Creating a Comprehensible Input

ClassroomDr. Robert Patrick

Parkview High School

Daily Schedule

8:15-9:45  Morning TalkPersonal StoryConcepts Presentation

9:45--10  Break10-10:45 Demo11-12:15 Break out12:15-12:30 Break12:30-1 Q and A

Week At a Glance--Tuesday• Keith’s Story

• Intro to CI Principles

• Circling demonstrated

• Breakout: Sequence of lessons from TPR to TPRS to Reading to Reading and Discussion—experiencing it in another language.

• Q and A

Wednesday

• Bob’s Story

• Managing the CI Classroom

• Demo—Video Talk

• Breakout: Video Talk—experiencing it in another language.

• Q and A

Thursday

• Lauren’s Story

• Teaching for May

• Demo: Dictee, Diktat, Dictatio, Dictado

• Breakout: Word Chunk Game; Pop corn reading

• Q and A

Friday

• The Big Picture and Differentiated Instruction using CI

• Demo: Embedded Readings

• Breakout: o Part A: What the big picture looks like in your

language, your schoolo Part B: Creating an embedded reading in your

language for level 1.

• Q and A

What motivates me

• Healthy langauge programs

• Equity in the classroom

Comprehensible Input

What CI teachers are doing

Our aim is to make the acquisition of the language we teach possible for all kinds of learners. In order to do that:

• we affirm that ours is a language like any other with its level of inflection.

• we affirm that anyone who wants to acquire ability in our language can do so if offered an approach which employs principles of best practice in language acquisition.

We we are doing . . .

• We acknowledge that most language teachers are themselves "four percenters" who enjoy questions of linguistics, grammar, and philology.

• These are fascinating disciplines of their own.

• They are not language acquisition, and they interfere with acquisition whenever and wherever they are substituted for best practices.Language teachers are NOT normal. For our

programs to grow and thrive we must be good at teaching NORMAL kids.

??????????????????????????• Do I have to give up my love of

grammar?

• My love of literature?

• My passion for history?

• My unending delight in philology?

• Language teachers MUST know and be trained in these things.

• It’s not what we know. It’s how we use it.

How to make a cheesecake

Cheesecake

• Graham crackers

• Sugar

• Salt

• Butter

• Cream cheese

• Vanilla extract

• Eggs

• Sour cream

• Heavy cream

• berries

Rotary Principle 1

The directions you are given may not mean what you think they mean

Rotary Principle 2

You can stay on the rotary as long as you like until you are sure where you are going.

Principles of CI--so far

1

It is impossible to prepare students to read the great literature in 3-4 years.

It is possible to give them basic reading facility AND an enjoyable experience of reading our language, which may encourage them to continue study, in school or on their own.

2Every student has a right to experience

being in a second (or third or fourth)

language

3Language teachers are

not normal and our language is not

different.

4Students only acquire

language, when they receive understandable messages in the

target language.

5One of the quickest ways to

deliver an understandable message is

to give an English equivalent for a new word or phrase.

6Language acquisition,

including the assimilation and understanding of grammar, according to the latest brain

research, happens unconsciously..

Forgetting that I am speaking another language

7Direct grammar instruction does not advance acquisition. It interferes.

It raises stress levels. Rising stress = lowering acquisition

Grammar instruction can be helpful in advanced stages of acquisition as students begin to NEED to edit their own language.

8Error correction tends to put

students on the defensive (raise stress).

It focuses on the form (grammar) of the language and not the message,

thereby inhibiting acquisition. Understandable messages are lost in

the “endings”.

9Shelter vocabulary, not grammar.

• All our texts do just the opposite.

• Consider Tres Ursi.

• What to do with our texts, especially if they have good stories?

10"Four percenters", both students and

teachers, will interfere with their own language acquisition by their desire to focus on grammar study, translation,

and language control.

11We have an obligation to stay

focused: am I delivering understandable messages in my

language?

“This is a game changer.”Keith Toda

Delivering understandable messageswill mean that WE are uncomfortable

and that students are more at ease.Lower stress = raised acquisition

12Reading another language is

not translating or speed translating.

• Reading: looking at squiggles on a page and seeing a movie in your head. Jason Fritze

• Reading proficiency: what you are able to do, not what you know about the language.

• Our methods have focused on knowing about and not allowed us to do much in our language..

13True reading develops in stages.

• It depends on acquired language.

• It does not correspond to a grammar curriculum.

• Reading is taking in understandable messages. If the messages are not understandable, it’s not reading.

14 i + 1

• i + 1 = where the students are, with interesting material plus a slight edge.

• Reading only advances acquisition when it is i + 1.

• No textbook currently in use in the US provides those kinds of readings

• Teachers are obligated to create and edit readings to fulfill this requirement.

15What we teach

• We do not teach a textbook.

• We do not teach standards.

• We do not teach AKS.

• We teach human beings (aka “students”).

• We teach a language.

• Textbooks are tools that may or may not be helpful (a hammer won’t drive a screw).

• Standards are guidelines.

• It’s ALWAYS about the human beings.

16Production, of any kind, does NOT

advance acquisition.

• Production happens when the individual is ready to produce and not a moment before.

• The individual will produce at the levels he/she is capable of and will advance at his/her own pace.

• The only thing that will increase the individual's ability to produce higher levels of language is to receive regular and constant understandable messages, i + 1.

17CI is not Immersion

Immersion camps, here or abroad, in all our languages

• Helpful and delicious in their own way, but . . .

• They are filled entirely with 4 percenters

• Screened by prior knowledge of grammar

• and not reduplicable in classroom

• with normal students (i.e. not 4 percenters)Immersion camps can be stressful, and rising

stress = lowering acquisition.

18CI does happen in all kinds of

classrooms.

• In strict grammar-translation classrooms, moments of understandable messages in happen, usually unintentionally.

• In immersion camps, understandable messages happen all the time, intentionally and unintentionally.

• How do we craft class sessions where for 90% of the time, we are delivering understandable messages in our language?

GPS Rule -- use tools the way they can best

be used in the location

Various Delivery Methods Under the

Umbrella

TPRCircling with ballsTPRS--ask and tellPQAWAYKMicrologueDictatioEmbedded readings

Read and DiscussOne Word PicturesWord Chunk GameReaders' TheaterLanguage ExperienceQuae creanda et facienda

Teacher: delivers understandable messages.

Exerceamus!