Musings on Introduction to CI/ADI Theory

Last week, I attended the Fluency Matters Conference in St. Petersburg, and I served as a Strand Guide for one of the Beginners/Novice strands. During those three days, these participants were exposed to A LOT about CI/ADI instruction and theory - I am certain that it felt like drinking from a fire house during those three days! Since it was a strand for beginners/seekers to CI/ADI, there often is a lot of resistance (which is perfectly okay. I was once one of the biggest advocates AGAINST CI/ADI). On the final session, as part of a gallery walk reflection, using post-its I asked my strand participants to write a short answer reflection on a number of questions. These are some of their responses to the following question:

How has your view of Second Language Acquisition and CI/ADI theories grown over the past week? 

• Grammatical accuracy is a result of acquisition, not the means of it
• It has deepened my confidence that this is the way to go
• Realizing that I can do this - just not all at once
• I now understand this is a long process. It just takes time. Just like when little kids are developing language
• I have a deeper understanding of how CI activities and strategies can be used together to help acquire a new language
• It can be changed little by little
• Less focus on grammar, but it is not "the enemy"
• I feel better equipped to use CI and challenge my students w/ higher level of questioning at the proper level
• SLA knowledge has grown from near nothing to mid-level understanding
• I can incorporate CI with activities which I already do in class

I love these responses, especially that many people realized that the transition to a CI/ADI classroom is gradual and takes time! 

So to anyone wanting to start their CI/ADI journey or who have been journeying for awhile, be aware that it is a continuous process - I feel that my view of CI/ADI continues to grow and to expand every year! The above responses definitely motivate me!

How to be Comprehensible in Class - Sarah Breckley video

I have just returned from the Fluency Matters Conference in St. Petersburg, Florida where I served as a Strand Guide for Novice/Beginners. My fellow Strand Guide Andrea Schweitzer shared this video with me to show my strand of participants on the last day. I only showed the first 3 minutes of it (it is 57 minutes long), but it is a really good primer on how to be comprehensible in the classroom. Sarah Breckley created this video (she too was a Strand Guide), and she says A LOT of very good and necessary things about the need to be comprehensible in the target language and what are ways in which we can achieve this.

So if you are a beginner, seeker, or advanced user of CI/ADI, pull up a seat and watch this - good stuff!

CI Summit 2023 Report (LONG)

The CI Summit in Savannah, GA ended yesterday, and I am still basking in the afterglow from it all. This weeklong conference is dedicated to "offer[ing] World Language teachers in-depth training and support for acquisition-driven instruction and comprehensible input [with the intent that] more teachers can bring these effective and equitable techniques back to the classroom." Thanks to Voces Digital for a wonderful week!  

What I love most about conferences like CI Summit is seeing teachers suddenly experience the a-ha moments like I did at my first NTPRS conference in 2014, and although this is my eighth CI/ADI summer conference which I have attended since then, it never gets old for me. I always walk away with my cup refilled! Even though I was serving in the role as a coach/cohort team member at the CI Summit, I still was able to experience the conference as a participant and to attend many sessions and language labs. As I reflect on and decompress from the week, here is my report of the sessions and language labs which I attended:

• My Cohort - Level 2 - At the CI Summit, I served as a cohort team member/coach for level 2. This group was for participants who have had some exposure to CI/ADI through attending a workshop/conference and possess some experience implementing a few CI/ADI skills but need more exposure and refinement. Gary DiBianca served as our cohort leader, with team members Andrea Schweitzer, Eric Richards, and me. We only had roughly 12 hours of instructional time over 4 days with our cohort participants, and we definitely used every minute of it. The theme for our cohort was volcanos and how we need to nurture our inner volcanos to eventually erupt our CI lava flow (yes, on paper, that may sound corny but it makes so much sense!) In many ways, I am certain that our participants felt like they were drinking from a fire hose, because we threw a lot at them. However, they were able to experience SO much as students! Eric began each day with questioning/PQAs in German and scaffolded it in such a way that by the last day participants were able to do some simple writing on their own in the language which they had acquired in that time! In Latin, I demonstrated TPR, a 3-place story, and post-reading strategies all for the purpose of previewing vocabulary and structures for a Latin cultural reading on Mount Vesuvius at the end of the week. Meanwhile interspersed through all of this, Gary and Andrea demonstrated other strategies such as One-Word Image, a volcano-related Movie Talk/Clip Chat (The Floor is Lava game) in Spanish and how to put it all together as a unit lesson. Oh, and did I mention that we also broke up into groups to work on skill-based practice such as circling/asking processing questions, storytelling, storyasking, etc.? By the end of it all, our cohort participants had so many a-ha moments! The majority of them had never experienced learning Latin or German before, but by the end, they had subconsciously acquired the target vocabulary/structures through interaction and robust exposure with the languages. Many of them did not realize that Latin could be spoken as a living language, so I am glad that I was able to expose them to that. 

• My Fellow Cohort 2 Team Members -  However, as much as I loved the participants in my cohort and what they got from our time together, I absolutely LOVED my other team members even more: Gary, Andrea, and Eric. We worked so well together, and our individuals strengths naturally complemented each other in what we each contributed during our cohort time. Gary, Andrea, and Eric are master teachers, and I learned SO MUCH from each of them in their demo sections.

The dream team: Andrea, me, Eric, and Gary

• Language Labs (Elementary school-aged students Spanish - Annabelle Williamson & Middle school-aged students Spanish - Skip Crosby) - I cannot get enough of the language labs! I love being able to observe CI/ADI instruction in action with real students, especially a language class where I do not know the language (which is pretty much all of them) so that I can experience learning like one of my own students - that makes such a HUGE difference. The labs are where the magic happens! I will always observe Annabelle whenever I can, and this year, I also observed Skip Crosby since I was serving as his lab debrief facilitator. The labs can be tricky since the instructors only have roughly 90 minutes of instructional time/day with their students for 4 days (while being observed!), but neither Annabelle nor Skip disappointed! While I definitely was able to see them demonstrate CI/ADI skills in their Spanish classrooms, what I loved most was their intentional effort to establish relationships with their students. During the first debrief session on Day 1, a teacher asked Skip, "How long have you known these students? You have such a good relationship with them." His response: "Just today. My goal today was just to love on them." Another thing which I absolutely loved about observing Annabelle and Skip over multiple days was me actually getting attached to their students - I felt like I had such a vested interest in them (even though I never interacted with them). Each day Skip would note to us observers that the "flowers were starting open up more" as students began to trust him more and to become more involved with him and the Spanish. I loved that I was able to witness this!!
• Brain Breaks presentation - Annabelle Williamson - If you have read my blog, you know that I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE Annabelle. I love that we share such a tremendous, profound, deep respect for each other, and I will always walk away learning something from her. I first learned about brain breaks from Annabelle back at the 2016 IFLT in Chattanooga, and she is a master of them! Although I came halfway to her presentation this year, I still walked away with my mind absolutely full of new ideas. However, my main takeaways from her presentation were that brain breaks need to be a minute or less, i.e., they are quick; because if they are longer, then they are a game, and games and brain breaks are two completely different things! Wow - I need to remember this! We played so many of these brain breaks with her, and I am certain that in the upcoming months I will blog about some of these new brain breaks which I learned as I try them out with my students. Annabelle also touched on how we can "communicatify" our brain breaks to engage our students with purposeful communication - I love this!
• Writing Strategies for the ADI Classroom - Eric Richards - My mind was absolutely blown in this workshop presentation - I feel like I am still processing everything! This has utterly changed the way in which I view writing in an ADI classrom. Eric is a GREAT presenter, and he demonstrated/had us take part in many simple, level-appropriate writing activities which we can implement immediately in our level 1 classes. The best part is how simple and low affective filter-raising these strategies are! Like what I learned from Annabelle, I am certain that I will be blogging about many of these in the upcoming year as I implement them. Let me plug his book Grafted Writing, which has these activities and so many more!
• Whiteboards - Although this was not a presentation, I will say that whiteboards were the MVP of the CI Summit. Because CI Summit was in Savannah and I am in the metro-Atlanta area, I drove to the conference. Innocently, I told my cohort team that I was going to bring my classroom set of whiteboards, markers, and rags since I wanted to use them for a possible activity in my part of the week's lesson. Because I was driving, it would be no big deal for me to bring them. Let me tell you: everything can be made better with whiteboards (just like bacon)! Eric used them during his daily questioning/PQA time in our cohort time and and then asked to borrow them for his writing strategies workshop presentation, and I used them in my cohort presentations. The whiteboards just raised everything to a new level - now I know why students love it when we use them in class! Gary, Andrea, Eric, and I have already talked about who of us will bring whiteboards to next year's CI Summit! 

