the target structure.

Knowledge

Steven then outlined the two types of knowledge; explicit (declarative) and implicit (procedural) and how each leads to either language learning or language acquisition. Explicit knowledge is that which is learned explicitly e.g. the rule i before e except after e. Implicit knowledge is that which we learned unconsciously e.g. the specific order of adjectives for English. Steven then asked us if declarative knowledge can become procedural knowledge, i.e. will explicitly teaching grammar rules help students communicate in the target language? To answer this question, I encourage you to try this: speak in your first language without using the letter ‘a’. Try it for a few seconds and then reflect on the hard work your brain did to achieve that!! Stephen Krashen’s Monitor Hypothesis explains that learning rules explicitly creates an ‘editor’ which monitors output through planning, editing, and correcting. It made your output considerably more onerous, doesn’t it? Could you feel your brain planning, editing and correcting while speaking? Thus, implicit learning ie, listening to comprehensible target language will lead to acquisition whereas teaching language rules is only necessary for language learning. Through understanding the difference between explicit and implicit teaching, we can determine if our main teaching goal as a language teacher is building proficiency or building knowledge! Both have value, but the balance is heavily weighted towards implicit teaching if proficiency is the goal.

Memory Models

The scientific study of memory began with Ebbinghaus (1850-1909). While no one yet knows precisely how the brain stores memory, most memory researchers agree on several points:

Working Memory and Long Term Memory are separate systems.
Attention is extremely limited. The mental energy necessary for thinking and understanding is huge and overloading working memory will impact learning.
Cognition includes both automaticity and controlled processing (implicit/explicit).
Processing information is influenced by many factors including prior knowledge, context, emotional state etc.

Memory models vary in many ways. Consider the following model:

The modal memory model (see image above) is easily the most commonly understood model of memory. There are significant variations between models yet all agree that the dotpoints outlined earlier are vital for planning and teaching. I believe they should underpin all our teaching and if we do not understand or implement the research findings, we are likely failing our students.
Blunt but true!

Memory Understandings

Here is a summary of the research regarding the three major systems of memory (ie Sensory Memory, Working Memory and Long Term Memory). While reading the following, consider the implications for language learning:

The main systems of memory are Sensory Memory, Working Memory, and Long Term Memory. Information is first stored in Sensory Memory then moved to Working Memory where with attention, it can be cogitated upon &/or manipulated to make sense. (Remember when you spoke without using an ‘a’? That all happened in Working Memory!) Long Term Memory is where information is stored for long periods and can be retrieved consciously (explicit memory) or unconsciously (implicit memory).

1. Sensory Memory and Working Memory both have an extremely limited capacity and time limit for holding information. Miller (1956) suggests that adults can hold approximately 7 plus or minus two pieces of information in working memory. Interference, decay and new information impacts the time input remains in these two memory systems. Atkinson and Shiffrin (1971) claim that new information stays in Sensory Memory and/or Working Memory for just 15 – 30 seconds. New information can only be kept in Working Memory longer through rehearsal e.g., repeating them verbally.

2. There is are two subsystems within Working Memory that each either manage verbal or visual input, distributing the processing load equally and operating simultaneously without impacting on the other. If anything, they appear to increase the likelihood in moving information from Working Memory to Long Term Memory. Consider the value of using images and/or props when introducing target structures!

3. Teaching that fails to recognise the characteristics of Cognitive Load Theory (overloading Working Memory) results in cognitive overload. Cognitive overload is when the brain hits the wall because the brain was given too much new information with insufficient rehearsal/repetition opportunities. The implications of cognitive overload impact not only on decreased student outcomes but will also negatively impact on student motivation and engagement levels.

After outlining relevant memory research, Steven then offered many suggestions for activities that will help learners build memory. Here are a few of his ideas for building phonetic memory:

Track the Sound – read a text to students who listen and count each time they hear a particular phonetic blend.
Minimal Pairs – words with similar sounds (e.g. ada/apa) are used in comprehensible sentences for students to identify which one was said.
Correct Transcription – provide learners with a close (text with words missing) and for each missing word, provide several answers for students to choose from. Gaps are filled in while listening to teacher read.
Mind Reading – Brainstorm (retrieve) target structures and teacher writes them on the board. Teacher writes one a mini whiteboard and students choose the one they guess the teacher chose.
Sentence Chaos – teacher writes a number of sentences on the board. Students in groups of three appoint a referee. The job of the referee is to read the sentences from the board in a different order. The other two take it in turns to say the sentences in the new order.

Steven recommends teaching ‘chunks’ rather than single words and states that phrases are more useful for communication and also strengthen the likelihood of retrieval. To support retrieval, he recommends using sentence builders as a ‘Do Now’ activity. I have used ‘Do now’ tasks with older classes as they keep students occupied if I am greeting students at the door or setting up for their lesson. ‘Do Nows’ are a type of warmup that helps student brains move into the flow of Indonesian. Here is a French example that Steve shared (apologies to the fellow sitting in front!). For this task, Steve instructs students to work with a partner to create sentences using the ‘chunks’ in the grid. They can add or change one or two new details or change the tense.

If you are interested in further ideas for retrieval practice, check out here episode 6 from Liam Printer’s podcast titled ‘Retrieval Practice: 11 zero-prep strategies for an engaged classroom’.

Once again, a huge thankyou to the wonderful MLTA NSW committee for delivering a fabulous conference with quality local presenters (shout out to Katherine Brownlee) and international presenters.

If you too enjoy research and would like to chat about something you’ve either discovered or read about in this post, don’t hesitate to get in touch!

Cognitive Load Theory

26 Jan 202126 Jan 20211 Comment

Have you heard of this term? I first heard about it while studying my Masters in Education (shout out to Flinders Uni) and it is a theory that resonates beautifully with TCI/TPRS. The reason this is on my mind at the moment is due to an amazing presentation by David Morkunas that primary staff watched yesterday for PD. Hard to believe that at that point David had taught for almost 4 years!! Loved how he used established education research to underpin his teaching practice. He states that the site he works at “prides itself on delivering evidence-based instruction” (ref: http://pamelasnow.blogspot.com/2020/08/i-now-understand-that-for-many.html). There is no way I was familiar with education research in my third (almost fourth) year of teaching and can only do so now as a result of postgraduate study! While his presentation is aimed at classroom teachers, the underlying message is extremely pertinent for all teachers. It focuses on the understanding that learning is solely about transfering knowledge to long term memory. For language teachers, this sums up our job succinctly. Our students arrive in our classroom with generally zero L2 (the language we teach) and our job becomes linking their prior knowledge (L1), to building up a solid mental representation of the L2 in ways that transfer it to long term memory (acquisition) without overloading working memory. As David states, this can only be done effectively when cognitive overload (overloading working memory) is avoided otherwise there becomes an increased potential for poor student learning outcomes. The most important message of this post!!

David in this video outlines spaced practice, the idea of regular repetition as opposed to cramming, interleave practice, varying the learning topics rather than a single focus, and finally retrieval practice, the practice of retrieving knowledge from long term memory and working with it in working memory. How beautifully does this sum up why TCI is such a successful approach for language learning! David, through Ebbinghaus’ forgetting curve, illustrates how moving knowledge from long term memory to working memory strengthens memory. Look at how the vertical gradient lifts with each repetition!!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forgetting_curve

During his presentation, I tried to remember (long term memory to working memory: smiley face) how I incoporate the three types of practice within my teaching. Here are some of the strategies I use:

Spaced Memory
Limiting target structures is the fundamental key to this step. Once a story has been selected/written, it is VITAL that it is tweaked to ensure it contains no more than three new structures. Wherever possible, replace unfamiliar language with cognates or familiar vocabulary/phrases. More than three new structures and the possibility for cognitive overload increases and the chances for successful knowledge transfer to long term memory decreases.
VPQA (visual personalised questions and answers): I love finding quirky pictures that deliver opportunities for circling and personalisation. For example, when introducing the structure topi (hat) for Judy Dubois’ story ‘Jaket Terlalu Besar’ (The too big Jacket), I found hilarious pics on google images of hamburger hats, hotdog hats, donut hats, etc. which worked perfectly for JP Indonesian students as it gave reps on the structure topi through cognates of food items that are easy to personalise using retrieval practice for familiar language (mau, makan {want,eat})!

Mata-mata (spy): The credit for this technique goes to Ibu Sharon Mann. Again like most TCI strategies, we all do them differently (and that’s totally ok) so inevitably my version differs to the way in which Sharon did this years ago when I was observing her. (Side note: I can’t recommend observations highly enough!) On a PowerPoint slide, I write a small number (10 – 12ish) of structures that we’ve covered or are covering. This slide is purely for me. I ask the students to turn around so their back is to the slide and I move so that the class is between me and the slide. Firstly I say each L2 word and accompany it with its gesture and ask students to echo me in L2. Secondly I go through the L2 words one at a time and gesture yet students echo me in L1 with each gesture. Standing next to me are two students whose sole jobs is to watch the class to choose an amazing student to whom they will give a sticker. I can glance up at the slide behind them when I need to. For me, this prompt is essential as I am so forgetful. The words are strategically added during planning as they cover a mini list of words to review; either because they will come up during the lesson or because I’ve noticed that a particular word needs more repetition to strengthen its transfer to student long term memory.

