On last week’s Tea with BVP, Bill VanPatten discussed what humans do when they listen to and read messages, known as Input Processing (IP), and then elaborated on his work with Processing Instruction (PI). Don’t let that acronym palindrome (PIIP, or IPPI) confuse you! Bill’s Processing Instruction (PI) is an instructional technique used to gently push students into linking form and meaning while processing input, although it’s meaning-based and communicative in nature, not explanation-based like pop-up grammar, etc. Regardless of using Processing Instruction (PI), the language teacher should be aware of what’s going on as students process input. So, what do they do first when they listen to, and read messages?
Can’t Read Greek—Unsurprised, but Angry
I don’t know Ancient Greek very well, despite “studying it” in college, but recently I’ve had the desire to read it (vs. translating, or just knowing about how Greek works). Desire certainly accounts for motivation, which has a positive effect on compellingness of messages read, yet I’ve been having the hardest time with comprehension—the undisputed sine qua non of language acquisition. I began to look into why, and now I’m just angry…
“Floor not Ceiling”
I once was told that explicit grammar instruction given in order to develop the skills of conjugating verbs and declining nouns is the “floor, not ceiling” of teaching/learning Latin. What this IS NOT, is true. What this IS, is a common misunderstanding. In fact, it’s an alternative fact. We have no evidence—NO EVIDENCE—to suggest that anyone MUST learn how to conjugate verbs or decline nouns in order to develop proficiency in a language. Wake up, people!
Active Latin vs. Acquisition of Latin
**See this more-recent post on “Active Latin”**
Justin Slocum Bailey has just written an excellent article about speaking Latin. Though related, my post is about the implications of using the term “Active Latin” as it pertains to classroom practices.
I’ve long felt weird about that term. After synthesizing my thoughts, I now believe that most teachers who use the term to describe their teaching (as informed by Second Language Acquisition (SLA) research) are actually using something closer to “Productive Latin,” which might not lead to language acquisition at all.
Grumio, in the Triclinium, with the Gladius: Integrating Culture
**Updated 12.13 with this clue tracking sheet for teams**
Every Latin program has that perfunctory “Roman house” unit in which students memorize the layout and names of various rooms in a vīlla or domus, and then read (or translate) a narrative loosely connected to those rooms. This got me thinking; is there a more meaningful way to learn about the Roman house through a game? To be clear, gamification usually sucks (e.g. playing a board game to teach prepositions), so the key is to align the game objective with a communicative task in Latin. On Episode 42 of Tea with BVP, Bill stated that “we communicate in order to learn, build, create, entertain, and socialize,” so what better task covering at least 3 of those purposes than a “whodunit” based on Clue™?
Why Your Language Teacher Failed You
I have WordPress set to automatically post to Facebook, which means many of you reading this aren’t even language teachers. Allow me, then, to explain why you don’t know the language you studied in school (unless, of course, you were lucky enough to have spent time abroad, or to have found yourself exposed to the language in some meaningful way, thus, correcting decades of misinformed pedagogy still pervasive today)…
Tea with BVP Episode 43: Mind Grenades
Spring semester Tea with BVP starts up again this week, but before the winter break, Bill VanPatten dropped what that weird keynote speaker at ACTFL 2016 would call “mind grenades,” and he dropped quite a few. If there’s one episode to listen to, it’s Episode 43. Among others, here’s one gem that sticks out, and sets up this week’s episode:
“In fact, nothing in a textbook is psychologically real” (click here for a psychedelic treatment of the audio)
Others followed:
- “The problem we have is textbook materials…if you look at them closely they’re probably not input-oriented, or meaning-based…here at MSU, for example, all of our homework is input-based (e.g. sentence-level).”
- “I think we need to do away with seat time requirements, and we need to do away with grades.”
- “As a profession, we need to start making the argument that language is not like other subject matter. We gotta stop treating it like that.”
- “One of the questions [aspiring language teachers] asked was ‘how can we study so we can do better on our state proficiency exam?…what tenses should we be studying so I can pass this?’ and I said ‘well you CAN’T study for a proficiency test’…you’re a language teacher, what have you been learning about language and language acquisition that you don’t know the answer to that question yourself?!”
- “Output is a byproduct of acquisition, it’s not really necessary for acquisition…there are some people who claim it is, but there’s absolutely no research that shows that it is!”
- “There was work that came out in the 70’s showing that actually your knowledge of grammar emerges from interactions with people…it’s about participating in conversations that you gain accuracy in knowledge about a language.”
- “Any of us can open a textbook, open a page, and memorize a page and it winds up in our conscious knowledge, but what actually is in your head is something quite different…the fact that you can conjugate a verb doesn’t mean that’s what you access later on.”
