Episode 35: "They Nodded. They Have No Idea."
Checking for understanding in a CI classroom is harder than it looks - in this episode of Comprehend THIS!, we break down why the confident nod lies and how to actually know what your students understood.
You'll learn why kids fake comprehension, which comprehension checks quietly tell you nothing, and the low-key checks that reveal what really landed without turning your lesson into a test.
The most dangerous moment in a comprehensible input classroom is the thumbs-up that means nothing. This week Pamela Parks and I are joined by guest host Stephanie Carbonneau, a middle school French teacher from York, Maine with 28 years in a deskless, acquisition-driven room and strong opinions about which comprehension checks work. Pamela spent years as a professional translator before becoming a world language teacher, so she knows exactly what it looks like when someone nods along and understands nothing. We get into checking for understanding as an actual craft, the checks that feel productive but aren't, and one check you can build before the school year starts.
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Transcript
Good morning everybody and
Speaker:welcome to episode number 35.
Speaker:You asked the class if
Speaker:they got it, they nodded.
Speaker:You believed them.
Speaker:That was your first mistake.
Speaker:This week, Pamela and I are joined by
Speaker:Stephanie Carboneau, a
Speaker:middle school French teacher
Speaker:out of York, Maine, who's been running a
Speaker:mostly deskless
Speaker:acquisition driven room for 28 years
Speaker:and has opinions about
Speaker:comprehension checks.
Speaker:Pamela spent a year as a professional
Speaker:translator before teaching
Speaker:so she knows exactly what
Speaker:it looks like when someone smiles and
Speaker:pretends to follow along.
Speaker:Or that they always say yes to everything
Speaker:because they have no
Speaker:idea what you're saying.
Speaker:Between the two of them, nobody at this
Speaker:table is fooled by a thumbs up.
Speaker:We're getting into the confident nod that
Speaker:means absolutely nothing.
Speaker:Why kids fake it instead of admitting
Speaker:they're lost and the
Speaker:checks you've been trusting
Speaker:that have been quietly
Speaker:lying to you for years.
Speaker:If you ever moved on from a lesson
Speaker:feeling great and gotten the
Speaker:quiz back feeling betrayed,
Speaker:this is the one for you.
Speaker:We'll be back in just a short message.
Speaker:Is it already August?
Speaker:Again?
Speaker:And you're supposed to have a fresh,
Speaker:engaging, life changing
Speaker:plan for the first week?
Speaker:Cute.
Speaker:Here's the deal.
Speaker:Back to school boot
Speaker:camp is your secret weapon.
Speaker:Ten short, pre-recorded lessons you can
Speaker:watch in pajamas while
Speaker:hiding from your admin or
Speaker:during that mysterious
Speaker:planning period we keep hearing about.
Speaker:You walk away with strategies, plans and
Speaker:actual confidence, not
Speaker:just a Pinterest board full
Speaker:of guilt.
Speaker:Access it all for a full year.
Speaker:Go to mm.us slash boot camp and get
Speaker:yourself together
Speaker:before the kids show up.
Speaker:Welcome to comprehend this.
Speaker:Real talk for real language teachers.
Speaker:No drills, no dry theory, just honest
Speaker:stories, practical ideas
Speaker:and a reminder you're not
Speaker:alone in the CI trenches.
Speaker:Let's dive in.
Speaker:Good morning and welcome to Pamela and
Speaker:Stephanie this morning.
Speaker:How is everybody doing
Speaker:on this Sunday morning?
Speaker:Good morning.
Speaker:We're so happy to have Stephanie with us.
Speaker:Yes, it's great to have her back.
Speaker:She's been with us before, so it's been
Speaker:amazing to have her back.
Speaker:At least we've got someone representing
Speaker:the East Coast this
Speaker:morning coming from Maine
Speaker:because both of us are West Coasters on
Speaker:the other side of the country.
Speaker:But that means it's really early for us
Speaker:and much better for her.
Speaker:Yeah, lunchtime.
Speaker:Lunchtime.
Speaker:I'm just getting up.
Speaker:I get up at seven on these days.
Speaker:So anything else you want to tell us
Speaker:about yourself, Stephanie, before we go?
Speaker:I also run a Mani Musicale.
Speaker:I am the co-founder of a French Mani
Speaker:Musicale that we had
Speaker:7,000 schools participate last
Speaker:year.
Speaker:Awesome.
Speaker:I love that.
Speaker:That's awesome.
Speaker:I'm a song person, but
Speaker:I do mine differently.
Speaker:I don't participate in the Spanish
Speaker:version of that at all.
Speaker:I never have.
Speaker:Partly because, oh my gosh,
Speaker:this is like a confession.
Speaker:I should have my face blacked out for
Speaker:what I'm about to say.
Speaker:I don't listen to Spanish
Speaker:or Hispanic music on my own.
Speaker:I did when I was younger in my 20s, but
Speaker:the kind of music I
Speaker:listened to, I don't listen
Speaker:to that music regularly.
Speaker:I made a deal with myself as a kid that I
Speaker:would never get stuck
Speaker:in a decade or a time.
Speaker:I'd always be up to date with
Speaker:the music that I listened to.
Speaker:So in the genre that I
Speaker:listened to, I am up to date.
Speaker:I am hearing the new
Speaker:songs as they come out.
Speaker:I'm not stuck in anything I've kept to
Speaker:that, but the genre that I
Speaker:listen to is not Hispanic
Speaker:music, so I'm very
Speaker:ignorant when it comes to that.
Speaker:The songs I've been singing with my class
Speaker:are songs that I got
Speaker:from other teachers years
Speaker:ago and I've been
Speaker:using them for a long time.
Speaker:Some of them, I treat it like it's a
Speaker:brand new song, but it
Speaker:came out in the early 2000s.
Speaker:That's kind of what I've done.
Speaker:I've stuck to it because it works and my
Speaker:kids like the songs and
Speaker:some of them they've heard
Speaker:before somewhere else.
Speaker:I don't know where they would have heard
Speaker:them, but some of them
Speaker:they're familiar with.
Speaker:But yeah, I can't get into that.
Speaker:I just can't get into that because we've
Speaker:talked before, Pamela, if
Speaker:I'm not into it, then my
Speaker:kids aren't going to be into it either.
Speaker:I don't do sports, so
Speaker:I'm not a sports person.
Speaker:So that idea of those competing, I always
Speaker:go, "Well, because
Speaker:America's Got Talent does
Speaker:something similar at the end of the thing
Speaker:where they just pair
Speaker:them up and whoever wins
Speaker:from the pair."
Speaker:I'm like, "Well, that's not really fair
Speaker:because if they had paired
Speaker:up with someone else, they
Speaker:might have won."
Speaker:It's not like skill based.
Speaker:It's just random based and that seems
Speaker:kind of unfair and not
Speaker:really skill based on there.
Speaker:So that's not something I get into.
Speaker:I would love to be able to be more, but
Speaker:if I can't get behind
Speaker:it, I can't ... I mean,
Speaker:give me a Send Your Wooly song.
Speaker:I can belt that out
Speaker:like the best of them.
Speaker:And the songs I've been
Speaker:singing, I can belt them out.
Speaker:I know them.
Speaker:I've been singing them for years.
Speaker:I know them by heart as we go along.
Speaker:But yeah, I just not ...
Speaker:I'm a strong believer in only doing what
Speaker:you are comfortable with
Speaker:because it's quite apparent
Speaker:to the students.
Speaker:I do movie talks and clip chats and that,
Speaker:but I don't do any
Speaker:story asking because I'm
Speaker:not comfortable with that.
Speaker:And anytime I've tried, it flops.
Speaker:So I only ...
Speaker:That was our last episode.
Speaker:Well, Stephanie, I would like to
Speaker:personally thank you
Speaker:because I do Money Music Al and
Speaker:my students love it so much.
Speaker:I do it through Roxam, which is a music
Speaker:learning app, and they
Speaker:made it super easy for me to
Speaker:just click on, "Oh, these
Speaker:are the two songs today.
Speaker:I'll just do that."
Speaker:So I would like to personally thank you
Speaker:for bringing that to my classroom.
Speaker:So thank you.
Speaker:You're welcome.
Speaker:And I think that's a good thing,
Speaker:Stephanie, that we all pick and choose.
Speaker:Back in the early days of
Speaker:CI, there was no choice.
Speaker:All we had was TPRS and it was the story.
Speaker:And it was PQA.
Speaker:We've talked about this before.
Speaker:PQA, for me, was difficult.
Speaker:I didn't understand it.
Speaker:They never demoed it
Speaker:in any demonstrations.
Speaker:So I skipped that part because I didn't
Speaker:feel comfortable until
Speaker:I read a book called PQA
Speaker:and a Wink by Ben Slavik
Speaker:and that got me into it.
Speaker:So I do it now.
Speaker:But now we have so many choices because
Speaker:we didn't have movie talk back then.
Speaker:We didn't have picture talk back then.
Speaker:We didn't have any.
Speaker:We didn't have "Sing
Speaker:Your Woolly" back then.
Speaker:I still use some of the songs I did back
Speaker:then before "Sing Your Woolly."
Speaker:Todd Hawkins is the guy that we used in
Speaker:Spanish before that.
Speaker:And he actually came to an
Speaker:NTPRS and sang for us one time.
Speaker:He's out of Indiana.
Speaker:I still use some of his songs.
Speaker:But now we have so many choices to give
Speaker:comprehensible input to our
Speaker:students that we don't have to
Speaker:do things that we don't
Speaker:feel comfortable with.
Speaker:I do PQA.
Speaker:I do stories.
Speaker:I do picture talk.
Speaker:And I do the traditional movie talk.
Speaker:So I don't call it clip chat because I do
Speaker:what the inventor originally said to do.
Speaker:And he gave out a letter many
Speaker:years ago before he retired.
Speaker:Please stop calling what you do movie
Speaker:talk because what you
Speaker:do and what I do are not
Speaker:the same thing.
Speaker:And what he was really
Speaker:talking about was targeted.
Speaker:I'm doing a movie talk
Speaker:and I've got to teach food.
Speaker:So I need a food video clip.
Speaker:He said that's not what movie talk is.
Speaker:So that's where the clip
Speaker:chat came from instead.
Speaker:I do the movie talk where I just pick
Speaker:something that's interesting to the kids.
Speaker:It does not have to do with the
Speaker:vocabulary at all necessarily.
Speaker:But because I focus on high frequency
Speaker:vocabulary, guess what?
Speaker:Whatever I put up on the screen is going
Speaker:to have high frequency vocabulary.
Speaker:And so I do that and I kind of
Speaker:do it as a break from stories.
Speaker:After we've done a few stories, I'll do a
Speaker:movie talk because it's not targeted
Speaker:vocabulary at all.
Speaker:So I still do the traditional movie talk.
Speaker:But we have all these
Speaker:choices and that's a great thing.
Speaker:That is a great thing that we have.
Speaker:And you can pick and choose.
Speaker:So for those of you who might be on that
Speaker:fence of going CI or banning the textbook
Speaker:and doing something different, you don't
Speaker:have to do everything.
Speaker:Pick which what works for you and then
Speaker:that will also be amazing.
