A Time to Mourn

Yesterday was my final day of work at my school (see my blog post here on my leaving). Students finished exams on Wednesday, and the last two days were devoted to post-planning. My classroom is all packed up and is now in array of boxes in my living room. I have turned in my laptop and keys. I have said my goodbyes. In the aftermath of it all, I now feel sad.

The funny thing is that earlier in the morning yesterday, a fellow teacher who was also not returning, while walking to her car to leave, said to me,"I feel sad now. Do you?" Maybe because I had not yet finished everything which I needed to do, I remarked back to her, "Not really." It did not hit me, however, until I had to turn in my keys and to give them to the teacher who was taking my classroom. The assistant principal to whom i gave my keys said, "I'm really going to miss you here." Suddenly, it felt final. When I was backing out of my parking spot, I realized that this would be the last time I would ever be at this school as a teacher there. That is when the sadness hit me.

On the one hand, I am rather glad to be finished with it all, because since I had made it public to my faculty in March that I was transferring schools, it has been a never-ending, two-month long goodbye for me. The last couple weeks, I had grown so weary of saying my farewells that by the last few days, I just wanted to hide from folks.

But at the same time, I had been a teacher at this school for 17 years (most of my students this year had not even born when I began teaching there). How can I not be sad over my departure? Over those 17 years, I laid down so many roots and established so many great relationships with both my fellow faculty members and students. If anything, I was a great team player. As so many teachers told me upon learning that I was leaving, "This school will not be the same without you. You've always just been here. You are a part of the school culture." Those are certainly nice words to hear.

Most importantly, I had garnered the respect of my fellow teachers and administrators. Especially in my department where we all did not see eye to eye pedagogically, even though many disagreed with me, I still felt like I had earned their respect. Quite honestly, I would much rather be respected than to be viewed as right.  

For now, I feel like I am in a limbo state, because I do not feel like I have a sense of belonging jobwise anywhere at the moment. I have said my goodbyes and have ended my stay at my previous school, but I have not officially started yet at my new school. It is a weird feeling.

However, as one of my mentors wisely once told me years ago when I told him that I was feeling homesick after having visited my family in California (and I was mad at myself for feeling this way), "It sounds like you're grieving. It is okay to mourn the situation." What he said suddenly knocked sense into me; immediately after he said that, I felt so much better, because 

1. what I was feeling suddenly had a name. 
2. it was perfectly okay to feel what I was feeling 
3. more importantly, grieving allows us as humans to deal with and to process our grief, and to come out the other end with a sense of joy (think of Sadness' role in Inside Out).

So for now, I will grieve and mourn over my leaving. What I am feeling is okay, and I know that I will get through it. Most importantly, I feel so blessed to have 17 years worth of wonderful experiences to be grieving over! 

End of the School Year Blues

There is only 1 1/2 weeks left in the school year for me. Here in the south, the school year begins the first weeks of August, and we end before Memorial Day. I always have to laugh when I am at the ACL Summer Institute (which is always the last weekend of June), where there will be teachers who just finished the day before, while I have already had a month of summer vacation. Of course, when I am back at work in August, and those teachers do not have to return until after Labor Day, there is that tradeoff. 

I hate this time of the year. As I have written before, the end of the school year is crazy time with graduation, final exams, the amount of standardized testing which disrupts classtime, and finishing up everything. I always liken the end of the school year to being on a runaway train. The train is not going to stop whether I like it or not, so alI I can do is just hold on. And then suddenly, the train stops, but due to the laws of physics, I am still in motion and am hurled forward. A colleague of mine compares the end of the school year to falling down a hill, and it is just a matter of how battered and bruised you will be when you get to the bottom.

