This was a quicky version of a 3-day workshop on Fred Jones Tools for Teaching. I went home and bought the book, so I might add some further thoughts here, or in a future blog...
Book recommendation: Reluctant Disciplinarian by Gary Rubinstein: Advice on classroom management from a softy who became a disciplinarian
Teaching is harder than parenting because you have other people’s kids and there is a variation of personality types.
3 pieces of classroom mgt:
1. Discipline
2. Instruction-TPRS
3. Motivation
This first post deals with the discipline portion of the 3 pieces:
There are 2 things you can do with behavior: increase and decrease. You need to consistently increase behaviors you want and decrease behaviors you don’t want. Must STOP bad behavior and START doing what they should be doing.
Classroom setup
· Room arrangement: 3 zones of proximity surrounding teacher’s body in concentric circles. Red (closest-students don’t act up), yellow (middle-kids check to see if teacher is paying attention), green (farthest-will act out)
· Classroom management expert works the room-walking around and looking at kids
o Walk the room to constantly change the zones of proximity
o Allows camouflage when you have to correct a misbehaving student. Simply walk over and prompt the student for what you want them to do…
o The natural enemy of working the crowd is the helpless hand-raiser (I don’t get it!): TPRS helps us with this kid because he is usually our barometer student. If it’s something complicated, model it and put directions on the board that are clear. Check in with your students when you are walking around and keep them on task, pointing to the direction that they should be working on.
· Try to create an inner loop that you can walk in order to keep the proximity changing
· When you ignore an issue, the other students assume that it is okay to exhibit that behavior
· The first assignment is I want you to talk! I’m not just going to cut you off, but I’ll count slowly to let you finish up. Count down with fingers from 5 to 0. Then stand there for about 5-10 seconds to allow the silence to settle. If anyone is still talking, move in and make eye contact. Nothing mean, no glares…
Reality is law: The standards in any classroom are defined by whatever the kids can get away with
· Succeeding from day one
o Rearrange your room to make it the best you can
o Desk creep: make marks on the floor where the front of the desk goes. Have students make sure that their desks lined up correctly
o Decide how you want students to enter the classroom
o Greet them and put them to work
§ Stand in the doorway
§ Give them something to do
§ If someone is talking, walk over and say “This is a no talking time, go ahead and get to the assignment”
§ By doing so, you define the entrance to your classroom as a doorway between two different worlds. This defines the classroom as a work environment.
§ Bell work (On y va!) continues until 5 minutes after the bell rings. Useful learning activity while you look after those organizational chores.
§ Grade bell work for the first couple of weeks, make marks and give it back. After that, you don’t have to…just collect it on Fridays and then throw them away.
o Introduce yourself-students don’t do well in an impersonal environment
o Establish rules-general rules are the wish list, specific procedures and spell out exactly “how to do this and that”
o Routines:
§ Practice quieting down
§ Partner work
§ Moving desks
§ Storytelling
§ Etc
o Go over few rules on the first day, make sure they are rules you are willing to enforce at any time, simple and clear, post rules
o Teach specific procedures and routines
§ Practice until it gets under 1 minute and there is no wasted time
§ Jokesters get old after a while.
§ Spend the first 2 weeks teaching the rules and procedures and practice them
§ Pay me now or pay me later. Do it right first and do it well all year long
§ Harry Wong www.firstdaysofschool.com
o Book suggestion: Setting Limits in the Classroom by Robert J. MacKenzie
§ Soft limits are rules in theory, not in practice
§ They invite testing because they carry a mixed message
§ The verbal message seems to say stop, but the action message says that stopping is neither expected nor required.
o Being Clear with your words
§ Keep the focus of your message on behavior.
§ Be direct and specific
§ Use your normal voice
§ Specify the consequences for noncompliance
§ Support your words with effective actions.
§ If student refuses your punishment, there are steps in Fred Jones for how to handle it
§ In the final analysis, the price you pay for inconsistency is a lesser ability to nurture.
§ No has to mean no every time
o Calm is strength, upset is weakness: when you get upset, you start losing part of your brain (The Triune Brain Theory)
o Learning to relax is an indispensable survival skill for anyone who works in a stressful environment
o Emotions are contagious
o
· Body language alone can keep the class in line
o Our actions: the turn (the slower the better to show them that it’s worth it to you to deal with the behavior), never use your mouth to take care of what proximity should take care of
o
· Backtalk is students trying to get out of something-blame it on anything or anyone to get out of discipline
Thursday, August 5, 2010
Day 4-Last day of Intermediate with Von Ray
This session was for working with a written story.