Calling the Roll – I use class dojo to call the roll. First term, this is about establishing routines, vocabulary structures and cultural norms. Gradually I introduce aspects of challenge for older students including class time challenges (who can call the roll the fastest) and by term 4 we are making up hilarious stories about why a student is absent which is then repeated to the student when they next turn up to class!

Interleave Practice This practice also represents exactly how TCI is planned and taught. A TCI language lesson incorporates variety and in no way represents block teaching i.e. a solid focus on just one topic. While our subject is taught in lesson blocks, and the focus may be on a single vocabulary item (particularly in a JP context), lesson practice adapts with the age of our students. For JP students, an up/down approach is essential. This looks like 5 minutes of stationary focus followed by 5 minutes of movement for 5 year olds and increases incrementally for each age group. Movement can take the form of brain breaks, All the World’s a Stage, TPR, singing and dancing. For older students, brain breaks don’t need to last 9/10/11 minutes, a brain burst may all that is needed.
Planning a TCI lesson also incorporates a variety of ‘activities’ (not the best choice of word, but hey, it’ll do for now). Rather than plugging away to achieve the set lesson outcomes, TCI lesson plans include a blend of both targeted and focused attention to gain maximum repetitions of the target structures as well as offering students contribution opportunities through long term memory retrieval. The first is definitely teacher led however the latter is student directed following the direction of student input/output. The balance between teacher led ‘activities’ and student directed ‘activities’ is heavily weighted towards the latter. The teachers role here is to model, scaffold, restate (repeat student output correctly in a way that celebrates their contribution) and have fun!

Retrieval Practice
Almost everything we do in a TCI classroom incorporates retrieval practice. This is why language learning is so exhausting and needs constant brain breaks for successful learning. It uses a significant amount of brain energy to retrieve knowledge and then to manipulate it in working memory. I highly recommend learning a new language asap if it has been a while for you. My foray into Spanish last year with the wonderful Margarita Perez has made a huge impression on me both as a teacher and a learner. My brain is aching now just thinking about it!!
Here are a few ideas from my lessons that enhance retrieval practice:

Kursi Luar Biasa (special person interviews) – Credit for this goes entirely to Bryce Hedstrom.
I love how the questions used in KLB offer linguistic and cultural opportunities. The questions facilitate students searching long term memory for acquired structures before manipulating them within working memory to output totally original sentences. Soooo cool.

Calling The Roll – see above

Brain breaks – Love, love, love using brain breaks that require students to listen to simple comprehensible instructions using acquired structures. My favourite go to is satu kaki (one foot). it is simply asking students to stand on one leg and see who can stand for twenty seconds! I then count to twenty in Indonesian and we then celebrate those is still standing. The second time, to ramp up the challenge, students swap legs and for the third time, they close their eyes. The first time this is played, safety rules are given in English to ensure no one is hurt. The last version can have arms waving madly!! Thus there is no wobbling, no hopping, and also a remiinder that it is just a game and if you get bumped, tidak ada masalah (no problem)!

Comprehension Checks – Celebrating those students who comprehended through long term memory retrieval to working memory.

Story Asking – class created stories based on student contributions underpined by comprehension.

Circling – asking yes/no, sudah/belum, either/or questions supporting comprehension through pointing and pausing acknowledges the hard work happening in students’ working memory.

Gestures – establishing gestures with classes, for some students will help prompt their working memory and assist with acquisition. This is a great tool for differentiation.

For more discussion on retrieval practices, I highly recommend the following podcast by Liam Printer; Retrieval Practice: 11 zero-prep strategies for an engaged classroom? Also don’t forget to search for his program notes. Well worth a read to strengthen your own memory!!

iFLT 2018 – Coaching for Coaches (C4C)

27 Jul 20184 Comments

Can’t believe that our amazing trip to the States is fast drawing to a close. It seems only yesterday that Anne & I arrived and yet tonight we head to the airport for our flight home to Australia. I’ve been doubly fortunate on this trip because I not only attended a huge CI conference in Cincinnati, Ohio, but I also spent time with my American based family in Los Angeles and West Virginia.

The conference began with a Coaching for Coaches (C4C) workshop. This workshop was an optional extra and there were roughly (don’t quote me!) about 60 people attending; 30 coaches and 30 teachers training to be coaches. The coaches got together in the morning to meet our team, get to know each other, review coaching skills and be informed of our duties during the conference. My team leader was Gary DiBianco and I thoroughly appreciated the opportunity to work as an assistant coach with him and Nelly Hughes. Nelly & Gary were very patient and kind with me which I totally appreciated because the day I left Australia, I had received some professional feedback that shook my confidence and self esteem to the core. Thus during the conference, I battled intense feelings of being an imposter and a fraud on top of being totally overwhelmed by the sheer size of the conference. There were 515 people!

I just love the C4C model because it positively supports CI teachers keen to improve their practise. I attended C4C in Agen last year and appreciated the opportunity to attend in Cincinnati as an assistant coach. Thank you so much Teri! This helped to refresh my understandings from last year as well as gaining a few bonus extras (e.g. how to warm teachers up when no one wants to demo, turning negative observations around, dealing with demos that incorporate aspects inconsistent with good acquisition practise, ). I love how C4C focuses solely on building community with students and keeping the language comprehensible. Just as it is for students in a CI classroom, C4C sets teachers up for success by providing feedforward (not feed~~back)~~ that helps guide teachers forward. FeedForward is ‘kind, meaningful, tactful, positive and useful’ unlike feed~~back~~ which is soul destroying, mean and increases feelings of self doubt. Carol Gaab stated while opening the conference that “Collegiality is expertise wrapped in kindness” which sums C4C up beautifully.

Over the week of iFLT2018, our coaching cohort met each day, except Friday, at 10am for an hour . While this meant we missed one of the available workshops or language labs, it was an invaluable opportunity to work on coaching and teaching skills. Our cohort started off with roughly 20 members which were divided evenly between Nelly and Gary however as the conference progressed, the numbers dropped and by Thursday we all met as one group.

As this was an intermediate group, coaching at first focused on specific skills; e.g. Picture Talk, Movie Talk (Jurassic Fart or BHD Cactus Bank), Reading and ‘Authres’ (authentic resources) before moving to focusing on skills that individual teachers chose to work on. Skills chosen by our group included incorporating actors, asking a story, Kursi Luar Biasa (Anne), 3 ring circus, card talk/circling with balls, to mention a few.

Nelly Hughes coaching Anne MacKelvie

There were also bonus coaching sessions available at the end of the day until 5pm. I enjoyed this because it gave me an opportunity to observe other coaches in action. I particularly appreciated listening to the language other coaches used when explaining the three areas for feedforward:
1. comprehensibility
2. connection with students &
3. specific chosen skill.
The second point is one I usually have difficulty explaining clearly. I was delighted to hear Clarice Swaney and Michele Whaley describe it as ‘building community’ and ‘building rapport with students’ which really resonates with me.

The coaches coaching aspect that ran throughout iFLT 2018 is a brilliant model and I am keen to propose it for future Australian CI conferences. It provides an opportunity for teachers to reflect upon and practise a wide range of skills in a safe and supportive setting throughout the conference while it is all still fresh in our minds. Teri Weichart spent hours matching up people with their coaches and it paid off. I truly appreciated the opportunity to get to know and work closely with a couple of CI teachers who I feel confident about contacting in the future should I need advice. This too, would be an invaluable way of establishing strong networks (PLN’s) during conferences to provide ongoing support & advice after the conference has finished.

Meeting our State Education Minister – Susan Close!

27 Apr 201827 Apr 20186 Comments

I have just returned home after a very exciting meeting and half an hour later, I am still grinning like a Cheshire Cat. I am on such a high that I want to share it with you!!

Last Friday, Annie added our 3 names to the invitation list of the Country Cabinet State Government visit to the Fleurieu.

The aim of the Country Cabinet visits is to provide regional residents with a community forum so they can speak directly to the premier and his ministers about issues directly relevant to their region. We were thrilled that this would provide us with an opportunity to speak with the SA education minister, Susan Close.

Last year we heard her speak at the MLTASA conference about the importance of language learning. All the language teachers were delighted to discover that we had such a powerful ally in our state government.

During our car trip home after the conference, we decided that it was a priority to speak directly to the minister about TPRS but could not find a time that suited us all. It was a gift to hear that she was visiting our region and schools this week.

Tonight the 3 of us joined the throng at the Victor Rec Centre enjoying a BBQ dinner cooked by the brilliant Lions Club. It was lovely seeing such a huge cross section of people representing the Fleurieu. We caught up with friends while munching on sausage sandwiches (or in my case, a veggie patty) while waiting for the cabinet to arrive.

We had deliberately chosen seats at the back of the room to give us an excellent vantage point from which to peruse all who entered. Annie immediately spotted Susan Close as she arrived. We allowed her time to grab a sausage sandwich before making a beeline for her and totally monopolising her until she had to make her way to the front.

Susan was very gracious and listened intently to us as we explained to her about TPRS and all that we have achieved down here on the Fleurieu for language teachers. She asked many questions (when she could get a word in!) and was delighted to hear that she will get the opportunity to observe TPRS in the classroom tomorrow during her school visit.

It was so exciting to have the opportunity to speak directly to the minister of education about TPRS, a largely unfamiliar methodology in Australia, that has the potential to reverse the decreasing numbers of students choosing to study languages across secondary and tertiary sectors in Australia. We took great delight in sharing Ian Perry’s amazing 2016 student retention numbers as evidence of this!!

