ТРАНСКРИПЦИЯ 🔗
WEBVTT
00:00:13.580 --> 00:00:18.059
Hey everyone and welcome to CI Stories where
00:00:18.059 --> 00:00:21.899
we talk with everyday teachers about their CI
00:00:21.899 --> 00:00:24.640
experience in the classroom because it's not
00:00:24.640 --> 00:00:27.839
just the gurus who do this, it's us everyday
00:00:27.839 --> 00:00:30.800
teachers who go in the classroom and make magic
00:00:30.800 --> 00:00:33.439
happen. So today we're going to be talking with
00:00:33.439 --> 00:00:36.740
Lynn Hendrick in just a moment, but a couple
00:00:36.740 --> 00:00:39.380
of things I want to talk to you about. Before
00:00:39.380 --> 00:00:41.539
we get started, if you don't already know, we
00:00:41.539 --> 00:00:44.079
have our Comprehended 2025 Conference going on
00:00:44.079 --> 00:00:46.380
right now. If that's something you're interested
00:00:46.380 --> 00:00:53.840
in, you can still register for a 3, 6, 9, 12
00:00:53.840 --> 00:00:57.060
-month pass. I can't speak today. Let me get
00:00:57.060 --> 00:01:03.159
that link up on the screen for everybody. Oops,
00:01:03.859 --> 00:01:06.099
I mistyped it. Let me get that off the screen.
00:01:06.750 --> 00:01:17.329
Fix my typo here. HPScomprehended .co. There
00:01:17.329 --> 00:01:24.390
we go. We also have one of our $7 webinars coming
00:01:24.390 --> 00:01:26.689
up this Saturday. You can still register for
00:01:26.689 --> 00:01:30.549
$7. And let me get you that one. That's for goal
00:01:30.549 --> 00:01:36.599
setting and working with assessments. And we
00:01:36.599 --> 00:01:43.219
put that one up on the screen as well. It's at
00:01:43.219 --> 00:01:46.560
mm .us slash goals. And our last thing we have
00:01:46.560 --> 00:01:49.280
going on, it opened up officially on April 1st,
00:01:49.299 --> 00:01:51.980
but you're still welcome to join, is our advanced
00:01:51.980 --> 00:01:56.000
CI class, our mm, I'm sorry, our beyond the basics
00:01:56.000 --> 00:02:03.030
class. That is at mm .us slash beyond. That is
00:02:03.030 --> 00:02:06.569
10 pre -recorded classes. You can watch at your
00:02:06.569 --> 00:02:10.490
leisure. You have them for access for a whole
00:02:10.490 --> 00:02:12.569
year. So if that's something you're interested
00:02:12.569 --> 00:02:15.919
in, you can register right there. now with that
00:02:15.919 --> 00:02:18.439
we're going to go ahead and move on and speak
00:02:18.439 --> 00:02:22.340
with lynn lynn is a german teacher from the virginia
00:02:22.340 --> 00:02:25.419
beach virginia area and then i'm going to let
00:02:25.419 --> 00:02:27.340
her give you a little bit of introduction about
00:02:27.340 --> 00:02:29.460
her background and then we'll go ahead and get
00:02:29.460 --> 00:02:32.620
started if you have questions remember as always
00:02:32.620 --> 00:02:35.879
go ahead and just type them in the comments Or
00:02:35.879 --> 00:02:38.819
if you are watching the chat in the chat, excuse
00:02:38.819 --> 00:02:41.039
me. And if you're watching in
Load full transcript
the comments post,
00:02:41.219 --> 00:02:42.960
you can put them in the comments if you're watching
00:02:42.960 --> 00:02:46.039
it on the replay. So go ahead and do that for
00:02:46.039 --> 00:02:52.060
us. And let's move on to Lynn. Welcome, Lynn.
00:02:52.139 --> 00:02:56.199
How are you doing today? Good. How are you? I'm
00:02:56.199 --> 00:02:58.400
doing excellent. Thank you. Thank you so much.
00:02:58.740 --> 00:03:00.800
So tell us a little bit about yourself before
00:03:00.800 --> 00:03:06.740
we get started. So I teach German, all levels
00:03:06.740 --> 00:03:09.680
at the high school level in Chesapeake, Virginia,
00:03:10.020 --> 00:03:15.599
a public school, a fairly high needs school when
00:03:15.599 --> 00:03:21.439
it comes to social economics. And I don't know,
00:03:21.500 --> 00:03:25.340
I have two children, both in college and an accidental
00:03:25.340 --> 00:03:29.099
exchange student this year. Awesome. How long
00:03:29.099 --> 00:03:33.800
have you been teaching? This is, it's complicated
00:03:33.800 --> 00:03:36.000
because I taught, then I took time off and now
00:03:36.000 --> 00:03:40.379
I'm teaching again. So I'm around 20 to 22 years.
00:03:41.360 --> 00:03:43.360
So about the same as you. I think this is my
00:03:43.360 --> 00:03:47.879
23rd year teaching. 23rd year. And have you always
00:03:47.879 --> 00:03:52.120
been a CI teacher or did you start later on?
00:03:52.719 --> 00:03:58.400
I did. So like I think many people who went to
00:03:58.400 --> 00:04:05.710
school in the... mid 90s my education in teaching
00:04:05.710 --> 00:04:09.710
languages was not the best at the college level
00:04:09.710 --> 00:04:14.090
and I'd never heard of comprehensible input probably
00:04:14.090 --> 00:04:18.310
for the first I don't know 10 to 15 years that
00:04:18.310 --> 00:04:20.949
I was out of the out of college and in the classroom
00:04:20.949 --> 00:04:27.360
and so I got a postcard in the mail at the school
00:04:27.360 --> 00:04:32.779
I was teaching at that was from Blaine Ray come
00:04:32.779 --> 00:04:36.480
to this two day workshop. And I showed it to
00:04:36.480 --> 00:04:38.620
the person that I was sharing my classroom with
00:04:38.620 --> 00:04:41.000
at the time. And she's like, wow, that really
00:04:41.000 --> 00:04:43.199
looks like something you would do well. We should
00:04:43.199 --> 00:04:49.420
go together. So we did. So, yeah, but I was a
00:04:49.420 --> 00:04:52.370
very, you know, traditional. get through chapter
00:04:52.370 --> 00:04:55.250
four in this textbook and then move to the you
00:04:55.250 --> 00:04:58.009
know very traditional teacher before that because
00:04:58.009 --> 00:05:01.170
that's the only thing i knew i hadn't known anything
00:05:01.170 --> 00:05:06.389
else I got lucky. I learned about CI right at
00:05:06.389 --> 00:05:08.949
the end of my first semester of teaching. And
00:05:08.949 --> 00:05:11.110
I sucked at teaching in the first semester because
00:05:11.110 --> 00:05:13.209
I was doing it from the textbook, the way I was
00:05:13.209 --> 00:05:15.230
taught. And I really didn't learn any of the
00:05:15.230 --> 00:05:17.870
languages that I learned. I did not learn actually
00:05:17.870 --> 00:05:20.009
from the textbook. I faithfully did the textbook,
00:05:20.250 --> 00:05:22.990
but we all have other ways that we learn. We
00:05:22.990 --> 00:05:25.170
didn't actually learn from the textbook itself.
00:05:25.509 --> 00:05:29.089
So I did that. I was boring and I was bored.
00:05:29.189 --> 00:05:32.350
They were bored. And I was like, there's no way
00:05:32.350 --> 00:05:34.149
I'm going to be able to do this the next 30 years
00:05:34.149 --> 00:05:37.670
doing this. And so then I knew something had
00:05:37.670 --> 00:05:40.230
to change. So I found Blaine Ray like something,
00:05:40.290 --> 00:05:42.850
you know, like you. But I didn't get to go to
00:05:42.850 --> 00:05:48.810
a workshop until the summer. So I just bought
00:05:48.810 --> 00:05:53.459
the books and. At the time, we have a CI Facebook
00:05:53.459 --> 00:05:57.620
group now. But before that, we had a Yahoo group.
00:05:57.819 --> 00:06:00.199
And that's what we were on. So that's where I
00:06:00.199 --> 00:06:02.920
got all the information because Facebook groups
00:06:02.920 --> 00:06:06.240
weren't a thing back then. And I just grabbed
00:06:06.240 --> 00:06:09.300
everything that I could and struggled until I
00:06:09.300 --> 00:06:11.899
got that training during the summer. But something
00:06:11.899 --> 00:06:15.240
that you kind of made me think of, a few years
00:06:15.240 --> 00:06:21.649
ago, I did a training in... I want to say it
00:06:21.649 --> 00:06:23.569
was Nashville. I know it was Tennessee, but I
00:06:23.569 --> 00:06:24.689
can't remember if it was Nashville or Memphis,
00:06:24.769 --> 00:06:28.310
but I think it was Nashville. And I had two German
00:06:28.310 --> 00:06:31.149
teachers come in. And my German is very rusty,
00:06:31.230 --> 00:06:35.050
so I always get a little nervous because I do
00:06:35.050 --> 00:06:37.370
my demos in German. I don't do them in Spanish
00:06:37.370 --> 00:06:39.629
because everybody knows Spanish or can pick it
00:06:39.629 --> 00:06:41.610
up so easily so they don't really feel the effect.