Steps for Reading and Discussing a Story
1. Teacher reads a sentence in TL
2. Class chorally translates the sentence.
3. Translate one paragraph (or less) at a time. This should not take very long
4. Ask the facts. Circle structures that are high frequency, still to be acquired, or new structures.
5. The facts can’t change.
6. Students respond as a chorus
7. Add details to the reading by asking additional questions about the paragraph, remembering that the facts can't change.
8. Students guess the answers and you're off with adding to the story!
9. Parallel story about one of the students: similar story with details about your student using the student as actor with props.
10. PQA works well also. “BS” is something I have done with the readings (read my session with Michael Miller to learn more about BS)
11. Continue on once interest wanes or once the parallel problem is resolved.
Remember that the focus is to offer CI, not to get to the end of the story or to the end of a chapter or page. This could take a LONG time.
After some peer coaching, we returned to the large group to see some peer teaching. This was done by Liesje (pronounced Leesha) Konyndyk from Kalazmazoo, Michigan:
Her structures were:
Il devait apprendre à: he had to learn how to and il savait: he knew
Ideas I picked up from this session:
Tell story in the past and then have One day…to integrate imparfait and PC
Story idea: Lindsey Lohan needs to learn to do 3 things for a movie role
This worked really well and had a lot of interaction and interest from the "students." Imagine how much fun you can have with students acting how to dance well and dance poorly. We also had Von Ray teaching Lindsay (aka me) to speak Keebler Elf. Hilarity!
Steps for Reading and Discussing a Story
1. Teacher reads a sentence in TL
2. Class chorally translates the sentence.
3. Translate one paragraph (or less) at a time. This should not take very long
4. Ask the facts. Circle structures that are high frequency, still to be acquired, or new structures.
5. The facts can’t change.
6. Students respond as a chorus
7. Add details to the reading by asking additional questions about the paragraph, remembering that the facts can't change.
8. Students guess the answers and you're off with adding to the story!
9. Parallel story about one of the students: similar story with details about your student using the student as actor with props.
10. PQA works well also. “BS” is something I have done with the readings (read my session with Michael Miller to learn more about BS)
11. Continue on once interest wanes or once the parallel problem is resolved.
Remember that the focus is to offer CI, not to get to the end of the story or to the end of a chapter or page. This could take a LONG time.
After some peer coaching, we returned to the large group to see some peer teaching. This was done by Liesje (pronounced Leesha) Konyndyk from Kalazmazoo, Michigan:
Her structures were:
Il devait apprendre à: he had to learn how to and il savait: he knew
Ideas I picked up from this session:
Tell story in the past and then have One day…to integrate imparfait and PC
Story idea: Lindsey Lohan needs to learn to do 3 things for a movie role
This worked really well and had a lot of interaction and interest from the "students." Imagine how much fun you can have with students acting how to dance well and dance poorly. We also had Von Ray teaching Lindsay (aka me) to speak Keebler Elf. Hilarity!
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Final thoughts on NTPRS
I promise I will finish blogging on day 4 and 5, but I'm just so exhausted right now, it will have to wait a couple of days.
My final thoughts on this weekend:
Laurie and I were talking at the end of the conference (sadly, the only time we really got to talk to each other) and we were talking about goosebump moments. Laurie, who was coaching during the conference, said that her goosebump moment came with watching teachers who were petrified to teach at the beginning of the week becoming confident and seeing them teach again at the end of the week. I can only imagine what she witnessed as a coach, because I saw the same thing happen as just an attendee.