I always feel like I am in a bad mood at the end of the school year, because by this time, students have mentally checked out. With the amount of AP tests and of standardized end of course exams which they have had to endure, they are ready to leave. I too am mentally ready to leave, but many times, I feel like I am fighting against students' attitudes (perhaps, they are reacting against mine). Even though exams are next week, I feel like students are emotionally ready to take exams purely to get them out of the way, although they may not be ready academically (but they could care less about the score). I think that this is how I know i am ready for the school year to be over. 

The end of the school year brings a finality. My friend who is a CPA once remarked to me, "I'm jealous of your schedule, because you have a definite beginning, middle, and end to your year. I just have a neverending cycle of project deadlines." I had never really thought of my job that way, but he is correct in what he said. As teachers, we begin the school year with excitement but cross the finish line at the end, somewhat beaten and bruised; nevertheless, we still finish. 

I do not think that most people understand why teachers need the summer off: in order to recharge our batteries for the next upcoming school year. Teaching is difficult; as much as I enjoy it, I do not think that I could do it year-round, nor do I think that students could endure it either. Keep in mind that we teachers receive a 10-month salary spread over 12 months.

This summer for me is already looking like a busy one. I will be finishing up my final semester in my Instructional Technology degree, so at the end of July, hopefully, I will have obtained both my Ed.S degree and certification to teach it (note - I do not plan to be an Instructional Technologist at the moment). I also will be attending both the ACL Summer Institute and IFLT, and I will be giving two CI presentations at both. I will also be serving as an apprentice coach at IFLT, so I am excited about that opportunity. These two conferences truly do help recharge my energy for August. 

I am already excited about the prospect of a new school year. I just need to get through this one first...

The Perils of Comparing and Despairing

I love reading about other CI/TPRS teachers' successes and ideas on blogs and on Twitter, because on most occasions, it both encourages and motivates me to become a better CI/TPRS teacher, plus I want to celebrate their successes. Like I said, that happens on most occasions. However, there are times where instead I look at their sucesses and at what they are achieveing in their classrooms and think to myself, "Wow, compared to this person, I really suck as a CI/TPRS teacher" or "How come when I tried the same thing, it failed miserably? I must be the problem." The good ol' "compare and despair" syndrome.

I am sure that you have done this before too. Comparing and despairing does so much harm for us as CI/TPRS teachers:

1. It sets our focus on other's achievements, instead of on our own victories. There are so many things to celebrate in our classroom achievements as a CI/TPRS teacher (even a successful round of circling!) that we lose sight of when we focus on others. 
2. It makes us think that CI/TPRS is something which can be learned overnight. When we compare and despair, we ask ourselves, "Why am I not achieving like this person?" Maybe it is because that teacher is further along in his/her CI/TPRS experience than you. As teachers, we all know that it takes years for a novice to develop into an actual teacher, so why do think differently about CI/TPRS? In most cases, switching over to CI/TPRS means abandoning and switching one's whole worldview of language acquisition. All of this takes time. Thinking that CI/TPRS is a skill which can be easily learned in a workshop sets up an unrealistic expectation, so when we do not achieve like others, we become discouraged. 
3. It steals our joy as CI/TPRS teachers. 
4. It causes us to lose sight of our own individual talents and abilities. Every teacher has his/her own unique personality which others do not possess. Whenever I am in front of my classroom, I have to remind myself that I am the one in the classrom and not "X person." There are lots of CI/TPRS activities which I have tried in good faith which have worked perfectly, because it is me in front of the classroom, and there are lots of CI/TPRS activities which I have tried in good faith which have absolutely bombed, because it is me in front of the classroom. That does not mean that the CI/TPRS activity itself or I am the problem; it just means that probably the activity and I are not a good fit...for now or maybe ever.
5. It sets up an unncessary competition which never existed in the first place. 

To combat all of this: Celebrate your past victories, and move forward. Continue to progress in your knowledge of CI/TPRS. My personal advice: Be the best CI/TPRS teacher which you can be at this point in your CI/TPRS journey, and take joy in it; that is all which your students really want. 