Speaker:Now, although I'm learning Maltese and I
Speaker:just learned that Maltese is a category
Speaker:for language and it is an ancient.
Speaker:Yeah, for language,
Speaker:which is the hardest ones.
Speaker:It is an ancient Arabic dialect.
Speaker:I do not read Arabic, so I apologize.
Speaker:I've got someone up here
Speaker:and she says, hello, everyone.
Speaker:She is from Iran.
Speaker:Wonderful.
Speaker:Nice to have you.
Speaker:Nice to have you.
Speaker:Thanks for joining us.
Speaker:So that might not even be Arabic.
Speaker:I forgive me for not knowing the language
Speaker:that that is spelled in.
Speaker:But thank you for joining us.
Speaker:We really appreciate it.
Speaker:Oh, it is.
Speaker:OK, perfect.
Speaker:Perfect.
Speaker:Yes, I'm learning Maltese, which has a
Speaker:lot of Arabic words and all the grammar
Speaker:comes from Arabic.
Speaker:So and I just realized I was looking at
Speaker:the other day and someone said that I
Speaker:looked up and it said it was a category
Speaker:four and I was like,
Speaker:whoa, it's a category
Speaker:four.
Speaker:Oh, Farsi.
Speaker:Farsi.
Speaker:She's first language.
Speaker:OK, so very interesting.
Speaker:Anyway, let's get
Speaker:started with today's topic.
Speaker:I thought they spoke Farsi.
Speaker:I thought that's what it was.
Speaker:So thank you for correcting me.
Speaker:She says he says Farsi is the language
Speaker:that they're speaking.
Speaker:So awesome.
Speaker:Thank you so much.
Speaker:OK, so we've got that most dangerous
Speaker:moment in a CA
Speaker:classroom is that confident
Speaker:nod.
Speaker:And I've been putting up some YouTube
Speaker:videos about this lately because it's a
Speaker:problem when kids just nod and you think
Speaker:they're getting it and the problem with
Speaker:assuming that they're getting it.
Speaker:You think you're checking, you're doing
Speaker:your comprehension
Speaker:checks and if they don't
Speaker:tell you the truth that they're lying to
Speaker:you, you can go 20 minutes and then
Speaker:realize way too late that the kids got
Speaker:lost in minute three.
Speaker:And so then you wasted
Speaker:17 more minutes with that.
Speaker:And so that's a problem.
Speaker:And one of the things that I've been
Speaker:working on really hard,
Speaker:especially my level one
Speaker:classes, which I found I've been talking
Speaker:about this on my YouTube channel.
Speaker:So if you want to hear more about that,
Speaker:you can check some of the recent videos.
Speaker:But don't ask open ended questions to
Speaker:novices because they don't know.
Speaker:I mean, they might know the answer, but
Speaker:they don't either lack
Speaker:the confidence to use the
Speaker:words that they have to answer it and or
Speaker:they don't have the
Speaker:vocabulary that they think
Speaker:they need to answer it because their idea
Speaker:is going, I need to
Speaker:say flies and I only know
Speaker:how to say goes, but goes is not flies
Speaker:and not thinking about
Speaker:simplifying it along the
Speaker:way.
Speaker:So by giving them choices, it's a lot
Speaker:easier for them to be able to answer.
Speaker:Or if you ask if you're going to ask an
Speaker:open ended question,
Speaker:make sure there's only one
Speaker:answer and it's not one that requires a
Speaker:target language like
Speaker:where are they target?
Speaker:So then they can answer that really
Speaker:easily because they don't
Speaker:have to come up with and
Speaker:say, oh, they're at the mall and I don't
Speaker:know how to say the word mall.
Speaker:So that's something that I have found
Speaker:that works really, really well for me.
Speaker:But I have made that mistake where I'm
Speaker:assuming they're getting it.
Speaker:They're telling me the nods are there.
Speaker:They look like they're with me and
Speaker:they're even lying in their
Speaker:comprehension checks because
Speaker:I'm not asking the right questions.
Speaker:And so the questions I'm asking are blind
Speaker:the actual true answer.
Speaker:And then I find out too late.
Speaker:Usually by the end of the period, I'm
Speaker:like, oh, crap, they
Speaker:didn't understand a word.
Speaker:And they're all going, yep, we understand
Speaker:because one of the
Speaker:questions we always ask
Speaker:is, do you understand?
Speaker:And they just say, yes.
Speaker:Of course they are.
Speaker:So this is a typical
Speaker:effective filter problem, right?
Speaker:Where everybody I mean, this is a
Speaker:foundational theory of linguistics.
Speaker:You have this little voice in your head
Speaker:that says, I'm going to
Speaker:sound really stupid if
Speaker:I say are allowed.
Speaker:So oh, you know what?
Speaker:I just won't say are allowed and nobody's
Speaker:going to laugh at me.
Speaker:And then what happens is, of course,
Speaker:you've never learned to
Speaker:say are ever because you're
Speaker:not practicing it.
Speaker:So this is I mean, this is so typical
Speaker:when you're asking the
Speaker:students, OK, did you get
Speaker:it?
Speaker:Of course they're going to say yes
Speaker:because they don't want to look bad.
Speaker:And it's not just our classrooms.
Speaker:I think this is a real
Speaker:societal problem right now.
Speaker:We have a lot of students
Speaker:who are just afraid of failure.
Speaker:And so we have to make
Speaker:our classrooms a safe place.
Speaker:We have to model failure.
Speaker:We have to explain why failure is
Speaker:important in the
Speaker:learning process, especially in
Speaker:language learning.
Speaker:And if we can just get our kids over
Speaker:themselves, they'll do
Speaker:better in all their classes, I
Speaker:think.
Speaker:Well, and you know,
Speaker:it's very interesting.
Speaker:I'm not a salesperson, but I've when I
Speaker:watch videos before I'm
Speaker:about to buy a car, I always
Speaker:watch car videos so that I can learn how
Speaker:to deal with the stupid
Speaker:salespeople because they
Speaker:have all these tricks.
Speaker:One of the tricks that they do is they
Speaker:start asking you easy
Speaker:questions that you say naturally
Speaker:say yes to because if they get you saying
Speaker:yes on easy things,
Speaker:you're more likely to say
Speaker:yes because it's easier.
Speaker:Plus, kids always default to that
Speaker:whenever you ask them anything.
Speaker:It could be an either or question.
Speaker:They go see or we or yeah, you know, they
Speaker:answer and like that
Speaker:wasn't a yes or no question
Speaker:because they feel comfortable with that.
Speaker:So I think it's a universal thing that we
Speaker:want to agree and be on
Speaker:the right side of things.
Speaker:And so that goes in there
Speaker:and they don't understand.
Speaker:I try to stress how important it is to
Speaker:let me know when you don't understand.
Speaker:I actually reward those questions about I
Speaker:don't understand
Speaker:something or slow me down.
Speaker:Participation points.
Speaker:I give them five whole points for that
Speaker:for those questions.
Speaker:I really want them to
Speaker:realize this is important.
Speaker:It's such an important thing.
Speaker:And we also do the same thing.
Speaker:We ask what's the question they say.
Speaker:Oh, are there any questions?
Speaker:And they nobody will
Speaker:ever raise their hand.
Speaker:And so they say to rephrase that question
Speaker:to what questions do you have?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And then you're more likely to get hands
Speaker:up at that point when you do it that way.
Speaker:So just rephrasing what we
Speaker:say really, really does help.
Speaker:What about you, Stephanie?
Speaker:What's your perspective?
Speaker:I agree.
Speaker:I teach middle school.
Speaker:So students in middle school are very
Speaker:self-conscious about
Speaker:not knowing the answer,
Speaker:looking dumb in front
Speaker:of their classmates.
Speaker:So I do a lot of board scaffolding.
Speaker:I have a lot of vocabulary and things
Speaker:that we've been using on the board.
Speaker:There's no English, but the structures
Speaker:and things are the words that we've been
Speaker:working with or targeting in that.
Speaker:Quick chat or they're in the board so
Speaker:that when I ask a question, they have
Speaker:something to default to.
Speaker:Give them a little bit more confidence.
Speaker:They have to know what those words mean.
Speaker:So that's a good way for me to see if
Speaker:they actually know what those words are.
Speaker:And I've instituted recently Ask a Friend
Speaker:policy, almost like
Speaker:remember that show, Call a Friend.
Speaker:Oh, yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:They have to ask that
Speaker:in the target language.
Speaker:And then the target language.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:And then they can ask a friend, but the
Speaker:friend doesn't give the answer.
Speaker:They still have to give the answer.
Speaker:So they've consulted with somebody and
Speaker:then they can give the answer.
Speaker:You don't want to let them off the hook.
Speaker:You want to pressure them.
Speaker:They've got that support.
Speaker:They've got the board support.
Speaker:And again, it's just building that
Speaker:environment where kids
Speaker:are comfortable, you know,
Speaker:and I do a lot of think, pair, share
Speaker:before calling or
Speaker:asking questions to kids.
Speaker:That helps a lot.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I love your no opt out technique where
Speaker:you're having them ask in the target
Speaker:language and then I'm assuming they're
Speaker:going to give it in the target language
Speaker:and then you go back to that original
Speaker:student and hey, you
Speaker:were the one I called out.
Speaker:You need to answer now.
Speaker:Yeah, that is, that's beautiful.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I like that.
Speaker:So going your student levels, you know,
Speaker:like asking a question to, you know, a
Speaker:simpler question to a student who can
Speaker:only provide that simple answer.
Speaker:And then, you know, I won't say
Speaker:delegating, but like picking who is
Speaker:answering the questions to help.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Sure.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I call that always asking the right
Speaker:question to the right
Speaker:student at the right time.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So that differentiation piece comes in.
Speaker:People think differentiation is creating
Speaker:something new for each different student.
Speaker:And that's not necessarily that's a lot
Speaker:of work, but I can adapt what I'm already
Speaker:doing and he asks your yes and no
Speaker:questions to your lower, your slower
Speaker:processing students.
Speaker:And then you can ask your who, what,
Speaker:where, while the simple one word answer
Speaker:questions to your mid-level students, you
Speaker:know, they can answer who
Speaker:and they can answer what.
Speaker:But they can't necessarily answer the how
Speaker:or the why because those generally
Speaker:require more language.
Speaker:And so I'll put those on, you know, that
Speaker:I'll ask that for my super flyers.
Speaker:But like you, Stephanie said, I also
Speaker:scaffold, but remember I, well, we talked
Speaker:about this before we went on air.
Speaker:I run my classroom from a slide deck.
Speaker:So I don't have to
Speaker:remember what we're doing.
Speaker:I don't have to look at the agenda on the
Speaker:board because all I do
Speaker:is go, what am I doing?
Speaker:Oh, click the next slide.
Speaker:It tells me exactly what I'm doing.
Speaker:If I have to make an announcement like if
Speaker:they called me in first period and said
Speaker:in second period, will you tell Johnny
Speaker:that he's got to come to
Speaker:the office right before lunch?
Speaker:I'll forget that.
Speaker:So I make a slide and I put it up there
Speaker:and I was like, why is
Speaker:my name on the board?
Speaker:I love it.
Speaker:I'm like, because I got to remind myself
Speaker:I'm old and I might have the wrinkles
Speaker:like an elephant, but I don't have the
Speaker:memory like an elephant.