Let’s hope our chat and the brief observation opportunity tomorrow will tweak her curiosity enough to investigate TPRS further. It would be awesome to have her support!!

2018 Melbourne TCI Conference

20 Jan 201823 Jan 20181 Comment

I have just realised that this conference was my 3rd TCI conference in 12 months; Laurie is right; it IS very easy getting hooked on TCI conferences!! So as I reflect on this conference, I am also super excited about my trip to Cincinnati for iFLT 2018 in less than 6 months!

The presenters, Anny Ewing, Laurie Clarcq and Terry Waltz were brilliant. Anny contributed her knowledge & experience of TPRS in the primary sector, Terry contributed her prodigious passion for pure TPRS as well as her techniques for teaching a non-roman alphabetic language while Laurie’s upbeat thoughtfulness, joy and compassion together with her trademark embedded reading rounded off the team perfectly.

If I had only time to write about just one thing I loved about this conference (thankfully there is no limit), it would be the constant repetition of the following:
1. Make it comprehensible – establish meaning, support meaning, comprehension checks etc
2. Provide repeated exposure – ask questions, confirm answers etc
3. Keep it interesting – adding details, eliciting student answers, personalisation etc
4. Teach for success – go slowly, differentiate questions, pause and point etc
This was woven into each day, each session, each workshop. If participants take nothing else home with them from the 3 days but this, it will not matter at all because it underpins successful TCI practise.

Overall, this conference helped to clarify and consolidate my understanding to date of TPRS/TCI both from a student’s perspective as well as from the teachers perspective. The very first thing I discovered was that I could not listen to Terry’s Hawaiian story and count structures! It interfered with my processing! What a light bulb moment that was! No wonder students have strong opinions about the jobs they want or don’t want to do!

Laurie Clarq shared with us the following mantra which resonated with all participants:

This is really important to keep in mind during your TPRS/TCI journey. Every teacher is working on a different milestone and each one is vital to that person. We acquire TPRS/TCI at different rates – just as our students acquire language at different rates. Wherever you are on your journey, it is where you should be. Comparing yourself with others is pointless. They are not in your shoes and visa versa. TPRS/TCI is not about the destination, it is entirely about the journey! However take note; the TCI road is rarely smooth and usually begins with an enormously steep learning curve.
Terry and Laurie also added the following gems over the three days:
– (TPRS) won’t get easier but it will get better.
– Build up your skills gradually. Start small. Choose one TPRS skill, try it and then keep doing it. Don’t give up!
– Don’t let details derail your TPRS.
– Progress not perfection.
– Anything worth doing well is best done poorly at first.
– Students will only remember how you made them feel and quickly forget all else.

I can’t believe how many notes I took over the three days. I took the notebook I bought in Agen and followed straight on from my Agen notes to keep all my TPRS conference notes together. Unfortunately my notes from the Port Elliot conference are not in one place! Convening & attending a conference simultaneously is challenging! Hopefully I remember to take it with me to Cincinnati in July.

Terry began her Hawaiian demo by reviewing the RULES which although I remember from last year, I had forgotten the explanation that goes along with each! I love them!
1. Naked desks – student learning habits need to be adjusted for language classes. They are used to taking notes but with TPRS, they just have to listen!
2. Listen – because that is how language comes into your mind.
3. Answer Questions – Everyone responds to questions. If your mouth is not moving, the teacher will assume that you don’t understand and therefore you will receive special attention to fix that! Also, do not answer on behalf of others. Answer in the TL unless I am looking for an idea.
4. Stop – If you don’t understand, stop the teacher. (Establish gesture: Terry used the windscreen wiper action) If you see someone gesturing that they don’t understand, join in to support the team. Think of an iceberg with only a fraction visible above the surface of the water. For each person who stops the teacher, there will be another 10 sitting silently/ motionlessly. Stop the teacher immediately you stop understanding. Don’t let the teacher continue because the teacher won’t know at which point you were lost. (Terry then demoed this with us to illustrate how disruptive this is)
5. 2 Words – Magic fairy dust means we don’t know the answer yet. Answers must be no more than 2 words of English!
6. Ohh/Ahh – Class stories and answers are fascinating. Encourage students to respond to demonstrate appropriate responses which reinforce that all story details are fact! (Ohh/Ahh exclamations could eventually be swapped for culturally appropriate words. e.g. Astaga {OMG})
7. Grandma – Grandma is joining us in our room. She loves interesting stories, she will fall asleep if the stories are boring however she will get very cross if she hears anything inappropriate. So keep Grandma happy!

Terry then began her Hawaiian story which followed the typical beginners story formula. Character has a problem, character visits 3 locations to solve problem & the problem is solved at the 3rd location. While I used this formula often in my first year of TPRS, I haven’t lately because I found it too repetitive (sounds like an oxymoron – how can repetition in TPRS be a negative??) but while listening to Terry’s story I learned how to keep this formulaic story compelling. The secret is to use the i+1 principle. For example, if the character wants a large computer, (I’ve tweaked Terry’s story to avoid spoilers!) there are no computers at the first location, while at the second location there are only small computers. However at the 3rd location, there are large computers. The other technique Terry used to keep the story compelling was to invent quirky locations based on well known popular culture. e.g. Computers ‘R Us.
After the story, Terry recommended encouraging students to celebrate and acknowledge the amount of language they’d covered in the story. Due to the many repetitions through circling, fishing and the use of an actor, we (the class) found it easy to translate sentences from the story into Hawaiian! It was a blast! Terry did remind us that students are not expected to retell the story yet because they haven’t read it yet!
Terry next opened a PowerPoint which contained a parallel story. (A parallel story is an almost identical story incorporating exactly the same vocabulary (structures) but the who and the what are different. It is vital that the who and the what are words that are identical or almost identical in both L1 & L2. For example, if you want your character to be at the beach, use the name of a familiar beach rather than the L2 word for beach! Ensure 100% comprehensibility. Less is more.) The class read the story together with many comprehension checks & humorous brain breaks along the way.
What totally blew me away was how much Terry covered in a short amount of time, yet at no time did I feel lost or rushed. There is no way I could have achieved that pace with either my primary classes or my adult class! It was so impressive. Terry explained afterwards that the pace was too fast however as the demo is so powerful (experiencing TPRS as a student is the only way to fully understand how a student thinks during our classes) and sooo important that it just had to be done that way. I noticed there were many more interruptions (comments/questions) this year compared with last year and no doubt they ate into her allotted time. We referred back to aspects of this demo over and over throughout the conference.

After the demo, the group was divided into 2 groups – those who have attended a TCI conference previously (Tier 2) and those who haven’t (Tier 1). It was heartening to see not only the numbers of people returning for their 2nd Australian TCI conference but also so exciting to see the large group of teachers who were at their first ever TCI conference. Fingers crossed we see them all again in 2019.

On Day 2, Laurie invited those of us seeking experience coaching Tier 1 colleagues to remain with Tier 1. Terry began this workshop reviewing the basic TPRS skills and then explaining the difference between circling questions and fishing questions.
The basic TPRS skills are:
– circling
– 3 for
– comprehension check
– SLOW
– short/tall (restating student answers as complete answers)
– machine gun No’s – Parking on the No
– Point & Pause
Fishing – Adding interest, detail to create a new sentence.

This session provided participants with the opportunity to trial circling and fishing. Annie & I sat with a couple of Chinese teachers and were totally amazed with how well Joseph circled his structure (buys a coffee) and then how he fished for a detail (9 o’clock in the morning).

In the afternoon, the participants were divided into teachers of primary and teachers of non-primary. I followed Heidi into the non-primary group looking for tips to help me with my proposed 2018 adults class. We were paired off to create a parallel story based on a fairytale. I worked with Luci on our Indonesian ‘Cinderella’ story. Boy – was this a challenging and thought provoking exercise. We had to assume our students only knew the super 7, a few joining words (because, if, with, therefore etc), numbers 1 – 10, yes/no, pronouns & good/not good. In our stories, we had to limit our new vocabulary to 5; no more than 5 unknown words in the entire story! I got bogged down with this exercise and in hindsight realised we should have simplified the story hugely. Other pairs rewrote this story using only 8 – 10 lines, whereas I filled in a page and a half! As I said before; an excellent writing exercise.

Day three focused on reading; the 3rd step of TPRS. We began by understanding the importance of 100% comprehensible reading texts to enable students to see the story unfolding in their heads. See here for the slideshow.
While authentic texts are rarely 100% comprehensible, they still have value. However always remember to ensure that the task based on the text is of benefit to the student. It could be as simple has locating familiar words, translating using context cues or simply checking student’s proficiency level (although this focuses on what students can’t do; not what they can do).
A good CI text has connected ideas, is highly comprehensible, demonstrates a solid understanding of second language acquisition theory and is written by a highly fluent speaker. These texts enable students to enhance reading skills,
including:
– developing reading comprehension strategies
– tracking/skimming text
– visualisation
– stamina and concentration
– prediction/ infer to check meaning
– summarise i.e. draw own conclusions
Texts also provide opportunities to extend student understandings by applying vocabulary in new contexts. For example, with the structure Kevin’s ‘house’, in an Indonesian text, classes could be encourage to infer how to say 1) my house 2) Mr Jones’ house or 3) hospital (assuming students have already acquired the word ‘sakit’!
During text readings, incorporate TCI skills e.g. SLOW, pop up grammar, comprehension checks, English summaries.

