When it comes to English, I try to be a descriptivist rather than a prescriptivist. If I am in a store and I hear a kid say, "I should of broughten mo' money." (and yes, I've heard kids in my rural, lower income, largely white area say "broughten."), I don't correct them because I'm not a jerk. If however I were writing a novel about similar kids for an ELL audience, I would never ever write "I should of broughten mo' money." Why? Because I don't want to teach them weird things that aren't considered "standard" English by the community of English speakers at large.
(To be clear, I don’t think anyone has written anything at the level of “I should of broughten” in Latin, but I wanted to share that weird example of English doing its living language thing because I think it’s super cool.)
With Latin, the community of Latin speakers is MUCH smaller, and the community of native Latin speakers is dead. All the same, my goal for my kids is for them to be able to read Latin which was written by native speakers and maybe to communicate with other Latinists around the country and throughout the world. Why? Because Latin is a language, and it deserves to be treated as such, even if it’s dead. I’ve struggled a lot with the “point” of teaching a dead language. One of the conclusions I’ve come to is that it doesn’t matter if it’s dead, so long as my kids are still getting the language-learning experience that helps their brains work better (I’m not a neurologist, clearly.). To that end, I want them to be exposed to the things about Latin that aren’t like English: the word order, the morphology, the preference for verb forms compared to English’s love of substantives, everything, etc. Just as we understand other cultures by learning how they differ, I believe we benefit from understanding languages on their own terms.
Now, we’re not perfect Latin speakers. No one alive is, probably. You’re going to make errors. By all means, do so as you teach and in your TPRS stories and whatever you do in your classroom. I’m not saying every Latin teacher needs to be Reginald Foster himself. So long as you are working to improve, ideally by reading more Latin, there’s no problem. (More under the cut)
Showing posts with label realtalk. Show all posts
Showing posts with label realtalk. Show all posts
Sunday, August 7, 2016
Tuesday, May 24, 2016
CI Methods: an obvious epiphany
Friends, I just figured out why "CI methods" isn't a thing. Yes, I know I've been looking into CI for over a year. Yes, I know you already understand why it's not a thing. Just in case you don't, though, I'm going to share my epiphany. Don't laugh.
CI Methods isn't a thing because CI isn't a methodology. It's material we use to reach a goal.
Think of it this way: there are a lot of kinds of chefs. Some chefs focus on Italian food. Some focus on dessert and we call them pastry chefs. Some focus on making weird foams that no one really wants to eat. All chefs, however, work with food.
CI is food. Without food, we are hungry. Without CI, we do not acquire language.
Maybe we should stop abbreviating it because acronyms feel specific and official and definable. Ditto capitalization. There's no such thing as Comprehensible Input. There's just input that's comprehensible, and input that isn't. As Latin teachers, we've traditionally been doing the latter. Oops. That's like a chef making supper out of clay and paint: it might look like something delicious and nutritious, but it's not.
This lowercase comprehensible input is not a method. It's stuff. Stuff we have to use to do our job as language teachers (or communication facilitators or whatever BVP is calling it this week).
It's the material. It's not the method. We don't talk about "food chefs." All (effective) chefs work with food. Maybe a pastry chef focuses on food that's in dessert form. Maybe an Italian chef focuses on food that tastes like food in Italy. But it's all food, and it all fills your belly. So you can't have a "CI teacher." You can have an effective language teacher- one who works with comprehensible input, or you can have a non-CI teacher who is perhaps still effective, but not at language acquisition. Maybe they're an effective teacher of grammar- that's like being a teacher of food science. Even if you know all the chemistry, though, you still can't make a souffle without some eggs. Lowercase comprehensible input is the eggs. And you don't call a chef who makes souffles an Egg Chef. You call him or her a chef.
I can't believe I just got this. This might be totally incomprehensible to someone who isn't me, but I felt like I needed to get it out. I hope this is helpful for someone else, or perhaps you'll get a laugh.
:)
CI Methods isn't a thing because CI isn't a methodology. It's material we use to reach a goal.
Think of it this way: there are a lot of kinds of chefs. Some chefs focus on Italian food. Some focus on dessert and we call them pastry chefs. Some focus on making weird foams that no one really wants to eat. All chefs, however, work with food.
CI is food. Without food, we are hungry. Without CI, we do not acquire language.