00:06:42.689 --> 00:06:45.009
And I knew I was going to have a problem because
00:06:45.009 --> 00:06:50.189
we had a more... senior teacher who is on the
00:06:50.189 --> 00:06:52.930
verge of retiring, but the young new teacher
00:06:52.930 --> 00:06:56.509
wanted to go, so she dragged her along. But my
00:06:56.509 --> 00:07:00.079
question word posters... I had them up there
00:07:00.079 --> 00:07:02.800
in German and they weren't capitalized. And she
00:07:02.800 --> 00:07:05.240
says, why aren't they cap before we started?
00:07:05.300 --> 00:07:07.639
Why aren't they capitalized? I'm like, they're
00:07:07.639 --> 00:07:10.279
not in a sentence. They're just
words. You know,
00:07:10.300 --> 00:07:12.360
they're not normally capitalized unless they're,
00:07:12.360 --> 00:07:14.300
you know, they're not a noun and they're not
00:07:14.300 --> 00:07:16.019
a first word in a sentence. It's just there.
00:07:16.060 --> 00:07:18.300
I thought, oh, this is going to be a really bad
00:07:18.300 --> 00:07:21.220
experience. So we went through the thing. And
00:07:21.220 --> 00:07:23.660
after the training, it was a two day training.
00:07:23.720 --> 00:07:26.939
And she said to me, she goes, this is incredible.
00:07:27.759 --> 00:07:31.160
And she said, I was ready to retire. I had one
00:07:31.160 --> 00:07:34.220
more year left and I'm tired of the kids. I'm
00:07:34.220 --> 00:07:37.839
tired of teaching. I want out. and she goes after
00:07:37.839 --> 00:07:39.339
this she goes i think i've got like three or
00:07:39.339 --> 00:07:42.560
four more years in me now and she went back and
00:07:42.560 --> 00:07:44.819
did it and like all of us in the beginning did
00:07:44.819 --> 00:07:47.019
it poorly we all do it poorly in the beginning
00:07:47.019 --> 00:07:49.779
takes us many years to get get comfortable with
00:07:49.779 --> 00:07:53.399
it but she said um she goes she kept emailing
00:07:53.399 --> 00:07:55.259
me all the time and she says i don't know what
00:07:55.259 --> 00:07:58.389
i'm doing the the school district wants me to
00:07:58.389 --> 00:08:00.269
come back and teach it to other teachers. And
00:08:00.269 --> 00:08:02.069
I don't even know what I'm doing yet. And it
00:08:02.069 --> 00:08:04.430
was just a really good experience, but she, I
00:08:04.430 --> 00:08:06.009
don't know if she's retired yet. It's gotta be
00:08:06.009 --> 00:08:08.290
by now. She, cause I know she wanted to retire,
00:08:08.410 --> 00:08:11.529
but it did give her a couple more years. It gave
00:08:11.529 --> 00:08:13.410
her an extra life because it's a whole different
00:08:13.410 --> 00:08:17.209
ball game. Cause she was a very strict and she
00:08:17.209 --> 00:08:19.449
was not only a German teacher, she was German.
00:08:20.079 --> 00:08:23.100
So comes from that, you know, the really strict
00:08:23.100 --> 00:08:25.779
background, you know, the really grammar focused
00:08:25.779 --> 00:08:28.920
background. Those are the tough ones for me to
00:08:28.920 --> 00:08:31.660
turn are the native speaking German teachers.
00:08:31.839 --> 00:08:35.500
Yeah. When I try to get people to engage in CI
00:08:35.500 --> 00:08:37.879
in some way, those are the ones that resist the
00:08:37.879 --> 00:08:41.620
most. But like reflecting back on my journey,
00:08:41.720 --> 00:08:46.059
I had been looking, I had been looking for something
00:08:46.059 --> 00:08:49.480
different my entire teaching career. And I was
00:08:49.480 --> 00:08:52.480
trying to bring different things into the classroom.
00:08:53.960 --> 00:08:57.399
I just didn't know how to do it and where to
00:08:57.399 --> 00:09:01.259
go with it. But by the time I had went to this
00:09:01.259 --> 00:09:06.019
weekend seminar that I went to, I had started
00:09:06.019 --> 00:09:10.159
introducing units by bringing in things. And
00:09:10.159 --> 00:09:13.279
so for the travel unit or the clothing unit,
00:09:13.440 --> 00:09:16.240
I would just pack a suitcase full of my clothes,
00:09:16.360 --> 00:09:19.159
my husband's clothes, my kids' clothes. you know
00:09:19.159 --> 00:09:22.100
all different crazy stuff mixed together and
00:09:22.100 --> 00:09:24.580
i was like hey guys i'm going on a trip i want
00:09:24.580 --> 00:09:27.480
you to tell me where i'm going as i show you
00:09:27.480 --> 00:09:30.600
the stuff and i would pull it out and start talking
00:09:30.600 --> 00:09:33.899
about it and start you know so i was pushing
00:09:33.899 --> 00:09:39.720
my way to ci but i didn't know what it was or
00:09:40.279 --> 00:09:44.600
what to do next. And so, yeah, being able, being
00:09:44.600 --> 00:09:48.740
exposed to those two days of training. And then
00:09:48.740 --> 00:09:51.559
by the time I was into it, the Facebook group
00:09:51.559 --> 00:09:54.759
was there instead of the Yahoo group and just
00:09:54.759 --> 00:09:58.320
pooling as much information in the blog posts
00:09:58.320 --> 00:10:01.340
and all of that. I just, I think I still have
00:10:01.340 --> 00:10:03.399
a binder downstairs where I was printing stuff
00:10:03.399 --> 00:10:05.799
and putting it in the binder so I could flip
00:10:05.799 --> 00:10:08.019
through it really fast and find what I wanted.
00:10:08.179 --> 00:10:11.450
And yeah. Yeah. Yeah, but I realized that my
00:10:11.450 --> 00:10:16.480
entire career I was trying to find. Yeah. You
00:10:16.480 --> 00:10:17.799
know, it's funny you talk about that clothing.
00:10:17.919 --> 00:10:19.919
I did something similar, not exactly like you
00:10:19.919 --> 00:10:22.860
did my second year of teaching. And I made, you
00:10:22.860 --> 00:10:24.740
know, second year of teaching. So you're still
00:10:24.740 --> 00:10:26.559
very wet behind the ears. You know, even after
00:10:26.559 --> 00:10:29.940
10 years, you're wet behind the ears. But I made
00:10:29.940 --> 00:10:32.379
the biggest faux pas. It was hilarious. It was
00:10:32.379 --> 00:10:34.179
a funny faux pas, but it was a faux pas because
00:10:34.179 --> 00:10:36.899
I didn't look. What I had the kids do is bring
00:10:36.899 --> 00:10:39.860
in clothes, donate clothes, and we threw them
00:10:39.860 --> 00:10:42.740
into a pile in the middle of the classroom. Now,
00:10:42.740 --> 00:10:45.570
I did not check. clothes to begin with. I didn't
00:10:45.570 --> 00:10:48.669
think to check them. My second year of teaching,
00:10:48.889 --> 00:10:51.929
I did not think of all the mischievous things
00:10:51.929 --> 00:10:54.429
that kids would do, right? I just didn't have
00:10:54.429 --> 00:10:57.009
that forethought. And I didn't have kids, so
00:10:57.009 --> 00:10:59.769
I didn't know
what kids were capable of. So we
00:10:59.769 --> 00:11:02.009
did this and we were playing a game. So we had
00:11:02.009 --> 00:11:04.490
two teams and I would call out an article of
00:11:04.490 --> 00:11:08.009
clothing. And the first person who put on the
00:11:08.009 --> 00:11:11.759
article of clothing got the point. So I made
00:11:11.759 --> 00:11:13.460
sure there was at least, you know, that we had
00:11:13.460 --> 00:11:15.440
enough articles to do that. And it didn't have
00:11:15.440 --> 00:11:18.179
to go on where it was supposed to go on. It just
00:11:18.179 --> 00:11:20.000
had to be on the body. Couldn't just be hanging
00:11:20.000 --> 00:11:23.139
on the body. It had to be on. So, you know, you
00:11:23.139 --> 00:11:25.240
could put a pair of pants on your head. I didn't
00:11:25.240 --> 00:11:27.019
care, but they had to be, you know, they had
00:11:27.019 --> 00:11:30.740
to be on. So I get down to, we had a vocabulary
00:11:30.740 --> 00:11:32.480
word in the textbook because I wasn't, I had
00:11:32.480 --> 00:11:36.059
to teach the textbook. Ropa interior, which is
00:11:36.059 --> 00:11:39.539
underwear, interior clothing. And so we had some
00:11:39.539 --> 00:11:42.340
underwear in there, and I guess this kid brought
00:11:42.340 --> 00:11:47.039
a tighty -whities in. Which, okay, not that big
00:11:47.039 --> 00:11:51.639
of a deal. But I didn't know that he had rubbed
00:11:51.639 --> 00:11:58.779
chocolate on them. So we get this, and the kid
00:11:58.779 --> 00:12:03.100
who put it on didn't know either. And he put
00:12:03.100 --> 00:12:08.000
it on backwards and inside out. So we saw the
00:12:08.000 --> 00:12:10.700
chocolate and he did not see the chocolate and
00:12:10.700 --> 00:12:14.279
he's got it on his head. And we are just laughing
00:12:14.279 --> 00:12:17.919
hysterically because it looks like he's got the
00:12:17.919 --> 00:12:20.379
bathroom streak right across his face. And we.