One Step at a Time

Over the past few weeks, I have had a number of informal discussions with teachers who have tried CI/TPRS this past year but have abandoned it. In these discussions, I just wanted to hear what they had to say, so I simply listened and asked questions. I was not interested in trying to win them over back to CI/TPRS or to fix the problem, because that is not what they wanted. These folks simply wanted to be heard.

In each of the cases, these teachers truly wanted to implement CI/TPRS. They all had attended CI/TPRS workshops, so they had seen it in action. At the beginning of the school year, they began to use CI/TPRS, and things went very well...for awhile. The honeymoon, however, wore off, and trying to keep up the momentum became more of an effort. Essentially, they had no idea where they were going after a few months. When I heard all of this, I could totally relate, because when I first learned TPRS years ago, I went full bore with it, only to burn out after 6 weeks. Quite honestly, I was ready to give it up completely, but I had seen a change in my students' acquisition of the language but more importantly, students began to ask me how come we were no longer "doing the stories about students in the class." That is the reason why I decided to try out TPRS again the following year; that year, I lasted 9 weeks. By my third year, I had a much better and realistic idea about what to expect.

These discussions got me thinking: Why is that so many teachers who in good faith and with the best of intentions and enthusisam try out CI/TPRS but leave it behind to return back to their previous methods? Here are my reasons:

1. Trying to do too much too quickly. I liken one's first year of teaching CI/TPRS to one's first year ever of teaching: it is all so new, and there is so much to learn. In their zeal, so many first-year CI/TPRS teachers try to take on too much right away, and suddenly, it becomes way too overwhelming, because no true foundation has been established.
2. Feeling like one has to go "all in" or else. For a number of reasons, I hate hearing folks say "If you really cared about your students and truly understood what true second language acquisition was all about, then you would jump on board with CI." Number one, that statement is incredibly arrogant and employs shame to get folks into facilitating CI, but more importantly, it gives the impression that there is no middle ground/transition for new CI/TPRS teachers. There are certain CI/TPRS teachers whom I will deliberately avoid in person or online purely because they come across as intolerant of anyone who supports traditional methodology or textbooks. Although I can understand their zeal, essentially I find them very negative, because there is no middle ground or transition in their worldview. 
3. Doing it for the wrong reasons. I have seen teachers jump on the CI/TPRS bandwagon, because it is trendy. When a new trend, however, comes about, they abandon CI/TPRS. 
4. Lack of support. The reason why most professional developments fail is because there is no adequate follow-up or support. Speakers come in and then go. At most inservices, information is cast out among teachers, but the net is never pulled in to see who is interested and wants to explore it further with support. Instead, interested teachers are left to operate on their own with this information, which usually results in frustration and abandonment. So imagine a world language teacher embarking on CI/TPRS on his/her own for the first time. Though he/she may have blogs and online communities to rely on for support, these cannot compare to a live, in-person CI/TPRS support group. This is why instructional coaches can play such an important role in the school environment.  

So if you are new to CI/TPRS or are wanting to implement it but are still hesitant, here is my single piece of advice for you: continue what you are doing but take one or two CI/TPRS strategies, and run with it. Do not feel like you have to abandon the textbook right away. Pick a strategy such as circling or an embedded reading to do with your students. If you can Ask a Story, then do it. Implement an activity like TPR, One Word Picture, Stultus, or a dictation. Have your students do a Ping Pong/Volleyball reading. There is no rush to get it all right the first time. When you feel up to it, incorporate a new activity or strategy to add to your routine. The idea is to build up your CI/TPRS muscles one step at a time. Think of it like stretching a rubber band: in the beginning, you may only be able to stretch a rubber band so far, but after awhile, you realize that you can stretch it further. 

I hope that many of you who have fallen off the CI/TPRS bandwagon will one day get back on!