Speaker:So I put I put all
Speaker:that stuff on the board.
Speaker:So when I do a movie talk or I do a
Speaker:story, I have the key vocabulary, like
Speaker:you said, instead of on my
Speaker:board, I have it right up there.
Speaker:So it's there and I can use my board for
Speaker:other things, but I have it on the screen
Speaker:for them as that scaffolding that they
Speaker:may or may not need.
Speaker:And the kids don't realize it.
Speaker:And I'll tell you one thing that I
Speaker:learned years ago and you we've all
Speaker:experienced this because on a test, the
Speaker:answer will be
Speaker:somewhere on one of the walls.
Speaker:And then one of the one of the perceived
Speaker:really smart kids, the kids
Speaker:who always get the A plus.
Speaker:They raise their hands and goes, we
Speaker:didn't have this word
Speaker:or I don't remember this.
Speaker:That question was unfair.
Speaker:And then one of the slower processors
Speaker:goes, it's on the board, dummy.
Speaker:Yeah. And then they're like, oh, you're
Speaker:like, it's true because the the lower
Speaker:like I always tell kids, the kids who
Speaker:turn to be doctors and lawyers are not
Speaker:the A and B students from high school.
Speaker:Those are the C students because C
Speaker:students actually learn to study.
Speaker:They had to to keep maintain those C's.
Speaker:I was one of those A.B. students.
Speaker:I aced through high school.
Speaker:No problem. I never took a note.
Speaker:I never studied.
Speaker:That's it. When I got to college, I had
Speaker:to adapt really quickly.
Speaker:And a lot of A students don't.
Speaker:I learned how to take notes in college.
Speaker:And so then they drop out.
Speaker:But those C students already had those
Speaker:study skills so they can study and learn
Speaker:to become doctors and lawyers and all
Speaker:those top professions.
Speaker:But what slower processors do or anybody
Speaker:in a week who's weak in a subject area
Speaker:like me math, we look for
Speaker:those resources around the room.
Speaker:We are desperately looking for help and
Speaker:we use that help as our own scaffolding.
Speaker:So the kid who was a slower processor saw
Speaker:the word on the board because he was
Speaker:using or she was using all the resources
Speaker:around the room where the top kids
Speaker:generally don't
Speaker:require those scaffolding.
Speaker:Even though it's there, they
Speaker:don't take advantage of it.
Speaker:And so I think that's also a really good
Speaker:thing that we have it up there.
Speaker:And we got a great question here.
Speaker:We'll answer in just a second.
Speaker:And then I'll point like if I know that
Speaker:the the the slower processor is having
Speaker:trouble with the even a yes or no answer,
Speaker:I will just point and nobody else in the
Speaker:room will notice I'm
Speaker:pointing at the right answer.
Speaker:But all the slower processors know I'm
Speaker:pointing at the right answer because
Speaker:they're always looking for that help.
Speaker:And so it makes them look smart or as a
Speaker:faster processor than they actually are
Speaker:just because of that scaffolding.
Speaker:Well, and that's differentiation.
Speaker:Yeah, you're going to give your kids a
Speaker:chat, Matt, or you've got it on the board
Speaker:or you've got your word
Speaker:wall or all three of those.
Speaker:Those are all good to have.
Speaker:The high flyers, they're
Speaker:not going to glance at it.
Speaker:They're going to take whatever handout
Speaker:you gave them and shove it in their
Speaker:backpack and they're
Speaker:never going to look at it.
Speaker:The middle of the road students, they
Speaker:just need something in
Speaker:their hand to feel confident.
Speaker:They just need to know it's there.
Speaker:Maybe they'll glance down,
Speaker:but they won't actually read it.
Speaker:They just kind of need
Speaker:to feel that it's there.
Speaker:And then your slower processors, they're
Speaker:going to be reading the word wall.
Speaker:They're going to be
Speaker:looking at the chat, Matt.
Speaker:They're going to be looking at the board
Speaker:and whatever pictures you put up there to
Speaker:scaffold and everything.
Speaker:And it's self selection
Speaker:and it's differentiation.
Speaker:And it's not cheating to have the answers
Speaker:up during a test, during an
Speaker:assignment, during an activity.
Speaker:It's not cheating.
Speaker:It's the students selecting at what level
Speaker:of scaffold they need.
Speaker:It's perfect.
Speaker:I found that when I switched my agenda to
Speaker:being in English and really detailing
Speaker:what was going to happen in class, the
Speaker:comprehension changed.
Speaker:They knew that we were going to do a
Speaker:running dictation around this topic.
Speaker:So I trained them to come
Speaker:in and read that agenda.
Speaker:And once class started, that agenda went
Speaker:away, but they at least have an
Speaker:inclination of what was going to happen,
Speaker:which really, really helps the
Speaker:comprehension later.
Speaker:And, you know, even if they only had a
Speaker:vague idea, they knew where I was going.
Speaker:Yeah, that's very true because I learned
Speaker:my very first year teaching the hard way
Speaker:to always give my instructions in English
Speaker:because I was teaching Japanese for and
Speaker:we were playing a game.
Speaker:And it's like we were two minutes into
Speaker:the game and I saw one of the students in
Speaker:the corner crying
Speaker:because, again, effective filter.
Speaker:She didn't want to admit that she didn't
Speaker:understand the instructions and she
Speaker:didn't know what everyone was doing now.
Speaker:And I was like, oh, man, I just totally
Speaker:now she shut down her
Speaker:effective filters really high.
Speaker:And now I have to work
Speaker:extra hard from now on.
Speaker:I'm only given instructions in English.
Speaker:So that sounds like the exact same thing
Speaker:you're doing by giving
Speaker:your agenda in English.
Speaker:I still give my instructions in the
Speaker:target language, but they
Speaker:have seen them and read them.
Speaker:And then we have a
Speaker:couple of signals in class.
Speaker:Students will do this if they are not
Speaker:following what I'm saying and they are
Speaker:trained to if they see someone else do
Speaker:this, they should all do this because
Speaker:more than likely there are other people.
Speaker:And then I always have a few students who
Speaker:no matter how many times I've gone the
Speaker:directions, even after somebody's done
Speaker:this, they're still lost.
Speaker:And our other signal is when we break up
Speaker:to do the activity,
Speaker:they kind of just do this.
Speaker:And I will come over to see them and help
Speaker:them out another level, you know, because
Speaker:they sometimes need that.
Speaker:Yeah. And I'll say I had a brilliant one
Speaker:like instead of this,
Speaker:I love Scott's idea.
Speaker:I was just so I have
Speaker:them stomped, stomping.
Speaker:Yeah, stomping on the floor or slapping
Speaker:their desk if they have a desk because my
Speaker:back might be turned to one particular
Speaker:part of the room and I don't want them
Speaker:with their hand up and me
Speaker:not noticing for even a minute.
Speaker:I want to know right away.
Speaker:So I have them stomp. It
Speaker:makes it a little bit easier.
Speaker:Plus, I learned at an NTP or one of our
Speaker:we had there was a panel going in was
Speaker:kind of embarrassed because the symbol
Speaker:that she chose to use was
Speaker:offensive in another culture.
Speaker:And so you never know what the culture is
Speaker:and what's going on with that.
Speaker:Stomping or slapping, I can't you know,
Speaker:it probably is offensive in
Speaker:some culture, too, for something.
Speaker:I don't know, but at least it's something
Speaker:that we can recognize and
Speaker:I can do from the sound.
Speaker:And then there's something else I was
Speaker:going to point I
Speaker:should have written it down.
Speaker:And I forgot what I was going to say, but
Speaker:it would go crazy with that.
Speaker:But that's what they all are.
Speaker:Well, while you're trying to think about
Speaker:it, I like the stomping also because the
Speaker:kids just kind of need a little more
Speaker:movement and that woke them up.
Speaker:So, yeah, I thought
Speaker:that was a brilliant idea.
Speaker:And I started doing that as soon as you
Speaker:told me about it last year. Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah, it's it's all the instructions.
Speaker:I was going to say, for me, my rule is
Speaker:and it's nothing to do
Speaker:with teaching languages.
Speaker:It has to do with saving my job is
Speaker:instructions and discipline are always
Speaker:given in English because let's say a kid
Speaker:did not get a good grade on an assignment
Speaker:because they didn't
Speaker:understand the direction.
Speaker:And then the parent goes and complains,
Speaker:but he didn't understand the directions,
Speaker:even though you know full well that they
Speaker:did because you've
Speaker:always done it that way.
Speaker:The principal is going to side with the
Speaker:parent on that side and then you're going
Speaker:to have this, you know, a little problem
Speaker:or the same thing with discipline.
Speaker:If I told the kid to be quiet in Spanish
Speaker:and he says, well, I didn't understand
Speaker:and he kept on talking and he got more
Speaker:escalate and trouble, the parents are
Speaker:going to say, but he didn't understand
Speaker:what you're saying, even though you know
Speaker:full well that he did.
Speaker:So assessments, I always do, you know,
Speaker:the directions in English.
Speaker:Scott, you said we had a
Speaker:question from our viewers.
Speaker:Yes, we're going to answer because we
Speaker:just lost Stephanie sound.
Speaker:So we'll let her come back in just a
Speaker:minute because she's moving.
Speaker:We'll let her get
Speaker:situated wherever she's going.
Speaker:Here's our question.
Speaker:And it's a really good one.
Speaker:What is the difference between learning
Speaker:and acquiring a language?
Speaker:So Pamela, why don't you start?
Speaker:I'll give my idea in a moment and we'll
Speaker:let Stephanie go in on it as well.
Speaker:But give us your idea on that.
Speaker:Well, ideally, the end
Speaker:result is going to be the same.
Speaker:Learning, to me, implies a little more
Speaker:regimented of these are the steps and
Speaker:acquiring, to me, implies a little more.
Speaker:And you're just kind of
Speaker:picking it up by osmosis.
Speaker:So that's like in a nutshell.
Speaker:But ideally, they're both going to get
Speaker:you at the end result.
Speaker:Stephanie, do you have an opinion on it?
Speaker:For me, acquiring is what remains after
Speaker:all the lessons have gone through and
Speaker:they retain when we
Speaker:move on to something else.
Speaker:That's a good definition.
Speaker:Otherwise, they're just
Speaker:learning for that segment.
Speaker:And you know if they've acquired it, if
Speaker:you move on to something else and they
Speaker:can still use those
Speaker:structures, those verbs, those words.
Speaker:And I'm going to come at this from a
Speaker:completely different aspect because I
Speaker:don't think that they.
Speaker:They're related, but
Speaker:they're distant cousins.
Speaker:Because for me, learning is
Speaker:learning about the language.
Speaker:It's on the linguistic side.
Speaker:You're analyzing it, which
Speaker:to me is very interesting.
Speaker:I've watched this guy on YouTube.
Speaker:He does shorts and it is amazing.
Speaker:He's talking like I never
Speaker:knew why, like in French,
Speaker:cry starts with a P, but in Spanish, it
Speaker:starts with a double L.
Speaker:Double L?
Speaker:Uh huh.
Speaker:So.
Speaker:What did he say?
Speaker:Well, he said there's the
Speaker:sounds back in the old times.