My goosebump moments came about every day, but always for the same reason. Beyond the learning…beyond the networking….beyond the fun of being around other language teachers, there was this feeling that pervaded the entire conference. It was a feeling of genuine love and concern for others. I have never been hugged or touched by so many “strangers” in my whole life. I heard grown men saying “I love you” to each other and really meaning it. It wasn’t as cheesy as it sounded, because it came so naturally to them. I don’t know if this is because we are all a part of a language revolution that we have to fight so hard for or what… But I have a feeling that it goes back to the reasons that we all decided to take the TPRS route in teaching. We love kids. We want to do what is best for them. We really believe that Beth is the most beautiful girl in the entire universe. We want to validate these students and give them the attention that they so desperately desire. And that is why we came to TPRS….it’s not that TPRS makes us all gushy lovey dovey fools, it’s that we were always like that and TPRS lets us be effective teachers without squashing that love. In fact, it allows us to develop that love and show it to the kids in a way that is not going to get us on the evening news. Powerful stuff…
One of the most magical things that happened to me this week was the chance to meet Blaine and Von (especially Blaine because he is the master and the Spanish class that he taught was small enough that we got a ton of interaction). I’ve talked a little bit about Blaine in my Spanish blogs, but I want to think a little more about what happened outside of the Spanish class. When we passed each other in the hotel lobby (Blaine or Von), they never passed me without complimenting me somehow. Blaine would say, “There’s my little mosquito…” Von would say, “Man, you were an amazing elephant. You really are a great little actress.” As their student, I got to feel how it felt to be praised by my teacher. Or even noticed by them outside of the classroom. I feel like I’m being unfair to the other teachers, because they were the same way. Barb made a point of smiling at me and connecting with me, even though she was only my teacher for a couple of hours (she even bought me Pirates for saying something nice about her on moretprs J). Dale Crum talked to me the day after I had him for classroom management and said that he appreciated how positive and enthusiastic my face was during his presentation. I’m imagining what my kids will feel like if I can remember this skill in and out of my classroom.
Today, we had our farewell luncheon, which was really sad and wonderful. We had Michael Miller singing a song that he wrote about TPRS (the best line: I’ve been Blainewashed), Bryce singing a sweet, sad song in Spanish that he sings every year to his seniors, Susie Gross sharing a poem about being a great language teacher…and then, I guess, we had me! Blaine surprised me by asking me to tell the story that I learned in Spanish class for the room. I was a little nervous because it was so spur-of-the-moment and I hadn’t had any Spanish since Wednesday, but I did it anyway. As I was telling my story, I could hear the gasps from the audience when I would say something like “le dijo” or “queria ser” I thought to myself, “Wow! I must be doing something really impressive right now!,” but I couldn’t tell you what it was or why it was so impressive. I was just telling the story. THIS STUFF WORKS. Now, to be fair, I do speak French, so some of the structures are similar and I am a very motivated learner…but I also only had 8 hours of instruction.
I’m almost done reflecting, but the funniest thing that happened this week was how every teacher started talking differently. I guess I shouldn’t say talking, because it was really the reactions that changed. There were lots of “oooooohhhhhs” in everyday conversation. Lots of “oh no oh no” crept into our lingo. Something that only we can appreciate, I guess.
My final thoughts on this weekend:
Laurie and I were talking at the end of the conference (sadly, the only time we really got to talk to each other) and we were talking about goosebump moments. Laurie, who was coaching during the conference, said that her goosebump moment came with watching teachers who were petrified to teach at the beginning of the week becoming confident and seeing them teach again at the end of the week. I can only imagine what she witnessed as a coach, because I saw the same thing happen as just an attendee.
My goosebump moments came about every day, but always for the same reason. Beyond the learning…beyond the networking….beyond the fun of being around other language teachers, there was this feeling that pervaded the entire conference. It was a feeling of genuine love and concern for others. I have never been hugged or touched by so many “strangers” in my whole life. I heard grown men saying “I love you” to each other and really meaning it. It wasn’t as cheesy as it sounded, because it came so naturally to them. I don’t know if this is because we are all a part of a language revolution that we have to fight so hard for or what… But I have a feeling that it goes back to the reasons that we all decided to take the TPRS route in teaching. We love kids. We want to do what is best for them. We really believe that Beth is the most beautiful girl in the entire universe. We want to validate these students and give them the attention that they so desperately desire. And that is why we came to TPRS….it’s not that TPRS makes us all gushy lovey dovey fools, it’s that we were always like that and TPRS lets us be effective teachers without squashing that love. In fact, it allows us to develop that love and show it to the kids in a way that is not going to get us on the evening news. Powerful stuff…
One of the most magical things that happened to me this week was the chance to meet Blaine and Von (especially Blaine because he is the master and the Spanish class that he taught was small enough that we got a ton of interaction). I’ve talked a little bit about Blaine in my Spanish blogs, but I want to think a little more about what happened outside of the Spanish class. When we passed each other in the hotel lobby (Blaine or Von), they never passed me without complimenting me somehow. Blaine would say, “There’s my little mosquito…” Von would say, “Man, you were an amazing elephant. You really are a great little actress.” As their student, I got to feel how it felt to be praised by my teacher. Or even noticed by them outside of the classroom. I feel like I’m being unfair to the other teachers, because they were the same way. Barb made a point of smiling at me and connecting with me, even though she was only my teacher for a couple of hours (she even bought me Pirates for saying something nice about her on moretprs J). Dale Crum talked to me the day after I had him for classroom management and said that he appreciated how positive and enthusiastic my face was during his presentation. I’m imagining what my kids will feel like if I can remember this skill in and out of my classroom.
