Breaking Up with My Textbook: A Gradual, Multi-Stage Process

I'm writing this on Dec 28, 2018, well after the fall semester of 2018 when my breakup began. When I prepared the syllabus for my fall FREN 103 (accelerated beginning French) course, I somehow thought the break would be clean.

I don't know how on earth I thought that since I had also adopted an open-source text produced by the University of Texas-Austin, Français interactif. It is only $30 if you opt to print it and have it shipped, but all the materials are available for free online. I figured it was a good first step since students (and I) would still have some traditional support and a skeleton of sorts to rely on as I worked on fleshing out the course will real resources produced for native French speakers. It has a good variety of exercises, videos, and more elaborate assignments, just like Chez Nous, but for a fraction of the price.

I experienced buyer's remorse almost immediately after it arrived because I was still wrestling with how much of the textbook to include in the class, what chapters, what pages, what exercises, etc. I kept reminding myself the goal was to STOP doing that to myself (and the students). I felt like because I had the textbook I HAD to include it. I felt like I HAD to include it because going from a (full, expensive) textbook package to nothing would be too hard. Yet, if I had opted for a clean break from ALL textbooks, I probably would have saved myself some time and anguish. Hindsight...

One teaching approach that quickly emerged when I contemplated my breakup was CI (comprehensible input). The thinking is students need lots of exposure to quality input in the target language before they can be expected to produce their own language. Many of the practitioners use TPRS (Teaching Proficiency Through Reading and Storytelling). A google search of CI or TPRS in the French classroom will bring up a lot of sites about stories and novels written by non-native speakers that are used in the classrooms. Theoretically, the language in them is just a bit above the students' current level so there is a lot that is familiar, which serves as a scaffold, but there are a few new elements that help them grow and increase their proficiency. It seems like CI practitioners are on one side of a continuum where they do almost all the preparation of culturally empty lessons while students do little active learning. On the other end of the continuum are the ACTFL endorsed practices like adapting the task, not the (culturally relevant) text, where teachers and students both have a high level of preparation for each class period. I experimented a bit with CI and found the students to be engaged and to have absorbed a good amount of vocab, but they also got by without having to prepare anything themselves outside of class. If my understanding is accurate, does that make CI a better choice for middle school or high school than college? If so, does that mean using CI from time to time, like when introducing a unit for example, is appropriate but it isn't necessarily appropriate as the main teaching method?

While grappling with these reflections, I also identified and adapted some authentic resources to adhere to ACTFL's recommendation to get students using the target language in meaningful ways that are realistic for a given proficiency level. They included:

• the song Papaoutai by Stromae to discuss different types of families

• Thierry's CV to compare CVs to resumés
• an article on French pastimes
• another on global natural resource management
• photos of recipes from Quebec to practice the partitive

 

•  a video of a school district dietitian explaining the guidelines for balanced meals 

Overall I was pleased with each resource and the worksheets I developed to fully leverage each one, but it was very time consuming. I'm imagining our repository as chock-full of cool websites and activities, but I'm wondering if it is better to create a small repertoire of authentic texts that can be modified in numerous ways depending on the nature of the class and the proficiency level of the students. I could modify both my approach to the texts (how I use them to give students input) and output activities (what students DO with the input).

Somewhere near the end of October I came to terms with the gradual breakup and realized I needed an adjustment period to move away from Chez Nous and to experiment with some of the textbook-free principles I had gleaned over the summer and fall. I also came to terms with what would be "appropriate" for the college level and accepted that occasionally using CI will work for me.

Principles

• use authentic resources produced for native French speakers
• select resources with cultural relevance whenever possible
• adapt the tasks for each resource, not the text
• aim for good scaffolding that includes the following ideas
• begin with interpretive questions that verify comprehension and help familiarize them with the new concepts and/or vocab
• repeat the new concepts/vocab OFTEN and in different ways
• move to interpersonal questions so students interact and have to produce their own language, thus learning by doing
• culminate in some kind of demonstration of their knowledge (on the order of "presentational" in ACTFL parlance). This could be answering an essay question on a written exam, summarizing a discussion with a partner or small group for the whole class, or answering an analytical question on an assignment

Now that I've identified and implemented some general principles I feel more prepared to work towards finalizing the breakup. In retrospect, I needed to do it gradually so I could maintain a level of confidence with the students and reassure myself that they were still acquiring solid language skills.