00:12:22.860 --> 00:12:25.639
It was hilarious. It was fun. It was hilarious.
00:12:25.840 --> 00:12:28.279
You know, we got our laughs out of that. But
00:12:28.279 --> 00:12:31.440
that was just a little fun game that we we played
00:12:31.440 --> 00:12:35.159
way back when. That was like 2002. It was a long
00:12:35.159 --> 00:12:39.190
time ago. That would be fun to do though. Yeah,
00:12:39.230 --> 00:12:41.169
it helped them learn the stuff and it was a little
00:12:41.169 --> 00:12:44.529
more tangible because when I started with CI,
00:12:44.710 --> 00:12:47.450
we didn't have all the activities that we have
00:12:47.450 --> 00:12:49.409
now. We did not have picture talk. We did not
00:12:49.409 --> 00:12:52.450
have movie talk or clip chat. We did not have
00:12:52.450 --> 00:12:55.169
embedded reading. None of that stuff existed.
00:12:55.669 --> 00:12:58.769
So we had to create things. Otherwise we were
00:12:58.769 --> 00:13:02.159
doing the stories. Every single day. And when
00:13:02.159 --> 00:13:05.320
I started, there were seven steps to doing that.
00:13:05.460 --> 00:13:07.460
And I can't remember all the steps, but I remember
00:13:07.460 --> 00:13:10.840
in the middle, you had to tell the same story
00:13:10.840 --> 00:13:12.879
because we didn't have circling or anything back
00:13:12.879 --> 00:13:16.279
then. The same story three different times to
00:13:16.279 --> 00:13:19.179
get the repetitions in. And it was hard to keep
00:13:19.179 --> 00:13:22.539
the kids engaged when it's the exact same story
00:13:22.539 --> 00:13:27.120
with no variation three times in a row. And,
00:13:27.120 --> 00:13:28.779
you know, we went through the seven steps and
00:13:28.779 --> 00:13:31.080
every day we had to go through all seven steps.
00:13:31.120 --> 00:13:33.360
That was the goal. And it was like a sprint trying
00:13:33.360 --> 00:13:36.080
to get through them. So we looked for other things
00:13:36.080 --> 00:13:39.480
to vary things up. And all we had for novels
00:13:39.480 --> 00:13:43.419
was like Pobriana or Armaan. And that's all we
00:13:43.419 --> 00:13:45.559
had way back then. We didn't have anything else
00:13:45.559 --> 00:13:48.460
to work with. And they were all Blaine Ray novels
00:13:48.460 --> 00:13:50.919
and nothing really happened in them because he
00:13:50.919 --> 00:13:56.000
keeps them very tame. And so, you know, kids
00:13:56.000 --> 00:13:58.080
would get bored of them. And I would get bored.
00:13:58.080 --> 00:14:01.340
I think I did Pobriana for like seven or eight
00:14:01.340 --> 00:14:04.320
years. And I know it by heart by now. And I can't
00:14:04.320 --> 00:14:08.379
teach it again. It's just I've expanded beyond
00:14:08.379 --> 00:14:11.299
that. But amazing. What year was it that you
00:14:11.299 --> 00:14:19.340
started CI? I'm trying to think. Probably 2012,
00:14:19.779 --> 00:14:26.419
maybe 13. okay yeah yeah yeah so definitely the
00:14:26.419 --> 00:14:28.919
yahoo group was gone at that time because yahoo
00:14:28.919 --> 00:14:31.100
killed their groups but we were all in there
00:14:31.100 --> 00:14:32.539
and the problem with yahoo groups you couldn't
00:14:32.539 --> 00:14:35.080
search you tried to search you couldn't find
00:14:35.080 --> 00:14:38.519
it but it was very active and people would you
00:14:38.519 --> 00:14:40.519
had two ways you can either go to the site and
00:14:40.519 --> 00:14:43.500
and get it or get the emails or get a digest
00:14:43.500 --> 00:14:47.360
and we i said don't get the daily emails because
00:14:47.360 --> 00:14:49.100
at the beginning of the school year you'd get
00:14:49.100 --> 00:14:53.460
hundreds of emails a day I did the daily emails,
00:14:53.600 --> 00:14:55.740
but I filtered them into a folder so I didn't
00:14:55.740 --> 00:14:58.159
have to see them. But then I can search them
00:14:58.159 --> 00:15:02.320
easier in my Gmail than I could on the list itself
00:15:02.320 --> 00:15:04.159
when I was looking for something. Because that
00:15:04.159
--> 00:15:06.200
was our only social media. There were not blogs
00:15:06.200 --> 00:15:10.139
back then. YouTube did not exist back then. So
00:15:10.139 --> 00:15:12.980
we were really, you know, that was our only real
00:15:12.980 --> 00:15:16.159
source of real human contact with things that
00:15:16.159 --> 00:15:18.879
we're doing. So yeah, very different from now.
00:15:18.980 --> 00:15:22.679
We've got so many resources. Thankfully, right?
00:15:23.000 --> 00:15:25.659
Yes, exactly. So many different things we can
00:15:25.659 --> 00:15:28.580
do now. Since you talked about your journey,
00:15:28.659 --> 00:15:31.340
what was your toughest challenge that you faced?
00:15:31.399 --> 00:15:33.740
Or did you have a challenge that you faced when
00:15:33.740 --> 00:15:39.419
you switched over? Excuse me. Getting a little
00:15:39.419 --> 00:15:45.460
cold over here. I think one challenge was my
00:15:45.460 --> 00:15:48.620
own confidence. You know, building my own self
00:15:48.620 --> 00:15:52.779
-confidence. feeling like I could do this and
00:15:52.779 --> 00:15:55.940
this was sustainable and it was something that
00:15:55.940 --> 00:16:00.720
I could continue with and grow into. But as a
00:16:00.720 --> 00:16:04.840
singleton teacher, my other big challenge was
00:16:04.840 --> 00:16:09.779
I don't just teach one level. I don't even teach
00:16:09.779 --> 00:16:13.100
two levels. I teach all the German every year.
00:16:14.000 --> 00:16:17.480
Thankfully, our year is split by the semester.
00:16:18.600 --> 00:16:21.139
So I was never teaching more than three levels
00:16:21.139 --> 00:16:25.100
at one time. But that was a really big challenge,
00:16:25.220 --> 00:16:31.639
especially as I was transitioning into CI. All
00:16:31.639 --> 00:16:36.480
my kids come back to me. And so I had to be very
00:16:36.480 --> 00:16:41.940
strategic in how I introduced it and when I introduced
00:16:41.940 --> 00:16:45.740
it. And there was one group that I just knew
00:16:45.740 --> 00:16:48.889
I... wasn't going to introduce it to because
00:16:48.889 --> 00:16:52.250
they were not the group that was going to be
00:16:52.250 --> 00:16:55.110
receptive to it. And I knew that they were going
00:16:55.110 --> 00:16:58.289
to give me the most pushback. And so instead
00:16:58.289 --> 00:17:02.690
of transitioning them all the way to CI, I just
00:17:02.690 --> 00:17:07.119
gave them elements. And I kept the routine of
00:17:07.119 --> 00:17:09.880
the textbook. I kept the routine of the grammar,
00:17:09.960 --> 00:17:13.599
but I gave them elements of the CI to kind of
00:17:13.599 --> 00:17:15.720
supplement and work it in there and give myself
00:17:15.720 --> 00:17:20.079
more practice. And I also made the very, for
00:17:20.079 --> 00:17:25.160
me, the very wise decision to only transition
00:17:25.160 --> 00:17:30.160
one course at a time. So I started with my German
00:17:30.160 --> 00:17:32.440
one course because that was the natural place
00:17:32.440 --> 00:17:35.670
to start. And I taught my German one course in
00:17:35.670 --> 00:17:39.329
the fall and I worked really hard on that course
00:17:39.329 --> 00:17:42.670
and those lesson plans. And then for the other
00:17:42.670 --> 00:17:46.289
two courses, I just recycled my lesson plans
00:17:46.289 --> 00:17:49.170
from the year before so that I didn't have to
00:17:49.170 --> 00:17:51.829
think so hard in those classes. And I would supplement
00:17:51.829 --> 00:17:55.349
things in for them that were more CI based. And
00:17:55.349 --> 00:17:59.029
then second semester, those ones, many of those
00:17:59.029 --> 00:18:03.839
ones became my twos. And so I. transitioned that
00:18:03.839 --> 00:18:08.259
level two into CI. So now I had level one and
00:18:08.259 --> 00:18:12.819
two running in CI. The following year, I was
00:18:12.819 --> 00:18:15.420
then able to take those twos and transition them
00:18:15.420 --> 00:18:20.079
into my level three class. And so it became a
00:18:20.079 --> 00:18:23.700
natural progression for both me and the students.
