Rethinking Output, part 3 - Retrieval Practice as Part of the Output Process

The following is part of a series on Rethinking Output. It is based on my summer of listening to podcasts. 

As part of this series, let me restate some non-negotiables regarding output according to second language acquisition research:

1. Output in and of itself does not lead to language acquisition. "Practicing the language" does not produce language acquisition. Oral grammar drills, singing mnemonic songs, and memorized scripts/scenarios do not cause the brain to acquire language.
2. Only input leads to language acquisition, as continued understandable input is what causes the brain to create/refine its mental representation of language.

In part 1 of this series on Rethinking Output, I focused on Florencia Henshaw's definition of output, "Expressing meaning retrieving from one's (language) system." Part 2 centered on why one's system and mental representation of language cannot be built with grammar charts and rules, per Bill Van Patten. This blog post will focus on the mental language retrieval practice to facilitate the output process. For this, I look to Liam Printer's The Motivated Classroom podcast. 

Printer has a podcast episode dedicated to the topic of retrieval practice. In the episode notes for that particular episode, Printer writes:

'Retrieval practice' is a study technique where mental effort is used to recall information. It focuses on bringing information to mind which enhances and boosts learning. Deliberately recalling information forces us to pull our knowledge “out” and examine what we know. 

This very much aligns with what Henshaw discussed as a guest on Claudia Elliott's Growing with Proficiency podcast:

It's so important to talk about the fact that [students] need to be retrieving from their system...One is because we need them to build a system in the first place...And the other one is that if they don't, then output is not serving the purpose of honing the skill of retrieving from the system, which is the function of output. So input helps to build a system. Output helps with the skill of accessing the system...And so to hone the skill of accessing something, you need to be accessing that something.

In his episode on retrieval practice, Printer gives examples of 11 very easy activities where the goal is to activate the retrieval process of vocabulary in students' brains. In some ways, I guess these activities could qualify as a form of output per Henshaw's definition, since students are retrieving this vocabulary from their brains (as opposed to you the teacher supplying it). However, these activities are incredibly sheltered and guided. Big picture, these activities also are a form of input for students. For those of you who have to deal with formal lesson plans, these activities are great "background knowledge activators"!

I invite you to listen to Printer's episode where he details the retrieval process and these 11 activities in just 27 minutes! I have already done a few of these with my Latin 4 students as a way to recall past vocabulary from previous years and had a lot of fun with them - I will write about them in future blog posts. 

Upcoming blog post: Output as Motivation in the CI/ADI Classroom

2,000,000 Page Views!

Did I read that stat correctly?? My blog has passed over 2,000,000 page views??? Granted, I will admit that probably 50%-60% of these views are from AI/spam bots, but still when I began this blog in December 2013, I was happy that twelve people (and Latin teachers at that) read my blog. Based on feedback, the majority of people who read my blog now are actually modern-language teachers!

So roughly 480 blog posts later, here we are! Thank you all for reading my blog and for thinking that I have something to say! I look forward to continuing writing more posts and sharing what I learn about the CI/ADI classroom.

Reducing Cognitive Load and Clutter

Students returned last week. My first week back with students is done. My summer is officially over. 

With my Latin 1 classes, again I am doing a Latinized version of a German 1 lesson which I adapted from Eric Richards. This lesson focuses on the words play, well, badly, has, is, and not. At CI Summit this past summer, I demonstrated a very condensed version of this 5-day lesson plan in three 1-hour sessions with Squad 2 (who knew no Latin) so that they could experience learning Latin like one of my own students on the first days of school. 

After teaching gestures for the words play, well, and badly, I had students draw on whiteboards what they like to play (a sport, a game, an activity - not an instrument thought. In Latin, one does not play an instrument but rather sings with one). From there, I began PQAs with the target words. Sentences like "Marcie basketball ludit" "Marcie, ludisne basketball bene?" and "Barbara backgammon ludit." While the activity went well, I did have some participants ask me why I used the English words for basketball and backgammon and not the Latin words - are there Latin words for them? I responded, "Yes, there are indeed Latin words for them, but I deliberately chose not to use them, because my focus for this lesson was on the words ludit and bene. Using the Latin words for basketball and backgammon would have given you too much Latin on which to focus - I don't care that you acquire the words for basketball and backgammon - those are not important right now. I want you to begin acquiring the words ludit and bene. I do not want to waste your memory bandwidth on unimportant words at the moment." To use educationese, my goal was to reduce the cognitive load for these learners. 

Too often with novice-level learners, in our attempt to expose students to the language, we unknowingly overload our messages to them, even if those messages are comprehensible. Too many functions are going on in their brains. While Latin purists will have a problem with my use of Latinglish with these learners, I am doing everything I can to reduce the clutter which would impede their acquisition of my target words.  