Maybe we should stop abbreviating it because acronyms feel specific and official and definable. Ditto capitalization. There's no such thing as Comprehensible Input. There's just input that's comprehensible, and input that isn't. As Latin teachers, we've traditionally been doing the latter. Oops. That's like a chef making supper out of clay and paint: it might look like something delicious and nutritious, but it's not.
This lowercase comprehensible input is not a method. It's stuff. Stuff we have to use to do our job as language teachers (or communication facilitators or whatever BVP is calling it this week).
It's the material. It's not the method. We don't talk about "food chefs." All (effective) chefs work with food. Maybe a pastry chef focuses on food that's in dessert form. Maybe an Italian chef focuses on food that tastes like food in Italy. But it's all food, and it all fills your belly. So you can't have a "CI teacher." You can have an effective language teacher- one who works with comprehensible input, or you can have a non-CI teacher who is perhaps still effective, but not at language acquisition. Maybe they're an effective teacher of grammar- that's like being a teacher of food science. Even if you know all the chemistry, though, you still can't make a souffle without some eggs. Lowercase comprehensible input is the eggs. And you don't call a chef who makes souffles an Egg Chef. You call him or her a chef.
I can't believe I just got this. This might be totally incomprehensible to someone who isn't me, but I felt like I needed to get it out. I hope this is helpful for someone else, or perhaps you'll get a laugh.
:)
Friday, May 6, 2016
"So, do you speak Latin?"
Recently I wrote a post for CANE's blog, CANENS, and I posted it to Latin Teacher Idea Exchange on Facebook. A fellow teacher replied,
But now I do speak Latin. Kind of. I can have conversations about random stuff especially if it's not technology-heavy subject matter. I'm still not fluent at ALL and there's a pretty heavy English influence on my word order. But I certainly speak it better than I do any other language besides English, my L1.
So, how did I start? Some tips to get over the hump.
1. Yes, you do know Latin. I have been studying Latin for 15ish years. I may not speak Latin, but I know it. You do too. It's there, even if it takes a while to come out.
2. Be patient with yourself. Go look at this entry and turn those tips on yourself. Guess what? You're going to get case endings and tenses wrong. All the time. ALL the time. It's not the end of the world. Do your best to get it right when you're teaching a new structure, but if it's just in passing or practice with other Latinists, give yourself a break. I've heard excellent Latinists who have been speaking for YEARS make case mistakes. It's what happens. How do you think Italian was invented?
3. Baby steps. You don't have to be able to give a lecture in Latin to start using it with your kids. On the contrary, you really shouldn't! You need to pick a way to say yes & no (I use sic and non.), a couple of adjectives, and you're done. Like this:
4. The bar is not that high. In Keith's story, you are only dealing with three verbs (est, habet, vult) and two adjectives (laetus, tristis). It's not brain surgery. You can do this on Day 1 of Latin class even if you have never taken Latin and have only read this post & Keith's.
How?
Your kids don't speak Latin either. They won't know you're keeping it simple. They need you to keep it simple, and go slow, and repeat yourself.
There is no one to feel embarrassed in front of or to feel inadequate compared to. Spend a couple minutes practicing Latin with your kids every day or so, point at your board a lot, and your speech will become smoother.
5. Take any opportunity to improve. The above stuff will get you over that embarrassment hump. Now let's talk about how to become a functional Latin speaker. A bullet list! In ascending order of effort required!
edit 8/4/2016: Look under the tag "Spoken Latin" for more similar entries, especially this one with a much better list of resources & opportunities. You may also find this "Useful Phrases for Spoken Latin" document helpful for saying a lot of things Cicero never taught you how to say.
When you have time, would you be willing to expand on your use of oral Latin? Like most Latin teachers, I was not taught to speak Latin so I am super hesitant to start. But I know I should get over myself for the sake of my students. How did you start?So here I am. First, the title of this entry. sodales, you know that question and the embarrassment that attends it. "Well, no, but you see, I can read it. I mean like I've been reading it for a really long time. So I KNOW it, I just don't speak it. You see?" I cringe inside every time I have to answer that. Or I used to, anyway. No one's asked me in a while. But I hated that question because well, NO, I didn't speak Latin, even though I'd been studying it for half my life. Ouch.
But now I do speak Latin. Kind of. I can have conversations about random stuff especially if it's not technology-heavy subject matter. I'm still not fluent at ALL and there's a pretty heavy English influence on my word order. But I certainly speak it better than I do any other language besides English, my L1.
