TPRS information

I've been hearing a lot about TPRS since time immemorial, and have had my share of doubts about it.  But if the goal is to conduct class mostly in Spanish, TPRS seems to be a method with a pretty high degree of success.  So I've been looking into it occasionally, and it bears further investigation.

Via Naomi Graham, in an e-mail to the ACTFL Language Educators Digest e-mail group (listserv? whatever those things when people you don't know e-mail a message board (or whatever) and you get to benefit from their wisdom right in your inbox), a variety of links about TPRS.

Quotes from the e-mail between the stars:

***
www.blaineraytprs.com   Blaine Ray is the "father" of the method
www.susangrosstprs.com  Susie Gross presents workshops around the country in TPRS methods
www.benslavic.com  Ben Slavic has a blog you can subscribe to, he is still teaching and using the method, and his blog is a wonderful introduction to what happens in his classroom and his mind.  He's a thinker!
www.tprstorytelling.com  Carol Gaab is another teacher, but I think she is mostly making presentations now and developing materials.
www.tprstories.com  Karen Rowan teaches and organizes workshops around the country called "fluencyfast" for adults to become proficient in a foreign language in very intense short time (like a weekend!)
***
One of my classmates in my brief online learning adventure also directed me towards Susan Gross's and Ben Slavic's websites, and I looked at them at the time.  I don't know anything about the others, but I assume they're good, too.

In the next week or so, I'm hoping to hear on a job (and I'm hoping to hear good news!).  In the meantime, I'm having kind of a hard time focusing.  So soon I'll get back to these web sites and try and come up with some sort of action plan to implement this (plus the 90 other things I want to do in my classroom) in the theoretical job I'll have in the fall.

Summer reading list

Time for a little light beach reading.

Good, T. L., & Brophy, J. E. (2004).  Looking in classrooms.  9th ed.  Boston: Allyn and Bacon.

In her review of Art and Science of Teaching, Dina Strasser suggests that this is required reading.  She also suggests that, with a cover price of $118 on Amazon, most teachers won't be able to afford the 10th edition.   Abebooks has a good-condition used copy for $80, but the 9th edition seems to go for somewhere around $22, much more in line with the price of most teacher-improvement books on, for example, ASCD.  At any rate, it's a classic study of doing things right in classrooms, evidently.

Buffum, A., Mattos, M., & Weber, C.  Pyramid response to intervention.  Bloomington, IL: Solution Tree. 

I got to see Mark Mattos speak, and we were given copies of this book.  The subject of his talk was "Fulfilling our Moral Obligation to Students."  It was pretty heavy duty stuff, all about "winning the education lottery" and the like.  It's related to the "Failure is not an option" idea.  The book is about getting everyone the support they need to meet the learning goals.

Hill, J. D., & Flynn, K. M.  Classroom instruction that works with English language learners.  Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

The premise of this book is to teach English learners how to speak English.  My premise is that we teach our classes in Spanish, and the same tactics and strategies should kind of apply.

Marzano, R. J. (2010).  Formative assessment & standards-based grading.  Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree.

I have one question for this book: How do formative assessments fit into a traditional grading system?

Sprick, R., Knight, J., Reinke, W., & McKale, T. (2006).  Coaching classroom management: Strategies and tools for administrators & coaches.  Eugene, OR: Pacific Northwest.

This was one of the most exciting trainings I went to last year, and the thing is a.) I wasn't really supposed to be there, and b.) it wasn't supposed to be a training.  It was a coaches' meeting, and I'm only sort of a coach.  But it was my first real introduction to CHAMPS, which was one of the more immediately exciting parts of the whole MiBLSi project for me--"Wow!"  I thought.  "Really useful classroom management skills!"  After this coaches' conference, all the things that overwhelmed me about The First Days of School suddenly made sense.  They gave us this book.

And the perennial favorites, The Art and science of teaching, and Making communicative lLanguage teaching happen.

...and that's a year.

Yesterday was the last day of school.  As last days go, I thought it was a great one.  The students participated in a wide variety of really fun, creative activities, designed, set up and executed almost single-handedly by my friend and colleague Preston.  Jeff the Science Teacher and his Experiential Sciences class built a trebuchet and spent a good chunk of the morning throwing softballs the length of most of a football field.  There was a slip-and-slide 60 feet wide and 80 feet long, a dunk tank that the principal dutifully sat in, face-painting.  The superintendent grilled hot dogs.  It was a real carnivalesque occasion.  (Hopefully I'll be able to steal some pictures from people with more foresight than me, or at least students who had their cell phone cameras on.)