One way to reduce clutter for novice-level students when trying to target specific vocabulary words are to use cognates (which does not always work, because as teachers we know that cognates which are obvious to us are not obvious at all to students), proper nouns, and brand names. Examples:

• Carlos has Takis.
• Sheryl goes to Target.
• Jamal is bringing a CrockPot.

A way to reduce clutter in novice readings is to present just one idea per sentence and then build upon it either with an additional idea, recombining of ideas, or a compound sentence. Examples:

• Marcus has a dog. The dog is big. Marcus has a big dog.
• Jolene sees her sister. Her sister is in the kitchen. Jolene sees her sister in the kitchen, and she shouts.

Anyhow last week, I began this lesson with my Latin 1 students on the first day of school, and it went well! My students Brendan plays football and plays it well, Zoe plays volleyball but not very well (she likes it though) and Sara plays Uno well (I do not know how one plays Uno badly lol). I look forward to learning about my students this year in Latin!

Rethinking Output, part 2 - The Wrong Kind of Input

The following is part of a series on Rethinking Output. It is based on my summer of listening to podcasts. 

When it comes to output in a language, based on second language acquisition theory, there are a few non-negotiables:

1. Output in and of itself does not lead to language acquisition. "Practicing the language" does not produce language acquisition. Oral grammar drills, singing mnemonic songs, and memorized scripts/scenarios do not cause the brain to acquire language.
2. Only input leads to language acquisition, as continued understandable input is what causes the brain to create/refine its mental representation of language.

If you have read my previous blog post in this series, you know that I am now basing my definition of output on how Henshaw defines it: Expressing meaning retrieving from your (mental language) system. As a result, there are many activities which may appear to be output-related but are actually input since no retrieval from one's system is occurring, i.e., students are not pulling this output from their brains. However, students cannot retrieve from their system if there is no input there to build that system.

So the question then is "If input is necessary to build that system, then why can't that input be grammar charts, conjugation tables, etc? Input is input, right?" 

For this, let us turn to Bill Van Patten. Van Patten is truly an expert on this topic, and I would venture to say that he has served as one of the most recent influencers of CI/ADI teachers due to his previous podcast series and his books. 

The purpose of input is that it creates, defines, adds to, and refines the brain's mental representation of language. That mental representation of language cannot be reduced to explicit, orderly grammar charts, because by nature, language acquisition in and of itself is an abstract system. When learning a language, that mental representation system is MESSY! 

On Claudia Elliott's Growing with CI podcast (episode 135), regarding grammar as input, Van Patten states the following:

If you don't understand how second language acquisition happens, if you don't understand about the nature of language, if you don't understand about the nature of communication and how these things fit together, what you're going to do as a teacher, you're going to say, oh, okay, I know what I need to do now. I need to take input and teach the same old thing a new way. So I'm going to teach verb endings with input.

I'm going to teach the past tense with input. I'm going to teach the food vocabulary with input, whatever it is that is in textbooks. People are going to say input is a technique because they don't understand second language acquisition itself or the nature of language or the nature of communication.

One statement for which Van Patten is known surrounds teaching explicit grammar. From his book While We're On the Topic: BVP on Language, Acquisition, and Classroom Practice: 

What’s on page 32 of the textbook is not what winds up in your head. 

Explicit rules and the mental representation we carry around for language are like water and fatty acid: One can’t become the other. They are fundamentally different. This would explain, then, why what an instructor teaches and has students practice on page 32 doesn’t become mental representation. What’s on page 32 is water. What winds up in the head is fatty acid.

Instead we should be using and exposing students to understandable message with the grammar embedded in that context. Our focus should rather be on communication and not grammar. One can communicate grammatically incorrect and still be understood - in fact, that is an exemplar of Novice and Intermediate language learners. ACTFL and the College Board even state this!

This is not to say that you cannot introduce grammar charts but that is usually something which is introduced LATER in the language acquisition process. By that time, students' mental representation of language has been built up to such a degree that it can handle it. 

CAVEAT - keep in mind that we language teachers are the ones who loved grammar charts, because we saw/loved the patterns. Those charts helped bring order for our brains in developing that mental representation of language. Let me say this: we are the exceptions, not the rule. And when we end up with a classroom full of students who are exceptions like us, we tend then to think that this is the norm in how language acquisition occurs. IT IS NOT! Or worse, we begin to think that only students who think like us should be the ones taking a world language class or can be successful in one.

There is no way that a topic like this can be reduced to a series of quotes and simplified into a blogpost. I invite you to listen some podcasts with Bill Van Patten on the topic:

• Two Myths About Language Acquisition That Keep Shaping Our Classrooms with Dr. Bill VanPatten
• Talking Language Acquisition with Dr. Bill VanPatten: What Every Language Teacher Should Know about SLA - Part 2

Future blog post on the topic: 

1. Output as Motivation in the Classroom
2. Activating that Retrieval System Needed for Output