00:18:23.900 --> 00:18:28.980
It was less taxing on me personally, because
00:18:28.980 --> 00:18:31.890
at that time I had little kids they were elementary
00:18:31.890 --> 00:18:37.769
age um and i was needed at home my husband would
00:18:37.769 --> 00:18:40.549
give me sundays every weekend he would take them
00:18:40.549 --> 00:18:43.309
and do something on sundays so the house was
00:18:43.309 --> 00:18:47.490
quiet and i could work the whole day on you know
00:18:47.490 --> 00:18:49.869
what i was going to do that next week just for
00:18:49.869 --> 00:18:53.930
one class yeah um but it was also 90 -minute
00:18:53.930 --> 00:18:56.970
classes and that's a challenge classes a long
00:18:56.970 --> 00:19:01.960
time to keep them engaged um and to keep the
00:19:01.960 --> 00:19:05.900
rigor and up they they kind of peter out there
00:19:05.900 --> 00:19:08.920
here and there um so i think those were my major
00:19:08.920 --> 00:19:12.500
challenges were that you know you mentioned about
00:19:12.500 --> 00:19:16.680
the um two things i want to mention hit on one
00:19:16.680 --> 00:19:19.490
you know you said you scaffolded it in and i
00:19:19.490 --> 00:19:21.970
had a french teacher that i worked with at a
00:19:21.970 --> 00:19:24.529
school and she was close to retirement and she
00:19:24.529 --> 00:19:26.569
was all on board with ci but she goes i'm too
00:19:26.569 --> 00:19:28.430
close to retirement i'm just not going to change
00:19:28.430 --> 00:19:30.750
i've got a few years left i'm not going to change
00:19:30.750 --> 00:19:34.369
but the rest of us the spanish the japanese and
00:19:34.369 --> 00:19:37.829
the german teacher were all ci she was the french
00:19:37.829 --> 00:19:40.609
teacher and she was not um and she just said
00:19:40.609 --> 00:19:42.809
i'm just too close i'm not going to do it well
00:19:42.809 --> 00:19:45.089
fine i don't know what
made her push over the
00:19:45.089 --> 00:19:48.119
edge and she just fine, I'll do it next year.
00:19:48.259 --> 00:19:50.420
I'll start with my ones and I'll try to scaffold
00:19:50.420 --> 00:19:53.319
it in. So she did it with her ones. And like
00:19:53.319 --> 00:19:55.420
you, she taught all the subjects and it was a
00:19:55.420 --> 00:19:58.180
year long program. So she taught one through
00:19:58.180 --> 00:20:01.539
AP all in the same. So she had all the preps.
00:20:01.660 --> 00:20:04.880
I think the three, four was mixed together. And
00:20:04.880 --> 00:20:06.960
then, so she had, you know, one, two, three,
00:20:07.000 --> 00:20:10.619
four, and then AP. And she's like, she started
00:20:10.619 --> 00:20:12.720
it. And then the other kids got jealous. Like,
00:20:12.779 --> 00:20:14.779
why don't we get to have all that fun? And she's
00:20:14.779 --> 00:20:18.500
like, I wanted to streamline this in and I can't
00:20:18.500 --> 00:20:21.099
now. She had to go all hog in and she goes, that
00:20:21.099 --> 00:20:24.700
was a lot for her. But one of the things I know,
00:20:24.779 --> 00:20:26.880
because normally with Spanish, you know, we have
00:20:26.880 --> 00:20:30.259
a lot of Spanish teachers. And so usually we
00:20:30.259 --> 00:20:33.339
only have to teach two preps per year or per
00:20:33.339 --> 00:20:37.640
semester, however the school goes. And last year
00:20:37.640 --> 00:20:41.599
I taught level one. level one B, which is for
00:20:41.599 --> 00:20:44.039
the challenging kids who didn't pass level one,
00:20:44.059 --> 00:20:46.779
and then level two and level three. So I had
00:20:46.779 --> 00:20:50.200
four preps, four preps out of six classes. So
00:20:50.200 --> 00:20:52.539
we taught six out of seven classes and I had
00:20:52.539 --> 00:20:55.619
four preps. And one of the things that I did
00:20:55.619 --> 00:20:58.619
that worked really, really well and what I think
00:20:58.619 --> 00:21:01.720
CI lends itself really easily to compared to
00:21:01.720 --> 00:21:04.500
the textbook, where with the textbook, it seems
00:21:04.500 --> 00:21:06.140
like there's more work that you'd have to do.
00:21:07.049 --> 00:21:09.549
At least four different lesson plans for that
00:21:09.549 --> 00:21:11.650
with covering different pages in the textbook.
00:21:12.450 --> 00:21:15.990
Well, with CI, what I did is we were doing a
00:21:15.990 --> 00:21:18.369
movie talk. I picked this, used the same video
00:21:18.369 --> 00:21:22.130
for everybody. I just kept it really easy for
00:21:22.130 --> 00:21:24.450
level one and moved my way up to level three
00:21:24.450 --> 00:21:27.029
using different structures and stuff like that
00:21:27.029 --> 00:21:29.509
in there. And when we did a story, it was the
00:21:29.509 --> 00:21:32.809
same thing. I had the same plot for my story.
00:21:33.400 --> 00:21:37.539
I just ratcheted it up for my level threes and
00:21:37.539 --> 00:21:41.039
kept it simple for my level ones.
And so that
00:21:41.039 --> 00:21:43.839
helped my sanity because I could do parallel
00:21:43.839 --> 00:21:46.200
every day. I wasn't coming up with a different
00:21:46.200 --> 00:21:48.980
story every day. It was the same story. It was
00:21:48.980 --> 00:21:51.700
just how I treated that story was different.
00:21:51.779 --> 00:21:55.250
So that saved my butt. because I don't think
00:21:55.250 --> 00:21:56.990
I could have done if I was textbook and had to
00:21:56.990 --> 00:21:59.849
do four different lesson plans based off four
00:21:59.849 --> 00:22:01.609
different chapters, based off four different
00:22:01.609 --> 00:22:04.410
pages of the textbook. That would have been a
00:22:04.410 --> 00:22:08.069
lot of work to prep for. Whereas here, I really
00:22:08.069 --> 00:22:11.809
only prepped one lesson plan and just changed
00:22:11.809 --> 00:22:14.670
up the questions that I asked and how in depth
00:22:14.670 --> 00:22:17.450
I went with them, which made life a lot easier.
00:22:18.250 --> 00:22:20.490
Yeah, I'm still doing a lot of prep because we
00:22:20.490 --> 00:22:23.809
have thematic units that I need to follow. And
00:22:23.809 --> 00:22:26.710
the textbook is just a resource that we're supposed
00:22:26.710 --> 00:22:31.190
to use. But I've got to cover the different themes.
00:22:31.970 --> 00:22:36.490
And so that still adds into my prep work now.
00:22:36.650 --> 00:22:40.670
But it's easier now because I have the experience
00:22:40.670 --> 00:22:43.210
and the background and I've been able to gather
00:22:43.210 --> 00:22:47.009
resources. um different things and so i have
00:22:47.009 --> 00:22:49.710
more to pull from rather than making everything
00:22:49.710 --> 00:22:53.309
so that this is easier for me this is the first
00:22:53.309 --> 00:22:55.170
year i had to go back to the textbook i haven't
00:22:55.170 --> 00:22:58.269
taught with a textbook for um since my first
00:22:58.269 --> 00:23:01.930
four years of teaching so i've been in a ci um
00:23:01.930 --> 00:23:04.930
school ever since this year i'm not in a ci school
00:23:04.930 --> 00:23:09.390
i'm the only one who does it And we have to cover
00:23:09.390 --> 00:23:11.210
so many chapters. We're on the semester plan
00:23:11.210 --> 00:23:14.509
like you. So we change it the semester. They
00:23:14.509 --> 00:23:17.109
always are optimistic about how many chapters
00:23:17.109 --> 00:23:20.109
that they can cover. They say four, but they
00:23:20.109 --> 00:23:23.049
only cover two, which gives me a lot of leeway
00:23:23.049 --> 00:23:24.670
because I've already covered the two that I'm
00:23:24.670 --> 00:23:27.390
supposed to cover. And what I've done is I don't
00:23:27.390 --> 00:23:30.890
even pull the textbook out. I'm supposed to check
00:23:30.890 --> 00:23:33.930
it out for the kids. I don't. They've never seen
00:23:33.930 --> 00:23:36.029
it. We also have an online version. So if we
00:23:36.029 --> 00:23:38.660
ever need it. They can go
on the online version,
00:23:38.799 --> 00:23:40.240
but I'm not checking out the physical books,
00:23:40.339 --> 00:23:44.839
not doing it. So how I incorporate that in there,
00:23:44.900 --> 00:23:48.480
I do what I'm going to do anyway. But then I
00:23:48.480 --> 00:23:51.619
have made my own scope and sequence of all the
00:23:51.619 --> 00:23:54.400
vocab, which so much of it is useless. And there's
00:23:54.400 --> 00:23:58.059
so much vocab. But I just put them in the stories,
00:23:58.099 --> 00:24:01.269
usually in the readings. So I'll just put them
00:24:01.269 --> 00:24:03.690
in the readings in there. And that's how I kind
00:24:03.690 --> 00:24:06.190
of get that in. And then when we have a midterm
00:24:06.190 --> 00:24:10.349
or a final right that week before, I will pull
00:24:10.349 --> 00:24:12.950
out the workbook activities and we'll just work
00:24:12.950 --> 00:24:16.430
together on the workbook activities. We've already
00:24:16.430 --> 00:24:19.390
hit all that grammar through stories, but now
00:24:19.390 --> 00:24:20.849
we're just going to hit it like it's going to
00:24:20.849 --> 00:24:22.450
be on the midterm because the midterm is very.