It was also very sad for me and for several of my colleagues.  My position has been suspended, and I was laid off.  Kris, our instructional coach, will return to being our high school ELA teacher, which means that John (whose position was funded by ARRA money) is out of a job.  Jami, an amazing teacher with whom I've worked closely on the MiBLSi project, and was deeply loved by the students and parents, will be doing education outreach and missionary work in the Dominican Republic.  Gregg is continuing his education; instead of hiring another full-time art teacher, the administration is looking for an art/music teacher (or a part-time art / part-time music teacher; I was never clear on which).  Another colleague won't be returning for reasons which aren't mine to share.

I'm still writing a post to my students, thanking them for the four great years and encouraging them for the future.  The landscape of the school will be very different for them next year.  Children and young adults are flexible, but at least 5 and as many as 8 people they know and love (to varying degrees) will not be there. 

I'm also drafting one to the staff of our school, which I will probably never share with them.  I want to tell them to make the most of the time they've bought themselves at such great sacrifice.  I want them to know how good things are in their school, and how great they could be.  I want them to know what an honor it was to work with them.  But I couldn't tell them anything they don't already know, so maybe that little blurb will be enough.

There will, of course, also be a great deal of hand-wringing self-reflection over the year once the dust settles.

I have a great deal to say to our state legislators, and I have been saying it at length in a variety of formats.  I'll continue doing that until things improve.


I'm looking for a position now.

And at the end, there's nothing to say, except, Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the Burr Oak Community Schools year of 2009 and 2010.

Kohn v. Marzano

Or,

Homework oh homework, I hate you, you stink.

Those who know me know my distaste for Alfie Kohn.  He's the clarinet player of education reform.  He writes things like "The Homework Myth" and "Punished by Rewards" and "Why Your Student's Teachers are Secretly Trying to Kill Him."  (I made the last one up.)  However, he's ten times the researcher and education reform advocate I'll ever be.  When he writes something, it is a foolhardy researcher or practitioner who doesn't take it under advisement.  Having read a number of his articles and books, it turns out that the big reason I don't like him is because I'm under the distinct impression that he doesn't like me.

Those who know me know that I like Robert Marzano.  He's written a number of books that tell me in a clear way how I should be doing my job in order to do it better.  This makes me happy, because even if I fall far short of good practice, at least I know that I could be getting better.  The "Art and Science of Teaching" in particular provides useful frameworks for how to think about teaching.

In Classroom instruction that works, Marzano recommends giving specific kinds of homework.  In September 2006, Kohn criticizes researchers, including Marzano, to task for sloppy research, particularly on the subject of homework.  During the time that Kohn publishes this, Marzano is working on his next trick, The art and science of teaching.  In this book, Marzano cites Kohn's book, The homework myth (which I have not read yet), but not that I have been able to find.  (I skimmed Cha. 3 on practicing new information and was unable to find it.)  

I'm happy not to assign homework if it doesn't help students--that's one more element I don't have to design, align, assess, and provide feedback on.  So I'm left in a complicated spot: Kohn, a researcher I don't like but respect, proposes not to give homework.  Marzano recommends it, but may be faulty in his meta-analysis methods.  By inclination, I don't give homework, because I'm lazy.  (To the extent that someone who works 14 hours a day can be said to be lazy.)  But I'm generally inclined to believe that it's important, so I assign homework mostly of the "review vocabulary" type.  But I'm not sure where the research leaves me.


Kohn, A. (2006).  Abusing research: The study of homework and other examples. Bloomington, IN: Phi Delta Kappan.  Accessed through alfiekohn.org.  http://wwww.alfiekohn.org/teaching/research.htm

Marzano, R. J.  (2007).  The art and science of teaching: A comprehensive framework for effective instruction.  Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

Marzano, R. J., Pickering, D. J., & Pollock, J. E. (2001).  Classroom instruction that works: Research-based strategies for increasing student achievement.  Alexandria, VA:  Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Position papers in Spanish

So I'm always maintaining that Spanish can help with other subject areas.  Brain function, vocabulary acquisition skills, etc.  But I was talking to my sophomore class today about persuasive writing on the state test.  I gave them the following advice.

1.)  Your first sentence stakes out your position.  None of this, "I see the merits of both sides" stuff.  Stake out a position.  Even if it's one you don't believe.  Also, don't begin your first sentence with "I think...".

2.)  Your next block of writing (sentence, paragraph, essay section, whatever) says why that's your position.  Up to here, you've written about 70% of your essay.  You still have a way to go.

3.)  Your next block of writing says, "This is what the people who disagree with me think.  This is why they're wrong."

If you boil this down into five sentences, novice-mid level writers could write position papers in Spanish.  I don't know why it's never occurred to me.

Shameless intellectual theft

...also known as collaboration.

Maria Foseid shared this site with us at her "Art and Science" presentation a few weeks ago.

http://wiki.adams50.org/mediawiki/index.php/Main_Page

It has some Marzano rubrics and things.  Haven't had a chance to examine it, but I'm looking forward to the World Languages rubrics.