Phases:

• Phase 1 (FREN 103 fall 2018) was gradually subtracting the textbook from my course design and lesson plans, injecting some authentic materials, and thinking more explicitly about documenting assessment
• Phase 2 (FREN 203 spring 2019) will be even more subtraction and injection with a greater emphasis on assessment, specifically: 1) IPAs and 2) systematizing/habituating how I document the assessment of my courses
• Phase 3 (FREN 101 or 103 fall 2019) will be no textbook, although I may use Français interactif's vocabulary videos and lists as the basis of some units

Breaking Up with My Textbook: Some Background

For several years now I have noticed numerous articles in publications such as The Language Educator, Foreign Language Annals, and The French Review as well as blogs and Facebook groups, urging language educators to move away from a textbook-based curriculum in favor of made-from-scratch lessons built upon authentic materials made for native speakers like articles, novels, podcasts, and videos. Creating such units requires identifying an authentic source of “input,” breaking it down into manageable chunks, and creating manageable tasks of gradually increasing difficulty so students move from passive, basic understanding to thorough, applicable knowledge and skills. Research from linguists like Stephen Krashen suggests students need high quality “input” in order to be able to eventually produce high quality “output” (papers, presentations, portfolios, etc).

I have used the current French 101, 102, 103 and 203 textbook for almost ten years. The supporting materials I have developed for these courses are all tied to the chapter organization and content of Chez Nous, published by Pearson. Their robust online workbook, MyFrenchLab, contains tutorials, flashcards, grammatical explanations, and other resources. While I like many things about the textbook and online materials, the sequencing is somewhat illogical, the cultural examples within each chapter are almost all from France while the Francophone world is almost exclusively covered in the supplementary material relegated to the pages between chapters, it relies heavily on childish drawings in an infantilizing way, and many of the exercises are simplistic. On top of that, it is around $250 for the full package! The high cost is likely a result of the "supplemental" videos and accompanying activities that we rarely use. Even if we use it over three semesters, it's still an exorbitant price for something that we can only use pieces of due to time constraints. 

I am increasingly aware that in the field of second language teaching many teachers are moving towards a self-created curriculum. The belief is integrating real resources will enhance student’s cultural competence, an increasingly important facet of language learning in this global age. I have not yet had the time to carefully research, read, and analyze what the recognized experts in the field are currently doing. This process, including distilling down all the information into a collection of best practices will require considerable time.

I have long wanted to move away from a textbook in these courses. A close friend who teaches French at Cornell College, Dr. Devan Baty, also uses Chez Nous. We have both explored the recommendations from groups like ACTFL (The American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages) and the AATF (American Association of Teachers of French), are similarly disenchanted with Chez Nous, and are similarly poised to undertake a challenge. 

All of these curricular changes will lead to substantial pedagogical change. Currently, I give students a homework syllabus for each chapter which indicates what page numbers to work on each day. It notes if there is homework and where to complete it (MyFrenchLab, Canvas, or on paper). Most exercises in MyFrenchLab are assessed by the software and students see their errors after submitting them. Before each class period, I review the grades on the exercises and note which were problematic for students. Then I build in time during the lesson to address those common errors. Having taught the courses with the existing curriculum for so many years, it is relatively easy to plan lessons because the general framework is in place. I slightly revise things, ensure there is time to address common errors, cull activities that did not work in the past and add new ones.

Here are some of the ways my pedagogy will change. All of my chapter syllabi and many of the worksheets and activities will become obsolete because they rely on Chez Nous’s sequencing in introducing culture, grammar and vocabulary. Those that can still be used will need to be revised so they fit seamlessly into the new curricular sequence. To ensure class time is spent using the language in authentic ways, not simply talking about it, I want to adopt a more thoroughly “flipped classroom” model. This will involve creating or finding and vetting videos explaining the major grammar concepts that students will view outside of class. I will need to develop comprehension exercises verifying that students understand the concepts in the videos. I will need to create a variety of activities ranging from simple to complex tasks to apply the concepts. Each unit will weave together an authentic text, related vocabulary and grammar, culture, and will culminate in a meaningful project. One model I am exploring is an “integrated performance assessment” (IPA) designed to build proficiency with clusters of assignments that reflect interpretive, interpersonal or presentational communication. All of these changes must be carefully undertaken so there is clear scaffolding to support students' growth so their proficiency develops. 