Instructional Coaching

I am currently pursuing an Ed.S degree in Instructional Technology, with an emphasis on Instructional Coaching. While I have appreciated my Instructional Technology courses, what I am truly enjoying though has been my course in instructional coaching and its field experiences. 

I have learned so much about instructional coaching, and quite honestly, it is so different from what I thought it was going to be. In my mind, instructional coaching was going to be folks coming to me for instructional advice, much like Lucy at her psychiatrist's booth. While instructional coaching can reflect that, it is different on so many levels. Below are some points which I have learned about instructional coaching. Though much comes from Jim Knight’s book Instructional Coaching, a lot comes from my own field experiences this past semester:

1. Coaching is a partnership. Instructional coaching is not a top-down implementation, with an expert blindly dispensing advice to novices. Rather, both parties come to the table as experts in their areas and possess knowledge/information which the other needs. Each party needs the other in order to succeed, and no one is more important than the other.
2. Coaching is relational. Instructional coaching is not a one-time meeting but is a process. It takes time for trust and a level of comfort to be established. Not every potential coachee is open to the idea of being coached.
3. Coaching is non-judgmental. It is important to create an atmosphere of trust and of respect for the coachee. Though colleagues may disagree with each other pedagogically, it is imperative that both treat each other with respect, as both are professionals.
4. Coaching requires close listening and asking the right questions. What is the coachee saying? What is it that the coachee exactly wants? What parameters are the coachee setting? If this is to be a partnership relationship, then it is imperative that the coachee be heard. As the instructional coach, it is very easy to come to the table with one’s own agenda and plan for success. While the coach’s lesson may work out with a wonderful outcome in the classroom, it may be not at all what the coachee wanted.
5. Coaching allows for a coachee to find his/her voice. Although the coach may be an expert, he/she is not the one in front of the coachee’s classroom. While giving the coachee a pre-made lesson which a coach has created may yield classroom success, that is not the coachee’s voice but rather the coach’s. The coachee’s voice is one which needs to come through in the lesson. As part of a partnership relationship, both parties craft a lesson together which reflects each voice.
6. Coaching involves potential rejection. Not everyone is open to the idea of instructional coaching, and even in a coaching relationship, coachees may reject suggestions/ideas and even the coach.

Though my field experiences this past semester in instructional coaching primarily dealt with technology implementation in the classroom, I absolutely loved it. I was surprised at how natural the process all felt for me. Maybe it is because I have been a teacher for almost 20 years. Maybe it is because of my personality. Though I possessed a lot of book knowledge on instructional coaching, I was astonished at how quickly it turned into heart knowledge. 

I hope to be able to facilitate this knowledge with world language teachers. I will be serving as an apprentice coach this summer at IFLT, so I am looking forward to add that experience to my instructional coaching arsenal.

I wonder if I have found a new calling...

Memory Card Game

I am sure that you have played the Memory Card game, where you had a number of picture cards turned face down in front of you, and your job was to turn over 2 cards at a time in order to match the pictures. Many of you may have played this game using single vocabulary words, but here is a post-reading version which can be used with a story or a novella.  

Materials

1. 2 packs of 100 index cards. You can have one pack of 100 but you will need to cut the cards in half. Ideally, you will be using 200 cards for 10 groups.
2. A list of 10 sentences from a story or novel, with which students are very familiar. It is best that the senteces are not too overly long, so you can divide a long sentence into phrases.
3. Ziploc sandwich bags