Today, we had our farewell luncheon, which was really sad and wonderful. We had Michael Miller singing a song that he wrote about TPRS (the best line: I’ve been Blainewashed), Bryce singing a sweet, sad song in Spanish that he sings every year to his seniors, Susie Gross sharing a poem about being a great language teacher…and then, I guess, we had me! Blaine surprised me by asking me to tell the story that I learned in Spanish class for the room. I was a little nervous because it was so spur-of-the-moment and I hadn’t had any Spanish since Wednesday, but I did it anyway. As I was telling my story, I could hear the gasps from the audience when I would say something like “le dijo” or “queria ser” I thought to myself, “Wow! I must be doing something really impressive right now!,” but I couldn’t tell you what it was or why it was so impressive. I was just telling the story. THIS STUFF WORKS. Now, to be fair, I do speak French, so some of the structures are similar and I am a very motivated learner…but I also only had 8 hours of instruction.
I’m almost done reflecting, but the funniest thing that happened this week was how every teacher started talking differently. I guess I shouldn’t say talking, because it was really the reactions that changed. There were lots of “oooooohhhhhs” in everyday conversation. Lots of “oh no oh no” crept into our lingo. Something that only we can appreciate, I guess.
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Day 3-Parking in First Gear with Michael Miller
In this session, Michael talks about how to extend establishing meaning by creating conversation between teacher and students. Here are the notes I took:
Step one: establishing meaning
Tell the word, show a picture, give a gesture and a translation…start to BS (blabber to students)
Talks about what is in his classroom…what color, what number
Trick: have gestures for certain words and get participation points…extra for the first one For example, every time Michael says the word for man, they slap the desk for participation points.
When students insist on speaking English, say if you want to use English, let me give you this book and you can translate it to English.
Tricks for staying in step one and conversing with kids:
· Still use your vocab structures
· Break them down if they are too long
· In advance, think of typical questions you could ask about those structures
· Beginners: Who, what, when, where, how many, what color
· Advanced: how, why, did you (verb) too? (past tense), will you (verb), would you (subjunctive)
· 3-ring circus: present when they do it and past when they sit down
· Set up class for BS: I expect a reaction: Wow!, how sad! I can’t believe it! That’s not right! Obviously!
· Be interesting and interested*** Care about your kids
· Gesture with translation (un plato…un plato means plate)
· Imagine that you have a plate (subjunctive!!)
· Dirty (Who has dirty socks? Hand check! Who has dirty hands? Why are your hands dirty?)
Step one: establishing meaning
Tell the word, show a picture, give a gesture and a translation…start to BS (blabber to students)
Talks about what is in his classroom…what color, what number
Trick: have gestures for certain words and get participation points…extra for the first one For example, every time Michael says the word for man, they slap the desk for participation points.
When students insist on speaking English, say if you want to use English, let me give you this book and you can translate it to English.
Tricks for staying in step one and conversing with kids:
· Still use your vocab structures
· Break them down if they are too long
· In advance, think of typical questions you could ask about those structures
· Beginners: Who, what, when, where, how many, what color
· Advanced: how, why, did you (verb) too? (past tense), will you (verb), would you (subjunctive)
· 3-ring circus: present when they do it and past when they sit down
· Set up class for BS: I expect a reaction: Wow!, how sad! I can’t believe it! That’s not right! Obviously!
· Be interesting and interested*** Care about your kids
· Gesture with translation (un plato…un plato means plate)
· Imagine that you have a plate (subjunctive!!)
· Dirty (Who has dirty socks? Hand check! Who has dirty hands? Why are your hands dirty?)
Day 3-Intermediate with Von
Today's class was about getting away from the scripted story
Abandon the script when the class is creative enough to make a funnier story. Otherwise, keep with the script “C’est mon histoire!”