Speaker:They couldn't pronounce certain sounds.
Speaker:And so it sounded more like this.
Speaker:So when they brought it into the
Speaker:language, the sound interpreted it from
Speaker:this particular way.
Speaker:And you see it because in almost all the
Speaker:European languages, the word for cry
Speaker:starts with the letter
Speaker:P, but not in Spanish.
Speaker:And then same thing with the letter C,
Speaker:it's these initial constants that have
Speaker:changed in some of them because in
Speaker:Spanish, it starts the key.
Speaker:The word key is double L, but in most
Speaker:other languages, it starts with a C or a
Speaker:C sound, a sound in
Speaker:there, even from Latin.
Speaker:So that's where a lot
Speaker:of this stuff comes from.
Speaker:But he talks about a lot of these
Speaker:different relationships and how, like
Speaker:even from Arabic going to Spanish, how
Speaker:some of the sounds, the Arabs could not
Speaker:pronounce some of the Spanish letters.
Speaker:And so they kind of mimic them.
Speaker:And so they developed into two different
Speaker:sounds in Spanish
Speaker:when they put it back in.
Speaker:So it's just really interesting.
Speaker:I really learned a lot from.
Speaker:So it's the linguistics part.
Speaker:And the acquiring is
Speaker:what we do naturally.
Speaker:It's the passive part.
Speaker:The learning a language is the active
Speaker:part, the active conscious.
Speaker:But then the acquiring is the passive.
Speaker:Now, here's the part that I
Speaker:disagree with some of you on.
Speaker:I don't think that you
Speaker:can learn a language.
Speaker:I don't think that if you study the
Speaker:vocabulary and you study the grammar
Speaker:rules, that you are going to come out on
Speaker:the other side, you being
Speaker:able to use that language
Speaker:in any real natural way.
Speaker:So for me, this is my
Speaker:analogy I always use.
Speaker:And I think it really explains it well.
Speaker:The difference for me is being able to
Speaker:build or fix a car versus
Speaker:being able to drive a car.
Speaker:Are they related?
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:They're distant cousins because a car is
Speaker:involved in both of them.
Speaker:But just because you know how to build a
Speaker:car and you know how to fix a car, so you
Speaker:know all the parts and what they're
Speaker:called and where they go.
Speaker:So you've got vocabulary, the name of the
Speaker:grammar things, the syntax, all of that
Speaker:does not mean you can get
Speaker:behind the wheel and drive it.
Speaker:They're not.
Speaker:It's not the same thing.
Speaker:And so I may know all the grammar endings
Speaker:and I may know all the rules and I may
Speaker:know a whole lot of vocabulary.
Speaker:But putting them together into a
Speaker:functional car does not mean I can
Speaker:actually drive it by itself.
Speaker:So the driving is the other part where
Speaker:you can get into a car and not know what
Speaker:any of the parts are called.
Speaker:I press on this one pedal and it goes and
Speaker:I press on this other pedal and it stops
Speaker:and I look in the mirror and I can see
Speaker:behind myself and I take this thing and I
Speaker:stick it in this hole and I turn it or I
Speaker:press a button nowadays.
Speaker:And it goes.
Speaker:You don't have to know the different
Speaker:parts to be able to drive a car.
Speaker:So they're related, but they're not one
Speaker:does not necessarily give just because
Speaker:you're really good at building a car does
Speaker:not mean you can drive it.
Speaker:And just because you're really good at
Speaker:driving a car does not
Speaker:mean you can build it.
Speaker:And so this is a classic example.
Speaker:I had a story from a girl many, many
Speaker:years ago when I first started teaching,
Speaker:she had this weird bruise
Speaker:on the back of her neck.
Speaker:It was big and I was
Speaker:like, what the heck are you?
Speaker:How did you get that?
Speaker:She goes, I got it from the rear view
Speaker:mirror in my car and I am thinking how
Speaker:the heck would the back of your neck get
Speaker:hit by the rear view mirror of the car?
Speaker:Because you'd have to be sitting
Speaker:backwards facing the back seat and
Speaker:sitting on the console.
Speaker:And this was the time when all the gears
Speaker:are on the console, not on
Speaker:the side of the steering wheel.
Speaker:So you're being what are you doing?
Speaker:And she goes, no, I
Speaker:wasn't inside the car.
Speaker:I was outside the car when
Speaker:the rear view mirror hit me.
Speaker:And I'm like, you mean
Speaker:the side view mirror?
Speaker:Now, she was 16.
Speaker:She could drive a car.
Speaker:She had her license.
Speaker:She passed her test, but she didn't know
Speaker:the different parts because that's called
Speaker:the side view mirror, not the rear.
Speaker:She goes, but it looks to the rear.
Speaker:I go, every mirror looks to the rear.
Speaker:It looks to the rear.
Speaker:So the rear view mirror looks to the rear
Speaker:of your car and what's coming behind you.
Speaker:The side view mirrors look to what's
Speaker:coming on the side of you.
Speaker:So that's my definition for me is that
Speaker:learning is like learning all the parts
Speaker:of a car, learning how to build it,
Speaker:learning how to put it
Speaker:together, learning how to fix it.
Speaker:Because, you know,
Speaker:that's what we teachers do.
Speaker:We go through and we repair the the bad
Speaker:mechanics of kids when they
Speaker:write their sentences down.
Speaker:And then the aqua, the acquiring, the
Speaker:kids don't even realize it's happening.
Speaker:And the classic
Speaker:example that I get from this.
Speaker:Is when kids ask me that they say to me
Speaker:at the end of a level three.
Speaker:So level one, it's really
Speaker:obvious they learn something.
Speaker:Even they can see that they learn
Speaker:something because they couldn't speak.
Speaker:Now they can.
Speaker:Or they couldn't write.
Speaker:Now they can.
Speaker:But then they get to level two.
Speaker:It's a little bit messier, but they still
Speaker:see some development.
Speaker:But by the time level three comes around
Speaker:because they're now starting to dabble
Speaker:into that intermediate area.
Speaker:And takes a long time to get out of.
Speaker:Yeah, it's got subtle changes that aren't
Speaker:so obvious that they know that puts them
Speaker:in that clear intermediate.
Speaker:And it's not obvious to the kids.
Speaker:So they go and we didn't
Speaker:learn anything this year.
Speaker:And I'm like, I've got your quick rights.
Speaker:I can see exactly what you learn.
Speaker:But they don't think
Speaker:they learned anything.
Speaker:And that's the acquisition happening
Speaker:along in the background.
Speaker:So that was a great question from it.
Speaker:Don, I really appreciate that.
Speaker:It's an excellent question because a lot
Speaker:of people don't
Speaker:understand the difference.
Speaker:And lots of us, including myself, use
Speaker:them interchangeably when I definitely
Speaker:know the difference.
Speaker:But I kind of use the word learn instead
Speaker:of acquire because more people understand
Speaker:learning a language than acquiring
Speaker:language sounds kind of weird.
Speaker:But I do know the difference.
Speaker:And if someone asks,
Speaker:I'll explain the difference.
Speaker:But that's what it is
Speaker:for me a little bit longer.
Speaker:And I think what you learn, you forget,
Speaker:like Stephanie said, what you acquire is
Speaker:stuck in your head forever.
Speaker:So that's the difference
Speaker:along the way for me as well.
Speaker:It's long term versus short term.
Speaker:But I think it has nothing to do with I
Speaker:think the long term versus short term is
Speaker:the end result of that.
Speaker:It's how you learned or acquired it that
Speaker:makes that difference.
Speaker:And learning stays on the surface of the
Speaker:brain where acquiring gets deep into the
Speaker:brain and stuck there.
Speaker:So that was your sound, OK?
Speaker:Yes, I just keep muting
Speaker:because I have three dogs.
Speaker:I was going to say, do you have puppies?
Speaker:Are you asking about?
Speaker:I've got two dogs, but they're being
Speaker:quiet right now at the moment.
Speaker:They're not always quiet.
Speaker:They're not always quiet,
Speaker:but they're quiet this morning.
Speaker:OK, so we kind of talked about this, but
Speaker:why do we think kids fake it?
Speaker:The effective filter,
Speaker:they're embarrassed.
Speaker:They don't want to look bad.
Speaker:They don't you know, I don't know.
Speaker:Things have changed so much since when I
Speaker:first started teaching
Speaker:100 million years ago.
Speaker:Like the kids are so afraid of failure.
Speaker:They're so afraid of
Speaker:looking bad right now.
Speaker:I think the effective
Speaker:filter is is a real issue.
Speaker:And they second guess themselves.
Speaker:They second guess themselves.
Speaker:They're not sure. Do I know this right?
Speaker:So I think that's part of it as well.
Speaker:Yeah. And I will say.
Speaker:Everybody says that kids learn
Speaker:languages easier than adults.
Speaker:And to an extent, I can understand that.
Speaker:But here's the reason why it's not for
Speaker:the right same reasons
Speaker:that everybody might think.
Speaker:I think it's because younger kids don't
Speaker:care if they make a mistake.
Speaker:Yeah, they will walk out and say, I go to
Speaker:the bathroom all by myself today proudly
Speaker:and don't care that it's the wrong tense,
Speaker:the wrong form of the verb.
Speaker:And they're not afraid to make mistakes.
Speaker:And I think what's happening is our
Speaker:teenagers are getting as they become
Speaker:teenagers, getting more self-conscious,
Speaker:not wanting to make those mistakes.
Speaker:And so they are.
Speaker:I rather keep my mouth quiet than to make
Speaker:a mistake in public.
Speaker:And I'll give this experience to I had an
Speaker:incredible German
Speaker:teacher in college, Frau Olson.
Speaker:She was amazing.
Speaker:But there is one thing that all of us did
Speaker:not like that she did.
Speaker:And it made us not want to talk.
Speaker:So it brought that
Speaker:effective filter way up.
Speaker:She would stop us mid
Speaker:sentence to correct our grammar.
Speaker:Right. And that is part of
Speaker:the audio lingual method.
Speaker:And that's part of grammar translation.
Speaker:And that's part like there's so many
Speaker:linguistic methods that are like, oh, no,
Speaker:your students are going to fossilize.
Speaker:If you let them make this mistake and
Speaker:that's the way I was trained.
Speaker:So it took me a while to get over that.
Speaker:But I have a very personal story about
Speaker:the effective filter because you reminded
Speaker:me how little kids, they
Speaker:don't let things get in their way.
Speaker:So 23 years ago, I was totally paralyzed
Speaker:head to toe, totally,
Speaker:completely paralyzed.
Speaker:I mean, I've got my little scar here
Speaker:because I was on a
Speaker:ventilator because I couldn't breathe.
Speaker:And I was learning to walk
Speaker:again and I had my walker.
Speaker:And I was trying to brush my teeth and my
Speaker:two year old son runs into the bathroom
Speaker:and, you know, he's a two
Speaker:year old son full of energy.
Speaker:And he jumps up onto the bathtub so he
Speaker:can watch me and I'm
Speaker:like, get down, kid, get down.
Speaker:You're going to fall.
Speaker:And I can't pick you up.
Speaker:I am going to fall myself.
Speaker:And I was so terrified of falling.
Speaker:I'm like, Sterling, get down, get down.