A key component of this process is creating a central, searchable repository of authentic materials. There are TONS of curated lists out there from organizations like the Association of Teachers of French (AATF) and others. A search of YouTube videos for a given concept will yield hundreds, if not thousands of options. There are hundreds of websites for museums, monuments, newspapers, podcasts, etc, all produced in French for native French speakers. How to harness the vast, but daunting potential of all that content? Given that other repositories exist, the goals for ours are:

1. To be tagable and thus SEARCHABLE. We want to be able to tag a resource with multiple modalities (writing, listening, etc), multiple levels (beginning, intermediate, etc), as well as genre and geographic location so it can be leveraged in a multitude of ways
2. To be largely focused on the FRANCOPHONE world
3. To be curating and added to by STUDENTS
4. To be ADA friendly, if not compliant

ACTFL 2018 New Orleans!

I'm fortunate to have become friends with two amazing, inspiring language professors through another beloved, talented language professor friend, Kelly. I've presented with Anne and Kelly a few times and always enjoyed it but this year the conference was especially satisfying because it offered
excellent mentorship, professional development and socialization against a francophone backdrop I ACTUALLY GOT TO ENJOY!

MENTORSHIP:
I got a good deal on a plane ticket by arriving a day early. I had ample time on my hands and a dear friend I met through Kelly who met her through Anne, Sue, generously shared her time with me. We sat and talked at length about our current professional projects. Besides publications, invited speaking gigs, earning accolades with her students, serving on the ACTFL board, taking aim at the EdTPA standards, and a slew of other things, she is among the most sincere, kind and thoughtful people EVER. I felt fortunate to have spent several hours immersed in chewy conversation.

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT:

• My conversations with Sue inspired me to apply to read proposals for the Teaching and Learning of Culture SIG (Special Interest Group)
• I attended several sessions on LGBTQX identity in language classrooms and how to be inclusive-I felt like I was good at this already, but I can do more
• I attended a session on online teaching which will help with possible changes to beginning and intermediate French at RU
• I attended a session on weaving social justice themes into low level classes, something I've just started that holds promise for development
• I attended a session on designing units without a textbook as the foundation, something I'm doing in the Beyond the Textbook project. The presenters shared a helpful template I may adapt for my own purposes
• Anne, Kelly and I presented "Teacher's Toolbox: Strategies for Interacting with Authentic Texts" 

• I was awarded a prize by the Teaching and Learning of Culture SIG for study abroad photos I am incorporating in my classes. I gave a small talk about it at their meeting. 

SOCIALIZATION:
Anne arrived next, several hours before the conference festivities started so we had time to walk all over the French Quarter and talk while strolling. She balances a sizable research agenda that includes a recent book with two kids and a spouse. She embodies discipline, drive, and growth mindset. If Anne respects you, you feel proud of yourself for earning it from a tough judge of character. I still marvel that she thinks I'm worthy.

Last to arrive was Kelly, someone I've known for over 20 years and who has seen all of me. Besides our presentation with Anne, she also presented for a publisher. She also serves on a regional board and was elected secretary to an ACTFL special interest group on top of managing the expectations of a tenure track job. She manages to juggle all of that and sizable adulting tasks that would make the most competent of us cry. I'm so grateful to her for introducing me to these accomplished women and being one of my best friends.

Beyond the Text: Assessing and Reflecting on Chp 4 Exam in FREN 103 fall 2018

Over the years my written exams have evolved so they are much less focused on form and much more focused on substance. This semester in particular I used videos of native speakers from the Français interactive website in the listening comprehension. I've given them more open ended questions like describing the weather and scenery they see in a photo. They get full credit for identifying 8 elements, the 8 student A picks could be different from those student B picks and that's okay. They're both working with elements that are meaningful to them. The final section is an essay question that asks them to apply autobiographical information to a logical setting.

