The Need for Establishing Meaning

A few months ago, a college student in a language education program asked me about TPR, since she was having to lead a lesson in Latin for elementary school students. As she had never worked with any type of oral Latin before, I explained the basics of TPR and how one could do it in Latin. I then told her, "Be sure to write the Latin word and the English meaning on the board or if the students cannot read yet, define the word aloud in English in order to establish meaning." She immediately responded, "We are not allowed to use any type of English. It has to be full immersion." 

We world language teachers are very familiar with the ACTFL guideline of 90% classtime in the target language, and in our methodology classes in college, we heard all about the necessity of an immersion classroom. But we also must be mindful of the following: immersion can turn very quickly into submersion for students. To quote Carol Gaab, "In an immersion environment, students cannot control the comprehensibilty or the amount of language thrown at them." The 4%rs may be able to keep up, but they are the exception. An incomprehensible immersion environment is simply just noise to students.

In order to avoid the use of English, many times, we rely on props, pictures or gestures to convey meaning. The problem with that is what seems obvious to us as meaning is not always obvious to students. Lauren Watson, a fellow CI teacher in my district and co-CI presenter/facilitator, uses the example of showing a picture of a swimming pool for the word piscine. To Lauren, it seems obvious that she is trying to communicate the word swimming pool, but students can interpret the picture in other ways: water, to swim, swimmer; and if she were to gesture the act of swimming in a pool, some could interpret that as to dance!

Once with Latin 1 students, I was demonstrating the word carry in Latin via TPR. To me, since the action matched the meaning of the word, I did not feel the need to establish meaning. At the end of class, after doing lots of repetitions via TPR of the word, I asked in English, "What does porta mean?" One student answered "To hold something and to walk with it at the same time." I was a bit dumbfonded and responded, "Do you mean carry?" He replied with a smile, "...Oh yeah..." While we all had a nice chuckle, I realized, "Oh my gosh, I just wasted that student's classtime by not establishing meaning. If I had just told him the meaning right away, he could have acquired that word SO MUCH sooner."

So what is the best way to convey the meaning of a word so that everyone understands? Quite simply: write the word and its English meaning on the board. So many times, we will try to define the word in the language, to draw a picture, to use props, to use synonyms, etc. In my language learning experiences where it has been an immersive situation, my attitude is "Just tell me what the word means in English so that I can move on! You are wasting my time by trying to do everything else, because I do not understand what you are saying!!"

Already, I can hear folks saying, "Hey, that is translation!" My answer is "No, it is not - it is establishing meaning. If you are going to hold 90% of classtime in the target language, then consider this as part of your 10% classtime in English."

Writing the word on the board with the English meaning allows the following:

• immediate comprehension of the word for all
• a opportunity for me to "point and pause" whenever I use the word
• a reference for students whenever I use that word again in the lesson

If I get in the necessary repetitions, then students will no longer need to use the written words as a reference. They will no longer be focusing on the written English translation whenever they hear that word, because after time, they become very familiar with it and begin to internalize it. At my first TPRS workshop with Blaine Ray, where he demonstrated this in German, and at NTPRS with Betsy Paskvan, where she taught us Japanese, each of them had the target words written in the language and in English. Whenever the word was used, both of them "pointed and paused" for us and then continued on. I so appreciated this, because in the beginning, I was clinging to those cues. After awhile, though, due to the massive amount of repetitions and of interactions with the language, I noticed that I was no longer having to look at the English meanings. I was now comprehending what they were saying!

You can also conduct comprehension checks in English to ensure that meaning has been established for everyone. Take a 1-2 minute timeout, where you ask, "When I said 'X,' what was I saying?", "What does 'X' mean again in English?" "What word means 'X'?", etc. If you receive incorrect responses, then that tells you that you need to re-establish meaning again.

Whenever I introduce a reading for the first time (assuming that I have done pre-reading activities), I will have the class do a choral reading in order to establish meaning of the story for all. To me, this is a necessary step, since I plan to do 4-5 post-reading activities of that reading; if I do not establish meaning right away, then it becomes much more difficult for students.