If you were at the CI Summit, what did you get out of it? Were there any presentations, observations, or cohort time where you experienced any a-ha moments? What presentations did you attend where you walked away with some good ideas?

Hope to see you all next year in Philadelphia for CI Summit 2024!

Embedding a Textbook Dialogue - Example

When we engage in communication with our students, the goal should be that it be purposeful in nature. According to Bill Van Patten, "Communication is the interpretation, expression, and/or negotiation of meaning for a purpose, in a given context." How do textbook dialogues align with this definition of communication?

By nature, textbook dialogues are artificial, because no true purposeful communication is occurring. Yes, there appears to be an exchange of dialogue, but most likely, when we have students recite textbook dialogues, that is all it is: reciting. It is memorization and contrived communication. 

In addition, many textbook dialogues are set in environments outside of the classroom, which contributes to its artificiality. To quote something which I had written in an earlier post about purposeful communication:

[Purposeful] communication needs to occur in a realistic context and setting. Therefore, since we as teachers are communicating in a classroom, our communication needs to reflect what would occur in a classroom. The traditional textbook dialogues/role plays of "a trip to the doctor's office," "ordering a train ticket," and "maneuvering through the airport" are not truly communicative, because they are artificially set and delivered in a classroom context (and not in a doctor's office, train station, airport). If you wish to do those dialogues, then students need to be in those actual environments for these activities to have a true setting.

By no means does this mean that textbook dialogues are bad per se, but if you wish to align them with purposeful communication, then do the following: embed them into a reading, such as a story, diary entry, letter, etc. In doing so, now the textbook dialogues are in the realistic context of a classroom and can therefore be discussed in a classroom setting.

Below is an example of a reading which I created back in 2015 (before I even knew about purposeful communication) - it is translated from Latin into English. It incorporated greetings into a reading, and it was about two students of mine named Ian and Mustafa. I know that there is a similar Spanish version of this story out there, since Meredith White took my story and adapted it into Spanish: 

Ian sees a girl. The girl is beautiful. Ian loves the girl. Ian says, “O girl, hello. How are you? My name is Ian. What is your name?” The girl says, “Hello, Ian. I am fine. My name is Go Away! Goodbye!” Ian is sad.

Mustafa says, “What is her name?” Ian responds, “Her name is Go Away!”

Ian sees another girl. The girl is beautiful. Ian loves the girl. Ian says, “O girl, hello, my name is Ian.  What is your name?” The girl says, “Hello, Ian. I am very well.  My name is You are Annoying. Goodbye!” Ian is sad.

Mustafa says, "What is her name?” Ian responds, “Her name is You Are Annoying!”

Since these greetings were set in a reading, as a class we could discuss and review them in a classroom setting much beyond the traditional way of simply saying hello to students and asking what their names are and how they are doing.

Consider embedding textbook dialogues into readings to create purposeful communication!

The End of Another School Year

My school year has now come to an end. Finals have been graded. Grades have been posted. Graduation has commenced. My classroom has been packed away for the next few months. I am now officially on summer vacation.