Directions

1. Type up the list of 10 sentences, and print enough so that every student has a list.
2. Divde the students into groups of 3 students each. You can have groups of 2 students, but groups of 4 is too big. The groups will need to arrange their desks so that they have a common working space
3. Give each student a list of sentences.
4. Give each group 20 index cards.
5. Tell students to pick 3 different sentences from the list. If a group of 3, one student will have to pick 4.
6. For each sentence, a student will write the sentence on one index card and then illustrate the sentence on another card. NOTE - it is important that everyone in the group select the SAME SIDE of the card to do this, i.e., the group needs to pick either the blank side or the side with lines to write and to illustrate.
7. Give about 10-15 minutes for this.
8. Have each group collect their cards and shuffle them.
9. Have each group put their cards into the sandwich bag.
10. Collect the bags and distribute the bags so that every group receives a different bag, i.e., they will not receive back their own bag
11. Tell each group to lay their cards face down on their common working space.
12.  Explain to class that they will be playing the Memory Game where each group member will take turns turning over two cards at a time trying to match the sentence with the proper picture. They may use their list as a reference. It may be that students will turn over 2 picture cards or 2 sentence cards during play - this is okay.
13. When a match is made, that student will remove the two cards and keep them. You as the teacher can determine if you wish to have that student continue with his/her turn. I usually do not in order to allow for more students to play instead of having one student monopolize the game.
14. When all of the matches have been made (or time runs out), then the game ends for that group. The student with the most matches in the group wins.
15. If time remains, collect the decks and redistribute them again.

Observations

1. Because students are already working from a story with which they are familiar, the sentences should be very comprehensible for them. 
2. Because students are personally drawing pictures, this will aid in their acquisition process.
3. Due to the nature of the game, students are receiving constant repetitions of the language via the sentences or the pictures.
4. My absolute favorite part of the game though is students trying to interpret other group's pictures! I love hearing "Who the heck drew this?!!"
5. I have found that students help each other to remember where particular cards are.
6. I love the fact that as a teacher, I am simply facilitating. 

Consider giving this activity a try!

CI is the New Buzzword

Recently at a conference, a fellow-CI user attended a session which was publicized as one involving CI (the words "Comprehensible Input" were in the title). To her surprise, she found that the session really had nothing to do with CI, as the speaker was focusing on full immersion, forced output, and no translation into L1 for the establishment of meaning. Yet, the speaker was saying that these were all components of a CI classroom. 

The term "CI" has become the new buzzword in world language education, but unfortunately, I do not think that many people who use the term truly understand it. On the one hand, I am happy to see that many teachers are embracing CI, but I also do not like the fact that CI has become "trendy." As I write this, please do not think that I wish to play "CI police" or that I own the market on CI, since I too still am learning about Comprehensible Input. By no means am I a full expert on the topic. 

In many occasions, however, a misinformation regarding CI is disseminated. This may be the result of a number of reasons. Now there is a difference between those who knowingly use the term CI but possess a limited understanding of it and acknowledge that they want to learn more about it vs. those who use the word generously but think it to be something else. I feel that there are many out there who possess an academic knowledge of CI but not a heart understanding of it.

Ways to learn about CI:

1. Attend a local CI workshop in your area. Here is a listing of Blaine Ray TPRS workshops, and Laurie Clarcq has an updated list on her blog. 
2. Read CI blogs. On the sidebar, there is a listing of CI blogs which I regularly read.
3. Join CI communities, either online or in person.
4. Attend national CI conferences, such as NTPRS and IFLT.
5. Collaborate with other CI users, either online or in person. This is key. I really do not think that I would be the CI teacher which I am today if it were not for a my community of local CI users.

Although learning about CI through reading blogs is helpful, in my opinion, it is not enough, as it is limited; blogs can only go so far in teaching about CI. I cannot say it enough: one of the best ways to understand Comprehensible Input is to experience it first hand learning another language which you do not know from a teacher using CI and to experience all components of the language (listening, reading, writing, speaking) in a CI manner. I always point to my experiences with Blaine Ray at my first TPRS workshop where I learned German and with Betsy Paskvan at two NTPRS conferences where I learned Japanese. The first hand experiential knowledge of CI is key, because you will understand how your own students feel in your classroom.

I have found that in my own experience that the more I learn about CI, the more I teach using it, and most importantly, the more I myself experience it, the deeper my knowledge of CI becomes. I hope the same for you too.