So try establishing meaning right away - your students will thank you for it!

Read, Draw, and Label

Here is a very easy post-reading activity to implement in class. It is called Read, Draw, and Label and the objective is exactly how it sounds - students read a short story and illustrate it. I usually have students do a Read and Draw after we have gone over a story for at least two days in various ways. What I love most about doing this activity is how low-key but effective it is.

There is some setup on your end:

• A short COMPREHENSIBLE story (around 10-15 sentences) which the class has been going over a number of days in various ways. I would not use a story which students have not seen.
• Paper with cartoon frames on them. I usually print them out for students so they know how many frames they are to illustrate.

Instructions

1. Tell students that they are illustrate each sentence from the story using the cartoon frames
2. In addition to illustrating, students are to label the parts of their cartoon with the corresponding Latin word. Students are NOT to write the sentence itself but to label their picture
3. I usually give students 20-25 minutes to complete this at one sitting, but there are others who will have students do a Read and Draw as part of telling a story. After each sentence which the teacher tells as part of a story, students have 2 minutes to do a Read and Draw of that particular sentence.The Read and Draw then becomes incorporated as part of the storytelling.

Optional post Read and Draw activities

1. Ask students comprehension questions in Latin about the story. Students can use the Read and Draw as a reference.
2. Using the Read and Draw, in partners, students retell the story to each other. 
3. Using the Read and Draw, students rewrite the story as a Timed Write.

Observations

1. This is another way to get students to interact with the language using different modalities. They are demonstrating comprehension through drawing the sentence but are writing the Latin which corresponds to each part of the picture.
2. Because students themselves are drawing visual representations of the words, they are creating a personal association with the vocabulary in a meaningful context.
3. Tell students not to get caught up in their drawings too much. To quote the great Sally Davis, "Everyone can draw stick figures!" Some students will complain that they cannot draw at all, while others will spend 20 minutes on just one frame. 
4. It is a student-centered activity. As the teacher, I simply facilitate!

Deep and Simple

When I was growing up, I was never a Mr. Rogers fan. For some reason, I never felt a strong connection to him or to his show - according to my mom, I was more of a Sesame Street/Electric Company kind of kid, and she swears that it is because of those shows that I know my letters, numbers, and can read. Now as an adult, I am in awe of Mr Rogers due to his gentle spirit, his wisdom and his unconditional display of grace to others. 

One of my absolute favorite quotes is by Mr. Rogers. In the late 1990's, when talking with an MTV producer about the flashy, quick-paced, sound-byte media era in which we live, Mr. Rogers simply said: 

I feel so strongly that deep and simple is far more essential than shallow and complex.

When I look at education today, I strongly believe that we are focusing on the shallow and complex by covering too much material too quickly on a superficial level (hello, AP syllabus?!). Should not we be striving for the opposite? 

I feel that CI/TPRS teachers have a good understanding of deep and simple. Is that not what we as CI/TPRS teachers are trying to establish in our classrooms? A deep and simple approach to teaching language? We strive to accomplish this through:

• delivering understandable, comprehensible messages in the target language - when students understand what we are saying, they are engaged and "with us" in the moment. Their affective filters lower, hence subconscious acquisition can occur. Strategies like embedded readings help scaffold a lengthy passage into readable, bite-sized chunks but yet keep adding new details to the reading.
• limiting vocabulary... - Yes, students need to know vocabulary, because we are teaching a language, but gosh, we have traditionally overloaded them with WAY too much vocabulary WAY too quickly. Students' affective filters rise when we show them a list of 30 vocabulary words and tell them that there will be a quiz over these words at the end of the week. Students need time to "absorb" the words through repetitions in meaningful contexts. CI/TPRS focus on teaching high frequency words first in order to build that foundation early. We use limited target vocabulary in our stories, and the truth is that limited vocabulary can actually go a LONG way.
• ...but not sheltering grammar - When teachers limit vocabulary, as a result, they can easily spingboard into "complex" language structures. Just because the textbook (and we ourselves) say that students are not supposed to learn the subjunctive until the upper levels, that does not mean it cannot be used in level 1. If it is used with known vocabulary in meaningful context, students understand what you said. Now can they replicate the subjunctive themselves at that level? Probably not, but should that dissuade us from using those structures with them if comprehension is our goal? 
• personalizing stories and implementing Personalized Questions and Answers (PQAs) - Including students as part of a story plotline or asking them PQAs is one way to say to students "I see you, and I value you." We establish connections between students, and as a result, a relationship and trust develops - one's classroom becomes a community.