00:24:22.990 --> 00:24:26.769
textbooky. So I do that with them. And then they're
00:24:26.769 --> 00:24:29.150
like, Ooh, these readings and speaking and stuff.
00:24:29.170 --> 00:24:31.089
I was really easy in the textbook. I'm like,
00:24:31.109 --> 00:24:33.069
yeah, because I've been doing CI with you. You
00:24:33.069 --> 00:24:36.210
guys are way up here and all the quizzes are
00:24:36.210 --> 00:24:39.089
much harder than the midterm is because, because
00:24:39.089 --> 00:24:41.789
I do a lot more. The midterm has got like little
00:24:41.789 --> 00:24:44.130
readings this big, you know, with six sentences
00:24:44.130 --> 00:24:46.589
in there. I'm like, no, my readings are 300 words.
00:24:46.990 --> 00:24:49.410
So, you know, there's a lot more. So those parts,
00:24:49.490 --> 00:24:51.329
but then the grammar parts are more tricky for
00:24:51.329 --> 00:24:54.009
them. So, but that's how I've had to meld it.
00:24:54.089 --> 00:24:57.329
So I had those thematic units like you, but I've
00:24:57.329 --> 00:24:59.589
only got to teach two chapters. I keep asking,
00:24:59.690 --> 00:25:02.089
where are you? They're like, we're still in chapter
00:25:02.089 --> 00:25:05.789
one. I'm like, that's fine with me. So I have
00:25:05.789 --> 00:25:08.529
time to do a novel and stuff like that. Cause
00:25:08.529 --> 00:25:10.230
I've already taught what's on the final exam
00:25:10.230 --> 00:25:13.920
before the midterm. So now I've got the rest
00:25:13.920 --> 00:25:16.539
of the semester to we're going to read a novel
00:25:16.539 --> 00:25:18.099
after spring. We have spring break after next
00:25:18.099 --> 00:25:19.759
week. When we come back, we're going to read
00:25:19.759 --> 00:25:21.559
a novel. That should take us a couple of weeks
00:25:21.559 --> 00:25:24.359
to do. We can have some more fun and levity with
00:25:24.359 --> 00:25:27.500
that kind of stuff. But, yes, the textbook thematic
00:25:27.500 --> 00:25:31.420
units can be daunting. Like my kid always said,
00:25:31.480 --> 00:25:33.519
he goes, why are we learning computer class?
00:25:33.680 --> 00:25:35.579
I am never going to use that word in Spanish.
00:25:36.359 --> 00:25:39.460
And I'm like, I don't blame you. I am with you
00:25:39.460 --> 00:25:43.819
there. But I got to at least. cover it at least
00:25:43.819 --> 00:25:48.500
cover it so awesome awesome now before we started
00:25:48.500 --> 00:25:51.160
we talked about another class that you teach
00:25:51.160 --> 00:25:54.599
so i want you to talk about that because it is
00:25:54.599 --> 00:25:57.539
amazing i was so impressed by hearing about that
00:25:57.539 --> 00:26:00.079
so tell us about that class and what it is and
00:26:00.079 --> 00:26:03.039
how you came up with it and all the good stuff
00:26:03.039 --> 00:26:06.000
about it so you were talking about how the you
00:26:06.000 --> 00:26:07.920
know the French teacher and the German teacher
00:26:07.920 --> 00:26:11.039
were reinvigorated by CI. And I was too when
00:26:11.039 --> 00:26:15.220
I started CI. But this class that I had the privilege
00:26:15.220 --> 00:26:21.599
of designing and piloting and teaching has given
00:26:21.599 --> 00:26:26.720
me so much joy and so much just genuine satisfaction
00:26:26.720 --> 00:26:30.500
with teaching that it's really reinvigorated
00:26:30.500 --> 00:26:35.079
me. And we call it adapted world language and
00:26:35.079 --> 00:26:41.230
culture. And we are working with the most disabled
00:26:41.230 --> 00:26:44.650
students in our building, the ones who are in
00:26:44.650 --> 00:26:48.109
isolated classrooms for most of their day. In
00:26:48.109 --> 00:26:51.029
Virginia, they're earning what is called the
00:26:51.029 --> 00:26:54.430
applied diploma. So it's not even an academic
00:26:54.430 --> 00:26:58.690
diploma. And we are working with them to learn
00:26:58.690 --> 00:27:02.150
language and culture. So I'm working with them
00:27:02.150 --> 00:27:08.779
on German. Do little bits of German. I try to
00:27:08.779 --> 00:27:12.180
keep it very basic. So instead of teaching them
00:27:12.180 --> 00:27:16.740
my name, I am called Ich heiße, which is what
00:27:16.740 --> 00:27:19.779
Germans will use. I've chosen to go with Ich
00:27:19.779 --> 00:27:23.660
bin, I am, because I can go so much farther with
00:27:23.660 --> 00:27:29.099
I am. And then we intersperse the German with.
00:27:30.650 --> 00:27:34.150
culture from around the world. And I have kind
00:27:34.150 --> 00:27:37.769
of based the curriculum on the holidays because
00:27:37.769 --> 00:27:40.789
we, you know, with the major holidays, we visit
00:27:40.789 --> 00:27:43.529
Christmas in four or five different countries.
00:27:43.630 --> 00:27:47.390
We visit Carnival in four or five
different countries.
00:27:47.869 --> 00:27:52.829
And so the purpose is to get them acquainted
00:27:52.829 --> 00:27:55.930
with the fact that there is so much more out
00:27:55.930 --> 00:27:59.619
in the world than just our little town in our
00:27:59.619 --> 00:28:02.480
state of Virginia in the United States of America
00:28:02.480 --> 00:28:07.519
and to give them an enriching exciting experience
00:28:07.519 --> 00:28:11.140
and to really kind of push them a little bit
00:28:11.140 --> 00:28:16.650
academically you know most of them are reading,
00:28:16.809 --> 00:28:19.970
but most of them are only reading at maybe a
00:28:19.970 --> 00:28:23.490
fourth grade level is the highest. I've got some
00:28:23.490 --> 00:28:25.990
students that I've worked with who are nonverbal.
00:28:27.089 --> 00:28:30.970
One of the girls uses a retina reading device
00:28:30.970 --> 00:28:34.069
to communicate, and she's still learning how
00:28:34.069 --> 00:28:38.130
to use it. It wasn't real productive some days,
00:28:38.269 --> 00:28:41.150
but other days it was pretty productive. But
00:28:41.150 --> 00:28:44.930
it's just been joyful because they come in every
00:28:44.930 --> 00:28:47.769
day wanting to know what we're going to do and
00:28:47.769 --> 00:28:52.609
sucking it up and learning. And it takes us longer
00:28:52.609 --> 00:28:57.410
to learn language. But if you know a language,
00:28:57.470 --> 00:29:03.549
you can learn other languages. It is really,
00:29:03.730 --> 00:29:08.230
from an instructing standpoint, it's reinforcing
00:29:08.230 --> 00:29:13.890
all of the CI that I have ever learned. You know,
00:29:13.990 --> 00:29:18.089
go slow has a whole different meaning when it
00:29:18.089 --> 00:29:22.890
takes two weeks to learn one to ten. You know,
00:29:22.890 --> 00:29:26.690
go slow has a whole different meaning when we're...
00:29:27.440 --> 00:29:29.759
teaching them some classroom commands so that
00:29:29.759 --> 00:29:32.740
they can do things in the classroom and and it's
00:29:32.740 --> 00:29:36.599
a lot of germlish you know i did the march music
00:29:36.599 --> 00:29:38.819
madness with them and they loved it they had
00:29:38.819 --> 00:29:44.579
so much fun but every day i would um using raise
00:29:44.579 --> 00:29:47.990
your hand to vote um doesn't work for this group
00:29:47.990 --> 00:29:49.789
because they just raise their hand both times
00:29:49.789 --> 00:29:54.190
i like that one yeah i like that one too i can't
00:29:54.190 --> 00:29:56.970
make up my mind so i had to do little paper ballots
00:29:56.970 --> 00:29:59.470
for them so i just did paper ballots for everybody
00:29:59.470 --> 00:30:04.650
um but every day i would hand them and i would
00:30:04.650 --> 00:30:08.150
say here's your paper right in german here's
00:30:08.150 --> 00:30:12.410
your paper here's your pencil and then when they
00:30:12.410 --> 00:30:15.250
were when we were collecting them every day it
00:30:15.250 --> 00:30:19.559
was Give me your pencils. Give me your paper.
00:30:20.160 --> 00:30:23.400
And we did that for every day in March. And so
00:30:23.400 --> 00:30:27.660
guess what they can do now, right? But it's just,
00:30:27.680 --> 00:30:30.059
it's brought so much joy to me. We just recently
00:30:30.059 --> 00:30:33.759
learned about Holi in India, the color festival.
00:30:34.279 --> 00:30:36.759
And I was like, guys, we're going to create a
00:30:36.759 --> 00:30:40.079
display for the hallway so that other kids can
00:30:40.079 --> 00:30:44.309
learn. And we did. We learned about it. We created
00:30:44.309 --> 00:30:48.569
artwork. We learned how to dance. We looked at
00:30:48.569 --> 00:30:50.750
the food. But there were too many food issues
00:30:50.750 --> 00:30:53.910
in the room to bring any in. Because we're talking
00:30:53.910 --> 00:30:59.569
serious food issues. And so we created a display.