Reading activities I want to try with my students:
1. Jumbled sentences
Take 5 main sentences from a paragraph in the text and write them up on the board, in jumbled order, one underneath the other and each line beginning with a letter of the alphabet, starting with A. Together the class choral read the sentences with the teacher. The class then echo reads the sentences; the teacher reading in the TL and the class echoing in English. Students then gestured the meaning (keeping their voices in their head) for each sentence while the teacher read in the TL. Students then turn to a partner and together decide on the order of the 5 sentences so that it makes sense. After a given amount of time, ask for a pair to read out their order of the sentences (accept lettering if given) and then as a class choral read the sentence order as given. Ask for opinions from the class (does this makes sense?), ask if anyone had anything similar/different. Repeat and compare! I loved that Anny gestured while we were choral reading as this really supported my comprehension. I thoroughly enjoyed this reading activity.
We talked about the huge difference between partner work (as above) & partner practise (dialogues). Anny also encouraged us to ask questions such as What was tough but you worked it out? What did you notice in this text that was different?
2. Popcorn Reading/ Volleyball Reading/ Train Reading
Students in pairs take it in turns to say a sentence in either TL or L1. We began side by side working with a partner and then turned our chairs sidewards so that we were sitting side by side with a different person in 2 long rows of chairs to form train carriages. I’ve always expected my students to read the text sentences in both Indonesian & English however I loved how we could either read the sentences in English or Hawaiian. Such a cool idea to give students the choice!
3. Listen & Draw
Students folds a page into quarters and then numbers the quarters 1 – 4. They then illustrate the sentences read out by the teacher. I loved how Anny read us 3 sentences together and we drew one illustration to represent all of the information. So cool. Usually I read one sentence per quarter which is great for junior primary, but for older students, this encourages closer listening! Afterwards, the teacher can show the class a students work and discuss it OR the teacher could reread 1-3 of the sentences from one of the quarters randomly and students hold up the number of fingers to represent which quarter the sentence or sentences were from.
4. Movie Strips
Hand students a strip of paper. Fold three times (makes 8) and then unfold. Students illustrate one sentence from the story in each segment and then roll up when finished. The paper then becomes a film strip which could be narrated either by the teacher or by the student should the latter have had enough input beforehand.
5. Express Acting
Have props representing each sentence of the story; either a location prop or an actor prop. With each sentence, students take it in turns to stand up, grab the appropriate prop and act out the next line as it is read out by the teacher. Should the actor need to speak, the teacher can help if the actor is not confident to do so. The teacher merely stands behind the actor giving the actor a voice. Beforehand though, explain quietly to the actor that “When I touch your shoulder, that means you have to pretend to speak.” This allows the teacher to use many students from the class, which for junior primary classes is sooo important. Something Anny did which I truly loved was that she circled the action in the story by talking to the actors. She asked the house, “Do you have…..”, She asked the actor, “What do you want?”, “Was there ….. at the house?”, “Do you want a big or small ……?”

To finish up this overlong post, I am going to write random take homes I picked up over the 3 days that I’m looking forward to trialling with my students ….
* Menurut Saya (in my opinion) – Student states an opinion and all those who agree stand up. Here is Señor Wooly explaining a fun activity to introduce this language.
* Beginner language learners must focus on the super 7 (Top 10 + sudah/ belum for Indonesian)
*Ipad vs Paper is a great clip to movie talk.
*weighing the pig doesn’t make it fatter – if an assessment activity does not help the student learn, it is a waste of time.
*classroom management idea – raise your hand when you can’t hear the sound anymore.
*picture talk for an end of lesson filler should it be needed.
*Senor Wooly Tres Acciones – a great target structure activity for verbs
*Have 2 different gestures for words that have 2 different meanings. e.g. pakai – have a gesture representing ‘to use’ & another gesture to represent ‘wear’.
*Teachers must use strategies to restrict language (stay in bounds) & keep instructions short and simple.
*While fishing or circling, incorporate basic everyday language that supports conversation and communication into questions. Its also an awesome way of incorporating required curriculum vocabulary that doesn’t seem to fit in elsewhere naturally.
* If fishing and no one is biting, pair students off to come up with some suggestions. They keep a hand each in the air until they have a suggestion!
*When circling, incorporate the suggestions (whitebait) that were discarded during the fishing. This demonstrates that all responses are values and appreciated.
*Look at the teacher and smile if you could have answered the questions too!
*Wait time honours thinking time and encourages students to check their answer.
* tieing knot = ‘sudah’ gesture
* Student job suggestion – the parrot who repeats what the teacher has just said but only when appropriate!
*No point correcting student output in the first 3 years of their language learning – they are not ready for it.
* Develop a few strategies for rejecting fishing suggestions that didn’t make the grade e.g. impossible because he is in Bali today, I looked on Facebook and he is sick, Not Bronwyn at Victor Harbor Primary? etc

Intercultural Understanding & TCI/TPRS

23 Sep 201713 Jun 20184 Comments

After writing the post about the South Australian Education Minister’s visit to my Indonesian language classroom, I sent both the minister, Susan Close, and the Premier, Jay Weatherill, a link to the post. Last month we received the following email from the DECD Chief Executive, Rick Persse, in a reply on behalf of Jay Weatherill.

Isn’t it wonderful that as a direct result of us attending the Country Cabinet, all levels of DECD are now familiar with TPRS pedagogy! How exciting is that?

We decided to concentrate on his concern that TPRS does not completely address the intercultural understanding aspect of the Understanding strand within the Australian Curriculum: Indonesian. We began by taking up his offer to contact Maribel Coffey, which we did both by phone and email. She promptly replied to our email with a kind offer to put us in contact with Gianna DeLeo and Rosa Garcia, 2 Languages Project Officers from her team.

Gianna and Rosa readily agreed to come out and spend a day with us to help us identify the intercultural learning gaps we may have and then provide practical strategies that will help us improve our teaching practise in this regard.

In preparation for their visit, both Gianna and Rosa researched TPRS which we truly appreciated. They were familiar with Stephen Krashen; every TCI teacher’s hero. Having an understanding of Krashen’s hypotheses and TCI meant that Gianna & Rosa could focus specifically on intercultural understanding in a TCI context without needing a TCI 101 along the way.

We arranged that Gianna & Rosa would visit us each in turn to observe us teaching a lesson, finishing up at Victor R-7 where we would all gather to discuss their observations and feedback.

For my lesson, I demonstrated ‘Kursi Luar Biasa’ (KLB) – largely because Annie & Sharon encouraged me to do so – but also because it is one of the most engaging ways I know to cover many of the curriculum content descriptors. Because KLB involves asking students personal questions, it provides students with a platform to talk about themselves, either truthfully or not! I actually prefer it when students lie (suggest bizarre answers) because it ramps up the engagement a hundred percent and makes it totally compelling!

Thanks to the wonderful sharing community that TCI is, I have now incorporated a PowerPoint into my KLB lessons due to Ibu Anne‘s generosity. Last term I visited her in Victoria to observe her teaching (and co-present at the Victorian Language Teachers Association Conference) and was blown away with how much more compelling her KLB lessons were with the written and pictorial visuals. Here is a page from my powerpoint to give you an idea:

Overall I was satisfied with the way in which I demonstrated how I incorporate intercultural understandings into my teaching. For example, the snake and dog pic in the above slide are included because they are 2 animals most of our Indonesian visitors have been significantly frightened of!

After the last lesson, I packed up my room quickly and raced over to Victor R-7 where everyone was already waiting for the conversation to begin.

Firstly Gianna & Rosa began by stating how impressed they are with the teaching that they had observed in our classrooms. They used adjectives like ‘exemplary’!! They both too commented on the high levels of student engagement in our rooms and the large amount of spontaneous Indonesian spoken by our students in class!

We then began to deconstruct ‘intercultural understanding’ using examples that Rosa & Gianna had observed in our classrooms throughout the day. They firstly congratulated us on how well we already integrate intercultural understanding into our TCI lessons and then offered us advice on an additional aspect that if incorporated, would elevate our practise to an even higher level.

Rosa handed us each a copy of the Investigating Pedagogies for Language-and-Culture Learning (see link below) which aims to outline the relationship between the TeFL Framework, ACARA: Languages & The Shape document and “in doing so highlights the intercultural orientation to language learning” (page 1).

This paper outlines the characteristics of language learning incorporating Intercultural Understanding – referred throughout as intercultural orientation.

Intercultural language learning is an orientation to language learning that represents a change in both the stance (the way we conceptualise language learning and the thinking that informs practice) and practice in the teaching and learning of languages and the pedagogy that supports such a change.