I do not know if it has truly hit me that the school year is over. It is always feels weird to transition from the frantic rush of the end of the year with finals, graduation, and post-planning to now suddenly having two months off. When I look back at it all, I cannot help but feel such a sense of accomplishment: I got through it. And every year I do get through it. Albeit battered, bruised, and emotionally tired, I get through it. 

The words of a former college roommate annually replay in my mind at this time of the year. Over twenty years ago he and I were discussing our lives then since I was a teacher and he was a CPA. He said to me, "I envy you, because [your job] has a distinct beginning, middle, and end. My job is a constant series of projects." In my early years of teaching, I did not quite understand his statement, but now as I get older and gain more life experience, I truly treasure his words, because they ring truth.

I do not know if non-teachers understand why teachers need a summer vacation. It is so that we can put closure on the past school year. It is so that we have time away from students. It is so that we can heal and re-energize for when students return. It is so that we do not have to be teachers and can focus back on ourselves.

As always. this summer I am looking forward to not being Keith Toda, teacher, or Keith Toda, department head. I can simply just be Keith Toda. For a few weeks I will be Keith Toda, coach, at the Acquisition Academy in June and CI Summit in July, and Keith Toda, strand guide at the Fluency Matters Conference (so if you are at any of these, please say hi!). Outside of those three commitments, I will have no professional responsibilities, can just stay under the radar without any titles/designations, and can deteriorate - I hope you will do the same!

Translation is Not Bad...But...

The following post is directed more at Latin teachers than anyone else. This reflects my own personal views on the matter and not necessarily those of the CI/ADI Latin community.

Often I get asked "Why do you consider translation to be bad/wrong?" And my response is simply, "I do not think that it is bad at all...but..." Let me clarify:

• Translation in and of itself is NOT bad - in fact, it is 100% necessary! Translation from L2 into L1 establishes meaning. I do know that there are those who think that putting L2 into L1 is absolutely wrong (I have many colleagues in the spoken Latin community who feel that L1 is wrong when teaching Latin - in their words, "The ancient Romans never knew puella meant girl - puella meant puella to them!") While I can understand their sentiments, whether we like it or not, when learning a language, our brains are constantly trying to make connections between L2 and L1 when creating a mental representation of L2 and as a result will default to L1 for meaning. 
• However, big picture, translation is considered a low-level, thinking process. If you look at Bloom's taxonomy, translation is a level-2 function (Understand level), because what you are simply doing is taking L2 and putting it into L1. While there may be some "high level processes" going on to create the L1 translation, in the end all you have is the original L2 now in L1. You have not created any new meaning on your own. You have the author's original meaning now put into your own L1.
• One can translate something from L2 into L1 but have NO IDEA what is being communicated. When I translate Cicero, his sentence structures are so complex and the vocabulary is way beyond me to such a degree that I must have a Loeb or an English translation to guide me. When I translate his works, although I may have the words and grammar correct (based on my own personal shorthand), I do not always understand the meaning.
• Translation focuses on accuracy/performance and not on proficiency.
• But discussing an L2 reading in L2 is actually a high level skill. Even ACTFL and college programs recognize this. After 3-4 years of language instruction, the expected proficiency level for these learners will be Intermediate-Mid, which means being able to answer comprehension questions, to ask questions, and to have a basic low-level discussion. Being able to create responses needed for a higher level discussion in L2 and possessing the language control needed for this are signs of Advanced level proficiency. I consider myself to be at an Intermediate High/Advanced Low level Latin speaker, and I do not think that I could carry on a high level discussion at all in Latin about a passage - that requires a great deal of language control and knowledge of vocabulary. 
• As a result, our higher level discussions end up being in L1 about the L2 passage. Again, there is nothing wrong with this, but for example, when I see what the AP Latin exam essays are asking students to do, the focus becomes more on L1 with support from L2.