Speaker:You're going to hurt yourself.
Speaker:And I was bringing him up in Japanese.
Speaker:I'm trying to say this in
Speaker:Japanese and everything.
Speaker:And sure enough, Sterling falls into the
Speaker:bathtub flat on his back and
Speaker:I'm like, oh no, what do I do?
Speaker:I cannot let go of the
Speaker:walker to pick him up.
Speaker:He jumps up, he laps.
Speaker:He says something else to me.
Speaker:He runs out of the bathroom and I'm like,
Speaker:there is a lesson here for me because I
Speaker:have been so terrified of falling.
Speaker:You know, I'm five foot seven.
Speaker:It's going to hurt the bigger they are,
Speaker:the harder they fall.
Speaker:I have been so terrified of falling.
Speaker:Here's my little two year old son.
Speaker:He just gets up, laughs it
Speaker:off and goes on with his day.
Speaker:So, yeah, I think you're
Speaker:absolutely right, Scott.
Speaker:It's the little kids just are fearless
Speaker:and it's just as they kind of go through
Speaker:society, kind of beat some down and then
Speaker:they're afraid of making mistakes.
Speaker:So.
Speaker:And that's why I like to celebrate
Speaker:mistakes when they make them.
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:I like thank you for pointing that out.
Speaker:I go, we've all made this mistake before.
Speaker:And one, it was really funny because I
Speaker:never thought about it because my native
Speaker:language is English.
Speaker:So I know the native mistakes that kids
Speaker:make as they grow up.
Speaker:I know that no kid comes out of the womb
Speaker:saying I went or I sang.
Speaker:They have to say I go
Speaker:to and I sing first.
Speaker:But then a native speaker was teaching,
Speaker:doing a TPRS workshop and I was, you
Speaker:know, talking about something.
Speaker:Someone was saying, but you're only
Speaker:teaching the third person singular and
Speaker:now they're not going to know Tango and
Speaker:they're going to make the mistake Tieno,
Speaker:which those don't know Spanish.
Speaker:That's a stem changing verb.
Speaker:It's also irregular in the first person.
Speaker:So it's got two things
Speaker:coming at at the same time.
Speaker:And the natives teacher came and said,
Speaker:no, no, no, no, no, he's right because
Speaker:every native Spanish kid does the same
Speaker:thing that American kids do
Speaker:or English speaking kids do.
Speaker:They overgeneralize a grammar thing.
Speaker:So they noticed in English that you add
Speaker:to make the past tense and
Speaker:so they added to everything.
Speaker:And so they notice in Spanish that you
Speaker:add an O to make the
Speaker:first person singular.
Speaker:So they add it to everything and they
Speaker:know it's Tienes, Tienen, Tienen.
Speaker:So then Tieno makes a lot of sense.
Speaker:And so I used to harp on my kids for
Speaker:making that mistake.
Speaker:I'm like, we've talked about this.
Speaker:We started with Tango
Speaker:before I went to Tienen.
Speaker:How are you making this mistake?
Speaker:And then I had to forgive myself
Speaker:realizing this is the
Speaker:natural order of things.
Speaker:And now it's a meme.
Speaker:It's a joke.
Speaker:The kids who go no sabo in Spanish.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:It's now a meme, meaning that you're a
Speaker:non-native speaker of Spanish, but you're
Speaker:a heritage speaker of Spanish.
Speaker:And you don't know that it's no say.
Speaker:You just added the O to sabi.
Speaker:I think it's a song.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So that's something there.
Speaker:It's the same thing.
Speaker:They're overgeneralizing and it happens
Speaker:in all these languages.
Speaker:And we have to think about that.
Speaker:And that's an old normal?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:That thing.
Speaker:That and I like what Vilben Patton says.
Speaker:There are no errors.
Speaker:They're just
Speaker:non-native patterns that we use.
Speaker:But he also pointed out and I never
Speaker:thought of this that it doesn't matter
Speaker:what language you're learning or what
Speaker:order of language it is.
Speaker:Is it your first language or native
Speaker:language or second or third or fourth?
Speaker:We all go through the
Speaker:exact same learning stages.
Speaker:So a native speaker of
Speaker:Spanish makes that Tienen error.
Speaker:A French person who already understands
Speaker:conjugations better than English speakers
Speaker:do makes that same air when learning
Speaker:Spanish, even though
Speaker:it's their fourth language.
Speaker:And someone who's coming from an Asian or
Speaker:an Arabic based language or a Russian
Speaker:based language makes the same errors.
Speaker:What changes, what's different and how
Speaker:they get the categories of difficulty of
Speaker:languages is how similar is that grammar
Speaker:to your own grammar.
Speaker:And it means how long
Speaker:you stay in that stage.
Speaker:So French people will because they
Speaker:already understand the way the
Speaker:conjugations they have the conjugations
Speaker:very similar to French.
Speaker:I mean Spanish except
Speaker:they're written not here.
Speaker:You can't hear them always.
Speaker:They understand it.
Speaker:So they're going to be in that phase a
Speaker:lot shorter than English speakers who we
Speaker:only have in present tense one
Speaker:conjugation for a third person singular.
Speaker:So everybody goes to
Speaker:the exact same stages.
Speaker:It's just how long you remain in that
Speaker:stage depends on what your first language
Speaker:was and how similar that grammar is to
Speaker:the language that you're learning, which
Speaker:I found was really interesting.
Speaker:It was an aha moment to me.
Speaker:And I also had this aha because when I
Speaker:started teaching, I didn't have any kids.
Speaker:I still don't have any kids.
Speaker:I have kids.
Speaker:I rent kids from August to June and I
Speaker:give them back at the end.
Speaker:And that's the best kind of kids to have.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:It's like grandparent syndrome.
Speaker:I have it.
Speaker:I give them back.
Speaker:But I learned through my niece and nephew
Speaker:because I used to harp
Speaker:on my kids too in class.
Speaker:I'm like, you got to have a verb and they
Speaker:drop the verb is out of the sentence.
Speaker:I'm like, you got to have a verb Spanish.
Speaker:You could have a one word sentence with
Speaker:just a verb, but you got to have the verb
Speaker:because we don't need to have subjects in
Speaker:Spanish like you do in French and German.
Speaker:So you've got to have the verb.
Speaker:You've got to have it.
Speaker:And they're leaving it.
Speaker:They're just saying he
Speaker:good looking she tall.
Speaker:And then I heard my kid, my niece and
Speaker:nephew say the same thing.
Speaker:They dropped it out of English.
Speaker:And Bill Van Patten explains this is does
Speaker:not carry a lot of meaning.
Speaker:It just links two things together.
Speaker:Linking verb.
Speaker:And in fact, in Arabic based languages,
Speaker:there is no verb for is at
Speaker:least in the present tense.
Speaker:So in Maltese, we say I tall.
Speaker:Yeah, that's how you say it.
Speaker:So, um, you don't have to.
Speaker:There's no verb for is.
Speaker:And so once I learned that I stopped
Speaker:harping on those kids who left it out, I
Speaker:realized they know it's supposed to be
Speaker:there, but they're just not ready to put
Speaker:it back in just yet.
Speaker:And it will come in on its own.
Speaker:And the correction for this is not
Speaker:telling them that you got to have a verb,
Speaker:but for them to hear more
Speaker:sentences with the verb in it.
Speaker:And that was the big aha moment for me.
Speaker:And that's the difference between
Speaker:learning and acquiring.
Speaker:Whoa, something just across my room.
Speaker:No, it's high up on a shelf.
Speaker:And I'm like, what happened?
Speaker:Oh, now I see what happened.
Speaker:I hold it down.
Speaker:My whole curtain came off the wall.
Speaker:So that's what felt so now
Speaker:my back drop is all messed up.
Speaker:So anyway, funny, funny, funny.
Speaker:Providing kids safe ways to test things
Speaker:out or make mistakes is really valuable.
Speaker:Um, I also have kids close their eyes and
Speaker:put their hands over and, you know, stand
Speaker:up if you think the answer is this or,
Speaker:you know, and then I can see
Speaker:whether they understand or not.
Speaker:Um, I also use, um, I'm not sure if
Speaker:they're familiar with clickers.
Speaker:Clickers is a clicker.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:It's a car.
Speaker:It's a car they get that everybody's
Speaker:shape on it is different.
Speaker:And the way they hold it shows you their
Speaker:answer a B C, you know, but they look
Speaker:around and they can't see
Speaker:what anybody else's answers are.
Speaker:And then you scan it with your phone and
Speaker:it'll be, and it says who
Speaker:has it right, who has it wrong.
Speaker:And you know, it's like three quarters of
Speaker:the kids have it wrong.
Speaker:That's really good indication.
Speaker:And nobody is sticking out or being put
Speaker:on the spot or standing out.
Speaker:Um, so I find, you know, doing
Speaker:comprehension checks that, uh, masks and
Speaker:the other kids who knows what are very,
Speaker:very helpful in, in that understanding.
Speaker:Um, and if I can proceed and not keep
Speaker:going for 10 minutes and they're lost.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:So it's, it's really important that not
Speaker:only do we do comprehension checks, but
Speaker:we've got to think about the types of
Speaker:comprehension checks that we're actually
Speaker:doing so that the kids can't, cause
Speaker:they're not deliberately trying to lie to
Speaker:us and try to trick us.
Speaker:Um, but we want to make it so that it's
Speaker:more difficult for them to inadvertently
Speaker:lie to us so that we
Speaker:can actually get them.
Speaker:I try to explain to them that by you
Speaker:asking questions and you telling me that
Speaker:you really don't understand or that I'm
Speaker:really speaking too fast for you, you're
Speaker:actually helping me do a better job than,
Speaker:um, than I would have been otherwise.
Speaker:And I give them this example.
Speaker:It is.
Speaker:It's informative.
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker:It's informing your teaching.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And so I tell them how important it is
Speaker:and I give them this example because
Speaker:years ago, um, when I think I told this
Speaker:story before on the
Speaker:podcast, I'm not sure if I did so.
Speaker:Um, but I had a kid who was undiagnosed
Speaker:with Asperger's back then they called it
Speaker:Asperger's a very high functioning autism
Speaker:and he literally, I
Speaker:kid you not fifth period.
Speaker:It was fifth period Spanish one literally
Speaker:stopped me every 15 to 20
Speaker:seconds to ask a question.
Speaker:Now, every single question
Speaker:that he asked was on point.
Speaker:They were not, it was not
Speaker:trying to like derail my class.
Speaker:He really needed to know and the way that
Speaker:his brain worked, he could not move on.
Speaker:Like some kids, you can say, I'll answer
Speaker:your question in just a
Speaker:minute, but he could not.
Speaker:His brain would stall right there at that
Speaker:moment and would not go forward until
Speaker:that question was answered.
Speaker:And it was really derailing my class in
Speaker:an unintentional way that it was just
Speaker:slowing me way down and I
Speaker:never got through a lesson.
Speaker:Not once did I ever get through a lesson
Speaker:in period five, never
Speaker:for the entire school year.
Speaker:Never.
Speaker:I made it to maybe 20 minutes of my hour
Speaker:lesson every single day.
Speaker:And we kind of came
Speaker:out with a compromise.