So, how did I start? Some tips to get over the hump.
1. Yes, you do know Latin. I have been studying Latin for 15ish years. I may not speak Latin, but I know it. You do too. It's there, even if it takes a while to come out.
2. Be patient with yourself. Go look at this entry and turn those tips on yourself. Guess what? You're going to get case endings and tenses wrong. All the time. ALL the time. It's not the end of the world. Do your best to get it right when you're teaching a new structure, but if it's just in passing or practice with other Latinists, give yourself a break. I've heard excellent Latinists who have been speaking for YEARS make case mistakes. It's what happens. How do you think Italian was invented?
3. Baby steps. You don't have to be able to give a lecture in Latin to start using it with your kids. On the contrary, you really shouldn't! You need to pick a way to say yes & no (I use sic and non.), a couple of adjectives, and you're done. Like this:
Board: -ne = ?, sic = yes, non = no, procerus = tall, brevis = short, est = is.Repeat with other students. Pick some more adjectives or nouns. Consider throwing in some comparatives- estne Shelby procerIOR quam Julia? etc. Congrats, you're using oral Latin in the classroom. It gets more complex from there as you need it to. Check out this lesson plan by Keith Toda. You'd be doing the same as above, only add in some question words (again, provide them on the board). You can ask: estne elephantus laetus? estne elephantus tristis? vultne Earl elephantum? etc. Which brings us to 3.
T: estne Shelby procera? :gesture with your hand way above Shelby's head: (Your speaking speed should be something around where the bad kind of tourist tries to speak English to non-English-speaking locals: EHSSSTTTT NAY SHELBY PROOOOO-CEHR-AHH?)
Ss: non.
T: bene! Shelby procera non est! estne Shelby brevis? :gesture below Shelby's height:
Ss: sic.
T: sic! Shelby brevis est! estne Shelby brevis an procera? :use each hand to gesture one or the other:
Ss: short?
T: bene! :big smiles: Shelby brevis est! Shelby procera non est! Shelby brevis est!
4. The bar is not that high. In Keith's story, you are only dealing with three verbs (est, habet, vult) and two adjectives (laetus, tristis). It's not brain surgery. You can do this on Day 1 of Latin class even if you have never taken Latin and have only read this post & Keith's.
How?
Your kids don't speak Latin either. They won't know you're keeping it simple. They need you to keep it simple, and go slow, and repeat yourself.
There is no one to feel embarrassed in front of or to feel inadequate compared to. Spend a couple minutes practicing Latin with your kids every day or so, point at your board a lot, and your speech will become smoother.
5. Take any opportunity to improve. The above stuff will get you over that embarrassment hump. Now let's talk about how to become a functional Latin speaker. A bullet list! In ascending order of effort required!
- Listen to Latin (and even better here and also see the listening links here. And also, if you have audio from your textbook series, load it up on your phone and listen to it while you drive. Really.)
- Read more Latin
- Write to someone else in Latin, like a penpal.
- Speak to others aloud in Latin, including your students, pets, furniture... or just join a spoken Latin gathering either IRL or online (I host one weekly on Saturday mornings and sometimes more often. Info & calendar here.)
- There may be local IRL Latin speaking gatherings near you. I only know about Amherst, MA (contact TJ Howell) & Boston. If you know of others, please post them in the comments!
- Go to a Latin camp! Then go to more! Conventiculum Bostoniense; Conventiculum Lexintoniense & Dickinsoniense; SALVI's Rusticationes & other programs; Paideia Institute events; Europa Latina's summer school in Sicily,
I hope that gives you some ideas on how to take the plunge. Next time, I'll talk more about how I use it in class on a daily(ish) basis.
edit 8/4/2016: Look under the tag "Spoken Latin" for more similar entries, especially this one with a much better list of resources & opportunities. You may also find this "Useful Phrases for Spoken Latin" document helpful for saying a lot of things Cicero never taught you how to say.
Tuesday, April 19, 2016
More on building my CI curriculum
First, a clarification...
I think in my previous post I gave the impression that a CI Latin curriculum has to be an untextbooked curriculum. That is definitely NOT the case. I was focusing on that because that's the kind of curriculum I'm doing, but you can and should do CI with textbooks. The only reasons to abandon your textbook are
(1) if you're too Type A to let others control your scope & sequence (that's me),
(2) you just don't have enough books or access to online books.
