Wow! The pressure's on today! Not only was Ben Slavic nice enough to make reference to my blog in his blog, but I'm getting pressure from the other French teachers in the district to prove myself.
So far, I've written this blog to myself as a way to process my thoughts after trying something...with no real audience in mind. Now, I have a couple of people who might read this! I hope I can write something that people want to read!
The second pressure is more pressing. I went yesterday to talk to the high school teacher who will eventually teach the students I am teaching now (if I do my job and they continue on with the language). I wanted to ask her what the expectations were for the second year students who come from the junior high. I wanted to know what she expected them to be able to do and, more importantly, if they still forget everything over the summer. I think I might have spoken to this in an earlier blog, but I feel like, if they forget everything over the summer, why am I required to teach them a verb chart when I could be teaching them to speak? My hope in this experiment is that my students will retain what they learn this year because I am using CI and repetition to make sure it gets stuck in their brains. BUT...it's not going to be "Je suis, Tu es, Il/Elle est, Nous sommes...." Instead, I'm hoping they would be able to say "Barney est un gros dinosaure violet." Doesn't that make more sense anyway? It goes back to how children learn their first language...I'm not talking to my 6 month old baby about indefinite articles.
From my personal experience, I wish I had learned the grammar rules AFTER I learned how to speak or write French. I don't feel I was intellectually ready for the rules until college or maybe even after my year abroad. I really wish now that I could take a French composition or conversation class where the teacher re-explains the rules of subjonctif as I'm using it. In context. I'm ready for it now. I ready to understand my grammatical mistakes. Shoot, I just learned about good v. well about ten years ago...after high school. And I was not a stupid kid. I took college level classes and was in the top of my class. I just wasn't ready for it.
Wow, that was quite a brain bounce. I'm feeling all this pressure to prove that TPRS is more than just telling silly stories. I need to find the balance between no grammar v. rote memorization of grammar rules with no context. I know it exists and I believe that Pop-Up Grammar and "It just sounds right" will work...but how to convince the non-believers??
Pleased to meet you. Believe in yoursel! Or at least do what is necessary so that you can.It'a all a matter of confidence and conscientiousness. I'm solidly with you! Other good-thinking teachers are, too.
ReplyDeleteAs long as you're speaking good French and your students are attentively focused, they are getting good grammar. Either keep faith in your command of usage or expose yourself to it more so that you can. If you have the usage, you don't need grammarians' rules to perform according to that usage. Grammarians' rules come from the usage. They are merely an attempt to generalize, consolidate, and perhaps sometimes explain. At times, their so-called rules are not totally in alignment with good usage. Witness in English, for example, the high-school-taught so-called rule of never starting a sentence with a co-ordinate conjunction such as and, even though most of good professional writers have no compunction about doing so if it serves their communicative purpose.
At all costs, avoid instruction by rote memorization. That, of course, doesn't mean that you shouldn't use "pop-up grammar" questioning to assist your students in respondent generalization of the usage that you hope they have already largely acquired. Once they have arrived at their own expressed generalizations, I guess you could even post them as "rules".
Frank (fjj@joimail.com)
Thank you Frank! It is so wonderful to meet other teachers who are "thinking outside the box". I can't continue to teach through grammar structures and worksheets. Neither one will help a child on the Champs Elysees.
ReplyDeleteDon't worry about pressure, Elizabeth! What you are doing is terrific, because you're practicing and being open to a great new idea. It's really fun to read what you write, because the "experienced folks" have all been there, and the new ones need to share the feelings. The best test of whether you're doing things right is if you're feeling happy about what you have happening in class. If you're speaking French, and the kids are understanding, and everyone is sharing new stories, whether about themselves or some they're making up, you're doing the most important part. They're learning. Everything else is gravy.
ReplyDeleteWhat I forgot to say was that you aren't going to convince the non-believers. Let them drop off your pressure list.
ReplyDeleteElisabeth you said
ReplyDelete"...why am I required to teach them a verb chart when I could be teaching them to speak?..."
That is a great question! Maybe you should ask them. Ask them to show you some ways that those charts have worked in the past. I wonder what they would say.
Ben Slavic