The chp 4 exam was similar in format, yet after 47 minutes not one student was finished and with the other exams several had finished after just 30 minutes. When I graded them almost everyone did much worse than the past exams. I mulled over what to do and then decided upon giving them an anonymous survey with questions on a Likert scale to find out if they studied for it differently than the others or if I failed to design a test that aligned with what they actually learned.

Here are the questions I asked:

Please answer this survey anonymously to give me feedback on the chp 04 exam.

1.    Approximately how much time did you spend preparing for this exam?

0-30 minutes           30-60 minutes              1-2 hours         more than 2 hours

2.    How much time did you spend on this exam compared to the others? More time  / less time

3.    Did you run out of time to answer the questions as completely as you wanted?  Yes /  no

4.    Do you think we needed to spend more time on this chapter before taking the exam? Yes /  no

5.    How well do you think the exam matched the activities and assignments you did for chp 4?

Not well at all       not well       no opinion       pretty well    extremely well

The results were equal parts reassuring and maddening. They spent between 30 and 60 minutes preparing. This was about the same amount of time as for other exams. They did run out of time. They did NOT think we needed to spend more time on the chapter before the exam. They thought exam matched the activities and assignments very well. I shared the results and said I couldn't really draw any conclusions about what I could have done differently. 

I did allow them to redo the essay questions at the end and I would average their score on that section with the original score. Of 8 students only 1 opted to do that and she already had a B+ grade. 

I guess this is when horses and water come into the picture. You can get a teacher to reflect and offer students opportunities to do better, but you can't make the students come to the water and actually do the work to do better. 

Target Language Use in Partner Work

Intermediate French students recently worked in pairs to rewrite Candide, either a single scene or a modernization. There were 3 groups. One group (the most seasoned-upper level Spanish students taking French) did ALL the preparation in French. They suggested a complex rewriting of the play that involved changing the setting to modern day Alabama, Candide to a woman and a lesbian, and the whole thing explored a kind of fallacy theory for a result that was philosophical, substantive and lengthy.

The other two groups handled the project in English with a lot of joking and screwing around thrown in. How to make those groups more like the first? How to incentivize speaking in the target language?

• The course syllabus notes the importance of staying in the TL during pair and group work, but I don't enforce it like I should. I need to circulate and redirect them to English early and often in the semester.
• The grading for such assignments never takes into account HOW the project was planned. I will add that to the guidelines and rubric and attach points to it. It's actually not a bad idea to make them more cognizant of the processes they use to learn anyway. 
• The directions always say both people need to take notes but inevitably only one does. I can build in points for the notes.
• I can build in a reflection that asks them to comment on their language use while preparing the final project. 
• The reflection could include a question about what words or expressions they heard their partner use that they can add to their own repertoire (thus learning from their peers, something to be celebrated)
• I could direct each group to a different location and record themselves, then ask them to listen to themselves and reflect on THAT.

Fall 2018 reading “assignments”

Well, I did set a goal to read more. At the moment I’m in various stages of commitment and completion of the following works:

• “El arbol” by Maria Luisa Bombal (“assigned” by an amazing Spanish student who recommended I read it to brush up on my Spanish. She said it’s her favorite short story so far. I confess my Spanish skills were so rusty I couldn’t understand more than a few words out of 20 so I got it in English and NOW I’ll go back to the Spanish. 
• Vivian Elizabeth Fauville by Julia Deck, a French psychological novel with unique narration. 
• Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan for a Stoughton community book group in Sept
• Between the World & Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates with a colleague at work to discuss in Sept
• Kitchens of the Great Midwest by J Ryan Stradak in audio book form with Kelly, Courtney & Jill in Oct

Book Review: Mon père, ce harki by Dalila Kerchouche

I picked this book up at the bookstore in the Institut du monde arabe in Paris in January 2018. I had vague notions about "harkis," but didn't really understand anything about this group of Algerians. Given my work on gender in Algeria between 1954 and present day I wanted to round out my understanding.

