First of all, here’s my CLL lesson plan from today.
Students: (Two of them) Bilingual English-Korean and English-German
Theme: My family
Objectives: Introduce students to family-unit vocabulary and present tense household action
Materials: Cuisenaire rods, pen and paper
Method
- Hand students rods. Let them feel and manipulate them as I explain briefly that they are going to use them to talk about their family. As they create action or characters, use a rod as representation. They say what they’re doing. I translate. Student in charge repeats, and then secondary student. 2:00.
- Swap roles. 2:00
- Write selective transcript 2:00
- Read transcript twice while Ss listen and reflect. :30
- Human computer 1:00
- If time: Sentence halves & match them
- Debrief: Ss comment on their experience and I give “understanding
responses” 2:00
Because I went last and we were running out of time, I didn’t do a lot of these steps. Apparently the “understanding” listening is an identifying characteristic of this approach and I didn’t do it, except to ask them what they thought as critics. In fact, I had time only for one round of family talk. David started. He said, “This is my father… mother… etc.” I realized a strength of this approach, rather than the one where students identify the topic and everything that’s said in it, is that there is opportunity for repetition. Absent any visual representation of what was said, that turned out to be very helpful. In theory we were naming things, but innately people were also getting basic sentence structure. I then gave Sua her turn. And instead of having both people repeat each utterance, I had only David speak during his “story” and only Sua during hers. But then, once Sua was finished, I asked her to identify (in Spanish) the characters of Davids’s story, and vice versa. By that time they were really getting the syntax possibly better than the vocabulary: “Este es mi (or su) papa.”
I found it much more interesting to teach this way than I did the Silent Way, and I wonder if it had to do with the fact that I was learning a little something about my students, and they about each other, and that I really noticed progress, and that the dialog seemed more natural and lifelike. They, too, found it a fairly effective method. They would have preferred if I’d … I forget.
Now, the right column of our template: my reactions.
Subject Matter: There is potential for it to be interesting or deadly dull, depending on participants, their level, and which approach is taken. In the beginning conversations which I observed, the dialog was powerfully uninteresting, generated as it was by beginning speakers who knew better than to attempt a complicated thought. And in fact, it would be hard even to imagine a complicate thought in that context. Topics ran to the prosaic. In a more advanced group that might not be the case, but it may, depending on the composition of the student body. In my way of approaching the exercise, introducing a topic and letting the students build from there, I found it to be much more constructive. They had the chance to learn about each other, and there was more “meaning making” involved.
Language: I know that this is used for more advanced speakers but I can’t imagine how that unfolds. For beginning speaks I find it a very unlikely way to learn vocabulary and syntax basics. The main reason is that students, when generating their own sentences, aren’t necessarily coming up with something interest/relevant/practical enough for the motivation to be there to remember it, and each sentence tends to be so different in structure and vocabulary from one another that it’s exceedingly difficult (at least for me) to remember, generalize, infer structure and meaning and otherwise make order out of a bunch of sounds. As with the Silent Way, the minute the words were out of my mouth they were travelin’ away down the highway of life at mach speed. However, again, when I used the technique of talking about (in the case) family, the sentence structures and vocabulary were repeated time and again — but I don’t think in too boring a fashion, since there was meaning for each speaker — so that I distinctly noticed more learning going on that in my teaching of the Silent Way.
Culture: Still don’t know what this question refers to. If it is about the culture of the language, it could be something people discuss in more advanced groups, but I don’t see how it can be touched upon in the beginning ones. The only cultural trait it demonstrates for US English is turn-taking and monophonics. The exercise, at the beginning level, lacks cultural context.
Learners: I read that this approach is for adults. I’m not sure why. I mean, they say it’s to reduce the affective filter, but mine went sky-high this time, sick of methods that don’t let me notate what I’m trying to learn, knowing that my memory won’t retain it. Which learners most stand to benefit? Perhaps those with some exposure to the language? Like David knew a little Korean and he could pick things up well. I didn’t have a prayer. Fearless learners could do well, but that defies the purpose of the approach.
Learning: Seems erratic, from learner to learner. It hinges in part on learners’ acquisition skills, and in part, I think, on the quality of the conversation: how interesting or relevant it is, how much repetition it entails, how much or little experience the learner has in that or similar language. Al the stuff about the teacher being the “knower” and the “counselor” seem hollow to me, since those pretty names can’t change the fact that some people are learning quickly and others aren’t. I can express to the teacher that I’m feeling left behind, and they can reflect that, but I’m still feeling left behind and maybe now even cranky because active listening seems canned, even if sincere. I mean, what’s the point? It doesn’t change anything for the chronically slow learner.
Teacher: Culturally I know this can be a tricky one for some learners who expect the teacher to be the leader. For me it’s not a cultural issue, but I still prefer to have more direct and natural exchanges with the person who can help me. When they can’t answer me because an approach forbids it, I will get cranky. I’ve read that this is a very difficult role to play in this approach. I didn’t experience that myself, but as I said I had only a 10-minute lesson to teach and I never got to the interactive exercises, and I did have a more focused conversation in my group because of the way I approached it. I would have a hard time with any exercise that relied on strict formulae, even if they were easy to adhere to. Some aspects of the teacher’s role I benefited from and/or enjoyed as the student: the human computer was clever and funny and useful; and the teacher’s ability to deconstruct sentences once they were up on the board and practiced was something I appreciated.. It was then that my mind could make some sense out of the sounds — not just syntax, but even the words themselves.
Teaching: To me as a student, it felt formulaic, stilted and rigid. The topics, ironically, felt unnatural, even though the point was that their being student-generated was a strength. When I sense a teacher, or a psychologist, or any professional, treating me according to some pre-learned ritual, I distrust their skill level and imagination and lose some faith in their ability to work with me.
Educational Outcomes: I don’t know what the studies show. In our small groups, the best outcomes came from repetition. The worse/hardest was when we were working not only with a different language but one that had a different alphabet whose sounds were totally mysterious to us. So it was like being doubly blind. I couldn’t get the sound, and then I couldn’t even approximate or remember it on sight.
Context: A language-learning community. I think this aspect of the approach could be effective with the right-sized groups. No more than six, I’d think, though I know they probably do larger ones. Does a single teacher try this in a larger classroom? How? Fishbowl? I disengaged as a fishbowl learner. And why is this approach geared for adults (aside from the reasons I already point out)? How do kids like it?
Questions I’m left with:
For people who are visual learners, are there manifestations of this approach that work?
How can we keep the student-generated dialog at the beginner level from being so boring? Brandon did pick-up lines, which sounds like a fun and funny idea.
I approve of the idea of whole-person learning, but am not sure how this addresses the whole person except in name. Likewise, counseling, community and security are noble intentions, but from my own perspective I didn’t see them in action. I’ll have to talk to my peers to see how they experienced them.