Speaker:He was a kid and his father was so
Speaker:surprised because I guess he was a
Speaker:troublemaker, but he wasn't in my class
Speaker:and he had Tourette syndrome.
Speaker:Not the infamous one where you cuss out,
Speaker:but he had Tourette's in a different way.
Speaker:And he said, I'll put me next to him and
Speaker:I'll answer his questions first.
Speaker:And then if I can't answer the question,
Speaker:then I'll let him raise
Speaker:his hand and then he can go.
Speaker:So he tried that.
Speaker:OK, so instead of every 10 to 15 seconds,
Speaker:it went to every minute and a half.
Speaker:So I still couldn't get through a lesson.
Speaker:Improvement though.
Speaker:So but what I found out and this is why I
Speaker:tell my kids this because he slowed me
Speaker:down naturally by asking me all these
Speaker:questions and I had to work harder to
Speaker:make everything more comprehended, not
Speaker:just comprehensible.
Speaker:Because just because you think it's
Speaker:comprehensible does not
Speaker:mean it was comprehended.
Speaker:Big difference.
Speaker:So thank you, Dr.
Speaker:Terry Waltz for that.
Speaker:But I noticed that my period five kids
Speaker:who never got through a lesson the entire
Speaker:year had a grade average one full letter
Speaker:grade above every other class.
Speaker:Because slowing down is so important.
Speaker:It is.
Speaker:It's a difficult skill to learn how to do
Speaker:it because we want to, you know,
Speaker:we were taught back in graduate school,
Speaker:we were taught, here's the textbook.
Speaker:You got to get through this much, you
Speaker:know, use these traditional methods.
Speaker:And it's a big shift for us to slow down
Speaker:and make sure it's comprehended.
Speaker:I mean, that was like a
Speaker:huge mental shift for me.
Speaker:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker:Absolutely. And I think that's a really
Speaker:big, big difference there, because that's
Speaker:the whole crux of what
Speaker:we're talking about is
Speaker:what we think we're being comprehensible,
Speaker:but we're not being comprehended.
Speaker:And then the kids answer in the way
Speaker:that's most comfortable for them, which
Speaker:belies the actual fact.
Speaker:And I had this experience in I was
Speaker:observing Michelle Whaley
Speaker:in Alaska teaching Russian.
Speaker:Now, I have no background in any Slavic
Speaker:based language whatsoever.
Speaker:To to get comprehended on, I had no
Speaker:background in there and the
Speaker:sounds were very different.
Speaker:And obviously the
Speaker:alphabet is very different.
Speaker:So I had nothing.
Speaker:So she asked me at the end of the lesson,
Speaker:she goes, how comprehensible was that?
Speaker:I'm like, I didn't want to insult her by
Speaker:saying it wasn't comprehensible to me at
Speaker:all, because I'm sure it was
Speaker:comprehended to her students who had been
Speaker:in her classroom all of this time.
Speaker:But me coming from zero and walking into
Speaker:her class and
Speaker:listening to it, I had no idea.
Speaker:And the only reason I knew what was going
Speaker:on was I had my computer open to take
Speaker:notes because I always like
Speaker:to take notes in those things.
Speaker:And I also had a screen
Speaker:open with Google Translate.
Speaker:And it was the old it was one that you
Speaker:can put the sound on.
Speaker:So it was listening to her Russian and
Speaker:then typing the English below.
Speaker:Was it perfect? It wasn't.
Speaker:It made some really funny sentences.
Speaker:But at least I got a gist of
Speaker:what they were talking about.
Speaker:They were talking about birthdays and
Speaker:talking about that and whose birthday it
Speaker:was and stuff like that.
Speaker:But I would not have had a clue
Speaker:otherwise, even though she was doing
Speaker:everything right to make
Speaker:herself comprehensible.
Speaker:And I'm sure she was
Speaker:the majority of her class.
Speaker:But to me, being a non-Russian speaker,
Speaker:not having any Slavic language
Speaker:background, it was not
Speaker:being comprehended by me.
Speaker:And so that's really important.
Speaker:I always emphasize with my kids, if you
Speaker:don't understand or you think I'm going
Speaker:too fast, then I'm not doing my job.
Speaker:It's my fault. I am going too fast.
Speaker:It doesn't matter if Joe
Speaker:doesn't think I'm going too fast.
Speaker:If you think I'm going too fast, then I
Speaker:am going definitely too fast.
Speaker:If you don't understand that I'm not
Speaker:doing my job to make sure it's
Speaker:comprehended by you.
Speaker:And so it doesn't
Speaker:matter if Joe understood it.
Speaker:If you didn't
Speaker:understand it, that's my fault.
Speaker:And so that takes some of that effective
Speaker:filter pressure off of them.
Speaker:And I tell them, you
Speaker:guys are my co-teachers.
Speaker:You need to help me do my job better.
Speaker:That's what your job is.
Speaker:I love Bryce Hedstrom's quote.
Speaker:He says, "My job is to teach you.
Speaker:Your job is to tell me
Speaker:when I'm not doing my job."
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I've been really working hard at I use
Speaker:embedded readings a lot.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And when I started to use embedded
Speaker:readings orally, I also noticed their
Speaker:comprehension became better
Speaker:because there are words in French that
Speaker:French people use all the time and are
Speaker:not in our suite 16 or 7.
Speaker:So I want them to be exposed to that.
Speaker:So I will say something with that
Speaker:language and then I'll say it with a
Speaker:little less and bringing
Speaker:it down and then reversing.
Speaker:And that really helps with comprehension.
Speaker:But sometimes I feel like I'm saying the
Speaker:same thing like 12 times and I'm
Speaker:struggling, but they're getting it.
Speaker:But it's like, I have to do this again
Speaker:with another sentence.
Speaker:And we talked about this last week.
Speaker:We talked about this last week that, you
Speaker:know, if your kids can only produce short
Speaker:choppy sentences because you're only
Speaker:using short choppy sentences in your
Speaker:classroom, I had a French teacher said,
Speaker:"My kids never learned the word, but..."
Speaker:And I don't understand how
Speaker:your kids know it so well.
Speaker:I go, "Do you use the
Speaker:word, but in any sentences?"
Speaker:And she goes, "No."
Speaker:I go, "That's exactly why.
Speaker:You've got to use them."
Speaker:And back in the day, we only had pobriana
Speaker:to start with, to read.
Speaker:That's the only book we had.
Speaker:I can't look at that book anymore.
Speaker:It's like, you know, after you've eaten a
Speaker:dish for too many years, you know, you're
Speaker:like, "I can't do it anymore."
Speaker:And that's how it is with pobriana.
Speaker:But what I learned from pobriana is, or
Speaker:pov-an, or arm-an, whatever language it
Speaker:comes in, is two things.
Speaker:What's comprehended and what's
Speaker:comprehensible and
Speaker:how to scaffold a story.
Speaker:Because it'll say
Speaker:something like, "Anne is a girl."
Speaker:Anne is a normal girl.
Speaker:Anne is a normal girl
Speaker:from Torrance, California.
Speaker:In Torrance, California, there is a
Speaker:normal girl named Anna.
Speaker:And it just kept repeating.
Speaker:And then if you ask your
Speaker:top kid, "Is this repetitive?"
Speaker:They're like, "Oh my
Speaker:gosh, it is so repetitive."
Speaker:But if you ask your
Speaker:struggling kid, "Is there a rep..."
Speaker:No, not at all.
Speaker:Because he needs, or she needs, all of
Speaker:those exposures to get the meaning.
Speaker:And that first paragraph, the only thing
Speaker:it told you was, "She is a normal girl."
Speaker:And she lives in Torrance, California.
Speaker:And the second paragraph is,
Speaker:"Anna has a lot of problems."
Speaker:So that's the gist of the whole
Speaker:paragraph, next paragraph.
Speaker:And it goes, "Anna has
Speaker:problems with her mom.
Speaker:Anna has problems with her dad.
Speaker:Anna has problems with her brother.
Speaker:Anna has problems at school.
Speaker:Anna has problems at home.
Speaker:Anna has problems with her friends.
Speaker:Anna has a lot of problems."
Speaker:So it's that it's not exactly embedded
Speaker:reading, but it's
Speaker:building that scaffolding
Speaker:that they need to be able to go.
Speaker:And so it's really, really important to
Speaker:do both things and
Speaker:realize that you are the
Speaker:expert. So like
Speaker:Stephanie said, we are bored.
Speaker:We are like, "Oh my God, do I got to do
Speaker:this one more time
Speaker:with sentence number two?
Speaker:I've got nine sentences more to go."
Speaker:And you're thinking about it.
Speaker:But we have to understand that we
Speaker:understand the language.
Speaker:And for the most of our kids in the
Speaker:classroom, that's not true.
Speaker:They don't understand.
Speaker:And so they're not going
Speaker:to hear all the repetitions.
Speaker:And even if they do, they desperately
Speaker:need them to become
Speaker:comprehended in that language.
Speaker:And that's why it's so important.
Speaker:Take a CI class in a language that you
Speaker:don't know and
Speaker:specifically one that's not related
Speaker:to one you already speak.
Speaker:So if you already speak Spanish or
Speaker:French, please do not
Speaker:take a French or a Spanish
Speaker:class because you have so much already
Speaker:knowledge that you can rely on.
Speaker:Take something completely different.
Speaker:Take an Asian language.
Speaker:Take a Slavic language.
Speaker:Take an Arabic based language so that you
Speaker:really feel what your
Speaker:kids feel like in the
Speaker:beginning so you can
Speaker:feel it and struggle.
Speaker:I know when I used to be when I was a
Speaker:coach at MTPRS and I'd
Speaker:be coaching this group in
Speaker:Japanese and then this person in Mandarin
Speaker:and this person in
Speaker:Russian and this person in
Speaker:Latin. My head was hurting because I had
Speaker:to be able to
Speaker:understand what they're talking
Speaker:about to help them
Speaker:through their struggles.
Speaker:And my head was physically hurting from
Speaker:all those different languages.
Speaker:But it makes a better teacher when you
Speaker:actually get in there and
Speaker:you realize this is what
Speaker:your kids go through.
Speaker:You may think Spanish or French is an
Speaker:easy language because you picked it up.
Speaker:But for them, a foreign
Speaker:language is a foreign language.
Speaker:They don't care if it's a
Speaker:category one or a category four.
Speaker:It is foreign to them.
Speaker:And you can't rely on cognates either.
Speaker:No.
Speaker:What's a cognate to you
Speaker:may not be a cognate to them.
Speaker:I learned that very quickly because, you
Speaker:know, in middle school,
Speaker:you think their language
Speaker:is high in their first
Speaker:language, but really, it's not.
Speaker:They're still learning.
Speaker:There's the vocabulary.
Speaker:And I remember trying
Speaker:to do the word ancestor.
Speaker:They had no idea what ancestor was.
Speaker:I'm like, it's the same word, guys.
Speaker:You know, what's an ancestor?
Speaker:So they did.
Speaker:We explain that in a simple way.
Speaker:Also should be I can use
Speaker:cognates, but I can't rely on it.
Speaker:And yeah, absolutely.
Speaker:Thank you for bringing that up because
Speaker:this is where I argue with Blaine on.
Speaker:He says, don't teach cognates.