Deep and simple does not mean that we have "dumbed down" the curriculum or that we have taken away rigor. On the contrary, we have actually focused the curriculum in such a way that all students can succeed in acquiring a language. 

How deep and simple is your classroom?

Same Coversation, part 3 - Morning Routine

This is the last post of a series.

I have found that students very much want routine in their lives. To a degree, routine brings comfort, and to deviate from it can bring stress. In between class periods, I can usually be found standing outside of my classroom, greeting students as they enter - heaven forbid, if I am not there! A few times, I have been neglectful of being out in front of my classroom, and i have had students "panic," thinking that I was sick and that they had a substitute instead!

Establishing a short 5-minute morning routine of target language activities can be a very easy way to enact Same Conversation. Something as simple as greeting the class in the target language on a daily basis can go a long way. Examples of activities which you can do as part of a morning routine:

1. greeting/salutation
2. the day of the week/date - this can be kind of tricky depending on how your target language handles dates. I tend to stick with just the day of the week.
3. weather report - this can be something as simple as hodie nubilosum est, hodie sol lucet, hodie pluit, hodie ventilosum est. One day, i am going to add props for this!
4. "word of the day" - my school has a "word of the day" which we are supposed to go over with students. Why not tell them in Latin? "vocabulum hodiernum est (English word), et significat (English meaning)."

As long as you establish meaning early and are delivering understandable messages in the target language, then students will have no problem understanding what you are saying. Because this is all a daily morning routine, you have a natural built-in way to get in repetitions needed for subconscious acquisition. 

A morning routine is also a great way to introduce those topics which may not appear in your textbook. Or if your textbook spends an entire chapter on weather (this seems rather unnecessary), this is a way to "cover" that topic so that you can devote time to other topics. 

Variation: After a few months of doing this, assign students to do some of these tasks. Due to the sheer daily repetitions, it really is not that difficult for them to do. I stumbled upon this, as one day I forgot to say salvete to the class as soon as the bell rang. A student called me out on it, and immediately, I said, "You know, I am not the only one who can do the greeting. Why don't you greet the class for me today?" At once, she did, and soon, other students began to ask if they could do the greeting the next day.   

Same Conversation, Part 2 - Movie Director

This is part 2 of a series of three posts.

My last post dealt with the technique Same Conversation and TPR - how to have the same conversation in a novel yet meaningful way when using TPR. What are some other ways outside of TPR?

Many textbooks have dialogue practice in them, but in most cases, the dialogues themselves are rather stilted. Here is another VERY easy and fun strategy of doing Same Conversation with textbook dialogues: 

I call this activity Movie Director. Carol Gaab demonstrated this at NTPRS last summer (I do not think that she called it "Movie Director"), but I remember doing skits like this (in English) at summer camp when I was growing up:

1. Pick two students whom you think are good actors. (or as many are needed for the dialogue). Many times I will ask the class, "Whom in this class do you think will do a good job of acting?" 
2. Project the dialogue or part of it - eight sentences is about right. 
3. Have those students come up to the front of the room and simply read it aloud without any type of emotion. You may have to translate it into English first in order to establish meaning for the class.
4. Now you as the Movie Director say in the target language, "Okay, that was good, but can you do it now loudly"?
5. The actors read the dialogue aloud and act it out loudly
6. Now you as the Movie Director say in the target language, "Okay, that was better, but this time do it happily?"
7. The actors now act out the dialogue happily.