(3) you have an awesome team of CI colleagues with whom you can work to build your ideal curriculum
Your life will be a lot easier if you keep hold of the textbook as a guideline and a life preserver in the seas of curriculum design.
No matter where you get your curriculum, keep these principles in mind, and you'll be a-okay. Oh, and read Lance's thing on the actual logistics of a CI program.
Teach meaning, not grammar.
And once they do ask- your English grammar explanations need to be comprehensible too. Let’s say we’re working with puella delphīnum vult and you say “estne delphīnus piscis?”
You could say:
“When it’s ‘wants the dolphin’ dolphin has to be delphīnum because in Latin direct objects of transitive verbs have to have accusative endings. But when it's 'is the dolphin a fish?' the dolphin is the subject, which means it has to have a nominative ending, hence delphīnus.”But to a kid who’s not good with English grammar already, that translates to “you’re too stupid to understand, so don’t ask next time.” Instead, try something like this. Include the [] stuff if the kids are good with parts of speech, but they're not necessary:
Ultra short version:
T: in Latin when the action [of the verb] is happening to something [a noun], that something gets an M on the end. :smile:Version for the kid who says "but WHY?"
T: In English would you ever say ‘the girl wants he’?The student will then think you’re an idiot for finding that cool, but you won’t have scared them off.
S: No?
T: Right, what would you say? The girl wants...
S: …him…?
T: Exactly. delphīnum is like ‘him’ and delphīnus is like ‘he,’ except in Latin all the words do it, not just the he’s and him’s. Isn’t that cool?
Be patient.
When ACQUIRING another language:In short, your students will not be speaking fluent Latin anytime soon. They will mix up case and verb endings for a long time, probably years. That doesn’t mean they haven’t learned anything. If they can mostly understand you and the readings, they’re progressing well. Ability to comprehend will always be much better than ability to produce. Luckily, as Latin teachers, there’s little pressure to force our kids to produce perfect language quickly. Don’t weight output tasks heavily. Composition practice is an interesting change of pace and can be useful, but it’s definitely not how you should measure their OR your success. The biggest way they’re going to learn is by listening to you and by reading comprehensible texts. Focus on that, and the rest will come in time.
First, we learn to LISTEN.
We learn to READ what we've heard.
We learn to WRITE what we've read and heard.
Finally...
We SPEAK because we've heard, read and written it.
Be flexible, but don’t lose sight of your goals.
Keep good notes as you go.
Sunday, March 20, 2016
Teaching declensions contextually... and maybe comprehensibly? using pattern sentences
This year as you know I have been trying to do CI. However, like all Latin teachers using CI, I'm still struggling with the whole no-explicit-grammar-teaching-really-are-you-sure thing. There are a variety of ways to deal with this. I'm going to tell you today about one thing I did this year that seems to have helped to make the concepts of case endings and declensions semi-comprehensible. Just the concepts. It is still not real CI, but it helps bridge the gap.
It's also definitely not proper grammar instruction, and even though I'm explaining the entire first declension, you're not going to see any words ending in -tive for the rest of this post, so maybe take a deep breath if that's going to bother you. I'll do a proper post sometime on why I'm committing such heresy, I promise. The short version is as follows: most of my kids aren't going to a four year college, if they go to college at all. Most of them aren't going to a college that offers Latin, if they go to college at all. I love grammar, but they don't. What they need is time in school where they are doing something that they don't hate and that stimulates their brains. I tend to lay off the grammar heavy stuff because it scares them away. If that doesn't work for you, don't do it. My students may not be your students. Feel free to take some or all or NONE of my ideas here. I'm not trying to start a revolution against grammar- just trying to get through to my own kids and share what works.
It's also definitely not proper grammar instruction, and even though I'm explaining the entire first declension, you're not going to see any words ending in -tive for the rest of this post, so maybe take a deep breath if that's going to bother you. I'll do a proper post sometime on why I'm committing such heresy, I promise. The short version is as follows: most of my kids aren't going to a four year college, if they go to college at all. Most of them aren't going to a college that offers Latin, if they go to college at all. I love grammar, but they don't. What they need is time in school where they are doing something that they don't hate and that stimulates their brains. I tend to lay off the grammar heavy stuff because it scares them away. If that doesn't work for you, don't do it. My students may not be your students. Feel free to take some or all or NONE of my ideas here. I'm not trying to start a revolution against grammar- just trying to get through to my own kids and share what works.