It may shock people, but I actually do a lot of translation into L1 in my classes! However, it is solely used to establish meaning, and I implement this very early in a unit lesson plan to expose everyone in the classroom with the L1 meaning. Where I disagree with translation is that when that is the sole end goal and there is no movement up Bloom's Taxonomy with the end goal (or eventual goal) of creating new meaning with that L2 at an appropriate proficiency level.

Essentially, it comes down to what your goals are. If the goal for your students are to be able to translate Latin into English, especially classical literature after 3-4 years and the AP Latin syllabus and then discuss the Latin in English, then your end goal will be translation. The AP Latin syllabus already is a bear to get through in a year as a translation model, so an attempt to create any new meaning in L2 over what is covered in that syllabus is counterproductive to what will be assessed on the AP Latin exam.

To break out of a translation model is very hard for us Latin teachers to do when quite honestly, that is all we know and have really ever known about Latin. Also throw in that this is what goes on in the college/university Latin classes and what Classics program are wanting incoming majors to master. For many Latin teachers, this is what they want Latin to be. If that is you, then great - go out and prosper. I know for myself, I want my students to do more with the language than just L1 translation, and it has taken me YEARS to come to this point. 

So I write this blog post not as an attack on grammar-translationists but rather as a way to clarify for you my own views on translation and what is my motivation behind it.

Where has the Middle Gone?

The following is based on my own observations and does not represent the opinions and experiences of the CI/ADI community as a whole. I am only speaking for myself here.

One of the tenets which I leaned when adopting a CI/ADI-based classroom was "teach to the middle" - teach to those students who are between the high-flying, achieving 4%ers and those not doing well in our classes. I like how Judith Dubois puts it in her blog: 

[The middle] are students who have difficulties but are willing and make an effort as long as they can understand. When the teacher sees that they are not understanding, [the teacher] backtracks so that the entire class can follow.

Many times we refer to these students as our barometer students, those students to whom we look to tell us how well the class is understanding something and when we can move forward. These are our target students when teaching.

However, since the return to a post-COVID/hybrid classroom, I am struggling with teaching to the middle. Upon the return to full in-person last year, I anticipated that there would be major knowledge gaps in my Latin classes, especially in my Latin 2 classes, since most had been digital students for Latin 1. And indeed, there were as I had anticipated. Therefore, I knew to manage my expectations. I moved at a slower pace to fill in knowledge gaps while moving forward with new material. I moved the goalposts from previous years of what I normally would be able to cover to an adapted curriculum which truly focused on sheltering vocabulary and not grammar - almost to a overly nauseating degree!

Flash forward to this year, and something with which many others and I are being confronted head on in our current levels 1 and 2: there is no more middle. Before COVID, while classes still had high flyers and struggling students, it seemed that there was a distinct middle to whom to teach and to target. Now post-hybrid, there is a WIDE chasm between the high-flyers and those struggling, with very few students who can serve as barometer students. I feel like I have students falling into two categoies: those who are doing very well in my class and those who are failing very well. I have never seen it before to this extreme. 

So I have to ask myself the following questions:

1. Just how much are we still dealing with knowledge and behavioral gaps from hybrid/digital teaching? These level 1 and 2 students never took language digitally/hybrid but were here for level 1 in full in-person classrooms, i.e., there were no L2 knowledge gaps per se to fill due to hybrid/digital. Many of these students were in middle school during hybrid/digital teaching.
2. Are there literacy issues involved? Am I dealing with something which is bigger than I can address on own and needs to be addressed by special education? 
3. Have we conditioned/trained students to think that they are not responsible per se for their learning? I will admit that during hybrid and last year to a degree as a teacher I was accepting missing work MONTHS LATE and lowered my expectations of what a passing student was. But the reality is that it is no longer 2021-2022 - is it wrong for me to expect a pre-Covid academic setting since things appear to be back to normal (or as normal as they are going to get)?
4. Do I need to adjust my view of what doing my 50% and what students' 50% mean?

These are questions which I am asking myself so that I can determine where I need to manage my expectations. What observations have you noticed about the middle?