What a language teacher's job is

 On Thursday, I had a long, intense conversation with my colleague Kris.  She's our instructional coach this year, and I strongly hope that she will continue that role in the years to come, even as she returns to full-time teaching duties.  She expressed the concern that I jump the gun in my classes--I move too quickly from building buy-in, directly to speaking Spanish.  She worries that the students don't get why they're doing what they're doing, and thus never engage, and thus never really learn.  I take her observation to heart, because I'm pretty sure my kung fu is strong, but my students are not learning Spanish at the rate they should be.  Good practice done badly is bad practice, and if my students aren't learning, I'm not quite doing something right. 

According to Krashen, as cited in Lee and Van Patten (1995), "...as long as there is motivation and the right affective environment (e.g., low anxiety), a person cannot avoid learning a second language if there is sustained comprehensible input" (29).  They cite other researchers that say this is overstating the case somewhat, and they themselves stake out the position that using the language in communicative settings is necessary for learning languages.  However, to the extent that this statement is true, it has powerful implications for language learning and, by extension, language instruction.  The whole rest of their book is dedicated to outlining what those implications are.

But for now, I just want to worry at that one sentence for a little while, pick it apart and apply it.  I'm writing lesson plans right now, so the action items are immediately applicable--I can go from this blog screen to my unit plan, to my weekly plan, and apply what I figure out.


It looks like this: 

motivation + affective environment + sustained COMPREHENSIBLE input = language learning.


According to a source I don't remember right now (it was in an audiobook I borrowed from a friend, which I've since returned), as cited by Sprick (2007), motivation is a function of value times expectancy of success.  So, if students value what they're learning, their motivation increases.  If the students expect to succeed at a given event, their motivation to do it increases. 

The updated equation looks thus:


(value of learning X expectation) + affective environment + sustained comprehensible input = Language Learning


I don't know enough about what Lee and VanPatten mean by "affective environment" to perform any cute faux mathematical operation on it.  I believe, though, that this largely refers to classroom management issues, about which I've typed extensively.

Lee and VanPatten dedicate most of their book to outlining the concept of sustained comprehensible input.   They later add "meaning-bearing" to the list of qualities of valuable communication.

(value of learning X expectation) + affective environment + sustained, meaning-bearing comprehensible input = Language Learning

This means that a student has to catch that there is a meaning she is supposed to understand in the utterance.  The student also needs to be able to understand some portion of the communication.

This is a pretty clear description of a language teacher's job.  These work out to these action steps:

1.)  Sell the value of the learning.  This means explaining reasons that a student should learn languages, but also why a student would want to.  (I always think of the Rosetta Stone ad: "He was a farm boy from Iowa.  She was an Italian supermodel.  He had one chance to impress her.")  This corresponds to increasing the value of learning.

2.) Increase the expectation of success.  Celebrate baby steps.  Define milestones, and move heaven and earth to drag your students towards them.  Once they get there, make a big deal over it.

3.) Run your classroom well.  I've had a lot to say about this.  Marzano has a lot to say about this.  Jackson has a lot to say about this, Wong and Wong have a lot to say about this, and Sprick has a whole lot to say about this.  It sort of boils down to these.

• Have a very few rules which apply all the time.  Be consistent about reinforcing them positively and correcting them when necessary.
• Have procedures for everything.  Teach them explicitly and rehearse them.  (Behaviorism at its finest, but it will help if the students create their own procedures.)
• Make your classroom a place where it's okay to make mistakes, and teach students how to make GOOD mistakes.  As Kryza likes to say, "This is a risk-taking, mistake-making classroom."  In fact,  Corder (as cited in Lee and VanPatten (1997)) says that mistakes are "indispensable to the learner himself" (in Lee and VanPatten, p. 22.) 

It feels like I'm missing one or two, but we'll go from there.

4.)  Give your students language they can chew.  Lee & VanPatten say that if your students are at level N of comprehension, then you should communicate with them at N + 1.  That's a hard number to hit consistently, especially with a class of 20, 30, 40 language learners.  (Not that I have a class of 40 people, but it's probably not far off for many of my colleagues.)  Lee & VanPatten have things to say about that, too.

So, there.  I've defined what a WL teacher's job is.  Not exactly my original goal, but that's okay.  My next trick:  Matching this up with Marzano's 10 reflection questions from The Art and Science of Teaching, Jackson's 7 principles of master teachers, Kryza's "Chunk / Chew / Check" lesson-planning and differentiation model, the National Board's teacher assessment tool, and Kris's "Hook your students" principle.  Also, what this means to what my class looks like.

Resources:



Jackson, R. (2009).  Never work harder than your students.  Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

Lee, J., & VanPatten, B. (1997).  Making communicative language teaching happen.  New York: McGraw-Hill.

Marzano, R. (2008).  The art and science of teaching.  Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

Sprick, R.  (2008). Interventions audio.  Eugene, OR: Northwest Publishing.