STEP 1
Teach them Latin using CI for a couple of months. Get them used to hearing you use nouns in different cases without making a big deal out of it. Mix in those first and second declension nouns with third declension nouns, those neuters, maybe some i-stems if you're feeling spicy. Be a big kid and even use a fifth declension dies! If you don't tell them it's hard Latin II stuff, they won't think it's hard. Really!
STEP 2
When enough of them have asked about "why you keep saying canis instead of canem" or whatever, it is time for the first declension unit. One day, write the following on the board. Include the English! I call this a "pattern sentence," btw.
simia piratae astronautae ariēnam in lunā dat.
The monkey of the pirate gives the astronaut a banana on the moon.
Ask them to imagine the scene. Do it as dramatically as you can pull off. Circle it: Quis dat astronautae arienam in luna? Cuius simia astronautae arienam in luna dat? cui dat simia piratae arienam in luna? Datne simia piratae astronautae arienam in VILLA? non. etc. As they get bored of it, break it up by adding details like so:
Ask them what color the monkey is. What color the moon is. Maybe draw it on the board, but encourage them to build their own mind picture with their eyes closed too. Why does that monkey give the astronaut a banana? What's the pirate's name? Get this image into their brains. Ask them to draw it themselves, if you like (they would like to). Display their drawings. They may be 17, but they still love it when mom/teacher puts their drawings on the fridge/bulletin board.
Tuesday, February 16, 2016
My takeaways from LLiNYC 2016 (tl;dr: it's good to spend time being a student)
This past weekend I attended The Paideia Institute's Living Latin in New York City conference. Driving 4+ hours each way was a pain in the bottom, but it was totally worth it. I met new friends, reconnected with old ones, and met several people face to face that I only ever knew online before. If you can't commit to a full week or more in the summer of spoken Latin, and you're interested in real ways to use it in the classroom, LLiNYC is a good choice. Since I am the only Latin teacher and the only CI/TPRS teacher in my district, for me it also served as a mid-year PD and enthusiasm recharge.
This was only my second Living Latin event, and it was quite different from the Conventiculum Bostoniense. The latter is a true immersion experience for 8 days, whereas LLiNYC is more mixed. CB-- at least for beginners-- is about practicing spoken Latin and learning how to use it in the real world and with reference to teaching. LLiNYC had a mixture of things: spoken Latin just for fun, spoken Latin literature-reading sessions, academic & pedagogical lectures in Latin, and also some sessions in English or mixed Latin and English.
The most affective (and I do mean 'affective' not 'effective' I promise) session I attended was none of the above. It was a session in spoken Greek. On the registration they asked us to put our experience with Greek and Spoken Latin. Since the former wasn't expressly called "Spoken" I thought it was safe to say "Intermediate." When I found out I was signed up for a spoken Greek session where we'd actually read and discuss poetry, however, I figuratively threw up in my mouth a little. I was not the only one who entered a room on the ninth floor with the greatest trepidation. The people running the session greeted me and my friend and asked where we came from... in Greek. We stared at them until they stopped, and sat down. Soon we received a vocab sheet and a blank piece of paper. I clung to the vocab sheet like a plank in the icy waters surrounding the Titanic. Shortly thereafter, our teacher (Alex Petkas) began to speak. It developed, with the help of the vocab sheet, that today he was a boat-builder and we would learn how to build boats out of our paper. He led us through a complicated progression of folds and unfolds and opens and closes that eventually led to little origami boats.
Somewhere along the way I remembered how to say "yes" and "no" and found I recognized most of the words he was using (minus the boat and origami specific ones from the vocab sheet), and even knew what maybe two thirds of them meant. We moved on to looking at some poems in Greek and Latin and I managed to answer a non-yes/no question (although my answer began "ouk hellenike" and he said Latin was okay. WHEW.). By the end, I felt a lot better about myself because it turns out that, after six years of sweet sweet Greek avoidance, I still remembered a bunch.
Why am I telling you about this? To remind you of the experience of being a student. The fear and frightful stupidity that I felt throughout most of the session, the complete inability to answer questions in the TL, the incredible frustration of a talks-a-lot-person who can't express herself... My students were close to my mind. Next week I will be using more spoken Latin in my own classes, and now I feel like I will be more sympathetic toward my students' feelings as we do so. Up until now, they have been able to ask & answer oral questions in English. From now on, the expectation is that they will TRY to use Latin, and if they can't, they will use signals, or failing that, they will use their phrase sheets to ask me -- in Latin-- to speak English. So my takeaways from LLiNYC and specifically from my Greek session are particularly relevant to me at this time:
I hope that wall of text was somewhat interesting. If you've made it this far, I recommend you keep an eye out on the Paideia Institute's website for videos of a lot of the talks, both in English and Latin (and a few in Greek). There will be really good stuff there, including demos of CI from Bob Patrick & Keith Toda, and some excellent stuff on extensive reading by Justin S. Bailey.