This intercultural orientation:

 respects the diversity of learners, teachers, contexts, languages

 focuses on the act of learning: student learning, teacher learning, community learning

 recognises teaching and learning as social (both intrapersonal and interpersonal), cultural (both intracultural and intercultural) and cognitive

 highlights both participation/action and reflection on the part of students as participants in communicating in the context of diversity

 recognises the powerful role of language and culture in learning; in fact, as the foundations of all learning

 sees both the process of communication (as the major goal of language learning) and the process of learning as interactive processes that entail the reciprocal interpretation of meaning

 recognises the integral relationship between teaching, learning and assessment

 understands learning, teaching and pedagogy to support language learning as including processes of inquiry for both learners and teachers.This intercultural orientation shapes the three key concepts that inform Languages education: language, culture, learning, and focuses on developing capabilities that are essential in the 21st century.

page 2

The specific skill that Rosa & Gianna recommend we hone centres around providing students with opportunities for intercultural and intracultural reflection. Rather than providing explanations to students about differing cultural practises, throw it back at the students and encourage them to consider the reasons themselves. An example of this could be around Indonesian etiquette which requires objects to be received and passed with your right hand, never your left hand. My students have often commented on this and previously I simply explained the reasons. Rosa recommends that instead, teachers could ask deeper questions to encourage students to look beyond the difference and instead consider it objectively and rationally. Questions could include asking why Singaporeans use their left and right hands but Indonesians don’t. Is this practise practical and when would it be sensible in Australia? Is the use of toilet paper or water better for the environment? Why do Australians use a water based toilet system when we are the driest continent in the world?

In other words, asking rich and thought provoking questions that encourage students to develop self awareness and self understanding through honest reflections around not only the comparisons between different cultures but also the differences within cultures.

…reflection is not a simple process of commenting on things such as the enjoyment or not of an activity. Specifically, it involves reflection on such matters as:

 the processes of interpretation – how we interpret/understand things as we do

 the assumptions that provide the basis for interpretation – why we interpret/understand things as we do

 our perspectives in relation to those of others

 our positioning in relation to that of others

 our expectations in relation to those of others

 our judgments in relation to those of others.

This kind of reflection is a necessary part of stretching students’ intellectual thinking and of ‘fostering deep understanding’ and exploring the construction of knowledge (3.2 and 3.3 of Domain 3 of the TfEL Framework).

Thus the teacher helps students navigate through multiple conceptions, assumptions, perspectives and personal understandings to help them arrive at new understandings that take into account the perspective of others in a productive way. This document acknowledges that this is an intricate process because student reflections happen spontaneously in the moment and requires engaging with specific student responses and ideas. as such it can’t be planned in advance but needs to be managed as it arises. (page 46)

Rosa explained too about flipping information to help students look at a cultural practise from another perspective. The example she gave was the western tradition of birthday cakes. Imagine a culture that puts fire on decorated food and then gives it to a child who then has to extinguish the fire by putting it out themselves by blowing on it before it can be eaten by anyone! Sounds quite bizarre when stated like that!

We were assured that these classroom conversations do not necessarily need to be long and detailed but more like a grammar pop-up and in doing so would become an engaging brain break. I really like the idea of prompting students with ‘why’ questions to encourage them to consider the reasons underlying different cultural practises. It truly resonates with me and I look forward to impromptu opportunities whereby I can ask deep and meaningful questions to encourage rich reflective and reflexive student thought. It is definitely an expertise I intend to develop! Surely this is how schools create open minded and respectful global citizens.

Thank you so much Maribel Coffey, Rosa Garcia & Gianna DeLeo. We really appreciate the support and encouragement we received from you all. Rosa and Gianna are both wonderful ambassadors of the Languages team. The entire experience was invaluable and we are so grateful that both Rosa & Gianna could spend time with us to work on addressing intercultural understanding in a TPRS classroom context. The conversations we had were thought provoking because developing cultural respect and empathy in students is of a critical importance in relation to global relationships. We are all excited to implement the advice given to us and develop our expertise in asking reflective questions.
We also really hope that early next term, Rosa & Gianna can visit us again to provide us with feedback on our updated practise and understandings to double check we are on the right path. We will also be scrutinising our school calendars to ascertain when our next Partnership Closure day is before inviting Rosa to again share her impressive expertise about intercultural understanding with the Fleurieu TCI PLN.

To finish up, I just had to share this quote from page 4 f the Investigating Pedagogies for Language-and-Culture Learning! If we could just tweak it slightly though so that the first ‘learn’ is changed to ‘acquire’……

An Overview of the 2017 Agen Conference

18 Aug 201713 Jun 20189 Comments

Here I sit on the plane heading back to Australia after the amazing Agen TPRS conference. While I have been away for almost a month and I’ve seen and done a million things, the conference has definitely been the highlight of the entire trip. Can you imagine 6 and a half days of meeting and chatting and learning from a broad group of TPRS/CI experts? I hardly know how I can possibly give you a complete picture of the week and then do it justice!

I arrived into Agen by train a week before the conference began with the idea that I could enjoy familiarising myself with Agen at a relaxed pace before the conference which, I rightly guessed, would be full on and exhausting. Several times during this week, I met up with Judy Dubois, the conference convenor, which I truly appreciated as I was quite nervous. Even though I knew Annie was soon joining me, I was incredibly apprehensive with the realisation that I was on the threshold of actually meeting face to face TPRS people I had only ever ‘talked’ with online. Having this time with Judy beforehand was wonderful because she is so down to earth and calm. I am in awe of her calmness! Now that the conference is over, I can only guess at the million thoughts that must have been going through her mind during this week, yet she still found time to meet me for lunch, give me snippets of Agen history while walking through the streets and showed me several places that provide a decent cuppa! It was truly wonderful. I was even invited to sit in on her interview with a young newspaper journalist about the conference and then had my name mentioned in the article!

Two days before the conference began, I moved from my Airbnb accomodation to the Stim’Otel where many conference attendees and presenters would also be staying. While this totally blew my budget, the early morning breakfast chats with Teri Wiechart, the freedom of having my own space (where I could follow my own body clock without bothering a room mate who would no doubt go to bed later than me and wake later than me – ie., most of the human race) as well as having my own private bubble where I could regroup when needed and also having the privacy to hang my laundry up anywhere and everywhere, was worth every cent.

On the Saturday afternoon before the Coaching for Coaches workshop, Annie & I walked together to the train station to meet and greet our wonderful mentor from New Jersey, Catharina. Catharina had decided at the very last minute to join us in Agen as she was going to be in Europe for summer anyway, visiting family, which for us both was simply the icing on the big TPRS cake for us both. After 3 years of speaking and listening to Catharina on Skype, it was brilliant to meet her face to face at last. If you have ever joined us for a Skype session with Catharina, I can assure you that she is just as bubbly and passionate face to face as she is online! It was so great that she was at the conference for so many reasons. Catharina has been to many more TPRS conferences than we could ever dream of getting to and it was invaluable being able to chat with her throughout the day about the sessions we attended from a junior primary aspect. Catharina saw everything in perspective and could align the pieces together perfectly smoothly whereas I was madly scrambling to process a ton of information in a short amount of time and throughly appreciated having my own personal guide who explained patiently how everything meshed together with what I know and do in my classroom. Thank you so much Catharina!

For about 20 of us, the conference began a day earlier on the Sunday with the Coaching for Coaches (C4C) workshop. This was the first time that the C4C workshop had been held at the Agen conference and I am so grateful that I could participate. It also provided us with a bonus gift in that it gave us all a useful pair of ‘glassses’ (lens) that enhanced our attendance and uptake over the next 5 days at the conference. The C4C workshop was held in the building where Judy teaches English in Agen which in itself I loved because now when I read her posts or tweets about teaching, I can picture her classroom! We were led by a fantastic group of experienced coaches including Kristin Plante, Teri Wiechet, Robert Harrell, Carol Hill, Laurie Clarq and Paul Kirschling who gently guided us by consistently demonstrating how important kindness and a low effective filter is for both the coaches and the teachers. The morning session included a Krashen refresher, which was an excellent place to start. We were each given 5 post it notes and on each wrote a sentence regarding one of the hypotheses. When we had finished, we stuck each on the wall around the pertinent hypothesis poster before walking around and reading everyone else’s to clarify our understandings. This was such a terrific idea because I realised that I did not fully understand the monitor hypothesis and so I had the opportunity to ask Catharina for clarification before going over to that poster and reading what everyone else had written to clarify my understanding before writing my own!

Krashen’s 5 hypotheses:

The Acquisition Learning hypothesis – there are two ways of developing language ability: by learning (conscious) or by acquisition (sub-conscious).
The Input hypothesis – We acquire language in one way only; when we are exposed to input (written or spoken) that is comprehensible to us.
The Monitor hypothesis – We are able to use what we have learned about language rules to self correct language output.
The Natural Order hypothesis – Language is acquired in a predictable order by all learners.
The Affective Filter hypothesis – the variables that interfere with language acquisition and they include anxiety, self confidence and motivation.

Here are two gold nuggets (terminology credit Teri) from this day:

TPRS teachers accept that the above 5 hypotheses are essential for language acquisition.
If you are connecting with your students and making your language 100% comprehensible, TPRS/CI will follow.

After lunch we were divided into 2 groups and given the opportunity to practise coaching, but in order to practise coaching, we needed teachers. This will continue to be important for Annie and myself once back in Australia. If you are willing to help us practise and develop our coaching skills we will be incredibly grateful and can guarantee that you too will gain from the teaching experience!

The Agen TPRS Conference did not officially start until after lunch on Monday, however I headed over to the Lycée at 8:30am because I wanted to watch how Daniel Dubois connected with his students during their very first lesson. The morning block on each day of the conference was an opportunity for us to observe TPRS teachers in action with their students. In total there were 5 language labs:

Daniel Dubois teaching Breton
Rosanna teaching Spanish
Judith teaching English
Paul teaching French
Diane Nuebauer teaching Mandarin
Charlotte teaching English

Mandarin and Breton were the only 2 options for beginners, so Annie joined Diane Nuebauer’s classes and I joined Daniel Dubois’.