I found this definition of harki (masc) and harkette (fem): quelqu'un qui soutenait les Français pendant la guerre d'indépendance. Kerchouche explains this is "une quête harkéologique" for her. Like many, she wants to understand why her Algerian parents seemed to side with the French and how their lives in France unfolded the way they did. She follows their route when they left Algeria and were forced to move from camp to camp.

The writing is powerful. Kerchouche's style is pithy but accessible and sometimes poetic. So many of her observations resonated with my background knowledge on the Algerian war of independence, civil war, and how Algerians have fared in France. Although I should have been, I was not prepared for the brutality her family and other Algerians faced. I had to put the book aside several times as the U.S. media was flooded with horrific stories of young children being separated from their families at the U.S. border. I had the luxury of tuning out these tragedies, unlike those who endured and continue to endure them.

Some of the more poetic passages:

• "Chez nous, l'ascenseur social a grillé les étages...Jolie vitrine de l'intégration. En apparence, oui." (27)
• "On est sortis des camps mais on est restés derrière la grille."(28)
• "' On m'a volé mon enfance', m'a dit un jour ma grande soeur Fatima. 'Et moi, mon passé,' lui-ai-je répondu."(33)
• Kerchouche visits near a camp where her parents lived a throng of women recognize her and surround her. "Clouée sur place, je me laisse emporter par cette spirale humaine. [...]Je ne pensais pas qu'il y avait tant d'amour en enfer."(128)
• "Sur la porte verte d'un garage, un tag hurle 'harkis en colère' dans les champs silencieux." (131)
• "l'avion ralentit, mon coeur s'accelère." (208)

Some of the recurring themes and resonant ideas:

• être entre deux (neither Algerian nor French)
• loving and hating Algeria
• loving and hating France
• silence
• forced enduring poverty (garnishing wages, withholding checks, rich supervisors demanding offerings from impoverished families)
• attacking masculinity by shaming, beating or killing men in front of their families
• the replication of colonial Algeria in the camps in France, largely due to the pied noirs who worked there
• lots of non-French words. Ex: un gourbi, la mechta, un djebel, un oued
• the corruption, manipulation and hypocrisy of the FLN
• the importance of and education but how much of a struggle it was to get one
• effectively being imprisoned in the camps as if they were war criminals and not the allies that they were, often they are run like "microdictature" (pg 139)
• like Haiti "une vie de soumission et d'éternel colonisé. Résignées, anesthésiées aussi par un fatalisme ancestral qui les empêche de se révolter..." these families face nothing but misery (pg 145)
• women suffer more than anyone being trapped in the camps, but they pass that on to their daughters too by policing their attire, limiting their access to school and encouraging them to marry young (148)'
• "le chef de camps domine les harkis qui... dominent leurs épouses, méres qui dominent les filles. Et les enfants les plus âgés frappent les plus jeunes. Chacun et le bouc émissaire d'un autre."(176)
• is being a harki being a traitor to Algeria?
• "le peuple algérien, enlisé dans la lutte contre l'islamisme depuis 10 ans, a-t-il 'pardonné' aux harkis?"(206)
• fear of Islamist militants in Algeria
• in fact in many families one person worked for the FLN and other worked for the French, hedging their bets and trying to keep their families as secure as possible (pg 221)
• le FLN cont de nouveaux colons (stealing independence and the country's wealth, preventing its true independence) (222)
• contrary to the "mission civilisatrice" the French did very little to improve Algeria (228-229)
• for the Islamists religion is a pretext, an excuse to steal, rape, pillage, etc. And "tout le monde les connaît. Ce sont des jeunes du douar, attirés par l'argent facile."(241)
• just like during the war of indep, under the Islamists/civil war people live in fear of being coerced, tortured, massacred, etc.  (242)
• sometimes harkis carried out torture and other violence against other Algerians (252-253)
• if her family had stayed in Algeria she would likely be illiterate, impoverished, and living in terror. Despite what her family went through she has a better life today thanks to them. (270)
• "Oui, je suis une fille de harkis. J'écris ce mot avec un grand H. Comme Honneur."(277)

Overall, this book was an excellent complement to my prior knowledge about Algeria. It was eloquently written, thought-provoking and moving.