This was only my second Living Latin event, and it was quite different from the Conventiculum Bostoniense. The latter is a true immersion experience for 8 days, whereas LLiNYC is more mixed. CB-- at least for beginners-- is about practicing spoken Latin and learning how to use it in the real world and with reference to teaching. LLiNYC had a mixture of things: spoken Latin just for fun, spoken Latin literature-reading sessions, academic & pedagogical lectures in Latin, and also some sessions in English or mixed Latin and English.
The most affective (and I do mean 'affective' not 'effective' I promise) session I attended was none of the above. It was a session in spoken Greek. On the registration they asked us to put our experience with Greek and Spoken Latin. Since the former wasn't expressly called "Spoken" I thought it was safe to say "Intermediate." When I found out I was signed up for a spoken Greek session where we'd actually read and discuss poetry, however, I figuratively threw up in my mouth a little. I was not the only one who entered a room on the ninth floor with the greatest trepidation. The people running the session greeted me and my friend and asked where we came from... in Greek. We stared at them until they stopped, and sat down. Soon we received a vocab sheet and a blank piece of paper. I clung to the vocab sheet like a plank in the icy waters surrounding the Titanic. Shortly thereafter, our teacher (Alex Petkas) began to speak. It developed, with the help of the vocab sheet, that today he was a boat-builder and we would learn how to build boats out of our paper. He led us through a complicated progression of folds and unfolds and opens and closes that eventually led to little origami boats.
Somewhere along the way I remembered how to say "yes" and "no" and found I recognized most of the words he was using (minus the boat and origami specific ones from the vocab sheet), and even knew what maybe two thirds of them meant. We moved on to looking at some poems in Greek and Latin and I managed to answer a non-yes/no question (although my answer began "ouk hellenike" and he said Latin was okay. WHEW.). By the end, I felt a lot better about myself because it turns out that, after six years of sweet sweet Greek avoidance, I still remembered a bunch.
Why am I telling you about this? To remind you of the experience of being a student. The fear and frightful stupidity that I felt throughout most of the session, the complete inability to answer questions in the TL, the incredible frustration of a talks-a-lot-person who can't express herself... My students were close to my mind. Next week I will be using more spoken Latin in my own classes, and now I feel like I will be more sympathetic toward my students' feelings as we do so. Up until now, they have been able to ask & answer oral questions in English. From now on, the expectation is that they will TRY to use Latin, and if they can't, they will use signals, or failing that, they will use their phrase sheets to ask me -- in Latin-- to speak English. So my takeaways from LLiNYC and specifically from my Greek session are particularly relevant to me at this time:
- Being a student in a foreign language sucks, even if you understand most of the words, because you can't express yourself how you want to, or as often.
- It is SCARY to be a student in a foreign language, even if you understand most of the words, because you feel out of control and like you may lose the thread at any moment.
- Because of those, it feels AWESOME when you get something right in the TL, whether by speaking or just by understanding.
- Doing something physical and obvious like showing us how to fold a paper boat while describing the process in the TL is a tremendously effective safety net to reduce the above fears & anxieties. (i.e., CI is great- "I may not know what that word he keeps saying means, but I'm damn sure it's something to do with folding.")
- ... and finally, using a foreign language is exhausting, even if you're nominally an expert in the language.
I hope that wall of text was somewhat interesting. If you've made it this far, I recommend you keep an eye out on the Paideia Institute's website for videos of a lot of the talks, both in English and Latin (and a few in Greek). There will be really good stuff there, including demos of CI from Bob Patrick & Keith Toda, and some excellent stuff on extensive reading by Justin S. Bailey.
Saturday, December 5, 2015
A unit post-mortem
This week's "unit" (I use the term rather loosely here) was to focus on mittit (sends), infinitive + scit (knows how...), and nescit (doesn't know how...). I also wanted a ton of reps using the genitive (possessive), so mater Iuliae / Marci / Grumionis (Julia's/ Marcus's / Grumio's mother) was another target. For plot reasons we also worked with the phrase vitam bonam agere (to lead a good life).