Breton is the language spoken in Brittany, France and Daniel often began his morning classes with a brief introduction to the language and/or its history. Apparently the Breton in the north differs from that spoken in the south yet being of Celtic origin, both have quite a lot in common with the Celtic languages of the UK. At various times over the week we were joined by those familiar with Scottish Gaelic, Irish Gaelic and Welsh and all 3 people enjoyed recognising familiar words in the Breton language. The history of Breton dates back to the invasion of the Anglo Saxons into Britain. Speakers of Gaelic either fled west to Ireland and Wales, north to Scotland or East to France. Daniel also talked about languages with ‘consonant mutation’. Have you ever heard of that before? The Celtic languages, including Cornish, are languages with consonant mutation because the initial consonant often changes depending on the grammatical context of the sentence. Is this ringing bells for those familiar with Indonesian? That evening I did some research on this concept and discovered that there are 2 other languages alongside the Celtic languages that incorporate consonant mutation and I bet you can now guess what they are! Indonesian and Malay! How about that?

After my first morning of watching (in awe) Daniel teaching, I deliberated about what I was going to do the rest of the week. I was torn between the opportunity to watch Daniel for the entire week or to take the opportunity to spend time in a variety of classes. I was worried about what I could be missing. Later that evening at dinner, I asked Carol Hill for her advice. She reminded me of FOMO – Fear Of Missing Out – and asked me to think about what I needed rather than worrying about what I would miss out on! After some thought, I realised there was a greater value for me observing one teacher – to see how he manages the day to day realities of teaching; e.g..

bringing new students and absent students up to date with all that they had missed,
differentiating where necessary for:
- the fast processors,
- those with previous Breton knowledge/experience,
- the slow processors.
- different learning styles,
- students with no French (me) or no English (Evelyn).
Techniques to keep lessons in the target language
Ensuring all students feel valued and that their contribution is important.

The list goes on to include the many juggling balls (credit Terry Waltz) that Daniel successfully kept up in the air and I am incredibly grateful to Carol for her advice. My week with Daniel was amazing – he is a brilliant and talented TPRS teacher and staying with him for the entire week was undoubtedly the best decision.

The Language Labs were followed by a 2 hour lunch. Most people gathered in the courtyard and then went off in varying sized groups to a nearby restaurant or cafe for lunch. While 2 hours sounds like plenty of time, it actually went very quickly and we often were scrambling to get back in time for the afternoon sessions.

The first session back was always a plenary led by a different yet amazing and brilliant person each day. We heard Blaine Ray, Stephen Krashen, Beniko Mason, Robert Harrell/Dianne Nuebaeur, Teri Wiechart and Laurie Clarq speak about a variety of significant TPRS/CI topics.

Blaine Ray led the first plenary for the conference and it was great listening to him again. I will never forget meeting him earlier this year when he so generously gave Annie & I our own personal workshop while touring around Sydney by ferry! Much of what he said in Agen was a refresher for what he had shared with us in Sydney but I still took pages and pages of notes. Probably the most exciting thing I watched Blaine do was a choral circling exercise with everyone! He gave us all a sentence then did a brief demo of the circling basics and then we all stood up and together chanted the yes, no, either/or circling teacher options and the student responses for that English sentence. It sounds slightly bizarre but I actually loved it. There was a sense of connection and support amongst all those chanting and gesturing the ‘ahhhh’ and while it was definitely output, it was so heavily scaffolded that I felt very comfortable joining in. I can definitely see how this could be incorporated into upcoming TPRS workshops in Australia.

The following day’s plenary was titled How to Talk About TPRS and Comprehensible Input with your administration, your colleagues and the parents of your students and was led by Robert Harrel and Diane Neubauer. While I am incredibly fortunate to work at a site where leadership, colleagues and parents are 100% supportive of TPRS/CI, I still found this session incredibly valuable. I realised that I take my school community’s support and encouragement for granted and that I should demonstrate my appreciation more often! Robert & Diane gave us some tips on how to do this and I have every intention of trialling some of their suggestions. Robert and Diane also talked about the value of observations and the value of meeting before and after observations. These meetings provide teachers with the opportunity to briefly explain the philosophy of second language acquisition, backing it up with relevant research if necessary. These meetings also provide the teacher being observed to provide the observer with a checklist of skills to specifically look for. Bryce Hedstrom has a checklist on his website that is a good one to start with. Specific skills you could ask the observer to look for could include:

What percentage of the lesson did the teacher stay in the target language?
How did I check for understanding?
What were the target structures focused on in the lesson?
How did the students show that they were engaged?
What classroom procedures helped with behaviour management?
Comment on the relationship between students and the teacher.

NB A greeter would be a great student job to support the observer during the lesson, especially if not fluent in the language of instruction.

With parents, Robert and Diane recommended informing them that our goal is for students to be able to communicate in the target language and clarify the similarity between learning our first language and then our second language. Specifically that in order to communicate, students have to firstly listen to large amounts of input and only then will they be able to speak (initially with single words, then phrases and finally sentences), read and then write in that order. If given the opportunity and have the time, a good demo for parents would be one based on the target structure ‘to drink’ with the options including cognates (coffee & beer if doing Indonesian). We also need to ensure that parents feel comfortable to visit out classrooms at any time!

Laurie Clarq’s plenary session was about her passion: Embedded Reading. I was thrilled to hear her talk about this as it is something I have tried unsuccessfully in my classroom and was very keen to hear about it from the master. Laurie expertly wove a true story about someone who could dance one dance very well and how they learned several other dances. I will save the details of this session for another post because it had so many facets to it and it would be impossible to do it justice with a brief synopsis.

Thursday’s plenary was with the indomitable Dr Stephen Krashen. Unfortunately the weather was getting warmer and maybe also because he was wearing several layers of black, Dr Krashen began to melt in front of our eyes. He was a total professional though and continued speaking about The Theories of Second Language Acquisition while mopping up the sweat dripping down his face and neck. Considering too that he only flown in from the US the day before, the heat must have been quite a shock to his system. Thankfully the following day he looked significantly healthier! His plenary began with an explanation on the 40 year war! The war between the following two hypotheses;

Comprehension Hypothesis – input and unconscious skill acquisition
Skill Building Hypothesis – conscious learning and practise via output

Dr Krashen then provided many case studies that support his hypothesis. A story he shared with us was about Armando, a man who acquired Hebrew while working with Hebrew native speakers in an Israeli restaurant. For 2-3 years, he simply listened to his colleagues chatting to each other in Hebrew. He was never forced to speak in Hebrew and developed a friendly rapport with the staff, owners and Hebrew speaking customers. He not once in this time studied Hebrew grammar nor read any Hebrew. Once he began speaking Hebrew, his vocabulary was corrected occasionally but his grammar was never corrected. Dr Krashen recorded him speaking Hebrew and then played it to other fluent Hebrew speakers asking their opinion of his speech. All were highly impressed with his Hebrew and one even thought he was a native speaker! However the true difference in the hypotheses is summarised by Hemingway in the book “In Another Country”

The major… did not believe in bravery and spent much time while we same in the machines correcting my grammar. He had complimented me on how I spoke Italian and we talked together very easily. One day I had said that Italian seemed such an easy language to me that I could not take a great interest in it; everything was so easy to say. “Why, them, do you not take up the use of grammar?” So we took up the use of grammar and soon Italian was such a difficult language that I was afraid to talk to him until I had the grammar straight in my mind.

The final plenary was co-presented by Dr Krashen & Dr Beniko Mason and was titled “The Importance of Reading”. This topic needs little explanation for TPRS teachers but I still took heaps of notes. Essentially no-one should underestimate the power of reading and Dr Mason provided us with her study based on a group of Japanese students. Through a comprehensive reading for pleasure program, she was able to match the English acquired by Japanese students living in America with Japanese students living in Japan! How impressive is that! Together also Krashen & Mason collaborated on a study that demonstrated that 5-8 hours of reading for pleasure in English over a year provided gains of up to 200 points for those taking the TOEIC test which far outstripped the gains acquired through conversing with native speakers.

On our final day, we all attended a bonus workshop to listen to Dr Beniko Mason talk about Story Listening, a technique she is famous for. I was very excited to have the opportunity to listen to Dher talk about this topic as there has been so much debate and discussion about Story Listening amongst TCI teachers recently. She explained the difference between story telling and story asking. While the difference is largely around the method, it also takes into account the purpose (in our case, it’s for language acquisition), and the audience. Dr Mason advises that fairytales and folktales are best because they have a universal interest, provide a rich compelling story and invoke emotion. Beniko then gave a demonstration using a totally unfamiliar (to me) Grimms fairytale about 2 dissimilar sisters. The version of the story that is told will vary according to the level of students (does that even need saying?) and incorporates labelled illustrations to assist with comprehension. While her demonstration was in English, I’ve since watched other demonstrations in languages I don’t know and I was entranced! The power of illustration is extraordinary – especially considering how it slows the speaker down and supports comprehension. After a story listening, Dr Mason then asks her students to write a summary of the story in their first language using the illustrations and language structures on the board which provides a further opportunity for input!! More information about story listening can be found here on Dr Beniko Mason’s website.

Immediately after the plenary sessions were a selection of 3 workshops, one of which was generally a coaching session for teachers and coaches to practise a skill.