Speaker:They get them the
Speaker:first time they hear them.
Speaker:They get them passively.
Speaker:Once you explain it to
Speaker:them, they'll understand it.
Speaker:But when they're reaching for a word,
Speaker:they're not going to
Speaker:pull that cognate out.
Speaker:So I always said you have to teach a
Speaker:cognate just like any other word.
Speaker:If you want to turn it into active
Speaker:vocabulary, stuff that
Speaker:actually comes out of their
Speaker:mouth, if it's only reading vocabulary,
Speaker:what I call the
Speaker:passive vocabulary is reading
Speaker:vocabulary. You just have to
Speaker:recognize it when you see it.
Speaker:Who cares? I'm not going
Speaker:to go after explaining it.
Speaker:I'm done. But if it's a word I want them
Speaker:to use again, I mean,
Speaker:like idea in Spanish
Speaker:is idea. So I tell them what it means.
Speaker:But that's a word I expect them to be
Speaker:able to use again and again.
Speaker:So I can't just let it go at just saying
Speaker:idea is idea because
Speaker:they'll see it in the
Speaker:word and they'll go and
Speaker:they'll understand it.
Speaker:But they won't go.
Speaker:How do I say idea?
Speaker:They're not going to
Speaker:go the other way around.
Speaker:The brain isn't going to bother encoding
Speaker:it because it's too easy.
Speaker:Yeah. Yeah. So I 100
Speaker:percent agree with you, Stephanie.
Speaker:That is a very important part.
Speaker:And French, I think, has even more
Speaker:cognates than Spanish does.
Speaker:So you hear them.
Speaker:So much from French.
Speaker:Yeah. Most of the time we can't hear them
Speaker:because the pronunciation doesn't match
Speaker:the spelling. But seeing
Speaker:them, seeing them as much there.
Speaker:And I always tell kids, I go, there's two
Speaker:things I tell them when they're reading.
Speaker:I go, if it looks like English and I
Speaker:haven't told you
Speaker:different, assume that it means
Speaker:what it looks like, because I'll point
Speaker:out the false cognates when I see them.
Speaker:I'll point those out. And number two,
Speaker:like a middle school kid might not
Speaker:know the word diversity or, you know, and
Speaker:you think they're going to because they
Speaker:look almost exactly
Speaker:alike and they sound alike.
Speaker:And but they don't have that vocabulary
Speaker:in their native language.
Speaker:In their native language.
Speaker:And I always tell them, too, this is
Speaker:especially true in French, that all the
Speaker:cognates are what I call
Speaker:SAT level words in English.
Speaker:Yeah. Roconteur.
Speaker:Yeah. Because in Spanish we don't find we
Speaker:encounter, you know, there are, you know,
Speaker:all those kind of words
Speaker:are just more elevated.
Speaker:We're not smart in Spanish.
Speaker:We're intelligent.
Speaker:These are all what I call the SAT, the
Speaker:just the one step
Speaker:upper vocabulary because
Speaker:English is a Germanic
Speaker:language, not a Latin language.
Speaker:So all those root words come from German.
Speaker:So German to find is Finden.
Speaker:It comes right from there.
Speaker:Hound, hundt.
Speaker:So all those basic words, the regular
Speaker:everyday words, those come from German.
Speaker:But all the SAT words come from Spanish
Speaker:by way of French and Latin.
Speaker:But that's what I tell them all the time.
Speaker:Go so you can impress your English
Speaker:teacher because you now know these words
Speaker:because they're the SAT words or the
Speaker:words that are on the
Speaker:5000 SAT list that you're
Speaker:supposed to know, because now you can say
Speaker:I encountered my keys
Speaker:instead of I found my
Speaker:keys, you know, just a
Speaker:little bit better at that way.
Speaker:Stephanie, I think what you said about
Speaker:embedded reading and how
Speaker:you're doing that a lot is
Speaker:that is golden because especially now
Speaker:that I have to take an
Speaker:English class on, they
Speaker:crammed thirty nine, thirty five to
Speaker:thirty nine students in
Speaker:all my other classes so
Speaker:that I could squeeze in an English class.
Speaker:Boy, the stamina, the reading stamina has
Speaker:just plummeted and
Speaker:it's because the kids all
Speaker:have their cell phones in their hands and
Speaker:they're not reading for
Speaker:a long period of time.
Speaker:They're reading little snippets.
Speaker:So to get them to get through an actual
Speaker:book, when I first
Speaker:started teaching, let's see,
Speaker:when I started teaching French 15 years
Speaker:ago, I could read my
Speaker:students a whole tanton.
Speaker:I projected on the
Speaker:board and they loved it.
Speaker:They were eating it up after maybe seven
Speaker:years of teaching French.
Speaker:Suddenly I had to do embedded readings of
Speaker:tanton because they
Speaker:couldn't follow the story
Speaker:anymore. And so I had to simplify it
Speaker:before we could get to the
Speaker:I mean, like this is tanton.
Speaker:It's like so many people look at this and
Speaker:say this is great
Speaker:literature and my students
Speaker:just couldn't get into it.
Speaker:You know, so like every year I have to
Speaker:make another embedded
Speaker:reading simpler and simpler
Speaker:just to get my students through tanton.
Speaker:So I think that, you know, that was
Speaker:invented by Laurie
Speaker:Clark and Michelle Whaley.
Speaker:And I think it was one of the great
Speaker:additions to CI that we have.
Speaker:And Bryce Headstrom also.
Speaker:Yeah. And I use it as a as an assessment,
Speaker:too, because I'll give a
Speaker:stack of papers starting
Speaker:from the easiest to the hardest.
Speaker:And I'll tell my kids, I need you to
Speaker:start at the one that.
Speaker:It's easy with a little bit of challenge.
Speaker:I said, don't fake it.
Speaker:Don't just start at the first
Speaker:one because it's the first one.
Speaker:Pick the actual one that's a little bit
Speaker:challenging for you because
Speaker:that lets me know where they
Speaker:are. Are they really that slower
Speaker:processor who needs that
Speaker:really simple one or are they
Speaker:a mid processor and they can start in the
Speaker:middle of that or are
Speaker:they a top processor and go
Speaker:right to the back one?
Speaker:And so and I how I do part of that is I
Speaker:there's questions
Speaker:associated with each one.
Speaker:So they're like, well, I don't want to do
Speaker:the extra work in the first
Speaker:page if I've got to answer
Speaker:questions for that one along the way.
Speaker:So, you know, I go do the one you did
Speaker:because then and I'll tell
Speaker:right away if they go, well, I
Speaker:don't want to do the work.
Speaker:So I'm going to start with the hard one.
Speaker:And then they really fumble it up.
Speaker:So I know that they need to go back and
Speaker:I'll go back and I go
Speaker:try the one before that.
Speaker:Do you think that one will
Speaker:help you a little bit more?
Speaker:But it really gives me a really good
Speaker:feedback about where they
Speaker:are, even if they lie to
Speaker:themselves to either get the work done or
Speaker:to make it easier for
Speaker:them because I'll see right
Speaker:away that goes through.
Speaker:So I think that's really a key there,
Speaker:Stephanie, that was a
Speaker:really interesting getting them
Speaker:getting them to work at I plus one where
Speaker:they're just outside
Speaker:of their comfort zone.
Speaker:Yeah, their
Speaker:foundational theory of linguistics.
Speaker:Yeah, that's a really good one.
Speaker:Suddenly, I'm thinking now that I'm
Speaker:teaching English, heck,
Speaker:we do this in English, too,
Speaker:because my copy of Romeo and Juliet is
Speaker:probably right over here.
Speaker:Here it is right here.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I've got it's got it's got a quote
Speaker:unquote translation on every page.
Speaker:There's the actual script and then
Speaker:there's the modern English.
Speaker:That's what is that
Speaker:but an embedded reading.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:It really does.
Speaker:It really helps them.
Speaker:And I've been able to take a scene.
Speaker:I take the windmill
Speaker:scene from Don Quixote.
Speaker:Quixote d'Ole Monce, I love that.
Speaker:And I teach it to my level ones through
Speaker:embedded reading because
Speaker:it's such an important piece
Speaker:of literature, not just to Spanish
Speaker:speakers, because it was the first
Speaker:Western novel on the
Speaker:Western world.
Speaker:You know, on the Eastern side, they had
Speaker:them, but we did not have them on that.
Speaker:And it was during the the Dark Ages.
Speaker:Well, Spain was going through its Golden
Speaker:Age during that time.
Speaker:But the rest of Europe was in the Dark
Speaker:Ages during that time.
Speaker:So and there's so many references like
Speaker:there's a Lexus commercialist reference.
Speaker:It's referenced everywhere and kids have
Speaker:no idea what tilting at windmills means.
Speaker:They don't know tilting at windmills.
Speaker:They don't know they might be Giants.
Speaker:They don't know the word Quixote.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So I bring all that stuff in there and
Speaker:I'll do it in better reading.
Speaker:It takes like five of them before they
Speaker:can actually get to the
Speaker:ancient what I call Shakespearean
Speaker:Spanish that they
Speaker:wrote back way back when.
Speaker:But they get it and I say, this is it.
Speaker:And I explained to them
Speaker:like Romeo and Juliet.
Speaker:I'm like, now you have
Speaker:to think this is a comedy.
Speaker:I know it doesn't look like a
Speaker:comedy by today's standards.
Speaker:You have to remind them.
Speaker:It's a joke.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And I go think of it this way.
Speaker:You got your your Spider-Man pajamas and
Speaker:you put your Spider-Man
Speaker:pajamas on and you are now going
Speaker:around your city and
Speaker:you are defending crime.
Speaker:Now, how absurd is that?
Speaker:And that's what Don Quixote, what's
Speaker:happening with Don Quixote.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And so now that they understand that
Speaker:along the way, it makes
Speaker:it a little bit thing.
Speaker:And so I can explain it to them and make
Speaker:a piece of literature that is important
Speaker:in all Western culture.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Something that's accessible to them.
Speaker:And obviously, it's not the whole book.
Speaker:I mean, they spent a whole semester in
Speaker:college teaching that book.
Speaker:And I had a friend who took that class
Speaker:and she's a native speaker Spanish.
Speaker:She goes, it was the
Speaker:hardest class I ever took.
Speaker:And she goes, I speak
Speaker:Spanish and I had trouble.
Speaker:So it's not an easy book to
Speaker:read, but it's so important.
Speaker:And so giving them that
Speaker:little glimpse of that.
Speaker:And then there's also some comprehensible
Speaker:readers that they made.
Speaker:There's one that's a comic strip of Don
Speaker:Quixote and then one that's just a
Speaker:simplified reader of Don Quixote.
Speaker:So they can experience some of that.
Speaker:At least get the
Speaker:story out is so important.
Speaker:Same thing with some
Speaker:classics in French Les Misrabs.
Speaker:Because I read a lot of, I took French up
Speaker:to French beginning
Speaker:French literature in college.
Speaker:So I read Mopossent, I read La Trangé.
Speaker:I didn't read Les Misrabs.
Speaker:That wasn't in there.
Speaker:But I don't even know how
Speaker:to say it in French anymore.
Speaker:The Emperor of New Clothes.