- “That’s the problem we have in SLA—there are facts, but people just don’t want to believe them.”
- “Talking doesn’t make you learn anything…you do not have to talk in order to learn language, language will get in your head by just listening and reading and watching and seeing.”
- “Getting input into your classroom is not my idea of SLA—that’s just SLA. input is necessary, so the consequences is that we need constant exposure to input for our student.”
- “The people who were videotaped interacting improved, but then another group that just watched the videotape (and weren’t students themselves) improved just by watching the interaction…and this wasn’t grammar class, just interaction…the group was listening in on other people’s conversations and acquiring some language at the same time.”
- “If your classroom is interesting, I could be talking to Angelika but if Walter is listening (because we’re doing something interesting), he’s gonna acquire language.”
- “Sometimes slipping an English word is the fastest way to get that meaning across…if your focus is on communication and you spend all this time going around and around and around and people still don’t know what they hell you’re talking about, you could’ve had 10 more min. of Comprehensible Input and interaction because all you needed was one word.”
Syntax Synonyms: Don’t Fear the Subjunctive
The subjunctive is usually regarded as a more advanced grammatical concept, the very mention of which can give students crippling anxiety, but EFF that—it’s not.
To begin with, in a grammatical syllabus, the subjunctive is simply unnecessarily delayed. In Lingua Latīna per sē Illustrāta, for example, it doesn’t appear until chapter 28 of 35, and in Ecce Rōmānī not until chapter 42 of 68. Given enrollment figures, it’s clear that most students don’t even encounter the subjunctive before dropping Latin in conventional programs! The reality of language and communication (yes, reading is a form of communicating—interpretation), however, is that the subjunctive is much more frequent, and can actually be less difficult to process!
What the…?!
Drum Circle Brain Break
After listening to Annabelle Allen on episode 4 of Teachers That Teach, I’m interested in using more Brain Breaks that are shorter.
Despite how awesome some Brain Breaks can be, like Evolution (i.e. the rock/paper/scissor variation of egg–>fledgling–>dragon etc., most of my high school students are “too cool for school” to do a lot of them. Annabelle’s advice of “just do it anyway because he brain of those who don’t participate is still getting a break” only works if there are few who don’t. Even though I warned my students that they’d wear out their favorite ball-tossing Brain Break, “Mumball,” they didn’t listen and now we’ve killed it. At this point, nearly half the class chooses to just sit instead of participating. So, instead of coming back from the Brain Break re-energized for more Latin, energy has dropped to an unacceptable level, at least for the rigor needed to sustain focus in a second language. It’s time for novel, shorter Brain Breaks.
Drum Circle
Stand in a circle, and in place begin stepping side to side at a comfy 70 to 80 bpm (beats per minute) to establish a group tempo. This should feel more like a dance and less like a march. Begin a pattern together, call and response, this side/that side, and/or individuals add on to the pattern—the sky’s the limit!
This shouldn’t get old as fast as other Brain Breaks because of so much variation. Remember, you can tap, clap, snap, rub hands together, and use your thighs, arms, etc. to make sounds. You could also count in the target language (e.g. “ūnus” <step, step, step> “ūnus” <step, step, step> etc.).
Rūfus et arma ātra: A New Latin Novella
**Update 3.15.17 – Rufus has been published!**
Rūfus et arma ātra is a spin-off of Pīsō Ille Poētulus written with ONLY 40 words—the lowest word count of currently published novellas! Rūfus is simple, funny, and can be read a) after Pīsō once students have a connection to the character, or b) before Pīsō early on in Latin I. At the end of November, most of my Latin I students read Rūfus over just a few days of Free Voluntary Reading (FVR); some read it within the first 15min!
Click here to access the first 3 chapters (of 7) for previewing/piloting.
In the preview, you’ll recognize some illustrations from Pīsō. Over 50 of them, both old and new, will be used to aid comprehension in the final version of Rūfus. I’ll be editing the book in February for publication in March, so contact me with any suggestions you and/or your students might have by the end of January.
p.s. Rūfus was inspired by Mira Canion’s El capibara con botas containing just 55 Spanish words. The book was a breeze and a blast to read, and I knew that Latin students needed something like this. Granted, the word count figure excludes a lot of Spanish cognates (twice as many?), but that seems to be the industry standard practice. For Pīsō, however, I strayed from this practice and instead chose to include cognates in the word count figure of 108, since I don’t believe cognates are necessarily transparent, and excluded the ~30 additional meanings established in footnotes. Similarly, Rūfus has just ~10 additional meanings established in footnotes. If that reckoning irritates you, it’s fine to say that while Pīsō has under 150, Rūfus has under 50 words—a figure still worthy of note!
Magister P. 