Annie and I got together before the conference and identified the sessions most relevant to us and then nominated which ones we would each go to. This way we covered most of the workshops but there were still a few that unfortunately we didn’t get to. Maybe next year?

I hope to post about the workshops I attended at a later date because they were each amazing and informative.

The workshops I attended were:

The Mafia Game – Diane Nuebauer
Creating a Positive Classroom Environment – Alina Filipescu
Using Film with CI – Judith Dubois
In Praise of Difference – Jayne Cook
Teaching a Text; Reading Activities – Robert Harrell
To Target or Not to Target – Dr Stephen Krashen
Fluency Writing – Judith Dubois
Improvising a Story with No Script – Tamara Galvan
Breaking Down the Barriers – Charlotte Dincher

Which one would you like me to post about first?

Stay tuned….

TPRS Step 3: Reading

28 Jan 201728 Jan 20177 Comments

Our Inaugural SA TPRS conference has just finished. It was 3 days full of information, explanations, demos and coaching. My brain is full to bursting and my body is absolutely shattered (note to self: participating in a language class is a physically and mentally exhausting brain workout) I am now in a particularly weird emotive state where I would just love to be heading back again this morning for another day of listening to Terry & Lizette and yet on the other hand, I am so excited to have some time to start thinking about the ways in which I can incorporate the skills that were demonstrated over the past 3 days into my teaching.

What an outstanding team Terry Waltz & Lizette Liebold are! They work together seamlessly and complement each other beautifully. Terry skills as a presenter dovetailed nicely with Lizette’s coaching skills. Combined they have countless years of TPRS teaching, in fact Lizette is one of the original pioneer TPRS language teachers who hopped on the TPRS train right back when it first began and has consequently attended all NTPRS conferences bar one!

Terry’s skills as a presenter are remarkable. While this was her 3rd consecutive Australian conference, delivering (I assume) exactly the same program, at no time did I feel that it was rehearsed or a repeat of a previous presentation. Terry’s manner assured us that she was genuinely enjoying her time with us and that we in no way compared poorly against previous cohorts. Which is exactly what happens in a TPRS classroom! While the target structure may be the same with consecutive classes, each class provides different details which lead us in different directions each and every time.

My brain is reeling with all that I heard throughout the conference and thank goodness I took notes, because right now it is still aching and overwhelmed. If I reflect on the biggest take away for me from my 3 days at the conference, it would without a doubt be the clarification of the 3 steps of TPRS. I now understand that the stories I’ve been using for the story asking are in fact the final reading text.

Terry demonstrated this with two very different languages; Hawaiian firstly and then on day 3 with Mandarin. Being unfamiliar with both languages, I was incredibly fortunate to experience the 3 steps of TPRS as a student twice. This really helped me consolidate my understanding and appreciation of the 3 steps which are:

Establish meaning
Story asking
Reading.

Prior to the conference, step 3 for my classes was the story the class had created and revolved around various TCI activities to keep it engaging while achieving repetitions within that one story. I completely understand now the value of reading a different story (the original story or maybe another modified class’s story) for step 3.This enables students to consolidate the acquired language in a totally new setting. Depending on the level of your students, this final step also has the potential to provide your student with longer stories with a variety of the newly acquired target structures in it, each targeted separately prior to the final reading in steps one and two. This understanding is going to turn the way I plan upside down and I am sooo excited. Can’t wait to get started to experience it!

To clarify:

If the story is this one with the Lucy wants a jacket story
(credit Judith Dubois):

Ada perempuan.

Nama perempuan Lucy.

Lucy dingin.

Lucy mau jaket.

Lucy tidak pakai jaket.

Lucy lihat laki laki kecil.

Nama laki laki kecil Will.

Will punya jaket tetapi jaket Will terlalu kecil.

Lucy lihat Pak Hudson. (principal’s name)

Pak Hudson punya jaket tetapi jaket Pak Hudson terlalu besar.

Lucy lihat Jane.

Jane punya jaket dan jaket Jane pas.

Jane kasih Lucy jaket.

Lucy pakai jaket.

Lucy berkata, “Terima kasih Jane.”

Jane berkata, “Sama sama.”

The first task is identify the target structures your students will need to acquire to read and comprehend this story. When I do this story, the target structures are grouped and ordered like this:

Group One

topi
sepatu
jaket

Group Two

dingin
panas

Group Three

terlalu besar
terlalu kecil
pas.

Because my students have acquired the remaining language from previous stories, I can incorporate it into fun songs and TPR activities to target each group of target structures one by one. I usually begin with panas/dingin which is easily incorporated into the roll call if the weather is extreme and the students come in hot and sweaty or conversely wet and cold! My lessons generally begin with a roll call asking “Apa kabar?” This in itself is an awesome opportunity for circling. Kelas, Joe panas! Joe dingin atau joe panas? Joe dan Mary panas dan Betty dingin!

If you look back through this blog, you’ll find various songs that I’ve made up which my students have enjoyed singing and then acting out. The one I love the most is sung to the tune of baa baa black sheep:

Lucy dingin.

Lucy mau jaket.

Will panas.

Tidak mau jaket.

Will kasih Lucy.

Lucy pakai jaket.

Lucy berkata, “Terima kasih Will.”

(NB names are substituted with the names of the actors)

These type of activities are then repeated for each list of target structures. which are each targeted separately because each set may take several weeks till acquisition. For target structures like the ones in group 3, I love looking for weird and wacky pictures on google images that incorporate familiar and popular characters from recent films/books/tv programs and then use them to create a powerpoint. Harry Potter is reliably popular and easily identifiable by all year levels at my school so one powerpoint had a page with harry potter wearing a tiny hat, the next page with him wearing an enormous hat and the following page showed Harry wearing a hat the perfect size! Thus I was able to consolidate ‘topi’ while introducing new structures! The following pages were pictures of familiar characters or cognate animals (orangutan, komodo) wearing oversized, undersized or perfectly sized jackets, hats or shoes. My students are generally riveted to the screen, wondering what kooky picture will be next. It also provides opportunities to circle using mau and punya. Billy punya topi pizza besar? Billy mau punya topi pizza besar?

After the structures have been acquired to my satisfaction, I move on to step 2 – story asking – using actors. The actors help in a variety of ways; they make the story engaging for the class (& me), they help me circle each part of the story (especially if the acting requires more expression – I love OTT acting – sneaky way to get reps), they can also be a tool for me to measure class acquisition. Story asking is incredibly important as it allow classes to create unique stories through collaboration, its how students buy into the story. Afterwards, the class story can be written up to be used in a variety of ways as listed on the TCI activities page.

Then finally step 3 (the one I will work on this year) is reading together the original story as printed above. I loved how Terry did this. She had a powerpoint ‘book’ that the class could read together and each page had a line of text with a quirky picture that provided opportunities for circling, popup grammar, funny stories/gestures to help students remember conjunction words (eg. tetapi = point to your but) or other useful words that need a boost. (imagine the ‘cultural’ story you could create for bercakap-cakap!!).

For me as a student, this final step was incredibly powerful. It made me feel super confident that I could read it and understand the story even though the characters and setting were not familiar. With those changes, the story felt foreign yet still achievable. Soo cool. It truly demonstrated for me the concept of i+1. Fully comprehensible yet stretching my acquisition just the right amount.

With this text, there are a variety of reading activities that can be done with students to further consolidate acquisition. With Terry, we choral read the book on the tv screen, firstly in pinyin and then with Chinese characters. Boy, did this hit home for me how fortunate both my students & I are that Indonesian is a roman alphabetic language!!

Here are a list of the reading activities & games that Terry shared with us:

kindergarten reading
whole class choral reading
group reading
Echo reading (teacher reads in TL and students read in English)
volley ball reading
paired repeated reading
readers theatre

Reading games:

Musical readings – students in pairs each reading a sentence each one by one with each student double checking the sentence was read correctly & if not, the sentence is reread. The teacher plays music and when the music stops, whoever is not reading gets a point.
Reading Bingo – each student has a 3×3 =grid. In each box, the student writes a different word from the story in each square. Students cross out the word when they hear it.
Stupid Teacher (Guru Gila?) teacher reads the story and deliberately says a word not in the story or changes one word. Students in pairs, competing against each other, tally up the mistakes and compare tally at end of reading.
Comprehension Questions – to measure comprehension, ask the questions in English. They could include true/false questions, short answer questions, multiple choice questions, cloze from story with multiple choice options for each cloze empty space.

Now all I have to do is decide which story I want to begin with this term!! What story are you using?

Meeting Blaine Ray in Sydney

15 Jan 201715 Jan 20171 Comment

Annie and I are heading home after 2 unforgettable days in Sydney with Blaine Ray. What an amazing time and I still can’t believe how fortunate we have been.

Firstly how lucky were we to have Blaine Ray to ourselves almost for 24 hours! We did share him on Tuesday with Stef and her son Daniel, but considering that she is heading up to the conference in Brisbane this Friday, this was a bonus! We were able to pepper him with questions and then listen to his explanations while taking notes. It felt like our own personal workshop specifically tailored for our needs and level. Words simply cannot express how amazing this was and we’ll always be indebted to Blaine for his kindness and patience.

