Foray into Comprehensible Input

A few weeks ago my intermediate students turned in a take-home exam and since I couldn't realistically expect them to prepare new material for the day, I opted to "comprehensible input" them with weather and season vocabulary. Normally I would assign them a few pages to pre-teach themselves a concept and a few exercises to give them practice with the basics. Instead, this was the framework of my lesson plan:

• 5 minutes Me narrate/describe photos and weather outside
• 2 min en français-faisons du brainstorming au tableau des nouveaux mots/expressions 
• 2 min en français-nous utilisons le nouveau vocabulaire                       

                        aujourd’hui il… ?

                        en février en général il…. ?

I used images like this:

http://theplunder.com/i-photographed-my-dog-enjoying-a-snowy-day/

And:

http://laurentowers.blogspot.com/2013/07/stormy-day.html

This was a significant departure for them. They didn't stare at the book or rifle through pages to look at a vocab list. They answered the most basic of questions. For example: "Il fait chaud?" while pointing at the first photo. "Il neige?" while pointing at the second. I did as much repetition (and gesticulating) as I could before asking them to use the new words themselves. 

The results: 4 of the 6 students said they liked the format, although 2 added the caveat that they wouldn't want that format all the time. They were afraid of missing something if they looked away, but they also wanted to take notes. At the end of the unit, one added more emphatically that he thought the change was really helpful for him. 

I had very mixed feelings about the experience. The change to CI felt like the fairest way to begin the new material. I selected images ahead of time that would weave in a broad variety of vocab, but otherwise I didn't plan much ahead. I appreciated that they were all engaged. I was impressed by how much they could say after just 5 minutes or so. 

On the other hand, the success was thanks to MY preparation. They didn't have to do anything outside of class. Our accrediting body requires us to put a statement about the workload expectations for the course on the syllabus (1-2 hours outside of class per hour inside of class), but students NEVER, EVER put in that much time outside of class. I've been frustrated that we can't accomplish more task-based activities because they hinge on scaffolding that students must do outside of class. That day I wasn't frustrated by their lack of preparation, but the CI model totally circumvents those challenges, and not necessarily in a healthy way. It puts the responsibility almost solely on the instructor. I wonder what homework looks like in a purely CI-based classroom. With college age students, I resent essentially doing the hard work for them. 

My personal conclusion is that on days when I can't expect them to prepare outside of class, I am willing to integrate CI-lite strategies. I am willing to give a CI-esque intro to new chapters and concepts. I am unwilling to use CI everyday because it is so passive. 

Summer Reading Summary 1: Ideas for Effectively Using Film in the Foreign Language Classroom

I've been catching up on a lot of professional reading this summer. I've gotten lots and lots of great ideas for my teaching and scholarship, but I've struggled with the best way to capture those ideas so I am able and likely to put them to use. That's where this blog comes in. In the series "Summer Reading Summary" I'll be sharing the most helpful ideas and resources for my purposes. Since the blog searchable it will make it easier for me to find and use. Hopefully it will offer readers some main points to inspire further research of their own. 


Here are some good ideas from two articles in Foreign Language Annals:

• "Using Film in the L2 Classroom: A Graduate Course in Film Pedagogy" by Jessica L. Sturm Vol 45 No 2 Summer 2012 pgs 246-259
• "Effects of Narrative Script Advance Organizer Strategies Used to Introduce Video in the Foreign Language Classroom" by Philips D. Ambard and Linda K. Ambard Vol 45 No 2 Summer 2012 pgs 203-228

Key passages and ideas:

Sturm:

• article explains a graduate level course on using film to strengthen communicative language teaching, emphasizing meaning and authentic interaction, not perfection, 
• ideas for course texts: Using Authentic Video in the Language Classroom (Sherman 2003) and Dictionnaire de didactique du française étragnère et seconde (Cuq 2003), Pegrum 2008 "Film, culture and identity: Critical intercultural literacies for the language classroom" in Language and Intercultural Communication, "Got film? Is it a readily accessible window to the target language and culture for your students?" (Bueno 2009 in FLA), "A Sequential model for video viewing in the foreign language curriculum" (Swaffar and Vlatten 1997 in Modern Language Journal)
• the goals of the course were to engage with film on a more critical level and to build from smaller segments (excerpts or TV shows) to feature length films
• the course emphasized student input, personalizing the material, and collaboration
• units: remakes, medium (adapting written texts for film), how to read an image, subtitles/dubbing, ancillary materials, sound (imagine the sound, play only the sound without the image, imagine what is happening), trailers, excerpts and commercials, pre and post watching activities, short films/TV, feature length films
• film ideas: Le ballon rouge (Lamorisse 1956), Hors de prix (Salvadori 2006), French films and their American remakes like 3 men and a baby, Le dîner de cons, etc, Paris je t'aime (2006), La Môme (Duhan 2007), Indigènes (Bouchareb 2006), Glory (Zwick 1989), Amélie (Jeunet 2001), L'Auberge espagnole (Klapische 2002)

Ambard and Ambard:

• research has found the use of video is more effective if it's introduced via effective advance organizer (AO) strategies. 
• Examples: using transcription and viewing guides, watch short, key scenes and ask students to write short summaries of them before viewing the whole film
• use technology to discuss essential facts, character roles, genre, emotional tones, visual context
• using AO strategies helps learners understand what they'll get out of the lesson

Metacognitive Skills: Building on techniques for teaching grammar

Another recent article in Foreign Language Annals echoes, at least for me, my last post on teaching grammar in the target language. David R. Thompson argues we should promote metacognitive skills in language classrooms ("Promoting Metacognitive Skills in Intermediate Spanish: Report of a Classroom Research Project" Vol 45 No 3 Fall 2012 pgs 447-462). Meaning we should encourage our students to self-monitor and reflect on their learning. As a result they will be more aware of their learning and feel a greater sense of ownership over it.

A couple of highlights:

• "Learning should include opportunities for students to talk explicitly about methods of problem-solving and connect strategy selection and evaluation to particular scenarios" (449). My thought: doing this will give students tools and should empower them.
• "Most educational psychologists agree that metacognitive skills should be embedded in disciplinary content instruction and that instructors should include cues for strategy selection and evaluation in assignments" (449, citing Pintrich 2002, Svinicki 1999, Veenman et all 2006). My thought: it makes sense to share with students techniques that are likely to be more effective for them, perhaps things that worked for us, the instructors, when we were first learning the concepts. At the same time I wonder if this reflection, which will inevitably be done in the students' first language, will be a mental detour away from the important concepts at hand. Furthermore, I wonder if this self-monitoring and reflection replicates L1 learning. It seems to me no, it doesn't...

Examples of metacognitive activities:

• posttest reflection exercises
• talking explicitly about study strategies during classtime
• anonymous surveys getting students to think about their learning strategies

Why this made me think of my last post:

Although assigning students self-monitoring assignments may lead them in the direction of L1 use and away from the central concept being taught, I think any activity that builds awareness and confidence, is a good one. Learning grammar in a second language can be very intimidating to students who don't know the formal grammar rules of their first language. Metacognitive skills can boost confidence.