The idea is that after each time, you tell them to do it differently, such as sadly, angrily, romantically, slowly, quickly, etc.

Observations

•  It is absolutely hilarious watching students act out the same dialogue differently each time, and it makes reading through a dialogue less "painful." 
• The class is engaged in watching the dialogue acted out differently each time, when in reality, it is hearing the same dialogue over and over again, thus getting in the necessary repetitions of language needed for subconscious acquisition. This is also a great way to work with adverbs. 
• Sometimes I ask students for different ways the dialogue can be acted out - you will be surprised at how many times you can have the same dialogue acted out differently. Suggesions have included: Valley Girl accents, Darth Vader/Yoda voices.

Same Conversation, part 1 - TPR

This is a first of a series of three posts.

One of the main tenets of CI is that language learners need constant repetition of vocabulary/structures in a meaningful context in order for them to acquire the language subconsciously. The problem is how to do this without making it boring for students, because in the words of Carol Gaab, we know that "the brain CRAVES novelty!"

One way of accomplishing this is Same Conversation, a technique which I learned from Evan Gardner, founder of "Where Are Your Keys?". Same Conversation is exactly how it sounds - have the same comprehensible conversation in the target language multiple times in order to get in the necessary repetitions. Due to the "sameness" aspect, language learners become familiar with what they are hearing and can anticipate what will be said next.

There are a number of ways in which one can accomplish this and still keep it novel. Total Physical Response (TPR) itself is full of repetitions, as the teacher is the one telling students what to do in a Simon Says kind of fashion, and students demonstrate their comprehension by completing the action. Commands are constantly repeated in various ways. After awhile, however, TPR can get really old, really fast for students. At NTPRS last summer, Carol Gaab demonstrated a great way of doing Same Conversation with TPR which really resonates with students. Based on her example involving the word "pick up," here is how I accomplished it in Latin 1 on the 3rd day of class - it simply involved a baby doll. The target word was sume (pick up) - because it was only day 3 of Latin 1, I spoke in a mix of Latin/English:

Me: Joe, sume infantem! (Joe picks up the baby doll by its neck)

Me: Really, Joe? That is how you sume infantem?! This is an infans! Let me show you how to sumere infantem! (I overdramatically pick up the baby doll gently, cradling its neck and put it back down)
Me: Katy, veni huc (come here)and show Joe how it's done. Sume infantem! (Katy picks up the baby doll somewhat gently)
Me: Really, Katy? That is how you sume infantem? Again, this is an infans! Melissa, veni huc and show Katy and Joe how it's done. Sume infantem! (Melissa picks up the baby doll very gently and does a better job)
Me: Ok, better, but gosh, Ben, veni huc and show Joe, Katy and Melissa how to do it. Sume infantem! (Ben overdramatically picks up the baby doll as if it were a real baby)
Me: Optime, Ben! Now Melissa, sume infantem! (Melissa overdramatically picks up the baby doll as if it were a real baby).
Me: Optime, Melissa! Katy, sume infantem! (Katy overdramatically picks up the baby doll as if it were a real baby)
Me: Optime, Katy. Joe, sume infantem! (Joe overdramatically picks up the baby as if it were a real baby).
Me: Optime, Joe! Now you know how to sumere infantem!

Observations

1. During that whole interchange, I had repeated the phrase sume infantem (or some variation of it) ELEVEN times in the span of a couple minutes, but students did not realize it or tire of hearing the phrase due to the "problematic scenario" which I had created.
2. The class was entirely engaged and laughing during the whole interchange, watching their fellow students pick up a baby doll, being chastised for doing it incorrectly and only being praised when it was done overdramatically. Little did they realize that it was all a ploy in order to get them to hear the phrase sume infantem over and over again in a meaningful and novel way. They simply thought it was just about learning how to pick up a baby properly. Haha, I am so devious..
3. Even though I used the infinitive form sumere at times, it did not impede comprehension.