00:30:59.690 --> 00:31:03.650
And we did it together. And what's important
00:31:03.650 --> 00:31:07.849
to tell other people. You know, so I was really
00:31:07.849 --> 00:31:12.789
testing their critical thinking skills. They're
00:31:12.789 --> 00:31:16.569
just a joy to work with every day. And the classes
00:31:16.569 --> 00:31:19.390
are teeny tiny. I had nine last semester. I have
00:31:19.390 --> 00:31:21.750
four this semester. That's awesome. And, you
00:31:21.750 --> 00:31:23.630
know, you point out something that was so true.
00:31:23.789 --> 00:31:26.750
When people say they can't learn a language,
00:31:27.109 --> 00:31:31.410
I say you're absolutely right. You can't. And
00:31:31.410 --> 00:31:35.049
no human has ever learned a language. Have we
00:31:35.049 --> 00:31:38.970
learned about a language? We have. But almost
00:31:38.970 --> 00:31:43.539
everybody on the planet... can acquire a language
00:31:43.539 --> 00:31:47.799
to some extent unless you have some kind of severe
00:31:47.799 --> 00:31:50.960
brain issue that's going on, whether it be a
00:31:50.960 --> 00:31:53.960
traumatic brain injury or you were born with
00:31:53.960 --> 00:31:56.640
some kind of issue in there. Because even our
00:31:56.640 --> 00:32:00.000
most severely disabled, mentally disabled children
00:32:00.000 --> 00:32:03.740
have learned to communicate in their first language,
00:32:03.819 --> 00:32:06.099
whatever it might be. They may not be able to
00:32:06.099 --> 00:32:08.299
verbalize. Like you said, they're non -communicative.
00:32:08.400 --> 00:32:11.220
We had one who had like a Remember those speak
00:32:11.220 --> 00:32:14.079
and play kind of things back when I was, I'm
00:32:14.079 --> 00:32:16.859
old. So we had this thing called speak and say,
00:32:16.900 --> 00:32:18.799
you could go and it was little games. Well, he's
00:32:18.799 --> 00:32:20.380
got something similar to that where he's got
00:32:20.380 --> 00:32:22.799
different pictures and he pushes the picture
00:32:22.799 --> 00:32:25.099
and it says a word or a
sentence or something
00:32:25.099 --> 00:32:27.339
so he can communicate because he can't vocalize,
00:32:27.359 --> 00:32:29.779
but he understands language and he knows what
00:32:29.779 --> 00:32:34.500
he wants to say. Saying that our kids, no matter
00:32:34.500 --> 00:32:37.259
how severely disabled they might be, and I like
00:32:37.259 --> 00:32:39.920
to use the word differently abled rather than
00:32:39.920 --> 00:32:43.200
disabled because they have other skills that
00:32:43.200 --> 00:32:45.920
they're really good at. And we all have skills
00:32:45.920 --> 00:32:49.980
that we aren't good at. So that these children,
00:32:50.079 --> 00:32:52.640
these special needs children can learn a second
00:32:52.640 --> 00:32:55.099
language because they were able to, I mean, not
00:32:55.099 --> 00:32:57.140
learn, excuse me, acquire a second language because
00:32:57.140 --> 00:33:00.220
they were able to acquire their first language.
00:33:00.940 --> 00:33:04.859
And when I first started teaching, since I was
00:33:04.859 --> 00:33:08.200
I was a textbook school, most of those kids can't
00:33:08.200 --> 00:33:12.339
learn that way from a textbook that wrote memorization.
00:33:12.339 --> 00:33:14.799
So the counselors kept putting all the special
00:33:14.799 --> 00:33:18.460
needs kids in my class because the way we were
00:33:18.460 --> 00:33:20.279
doing it, they were learning and having good
00:33:20.279 --> 00:33:23.410
grades and being successful. And I think they
00:33:23.410 --> 00:33:25.769
actually bordered on the legality of it, because
00:33:25.769 --> 00:33:27.329
I think there's a certain number that you're
00:33:27.329 --> 00:33:29.809
allowed to have in your class before you actually
00:33:29.809 --> 00:33:31.990
need an extra person in the room. And I think
00:33:31.990 --> 00:33:34.730
I was that they violated that. They did not.
00:33:34.750 --> 00:33:37.029
But I didn't have any of this severely differently
00:33:37.029 --> 00:33:39.289
abled children in there. But I had enough of
00:33:39.289 --> 00:33:43.069
the ADHD, learning disability, all those types
00:33:43.069 --> 00:33:45.869
of kids in there where I had like sometimes two
00:33:45.869 --> 00:33:48.710
thirds of my class would be that. And normally,
00:33:48.769 --> 00:33:51.490
if it was a regular ed class, they would have
00:33:51.490 --> 00:33:54.130
had a. an assistant in there to help them through
00:33:54.130 --> 00:33:56.809
i never got one of those but i love those beauty
00:33:56.809 --> 00:33:59.450
of this that's the beauty of the class i'm teaching
00:33:59.450 --> 00:34:02.950
is i always have at least one ta so that's lovely
00:34:02.950 --> 00:34:06.349
but yeah like um like you were saying i had um
00:34:06.349 --> 00:34:11.639
some children with autism whose verbal communication
00:34:11.639 --> 00:34:15.019
was severely limited. I had one young, one young
00:34:15.019 --> 00:34:19.019
lady for two semesters who has cerebral policy
00:34:19.019 --> 00:34:22.219
is in a wheelchair and she was using the retinal
00:34:22.219 --> 00:34:25.800
scanner device, much like that tapping device
00:34:25.800 --> 00:34:28.699
you were describing to communicate in English.
00:34:29.099 --> 00:34:34.119
And we had yes, no cards. And so I would give
00:34:34.119 --> 00:34:40.769
her yes, no, either, or choices in German. And
00:34:40.769 --> 00:34:44.170
she was demonstrating that, yes, in fact, she
00:34:44.170 --> 00:34:47.750
was understanding the language and she was acquiring
00:34:47.750 --> 00:34:50.750
the language because her responses were completely
00:34:50.750 --> 00:34:55.449
appropriate. I have the sweetest boy this semester
00:34:55.449 --> 00:35:00.130
who is in, we call it cross cat. So it's the
00:35:00.130 --> 00:35:04.969
kids that have multiple disabilities, cross categorical
00:35:04.969 --> 00:35:09.489
disabilities. So it's the most severely. impacted
00:35:09.489 --> 00:35:12.489
students are in those rooms. And that's the room
00:35:12.489 --> 00:35:16.989
he's in. And he's the one who's learning and
00:35:16.989 --> 00:35:20.909
retaining the most language, which is astounding.
00:35:21.010 --> 00:35:24.269
The third week of class, because every day we
00:35:24.269 --> 00:35:32.030
do today is, yesterday was, and tomorrow will
00:35:32.030 --> 00:35:35.420
be. And that's how we do the days of the week
00:35:35.420 --> 00:35:37.639
in my German one and German two class. That's
00:35:37.639 --> 00:35:42.639
how I do the same here. He comes in the third
00:35:42.639 --> 00:35:47.619
week of class and he says to me, Mrs. Frau Hendrick,
00:35:47.739 --> 00:35:54.119
happy Tuesday. And I said, what? And he said,
00:35:54.159 --> 00:35:58.300
happy Tuesday. And I said, well, happy Tuesday
00:35:58.300 --> 00:36:02.409
to you, too. because his brain was acquiring
00:36:02.409 --> 00:36:06.710
the language and picked up the pattern that in
00:36:06.710 --> 00:36:09.969
german every day of the week except for wednesday
00:36:09.969 --> 00:36:14.710
ends with tag tag yeah and he didn't know the
00:36:14.710 --> 00:36:17.429
first part of tuesday but he knew that it was
00:36:17.429 --> 00:36:21.190
going to end in talk and that to me was a hundred
00:36:21.190 --> 00:36:27.650
percent acquisition and a hundred percent of
00:36:27.650 --> 00:36:31.690
building that mental map that bill van patten
00:36:31.690 --> 00:36:36.269
talks about right and now he comes in and he
00:36:36.269 --> 00:36:40.869
says to me today hoyta is tuesday is dean's tag
00:36:40.869 --> 00:36:45.309
morgan tomorrow is and you know meanwhile he's
00:36:45.309 --> 00:36:48.150
stimming and doing you know doing all of his
00:36:48.150 --> 00:36:52.369
autism things which are astounding to watch but
00:36:57.269 --> 00:37:01.730
amazing. And I think the funniest thing is one
00:37:01.730 --> 00:37:04.989
of the kids in there who's on the higher end
00:37:04.989 --> 00:37:09.489
ability -wise was kind
of not really paying attention
00:37:09.489 --> 00:37:16.869
a lot. And now he is actually paying more attention
00:37:16.869 --> 00:37:23.050
because he couldn't do what this other kid could
00:37:23.050 --> 00:37:26.110
do. And he wanted to do what this other kid was
00:37:26.110 --> 00:37:29.429
able to do because he clearly knew that this
00:37:29.429 --> 00:37:31.690
other kid had more difficulties than he did.
00:37:32.809 --> 00:37:36.449
So it's kind of funny. And, you know, I don't
00:37:36.449 --> 00:37:39.530
think and you're proving it that we don't give
00:37:39.530 --> 00:37:44.690
credit to what the kids can actually do. Yeah.