Use scripted stories for ideas and adapt to the vocabulary level of the class**
The goal is not the story, the goal is comprehension. Get every student to a 10 by circling and re-telling the story, adding details for the advanced students
Here are two things that I noticed from this week that I want to put into my stories: “How did he react?” and the students are allowed to make noises. Adds interest to the class. Blaine used “Three requirements” with a story in Spanish class. This is great because it gives us extra locations, problems and characters to expand on.
Parallel characters allow us to compare and contrast, which is a skill that students need for the AP test or in advanced classes in college.
When in doubt, turn to the actor and ask them in the second person.
Another teacher modelled this and asked us what a character wanted. We guessed and she said "no, it's obvious, he wants a wig!" And she whipped a wig out of her purse. Oh my gosh! It was like magic! I need to do more of this with wigs and fake mustaches.
Coaching:
Use your discipline problem students to make noises or actions for difficult words (vacuum)
When using cognates, still check for comprehension because not all students are “listening in French”
Individual comprehension checks. If they are slow, give them two options to choose from where they can’t screw up. If they do screw up, play it off as if they answered correctly.
Abandon the script when the class is creative enough to make a funnier story. Otherwise, keep with the script “C’est mon histoire!”
Use scripted stories for ideas and adapt to the vocabulary level of the class**
The goal is not the story, the goal is comprehension. Get every student to a 10 by circling and re-telling the story, adding details for the advanced students
Here are two things that I noticed from this week that I want to put into my stories: “How did he react?” and the students are allowed to make noises. Adds interest to the class. Blaine used “Three requirements” with a story in Spanish class. This is great because it gives us extra locations, problems and characters to expand on.
Parallel characters allow us to compare and contrast, which is a skill that students need for the AP test or in advanced classes in college.
When in doubt, turn to the actor and ask them in the second person.
Another teacher modelled this and asked us what a character wanted. We guessed and she said "no, it's obvious, he wants a wig!" And she whipped a wig out of her purse. Oh my gosh! It was like magic! I need to do more of this with wigs and fake mustaches.
Coaching:
Use your discipline problem students to make noises or actions for difficult words (vacuum)
When using cognates, still check for comprehension because not all students are “listening in French”
Individual comprehension checks. If they are slow, give them two options to choose from where they can’t screw up. If they do screw up, play it off as if they answered correctly.
Day 2-Musical Echoing
I attended this session because I love music and want to know how to use it more in my classroom. I personally was not interested in the method that the presenter used, but I'll post my notes in case anyone else is interested. She has books and music that you can buy...I'm assuming they are available from Teacher's Discovery?
She makes up a story of 6-8 stanzas or lines. Each stanza or line is subdivided into 3 segments of about 5-8 syllables or beats. Each segment needs a picture to represent the story.
Then she takes these and makes them into a song. She plays the song for the students one time, with the pictures and then circles the meaning.
If anyone is interested in this, I'd be happy to expand more, but I wasn't really interested, so I just stayed to get the idea of the process and then left when they started practicing.
She makes up a story of 6-8 stanzas or lines. Each stanza or line is subdivided into 3 segments of about 5-8 syllables or beats. Each segment needs a picture to represent the story.
Then she takes these and makes them into a song. She plays the song for the students one time, with the pictures and then circles the meaning.
If anyone is interested in this, I'd be happy to expand more, but I wasn't really interested, so I just stayed to get the idea of the process and then left when they started practicing.
Day 2-Spanish with Blaine
Today in Spanish class, we had some teacher questions about discipline. I agreed to be the obnoxious student so that Blaine could model discipline for us. The thing that that taught me is the dynamic pesonality that Blaine has is truly magical. I really really really didn't want him to be mad at me. I'm not sure if that's a representation of Blaine or of my people-pleasing nature... He reacted to everything with love. He turned to me when I was talking and said with a smile, "Hey kiddo, this is not going to work if you are talking. For this to work, you can't talk, write or sleep. That's a pagame" He explained that pagame are worth 5 points of participation points per grading period (100 total possible). They can earn these points back by making a nice card for him, shaking his hand to have a genuine bonding moment or writing a 100 word essay. He validated me so much during that "class period" and said at the end that those kids who are attention seekers or having a bad day are the ones that his heart goes out to. Those are the kids that he really wants to reach. People pleaser? Maybe this will work for me.
On to the notes!
Whenever there is a choral response to an info-seeking question, don’t take that answer so that they are shocked! I love this idea. As a student, it really made me sit up and take notice. I think I blogged about this already, but if I didn't...I'd be happy to re-explain in the comments section.