Speaker:Oh, yeah.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:You know, so we read all those and it
Speaker:brought those pieces of literature to me
Speaker:that I would not experience otherwise.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So I think that's important.
Speaker:Well, we are getting close to, well,
Speaker:we're actually over our time.
Speaker:So let's end with what comprehension
Speaker:checks actually work.
Speaker:And I know Stephanie already
Speaker:mentioned the Flickr cards.
Speaker:I got to look that up so I can share that
Speaker:with everybody, the thing on there so I
Speaker:can get the link for it.
Speaker:But anybody else have
Speaker:anything or have anything else?
Speaker:Stephanie, that you want to add that,
Speaker:here I've got the card.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Sometimes it just
Speaker:depends on the level of class.
Speaker:I'll have them with their mini
Speaker:whiteboards, either do a drawing, compare
Speaker:it to their neighbors.
Speaker:Sometimes I have them write a sentence
Speaker:and then they have to pair up with
Speaker:somebody else and share their sentences
Speaker:and add it to their own.
Speaker:So that they're gaining another detail or
Speaker:something they might have missed.
Speaker:That's helpful.
Speaker:I find to also do a comprehension check
Speaker:with because one student may pick up
Speaker:something that another student doesn't
Speaker:and they take to other students, their
Speaker:peers explaining to them or showing them
Speaker:a little more in a pair or a group of
Speaker:three a little more
Speaker:comfortably than in front of the class.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Awesome.
Speaker:What about you, Pamela?
Speaker:I used to be able to do turn and talk and
Speaker:then just kind of circulate and eavesdrop
Speaker:and in recent years, just the stamina of
Speaker:the students, the attention of the
Speaker:students hasn't been working and I've had
Speaker:to go to more formal comprehension
Speaker:checks, just like
Speaker:Stephanie's talking about.
Speaker:Mini whiteboards and markers are the best
Speaker:PTSA money I ever spent.
Speaker:I went to PTSA for a grant for that.
Speaker:That was absolutely wonderful.
Speaker:So that's good.
Speaker:I also have a bunch of
Speaker:little half sheets of paper.
Speaker:I just steal paper from the recycle bin
Speaker:and I cut it in half.
Speaker:I'm like, this will be great for it
Speaker:because it's not anything
Speaker:that's going in the grade book.
Speaker:I just need the students to kind of play
Speaker:with the words that they just heard.
Speaker:So I'll do one of my favorites is a
Speaker:Harvard Project Zero thinking routine
Speaker:called plus one where we were talking
Speaker:about Stephanie where I have the students
Speaker:first of all just information dump right
Speaker:down everything you
Speaker:remember from the story.
Speaker:Maybe you just remember isolated words.
Speaker:Maybe you remember whole sentences.
Speaker:Maybe they're not in order.
Speaker:That's okay.
Speaker:Just information.
Speaker:Don't get it on paper.
Speaker:Don't talk to each other.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:Now that you've got on paper pass it one
Speaker:to the right and I've got six table
Speaker:groups of six students apiece.
Speaker:So they're kind of, you know, going in a
Speaker:circle pass it one to the right.
Speaker:Look at their list.
Speaker:Add something that they forgot.
Speaker:Don't talk.
Speaker:Okay, pass it to the right.
Speaker:Okay, look at that list.
Speaker:Add something and then, you
Speaker:know, maybe I'll switch it up.
Speaker:I'll like look at one of those words and
Speaker:draw doodle next to it.
Speaker:What does that word mean?
Speaker:But you have to draw doodle.
Speaker:You can't translate pass it again.
Speaker:Okay, take two of those words and put
Speaker:them together in a sentence.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:Now give it back to the original person
Speaker:now that you've seen
Speaker:everybody else's papers.
Speaker:Is there anything you want
Speaker:to add to improve your grade?
Speaker:I don't really grade it, you know, but
Speaker:then that you know now
Speaker:they've got things more.
Speaker:It's a matter of working moving it from
Speaker:their working memory
Speaker:into their long-term memory.
Speaker:Instead of shuffling it
Speaker:back into short-term memory.
Speaker:So that's something I do.
Speaker:I like quiz quiz trade a lot.
Speaker:That's a Kagan technique.
Speaker:If I've got the sentences printed out on
Speaker:paper and just slice them up, then I can
Speaker:have the students go around and you know,
Speaker:ask each other the
Speaker:questions from the story.
Speaker:What else?
Speaker:I've got man, I have a ton of them, but
Speaker:you know, it maybe it's a
Speaker:simple draw label caption.
Speaker:Maybe it's a draw me a before during and
Speaker:after for the story.
Speaker:Yeah, anything to get them playing with
Speaker:the vocabulary on another level other
Speaker:than just the typical story asking or
Speaker:TPRS that we're doing.
Speaker:Awesome.
Speaker:And I'm going to go a different route.
Speaker:I have my own personal app
Speaker:that I made using I mean,
Speaker:I am no programmer, but I used Claude AI
Speaker:to make the app and I love the app.
Speaker:I'm excited that I didn't
Speaker:have the app all year last year,
Speaker:but I'm going to have the app starting
Speaker:this year the whole year
Speaker:because it's got lots of things.
Speaker:I it replaces class dojo so
Speaker:I can keep track of points.
Speaker:It allows me to select randomly kids and
Speaker:not repeat because that's one thing I
Speaker:hate about class dojo.
Speaker:It would repeat the same kid over.
Speaker:You know, it doesn't eliminate the kids
Speaker:and I have two ways do it.
Speaker:If I don't care if the kid gets asked
Speaker:again, then I have one way
Speaker:to ask for randomized kids
Speaker:or if I want to make sure I
Speaker:get through all the kids first.
Speaker:I have a second way.
Speaker:It has a scoreboard on it.
Speaker:We're doing games.
Speaker:They can see the
Speaker:scoreboard on the on the screen.
Speaker:So I've got lots of different things, but
Speaker:two things I have in it.
Speaker:Oh, they asked
Speaker:bathroom passes in that too.
Speaker:So they don't have to ask me.
Speaker:They just do it and sign out
Speaker:and it keeps track of the time.
Speaker:I love it.
Speaker:But one of the things I have on it is
Speaker:comprehension check.
Speaker:So I will ask a
Speaker:comprehension check question.
Speaker:I'll say okay, everybody go on your
Speaker:computer go and answer the
Speaker:question right then and there.
Speaker:So it's private.
Speaker:So no one sees it and I get instant
Speaker:feedback because it pops up on my screen.
Speaker:But not only that they also have a
Speaker:question button where they can raise
Speaker:their hand secretly.
Speaker:Put it on there and it rings and because
Speaker:I have my hearing aids in and it rings in
Speaker:my ears not for everybody to see it.
Speaker:So I can see it in there and I can go
Speaker:ahead and answer that and I can ask
Speaker:answer that question as if mysteriously
Speaker:someone raised their hand, but nobody did
Speaker:and this way nobody
Speaker:knows who asked the question.
Speaker:So that really works and it's been
Speaker:working really really well because they
Speaker:can go right ahead and ask that question
Speaker:or answer the question and it's secret.
Speaker:So nobody really knows but I get the
Speaker:feedback and it gets recorded in the app.
Speaker:So I can go back and have data that I
Speaker:need to have data for and I also have it
Speaker:with polls where I can make a quick poll,
Speaker:send it out to the kids and they can
Speaker:answer the poll right away without having
Speaker:to make a Google form
Speaker:or anything like that.
Speaker:So it's really a useful little app that I
Speaker:have and I find it's just been very good
Speaker:for what I wanted to do and if I was a
Speaker:feature I want I just go ahead and ask
Speaker:Claude to add that feature to it and it
Speaker:keeps building and building and building.
Speaker:Kids will give me suggestions too.
Speaker:So that's another way because we talked
Speaker:about the whole reason that they're
Speaker:making these things is because the
Speaker:effective filter that
Speaker:they're embarrassed.
Speaker:They don't want to let people know
Speaker:they're making a mistake or they have a
Speaker:question because they might think it
Speaker:might be a dumb question, but by making
Speaker:it secret in there or like Stephanie
Speaker:showed us, you know, a normal gesture
Speaker:that kids do automatically lets you know
Speaker:that there is
Speaker:something else going on there.
Speaker:So those kinds of things they can kind of
Speaker:hide behind those things without being
Speaker:embarrassed in front of their peers.
Speaker:So all of those are great.
Speaker:I put the Flickr cards
Speaker:in the chat the link.
Speaker:I'll also add it to the show notes for
Speaker:those listening on the podcast and or
Speaker:watching this later because it's a really
Speaker:long link and it's not
Speaker:the best link in the world.
Speaker:So I will put it in the chat.
Speaker:I'm sorry in the show notes.
Speaker:You can show that look at afterward
Speaker:because it's a really
Speaker:long kind of link there.
Speaker:But I want to thank everybody.
Speaker:Any final words that
Speaker:we have before we end?
Speaker:Thank you so much for
Speaker:being with us, Stephanie.
Speaker:Yes, just know that there is going to be
Speaker:somebody who doesn't understand.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:And if one person is willing to admit it,
Speaker:then you know, there's quite a few more.
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:That's just for my I'll say my last thing
Speaker:is I I mainly target my comprehension
Speaker:checks at my slower processors, my
Speaker:struggling students.
Speaker:Because if they understand then the odds
Speaker:are everybody above them understands.
Speaker:But if I ask a mid or a top student, they
Speaker:understand there's no guarantee that
Speaker:people below them will understand.
Speaker:So I will ask my top and mid kids just to
Speaker:hide the fact that I'm
Speaker:asking my comp my struggling kids.
Speaker:But the information that's most
Speaker:informative to me is the struggling kids.
Speaker:And so that's what I
Speaker:really want to focus on too.
Speaker:So let just like Stephanie said, there's
Speaker:always going to be someone who doesn't
Speaker:understand and it's your
Speaker:job to find out who that is.
Speaker:And so that you can make yourself more
Speaker:comprehended and not just comprehensible.
Speaker:So that's the episode, everybody.
Speaker:Thanks for spending part of your Sunday
Speaker:with us instead of grading, which is
Speaker:genuinely the nicer choice.
Speaker:Pamela, thank you for calling out the
Speaker:fake nods with the calm precision of
Speaker:someone who used to translate for a
Speaker:living and can spot a
Speaker:bluff from across the room.
Speaker:And Stephanie, thank you
Speaker:for driving up from Maine.
Speaker:Virtually, all the way over to the West
Speaker:Coast, at least spiritually to remind us
Speaker:that 28 years in and you can still be
Speaker:obsessive about whether kids actually
Speaker:understood the thing.
Speaker:That's the whole job.
Speaker:If you took one thing
Speaker:from today, let it be this.
Speaker:The thumbs up is not evidence.
Speaker:Go find a check that
Speaker:actually tells you something.
Speaker:Do the usual if you're feeling generous.
Speaker:Subscribe.
Speaker:Leave a review.
Speaker:Send this to teacher down the hall who
Speaker:still thinks everybody good is a
Speaker:comprehension check.
Speaker:Watch us live on YouTube or grab the
Speaker:replay wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker:Ditch the drills.
Speaker:Trust the process.
Speaker:And I'll see you next
Speaker:time on Comprehend This.
Speaker:Bye-bye, everybody.