00:37:45.369 --> 00:37:48.989
um and i it this isn't just for kids with disabilities
00:37:48.989 --> 00:37:52.610
it's all kids a lot like i remember one time
00:37:52.610 --> 00:37:56.190
um you know i was trying to teach i need to teach
00:37:56.190 --> 00:37:59.050
a bigger citizenship lesson to this child this
00:37:59.050 --> 00:38:03.070
child did not respect you know anything and so
00:38:03.070 --> 00:38:06.690
and my assistant princess um that's not our job
00:38:07.360 --> 00:38:09.079
And I'm thinking, that's more important than
00:38:09.079 --> 00:38:10.940
the subject I teach, is to teach them how to
00:38:10.940 --> 00:38:13.739
be good citizens. And he goes, they're just children.
00:38:13.800 --> 00:38:16.760
And I'm like, we don't give them credit enough
00:38:16.760 --> 00:38:20.780
for what goes on. And I can remember when I was
00:38:20.780 --> 00:38:23.340
a kid and the things that I was thinking about
00:38:23.340 --> 00:38:27.550
at those different ages and stages. It's just
00:38:27.550 --> 00:38:29.449
the credit that they were giving was not the
00:38:29.449 --> 00:38:33.210
same as, oh, they're just children. No, they
00:38:33.210 --> 00:38:37.090
have thoughts and ideas and solutions to problems.
00:38:37.369 --> 00:38:41.750
And they can do things well beyond what we put
00:38:41.750 --> 00:38:45.489
upon them for their age. And so with the special
00:38:45.489 --> 00:38:49.360
needs kids, it's amazing. He is. He's doing exactly
00:38:49.360 --> 00:38:52.300
what Bill Van Patten talks about. He's making
00:38:52.300 --> 00:38:55.039
that map in his head and it's coming in in pieces.
00:38:55.159 --> 00:38:57.960
But you know what? Apple Maps came in in pieces.
00:38:58.059 --> 00:39:00.500
It was a disaster when it started. You know,
00:39:00.519 --> 00:39:02.360
it used to have people drive right off bridges
00:39:02.360 --> 00:39:05.699
because the street would just stop right at the
00:39:05.699 --> 00:39:08.719
end. But you know what? It takes time and we
00:39:08.719 --> 00:39:11.199
develop and eventually it's going to get there.
00:39:11.500 --> 00:39:14.750
They learned English. or whatever their first
00:39:14.750 --> 00:39:17.690
language is, they can learn a second language
00:39:17.690 --> 00:39:20.710
given the opportunity and the time. And I think
00:39:20.710 --> 00:39:25.090
what you're doing is absolutely amazing. And
00:39:25.090 --> 00:39:29.570
it should actually be incorporated into more
00:39:29.570 --> 00:39:34.269
schools. It shouldn't just be. It's such a great
00:39:34.269 --> 00:39:37.489
thing. And it gives those kids a sense of accomplishment.
00:39:38.300 --> 00:39:40.840
as well and as you told me a lot of these kids
00:39:40.840 --> 00:39:43.239
are going to be in the service industry when
00:39:43.239 --> 00:39:46.880
they graduate and you know what we regardless
00:39:46.880 --> 00:39:50.039
of what people think right now we are still a
00:39:50.039 --> 00:39:55.539
multilingual nation and people Light up when
00:39:55.539 --> 00:39:58.139
you can speak in their own language, even if
00:39:58.139 --> 00:40:01.639
it's just the basics, saying hello or goodbye
00:40:01.639 --> 00:40:06.019
or nice to meet you or my name is. Just those
00:40:06.019 --> 00:40:08.860
things tell that person that, number one, you
00:40:08.860 --> 00:40:11.280
respect them, you respect where they come from,
00:40:11.320 --> 00:40:14.679
and you are welcoming them to whatever they're
00:40:14.679 --> 00:40:18.159
doing. And I think that's so important. And I
00:40:18.159 --> 00:40:22.860
love this. Absolutely, absolutely love this idea.
00:40:23.690 --> 00:40:27.650
It's amazing. And they're teaching me. They are
00:40:27.650 --> 00:40:32.110
really pushing me to be a better teacher and
00:40:32.110 --> 00:40:37.530
pushing me to think outside the box and to think
00:40:37.530 --> 00:40:44.130
beyond my normal thought process in a classroom.
00:40:44.829 --> 00:40:48.170
They're pushing me to be more creative, but they're
00:40:48.170 --> 00:40:51.639
also reminding me of things because they... Many
00:40:51.639 --> 00:40:55.019
of these kids don't have the same type of filter
00:40:55.019 --> 00:40:59.579
that other teenagers have. Wait, teenagers have
00:40:59.579 --> 00:41:02.760
filters? Well, you know, when they want them.
00:41:04.380 --> 00:41:08.619
um so like last semester i had a boy whose mom
00:41:08.619 --> 00:41:10.860
brought him in during the open house which we
00:41:10.860 --> 00:41:13.539
did the week before school started and she's
00:41:13.539 --> 00:41:16.400
like oh i don't know how this is going to go
00:41:16.400 --> 00:41:21.599
because he really is very resistant to new things
00:41:21.599 --> 00:41:24.699
and different things and i just don't know how
00:41:24.699 --> 00:41:27.599
this is going to go and i just smiled and i said
00:41:27.599 --> 00:41:29.889
you know We're going to make the best of it.
00:41:29.969 --> 00:41:31.969
We're going to see how it goes. He's going to
00:41:31.969 --> 00:41:34.909
have fun. I promise you, I'm going to make him
00:41:34.909 --> 00:41:38.809
feel safe and secure in this classroom. It's
00:41:38.809 --> 00:41:42.550
going to be okay. And for the first, I don't
00:41:42.550 --> 00:41:46.110
know how many weeks, he literally sat sideways
00:41:46.110 --> 00:41:52.449
and would glance at me and mostly looked at the
00:41:52.449 --> 00:41:56.530
back of the room. And the first time that I asked
00:41:56.530 --> 00:42:02.789
him to try to say something in German, he scrunched
00:42:02.789 --> 00:42:07.110
down and kind of hid. And I heard him say really
00:42:07.110 --> 00:42:11.690
quietly, German is scary. German is scary. I
00:42:11.690 --> 00:42:15.269
don't want to. This is scary. And I thought to
00:42:15.269 --> 00:42:20.230
myself, how many? How many of our students have
00:42:20.230 --> 00:42:24.650
sat in our classrooms and said, math is scary.
00:42:24.909 --> 00:42:29.469
Science is scary. Spanish is scary. English is
00:42:29.469 --> 00:42:34.610
scary. In their head, but not out loud. How many
00:42:34.610 --> 00:42:38.690
of them think that almost daily? But we don't
00:42:38.690 --> 00:42:41.030
know because their filters, see, they do have
00:42:41.030 --> 00:42:44.550
filters, keep that inside. And it comes out as.
00:42:45.239 --> 00:42:48.280
The kid who's always sleeping or the kid who's
00:42:48.280 --> 00:42:53.599
always, you know, resistant or resentful or upset
00:42:53.599 --> 00:42:57.059
or angry or whatever. The kid who's always talking
00:42:57.059 --> 00:43:00.659
to their friend. Is it that they're just scared?
00:43:01.340 --> 00:43:05.039
Yeah. You know, so that really kind of makes
00:43:05.039 --> 00:43:07.820
you rethink a whole lot when you're working with
00:43:07.820 --> 00:43:11.800
these kids. And as you said earlier to me, I
00:43:11.800 --> 00:43:14.199
don't remember if you said it right now with
00:43:14.199 --> 00:43:16.679
us or when we were talking beforehand, but you
00:43:16.679 --> 00:43:20.280
had to really focus on the basic skills of CI,
00:43:20.440 --> 00:43:24.460
which we need to do in all of our classes. You
00:43:24.460 --> 00:43:26.679
can take what they're teaching you that you have
00:43:26.679 --> 00:43:29.260
to go slower and you have to be more animated
00:43:29.260 --> 00:43:32.320
and you have to. point more often and do those
00:43:32.320 --> 00:43:35.219
kinds of things. Those are just good teaching
00:43:35.219 --> 00:43:38.159
skills that you can bring back to your regular
00:43:38.159 --> 00:43:42.400
classroom because we forget that. I always forget
00:43:42.400 --> 00:43:45.739
I taught level three for a while and I haven't
00:43:45.739 --> 00:43:48.159
taught level one for quite a while. It's been
00:43:48.159 --> 00:43:50.559
a few years. So when I'm teaching level one now,
00:43:50.619 --> 00:43:53.480
the kids say I speak too fast because I'm not
00:43:53.480 --> 00:43:57.159
used to it. Always the beginning of the year,
00:43:57.260 --> 00:43:59.800
always I would speak no matter what level faster
00:43:59.800 --> 00:44:02.400
because I would be speaking at the level I ended
00:44:02.400 --> 00:44:07.119
last year at and forgot to slow down again. And
00:44:07.119 --> 00:44:10.340
you don't really realize. And when you think
00:44:10.340 --> 00:44:12.059
you're going slow, you're like, if I say this
00:44:12.059 --> 00:44:14.440
any slower, I'm going to go bored. And you're
00:44:14.440 --> 00:44:16.800
like, the other kids are like, you aren't saying
00:44:16.800 --> 00:44:21.400
it slow enough. You know, it really does make
00:44:21.400 --> 00:44:24.420
a difference. And that's why I always say, I
00:44:24.420 --> 00:44:27.940
mean, CI, anybody can teach it, you know, with
00:44:27.940 --> 00:44:31.380
CI. But I've always said that it must be really,
00:44:31.420 --> 00:44:35.280
really hard for native speakers to teach their
00:44:35.280 --> 00:44:39.019
own language through CI. Because I don't know
00:44:39.019 --> 00:44:42.260
if I could go in English and go, there is one,
00:44:42.360 --> 00:44:49.599
two, a one, two, boy, one, two, his one, two,
00:44:49.719 --> 00:44:55.519
name, one, two, is one, two. Freddie, you know,
00:44:55.559 --> 00:44:58.699
we have to go really slow. That would drive me
00:44:58.699 --> 00:45:02.159
crazy. It's easier in a language that is not
00:45:02.159 --> 00:45:06.300
my first language. I agree. If it were English.