This is an ungodly long post but I hope it'll be helpful.
This is an ungodly long post but I hope it'll be helpful.
Saturday, November 21, 2015
Where are all the TPRS lesson plans?!
When I first started to look into TPRS, I was really frustrated at how difficult it was to find example lesson plans. All I could find was statements like, "It's hard to give a lesson plan for this since it was so specific to my class, but it went sort of like this..." If you've been looking for advice on TPRS, you probably have had this issue too. Or maybe you didn't because you're much better at googling than I am! :) Anyway, here's the deal.
TPRS lesson plans don't really exist as such because TPRS lesson plans look like this:
Target Structures: wants, has, is
Story structure: Someone wants something, but they don't have it. They go to three places to try to find it. Eventually they find it, or something surprising happens maybe.
Activities: Ask a story. Do PQA. Follow up with a Retell activity.
Well, okay, maybe they're not always that minimal, but they often are. The most "lesson planny" ones I've seen are the ones Keith Toda kindly did on his blog here and here. And those are AWESOME. But personally I am not that together. I tend to come up with a story by writing my target structures on the board and staring at them until something like a story structure emerges. This is not reliable, and I can assure you that doing it at 7:15 am when you're about to teach it at 7:40 is stressful.
The cool thing about TPRS though, the freeing thing which makes it so much less exhausting than some other approaches, is that you CAN plan a lesson with just your target structures in mind and see what happens. The key is that instead of having a Lesson Plan, capital L capital P, you have a menu of lesson options depending on how things are going. My mental lesson menu for the week looks like this:
TPRS lesson plans don't really exist as such because TPRS lesson plans look like this:
Target Structures: wants, has, is
Story structure: Someone wants something, but they don't have it. They go to three places to try to find it. Eventually they find it, or something surprising happens maybe.
Activities: Ask a story. Do PQA. Follow up with a Retell activity.
Well, okay, maybe they're not always that minimal, but they often are. The most "lesson planny" ones I've seen are the ones Keith Toda kindly did on his blog here and here. And those are AWESOME. But personally I am not that together. I tend to come up with a story by writing my target structures on the board and staring at them until something like a story structure emerges. This is not reliable, and I can assure you that doing it at 7:15 am when you're about to teach it at 7:40 is stressful.
The cool thing about TPRS though, the freeing thing which makes it so much less exhausting than some other approaches, is that you CAN plan a lesson with just your target structures in mind and see what happens. The key is that instead of having a Lesson Plan, capital L capital P, you have a menu of lesson options depending on how things are going. My mental lesson menu for the week looks like this:
Personalization saves the day!
This week, I have been focusing on imperatives with my Latin II's. I made up a long, complicated story that used my target vocab and had a few commands in it. I thought it was pretty entertaining. My students, however, were unimpressed. It wasn't really relevant to their lives at all and even though I had them choose details like locations and characters, it was kind of lukewarm. I also had trouble circling enough because I was trying to rush through to get done with the whole story. By the end, I had about 6 reps of "sumit" (picks up), and I'd used imperatives less than 10 times. For a long story, that's pretty low.
The last period of the day is largely made up of a lot of very perky, silly sophomores. They're also the ones who are coming out with the most spontaneous Latin, both in my classroom and apparently elsewhere. On the day I did the story, Cornelia happened to tell me that her mom "hates Latin" now because every time she asks Cornelia to do something, Cornelia says ,"non!" On the same day, the sophomore class adviser, who is also Maria's mother, had told them they needed to behave and settle down for me or else she wouldn't let them do Lipsync- a big school event for which they've been preparing for a month. Cornelia is playing a flip-flop in their act (don't ask). So, I wrote this story for the following day:
The last period of the day is largely made up of a lot of very perky, silly sophomores. They're also the ones who are coming out with the most spontaneous Latin, both in my classroom and apparently elsewhere. On the day I did the story, Cornelia happened to tell me that her mom "hates Latin" now because every time she asks Cornelia to do something, Cornelia says ,"non!" On the same day, the sophomore class adviser, who is also Maria's mother, had told them they needed to behave and settle down for me or else she wouldn't let them do Lipsync- a big school event for which they've been preparing for a month. Cornelia is playing a flip-flop in their act (don't ask). So, I wrote this story for the following day:
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