Progress Report

A few months ago, I wrote up a posting here about what my CI goals were for the year. With 1st semester having ended and 2nd semester to begin in a few days, I thought that I would give you all a progress report of how things are going so far this year. Here are my reflections:

1. Leave the textbook behind - I have not completely left behind the textbook, but rather I am doing a "hybrid" approach. As I have two other Latin colleagues who follow the textbook closely, I cannot just abandon it. Instead, I took a look at what needed to be covered for the semester and took my own approach at it: covering the material how I want to and in what order I want to. In some ways, I have been successful, but in other ways, there have been some "grammar" concepts which I did not get to. I am not concerned though. 
2. Deliver understandable, comprehensible and compelling language to students in word and on paper - I have gotten better at this, but I still have a long way to go. On many occasions, I feel that I am indeed delivering messages, but they are not 100% comprehensible or compelling. As I have read on a number of CI/TPRS blogs: less is more. 
3. Limit vocabulary - This is the one area where I start to panic a bit. If I were following the Latin 1 textbook, at this point, students would “know” 160 words. For me, I have only introduced 60 words, so part of me feels like “Wow, I am SO behind.” But I also realize that:

• I have introduced lots of high frequency vocabulary first which the book does not until much later
• in limiting vocabulary and lots of interaction with the language through meaningful repetitions, my students have truly acquired these words. They are not having to make flashcards to learn these words, because they are learning them subconsciously. My students truly know these words now, because they have ACQUIRED and internalized them. The proof: although my vocabulary quizzes are unannounced and cumulative in nature, 90% of the students are scoring 100s on them (the lowest score is around an 80). Plus, students are using these words on their own in their timed writes.

         I would much rather have that students acquired 60 words than "memorize" 160 words                 for a quiz and then forget them.

     4. Hit the high frequency words first - Wow, this has completely changed the way in                        which I teach language. I do not know why textbooks do not do this! Hitting high 
         frequency vocabulary first has given me so much freedom and for students to create 
         language. Here is a great post by Crystal Barragan about what high frequency verbs 
         should be taught first.
     5. Incorporate a Word Wall in my classroom - DONE! I love having a word wall, and I 
         do not know why I waited so long to do one. I will address this in a later post.
     6. "Point and Pause" more - I am doing a much better job at this. I have always written 
         new words on the board in order to establish meaning, but now I am deliberately 
         "pointing and pausing." In fact, I am pausing for a longer time than I have before. It 
         slows me down in presenting the words, which as a result allows for added time for 
         students to process the vocabulary. At NTPRS last summer, when learning Japanese                     from Betsy Paskvan, I remember how much I appreciated it when she "pointed                                and paused." 
     7. Vary things up - I have adopted Carol Gaab's mantra "The brain CRAVES novelty." I 
         try to do 2-3 different strategies/techniques a day and not to repeat a strategy until 3-4 
         weeks have passed in order to preserve the novelty. I have written up an earlier post 
         addressing this. Even in circling, I have followed Carol's advice and vary it up every 
         4th/5th question by then doing a PQA and then after every 4th/5th question of that, 
         I will change it up again.
     8. Focus on student reading and re-reading - This seems like such an easy and given 
         strategy but gosh, we language teachers completely neglect this. Reading and re-
         reading is indeed where the "magic" happens in second language acquisition! The 
         key though is to vary up the strategies so that the re-reading has a different focus 
         each time, thus preserving the novelty.
     9. Read more CI/TPRS blogs - I have read some really good blogs out there! I will                               address this in a later post. 
   10. Attend CI/TPRS presentations at conferences - At ACTFL, I did not attend one 
         Latin session (outside of the one on Untextbooking as it was led by Bob Patrick, 
         Miriam Patrick and Rachel Ash), instead focusing on sessions which addressed 
         Comprehensible Input. There were many Latin teachers there who did not even know 
         that I was at ACTFL until the ACL reception, because they did not see me any of the 
         Latin sessions.

So far, I am very pleased with how my CI progress is going. It is actually very exciting seeing the acquisition process occurring in students - it is SO much different from the results which I have seen using past memorization/drill-and-kill methodology.

I am looking forward to this new semester - at the end of May, I will give you my final update.