Secondly, we were able to practise our note taking skills ready for next week’s inaugural TPRS conference on the Fleurieu Peninsular with Terry Waltz & Lizette Liebold! It has been fascinating comparing our notes and seeing the huge gaps in my notes where at times I must have become so engrossed in the conversation I forgot to write anything down! Annie has diligently cross referenced both sets of our notes and created a version that incorporates everything and then on top of that has presented it out beautifully.

(This is from Blaine’s advice that whenever you get universal agreement with a response, never accept it. Choose the opposite and surprise them! Never accept the obvious; eliminate the expected!)

And thirdly, it was simply a lovely break spending 2 nights in Sydney and being a tourist in such a beautiful city with like minded people. We spent most of our time together either walking or eating along the scenic waterfront. Except for the initial trip to our hotel from the airport, all of the travel we (Annie & Cathy) did in Sydney was either by ferry or by train and this is definitely the best way to travel. The ferry system is efficient and relaxed. It was just lovely sitting or standing on the ferries enjoying the gorgeous scenery and the cool breezes with the added occasional bonus of sea spray. The trains too were great. So much quicker and took us directly to the domestic terminal which was in direct contrast to our long and tiring trip on arrival which took at least an hour of zig zagging throughout the CBD streets of Sydney. I’m so grateful that Annie talked me into exploring alternative travel options for our return to the airport!

What a generous and gracious person Blaine Ray is. He happily and enthusiastically shared his knowledge with us and was genuinely impressed to discover that we are 2 of 3 language teachers on the south coast who have been teaching with TPRS in since 2014. He told us afterwards that he had presumed we had only recently heard about TPRS and therefore surmised that our discussions would lack any deep TPRS connection. In fact we spent every single minute chatting about various aspects of TPRS and Blaine answered all of our questions and gave many demos to illustrate his points. He also encouraged us to share all that we learned; a huge relief because I couldn’t wait to write up this post! I particularly appreciated his personal stories which clearly illustrate his open mindedness towards improving TPRS, unlike others who have created a successful model and then constantly ‘protect’ the model/concept fiercely. Blaine told us of several instances where he had witnessed or discussed with a practising TPRS teacher a successful idea of theirs, which he immediately saw the value of incorporating it into TPRS procedure and then gave that teacher full credit for that update! Alina Filipescu is one such teacher and after seeing several of her youtube videos, I fully understand why Blaine Ray would be impressed by her teaching.

His explanation and demonstration of the 5 steps of teaching a sentence is a procedure I aim to focus on this upcoming term. I particularly would like to work on this to ensure that I am story asking rather than story listening. I can finally understand how we can create a class story based on the target structure. His advice of writing out a script beforehand with a few planned surprises (should the student ideas be too predictable) would help as my mind goes blank when I am in front of a class. He did reassure us though, by saying that once you get started and students get the hang of suggesting the unexpected, we will begin to build up a bank of great surprises perfect for our cohorts that can be drawn upon when needed. I liked his mantra of rejecting the expected; I can fully understand now that choosing an idea that is sooo off the planet ramps up the class stories to make it even more compelling. Blaine demonstrated this with us all at Watson’s Bay with a sentence about a chicca called Annie. He circled this sentence using his 5 steps with us as the class. Whatever we suggested, he would shake his head and reject it with a disappointed look on his face and so we would dig deeper to outdo each other to come up with even better unpredictable ideas. However he continued to reject our suggestions and would then use his own which were always better than ours. I also loved his comeback when I told him that his story didn’t make sense to me; “This is my story and if you don’t like it, go and write your own story.”

Here are the 5 steps of teaching a sentence:

Annie was a girl.
Annie, are you a girl?
(If the actor doesn’t have the language to answer in the target language, she/he can either read it or mouth it while the teacher provides the voice.)
Yes, I am a girl.
(The actor must answer in complete sentences confidently as this provides input for the class and is also a clear indicator of the extent to which the whole class ‘gets it’. Any errors or hesitation are indicators that more repetition is necessary.)
Yes, you are a girl.
(teacher verifies the response)
Class, Annie was a girl.
(Teacher speaks to the whole class)

This leads on nicely to Blaine’s comments about actors. He made it very clear that choosing good actors is critical. He explained about having auditions to select the best actor which is an idea I’ve tried but not while focusing on the target structure which would be an awesome way in which to add additional input, rehearse the structure and develop student confidence. A good actor must be enthusiastic, must want to try and must have the mindset that this is a cool class. We loved his line that actors have the opportunity to be in the movie rather than to just watch it!

If however, the actor is not performing (maybe he/she is shy or reluctant to act in an exaggerated fashion), try whispering in their ear hints or even demonstrating the required action and if they are still unable to act in the engaging manner required, it may be necessary to replace them. Choosing a bad actor gives negative messages to all the students about our subject. Blaine’s statement that every teacher has a battle for the students hearts resonates for me in my school where we can have up to 5 specialist teachers on top of their class teacher and other support staff. He says the way to win their hearts is through comprehension and play!

Our meals with Blaine were spent juggling our plates & cutlery with our notebooks & pen. Meal times were perfect times to focus on specific aspects of TPRS. The first evening, Annie took notes while I hesitated to pull out my book. Afterwards back at the hotel, I quickly wrote down all that I could remember and was horrified at how much detail I couldn’t remember. From then on, as soon as Blaine began talking, I would whip out my note book and note down the salient points using some of the shorthand I haven’t used since teachers college lectures!

Over our first al fresco breakfast in Pyrmont, Blaine discussed circling. Questions are the backbone of TPRS and are the key difference between TPRS teaching and everything else. He told us of studies which showed that TPRS teachers ask 3-4 questions a minute whereas legacy teachers rarely ask ANY questions. Questioning is critical because it gives students the opportunity to rehearse while giving the teacher the opportunity to get repetitions on just one sentence.

Here are his 7 rules of circling:

Never circle in the same order (too predictable)
Use either/or on any part of the sentence (subject, verb, object)
Always have a bias towards asking negative questions as they are more challenging
Use your question words and point and pause to give processing time
Add information to the sentence to create a new sentence. Either circle the longer sentence or part of the longer sentence; whatever is necessary for your students and this is evident through your actor. Eg. Girl wants a monkey, Girl want a big/small monkey, Girl wants a big monkey that speaks Chinese/dog,
add a new character (parallel character)
add yourself (teacher)

It’s all about asking different people different questions based on the same structure. If it feels boring, ramp it up by adding another character, a celebrity, a celebrity’s pet cat. Adding something new makes it more interesting. Speak to each character. Eg. Are you a cat? What languages do you speak? You are very clever. Each new piece of information can be added to the sentence being circled or just circle the new addition depending on the level of actor confidence and continue till the actor ‘sooo gets it’! If a student actor hesitates or has errors in their answer, this indicates that the class also needs more circling on that sentence. Blaine requires actors to respond in complete sentences to provide further output for the class however class responses are limited to one word responses. In this YouTube video you can see him demonstrating this:

https://youtu.be/9DRblDN2sXY

Just as critical though are student responses. He told us about Alina Filipescu who coaches her students to give powerful responses. I am definitely going to investigate that idea as I agree it is a skill that needs explicit teaching.

Answering questions demonstrates comprehension and understanding.
Blaine has 3 procedures for evidence of student engagement.

They are:

Respond to new statements with ‘ahh’.
If I ask a question, respond in the target language.
If I ask a question and you don’t know the answer, guess in the target language. Surprise me with your guess and if you don’t surprise me, I will surprise you!

This conversation led us neatly onto the 2 Rules for Students in class:

NO social talking
Never speak negatively about this class.Regarding point 2, Blaine recommends teaching early on a phrase such as, “I like this class” (Kelas Bahasa Indonesian keren) and whenever a student speaks negatively about the lesson or class, insist they repeat this phrase while reminding them of rule no 2. Personally I can’t remember anyone stating publicly in class that they dislike my classes or lessons, I just get occasional glowering glares or disengaged expressions which I usually do not draw attention to and work harder to turn their attitude around. For one student this happened when she became the class artist.

A major theme that underlay every discussion we had with Blaine was student confidence and teacher patience. He highly recommends all language teachers experience learning a totally new language to fully enable us to empathise with our students. Teacher thinking about language learning is usually wrong. We have forgotten just how it feels to be a learner and why students want and need patience from their teacher. Teachers can not make their students learn any faster, the only way we can help with their acquisition is to provide more repetition.

Always respond with love and patience until your students CAN:

C= Confidence

A= Accuracy

N= No hesitation.

We want new language learners (slow processors) to become confident fast processors which is the goal of TPRS. Writing translations up on the board can make a big difference with this. Did you realise that your brain starts from the point where it is confident? How much sense does that make! It explains why we can hear the same talk/ explanation several times and yet pick up different facts each time! This is relevant for language learners too! Each time we repeat a structure, it solidifies in the learners mind and helps them become more confident. Every learner is different and begins at a different point. TPRS students are at one of the following stages:

~ understanding

~ getting it

~ soo getting it.

Obviously it the final stage we are aiming for with our students!

Post Script:

This post is my grasp of Blaine’s explanations. I hope it is true to his understandings and should there be any errors, I fully accept that they are evidence of my ongoing and constantly developing comprehension of TPRS.

Have You Seen Terry Waltz in Action?

10 Nov 20161 Comment

Here is the first video I ever saw explaining TPRS and I still think it is the best!! Grab a cuppa and sit down and enjoy!!

https://vimeo.com/28701352

Indonesian Teacher Reflections

Belajar Mengajar

Category: Training and Development