Add extra details that you “forgot” the first time through the story. Blaine would go to re-tell the story and then get "stuck" on some tiny bit of information that he forgot to create interest and extra reps. For example, we were continuing with a story that we had been working on for 3 hours. In this story, there was an elephant in an internet cafe in New Zealand who saw the facebook of the most beautiful girl in the world... There's a ton more to the story, but this was all basic information established very early. He came back to it. Class, there is an elephant...where is the elephant...was he alone? (new information) No! He wasn't alone! I forgot to tell you! He was there with his mom and his dad! Then we talked about them. They were divorced. The mom lived in Minneapolis and was friends with the mosquito we had been talking about...it went on and on describing these two super-minor characters that he had "forgotten" to tell us about the first time through the story.
Basic structure of story-telling
1. Establish problem 2. Character development 3. Go somewhere and try to solve problem/doesn’t work 4. Resolution
When Blaine is "lesson planning," he starts with a couple of sentences and he knows the resolution before he begins. The middle can go anywhere.
More on discipline: We talked about rudeness rom students. He gave the example of using a student and asking: Is there a girl or an elephant? A student yells out "Elephant!" Blaine goes to the student and says: This does not work if you do that. You cannot say that she’s an elephant. She’s not, she’s a girl. What we’re doing does not work if you’re doing that. –Blaine
Take care of discipline problems in English.
One of the greatest tips that I saw was to use the actors to verify information, using you and I… This adds a ton of interest for the students, increases reps, and introduces 1st and 2nd person.
Part of my "acting out" was begging to be in the story. When I asked to be the elephant, he came, hugged me, and said “Honey, I love you, but this is my story…we’ll get to you another time” That hug shut me up. I think I've always been afraid to touch my students because of the fear of being sued or something. I'm going to get over that. Seriously.
This is a quote from one of the teachers in our class. Her name is Jammie and she was trying to explain why you don't correct speaking when a student makes a mistake:
"When you correct a child learning a language, they are not developmentally ready for the correction. When you say “no” to form, they think you are correcting the content. No, you don’t say I goed to the store, you say I went to the store…That’s what I said! "
On to the notes!
Whenever there is a choral response to an info-seeking question, don’t take that answer so that they are shocked! I love this idea. As a student, it really made me sit up and take notice. I think I blogged about this already, but if I didn't...I'd be happy to re-explain in the comments section.
Add extra details that you “forgot” the first time through the story. Blaine would go to re-tell the story and then get "stuck" on some tiny bit of information that he forgot to create interest and extra reps. For example, we were continuing with a story that we had been working on for 3 hours. In this story, there was an elephant in an internet cafe in New Zealand who saw the facebook of the most beautiful girl in the world... There's a ton more to the story, but this was all basic information established very early. He came back to it. Class, there is an elephant...where is the elephant...was he alone? (new information) No! He wasn't alone! I forgot to tell you! He was there with his mom and his dad! Then we talked about them. They were divorced. The mom lived in Minneapolis and was friends with the mosquito we had been talking about...it went on and on describing these two super-minor characters that he had "forgotten" to tell us about the first time through the story.
Basic structure of story-telling
1. Establish problem 2. Character development 3. Go somewhere and try to solve problem/doesn’t work 4. Resolution
When Blaine is "lesson planning," he starts with a couple of sentences and he knows the resolution before he begins. The middle can go anywhere.
More on discipline: We talked about rudeness rom students. He gave the example of using a student and asking: Is there a girl or an elephant? A student yells out "Elephant!" Blaine goes to the student and says: This does not work if you do that. You cannot say that she’s an elephant. She’s not, she’s a girl. What we’re doing does not work if you’re doing that. –Blaine
Take care of discipline problems in English.
One of the greatest tips that I saw was to use the actors to verify information, using you and I… This adds a ton of interest for the students, increases reps, and introduces 1st and 2nd person.
Part of my "acting out" was begging to be in the story. When I asked to be the elephant, he came, hugged me, and said “Honey, I love you, but this is my story…we’ll get to you another time” That hug shut me up. I think I've always been afraid to touch my students because of the fear of being sued or something. I'm going to get over that. Seriously.
This is a quote from one of the teachers in our class. Her name is Jammie and she was trying to explain why you don't correct speaking when a student makes a mistake:
"When you correct a child learning a language, they are not developmentally ready for the correction. When you say “no” to form, they think you are correcting the content. No, you don’t say I goed to the store, you say I went to the store…That’s what I said! "
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)