Salut! Willkommen! Salvete! ¡Bienvenido!
| In the posts below, you will find notes and materials used in the GCPS 2014 CI Training Workshop. 45 teachers in four languages, French, German, Latin and Spanish, attended this workshop. | ||
On subsequent pages you will find helpful links and a place where we will post teacher testimonials of what is happening in their classrooms.
This is the presentation given by Bob Patrick at the GCPS Pre-Service District Gathering focusing on backwards design, CI with a list of suggested lesson ideas stemming from the backwards design.
You will find linked below the Slide Presentations and documents that we shared with participants in the 2015 CI Training Workshop. You may view these and use these. We ask that if you use one that you first MAKE A COPY and then edit as you need, giving credit to the creator of the work.
Introducing CI to the Textbook
Circling is the foundation of Comprehensible Input. Circling is the way that you can get in enough REPETITIONS with NOVELTY.
Circling is a CI strategy that anyone can use and is a good place to start. Try Circling with Balls at the beginning of the school year.
Stephanie Kenemer and Keren Coronado-Mendez from Norcross High School were gracious enough to share this already made French Word Wall which was inspired by a Spanish Word Wall created by Scott Benedict.
Here is a link to Scott Benedict’s website:
http://http://teachforjune.com/services/#resources
This is how I taught vocabulary based on the Pixar short Partly Cloudy and included vocabulary from the GCPS French 1 Thematic Unit. I used the film as a culminating activity to show that the students acquired the vocabulary.
Here are some comments which Keith has gotten from folks at our inservice:
Michelle Broeg – Archer HS
I used the circling balls – didn’t get to it every day but still planning to work through their cards some this week. Thanks for the tips and the support!
Michelle, this is a great start! It may not fit in your lesson every day, but it is great that you are sticking to it. I haven’t done it every day either because my goal this year is to add more variety to my CI classroom so that the novelty doesn’t wear off. -Lauren
Norma Miller – Duluth HS
I tried circling with balls, it was so-so successful, mostly because I gave out of ideas, but the kids loved it. Next week we have SPG’s, but I’m going to try embedded reading and popcorn reading. I got a road runner story/video. I teach Spanish 3, so explosion, accident, fall, wounded, are all a review for them, and vocabulary such as : at the beginning, nature, desert, valley, sierra. beautiful, landscape, climb a rock, rock, he approaches, a little while, to happen, will be the new words. It has several cognates, so I think they can handle all the new vocab.. I’m still working on simplifying my story – I have one more day for this 🙂 I’m still working on figuring out how long to stay on each story/activity, any ideas?
Wow! You are jumping right in! That is wonderful! In my experience, if I start an activity on day 1 and don’t finish it, I try to change the activity enough on day 2 to keep the novelty. For example, if I do a TPRS story on day 1 and class is over before we finish and I haven’t had the chance to circle all of the vocabulary, I may do a choral reading the next day with the same story idea (with a few twists), the same vocabulary and then really circle the vocab that we didn’t get to on the previous day. That is just me, but I encourage you to experiment with your students to see what works. I think that novelty is really key with this type of teaching. If they start to hear the same thing over and over again, that is when they are less engaged and more likely to tune out. –Lauren
Kate Wilson – Brookwood HS
I tried circling with balls. All went well…the more I do it, the better I’m sure I will be:)
Definitely Kate! Circling is a skill that is not easy at first and takes a lot of practice. I used to (and still do sometimes) script out all of my questions and put them on my desk as a reference in case I stumbled. Keith and Bob make circling look effortless, but when you try it in front of your class it is really difficult!! -Lauren
Marianne Lattimore – Parkview HS
I haven’t yet, but I was going to ask a question about the circling with balls activity and that question is, what was the order for what question to ask when? I remember there was one where the answer should be yes, one where the answer is the correct vocab word, one where the answer is no, but I don’t remember if there are others or what order was best for the questions to go in. If you can help me out with that, I’d like to try that activity this year. Thanks!
Here is Keith’s response to Marianne:
Thanks for your comments. With circling, the basic order is
1) a yes answer
2) an either/or answer (this depends on what vocabulary word/form you are focusing)
3) a no answer
Example: Marcus, do you have cat? (yes)
1) O class, does Marcus have a cat? (yes)
2) O class, does Marcus have a cat or a dog? (a cat)
3) O class, does Marcus have a dog? (no)
If you really want to get in repetitions, you can add the following after the class responds:
1) O class, does Marcus have a cat? (yes) Yes, Marcus has a cat
2) O class, does Marcus have a cat or a dog? (a cat) yes, Marcus has a cat. Marcus does not have a dog – how ridiculous! Marcus has a cat.
3) O class, does Marcus have a dog? (no) No, Marcus does not have a dog. Marcus has a cat.
4) O class, what does Marcus have? (a cat)
5) O class, who has a cat? (Marcus)
6) O class, who has a dog? [assuming that someone prior to this has said that they have a dog]
Andrea Ryles – Brookwood HS
I did a TPRS story that I created. I made a PowerPoint with the new vocab and had some activities with the vocab before actually going into the story. I later followed it up with the drawing game where one student illustrates a line from the story and then the other student finds the sentence within the story. On Friday, I did “read-dating” with the story. “Read-dating” was a huge hit! They had a lot of fun with it and I think it was a confidence builder as well.
Awesome! It sounds like you are doing everything right! I haven ‘t done “Read-dating” with my level 1 class yet, but I can’t wait! It sounds like students love it! -Lauren
A few weeks ago, I attended the National TPRS (Teaching Proficiency through Reading and Storytelling) Conference in Chicago, and one of the presentations which I attended on was Research on TPRS Instruction. Delivered by Dr. Karen Lichtman at North Indiana University, this presentation addressed how TPRS-students vs. non-TPRS/textbook-based students fared on standardized language assessments – the TPRS-students performed vastly better.
(Although we did not formally address TPRS in our inservice, It is a FORM of Comprehensible Input).
The research only addressed TPRS and not all forms of CI, but I am assuming that CI-students would outperform non-CI students. The assessments used in the research were district standardized exams, district OPI-based oral interviews, etc. Assessments like the AP exam, IB exam, and national foreign language exams were not used, One part of the research addresed how TPRS students from lower-income schools performed compared to non-TPRS students – the TPRS students performed DRAMATICALLY better and actually performed almost at the same level as those TPRS-students from more affluent schools.
In addition, this research is statistically valid. In my opinion, this research is important for us to know and to show others. As of right now, we have anecdotal evidence based on the number of fewer failures, higher retention of students in the upper levels and higher student satisfaction, but unfortunately in our standardized assessment data-driven schools, those kinds of numbers do not “prove” anything. This information at least demonstrates that CI (more specifically, TPRS) is a valid methodology of teaching.
– Keith
I hope that you are excited as I am about starting the school year off right with CI and applying much of what you all learned at this summer’s inservice. A number of you have asked about TPR (Total Physical Response) and Circling with Balls (the “drawing on index cards” activity) and how to do those activities. Below, I have attached two links with descriptions which I have written up about how to use both in your classes:
Total Physical Response (TPR) – this is definitely a great way to start language acquisition with level 1 students right away
Circling with Balls – a great opening week activity
I wish you all the best for next week and look forward to hearing about your victories!
– Keith
Stephen Krashen has just posted a new article of his about writing–in any language. He summarizes the research and briefly describes several REALLY good benefits of writing, and writing regularly. Interestingly, one of those benefits is NOT more acquisition of the language. He documents, as well, what good writers know about the writing composition process.
See the article here.
Bob Patrick
CI Training GCPS: Every student--every language! 