00:45:06.380 --> 00:45:09.480
Oh, my gosh. I don't know if I could keep my
00:45:09.480 --> 00:45:12.900
sanity. I really don't because it's so slow.
00:45:12.940 --> 00:45:16.429
And I always make jokes because. In Spanish,
00:45:16.550 --> 00:45:18.610
everybody thinks they speak fast. They really
00:45:18.610 --> 00:45:20.949
don't speak any faster than English. It's just
00:45:20.949 --> 00:45:22.829
the way that they put the words together. English
00:45:22.829 --> 00:45:26.429
and German put microseconds between each word.
00:45:26.550 --> 00:45:29.989
We don't slur words together as much. Where Spanish,
00:45:30.269 --> 00:45:33.710
they slur the words together and they only stop
00:45:33.710 --> 00:45:36.269
and put a space between a word when they need
00:45:36.269 --> 00:45:39.329
to breathe. That's what they do. So a lot of
00:45:39.329 --> 00:45:41.489
words come out as one word when really they're
00:45:41.489 --> 00:45:43.530
like four words strung together. And we always
00:45:43.530 --> 00:45:45.909
made a joke that Cubans rarely need to breathe
00:45:45.909 --> 00:45:48.650
because Cubans are the fastest of all speakers.
00:45:48.829 --> 00:45:52.010
They speak so fast, they leave out letters. And
00:45:52.010 --> 00:45:54.469
when I taught native speakers, my Mexican kids
00:45:54.469 --> 00:45:56.750
would say, they're not allowed to read anymore
00:45:56.750 --> 00:45:59.570
because we've got the book in front of us and
00:45:59.570 --> 00:46:02.409
they read it like 0 .4 seconds, the whole page.
00:46:02.570 --> 00:46:05.250
And we're still on the first paragraph. because
00:46:05.250 --> 00:46:07.670
we just can't keep up with their speed because
00:46:07.670 --> 00:46:10.619
they read so fast. So I just couldn't imagine
00:46:10.619 --> 00:46:14.440
a Cuban teacher
trying to slow it down and actually
00:46:14.440 --> 00:46:17.840
pronouncing every letter because they aspirate,
00:46:17.840 --> 00:46:21.380
you know, S's and R's. They leave them out completely.
00:46:21.800 --> 00:46:25.159
And in Germanic languages, it's still done, but
00:46:25.159 --> 00:46:28.079
to a lesser extent. And we do have that micro
00:46:28.079 --> 00:46:32.039
pause between every word. We don't slur our words
00:46:32.039 --> 00:46:34.960
together. And French is even worse. They write
00:46:34.960 --> 00:46:37.000
it with the slurs in there. They write the slurs
00:46:37.000 --> 00:46:39.599
right in. They leave out vowels. in their writing
00:46:39.599 --> 00:46:42.179
so they're not there spanish keeps all the vowels
00:46:42.179 --> 00:46:44.079
in there in their writing but they'll slur them
00:46:44.079 --> 00:46:47.300
in the in the speech like an example that kids
00:46:47.300 --> 00:46:50.780
always talk about mijo and mija that's two words
00:46:50.780 --> 00:46:54.260
in spanish but because the first word and the
00:46:54.260 --> 00:46:57.559
second word both one ends and one starts the
00:46:57.559 --> 00:47:00.139
same sound they get squished together as one
00:47:00.139 --> 00:47:05.199
sound it's really me hija and me hijo but the
00:47:05.199 --> 00:47:08.650
me and the e all switched together as one sound
00:47:08.650 --> 00:47:12.369
so they think it's much faster but i just think
00:47:12.369 --> 00:47:15.530
those are some basic skills that that class is
00:47:15.530 --> 00:47:19.750
teaching you that you can bring back right it's
00:47:19.750 --> 00:47:24.809
reminding me of what like you said good solid
00:47:24.809 --> 00:47:30.030
teaching is and it's because you have to go that
00:47:30.030 --> 00:47:35.469
slow you have to um repeat that many times you
00:47:35.469 --> 00:47:39.570
have to have the repetition built in or there's
00:47:39.570 --> 00:47:43.869
no growth um and you know that it's what they
00:47:43.869 --> 00:47:47.750
need and so you have to give it and it has re
00:47:47.750 --> 00:47:51.630
you know it has kind of influenced my other classes
00:47:51.630 --> 00:47:56.369
i am um i notice without thinking about it, I
00:47:56.369 --> 00:48:00.929
am slowing down and I am doing more of the repetition
00:48:00.929 --> 00:48:04.170
and things of that nature with my other classes
00:48:04.170 --> 00:48:07.349
as well. But they're just more fun too, because
00:48:07.349 --> 00:48:11.809
when, you know, they, they like fun and silly
00:48:11.809 --> 00:48:16.489
things. And some of my, I teach in a, in a lower
00:48:16.489 --> 00:48:19.550
income school. And so sometimes those kids have
00:48:19.550 --> 00:48:23.469
had to grow up way too fast and have a hard time.
00:48:24.539 --> 00:48:29.480
being kids and being silly. But these kids don't.
00:48:29.480 --> 00:48:32.780
These kids love being silly and having fun and
00:48:32.780 --> 00:48:35.099
brain breaks. They love them. They'll do any
00:48:35.099 --> 00:48:38.800
brain break I want. That is, especially with
00:48:38.800 --> 00:48:42.639
high school, I have to take two or three weeks
00:48:42.639 --> 00:48:44.880
just to get them comfortable enough class to
00:48:44.880 --> 00:48:48.760
do some of the goofy stuff that we do. And so
00:48:48.760 --> 00:48:51.469
it's really... nice when you go into a class
00:48:51.469 --> 00:48:53.389
with special needs kids they'll always do the
00:48:53.389 --> 00:48:55.309
goofy stuff they don't have those inhibitions
00:48:55.309 --> 00:48:58.389
that high school kids do and i had to like front
00:48:58.389 --> 00:49:01.670
load my kids so like before before i got them
00:49:01.670 --> 00:49:03.750
in the semester so the last couple of weeks of
00:49:03.750 --> 00:49:06.599
the previous semester, I'm emailing, I'm a weird
00:49:06.599 --> 00:49:08.599
teacher. I'm letting you know, we're going to
00:49:08.599 --> 00:49:11.019
do some crazy things in here and I'm going to
00:49:11.019 --> 00:49:13.420
expect you to do them. I need you to scream when
00:49:13.420 --> 00:49:15.679
we sing and we're going to do a lot of weird
00:49:15.679 --> 00:49:17.320
things. It's going to make you feel uncomfortable.
00:49:17.780 --> 00:49:20.019
I said, but all of us are doing them together.
00:49:20.199 --> 00:49:22.099
We're all going to look like fools together.
00:49:22.519 --> 00:49:26.059
You know, if I can do it at 54, you can do it
00:49:26.059 --> 00:49:29.599
at 15. You know, the first rule of being a teacher
00:49:29.599 --> 00:49:31.960
is leave your dignity at the door. You know,
00:49:31.960 --> 00:49:35.190
all those kinds of things. And it took a couple
00:49:35.190 --> 00:49:37.429
of weeks. But my kids like you are weird. You
00:49:37.429 --> 00:49:40.030
really are. And I'm like, I warned you. It wasn't
00:49:40.030 --> 00:49:43.949
like it's a surprise. I told you we come into
00:49:43.949 --> 00:49:47.269
class and now I got my kids doing a lot of the
00:49:47.269 --> 00:49:49.570
crazy things. You know, we stand when we sing.
00:49:49.769 --> 00:49:52.349
They have to sing loud and proud or I deduct
00:49:52.349 --> 00:49:54.809
points. I got to I go if I'm not hearing complaints
00:49:54.809 --> 00:49:57.190
from the next teacher, you're not doing it right.
00:49:57.869 --> 00:50:00.829
You know, and I go and I sing and I just like
00:50:00.829 --> 00:50:05.179
them, I break my. uh like my voice crack i make
00:50:05.179 --> 00:50:07.300
my voice crack so it sounds just like them hitting
00:50:07.300 --> 00:50:10.019
puberty i'm like believe me you i know you can't
00:50:10.019 --> 00:50:13.219
sing as good as i can i am like the most horrible
00:50:13.219 --> 00:50:17.000
singer ever so it's you know but we have a lot
00:50:17.000 --> 00:50:18.980
of fun and when you can when you can break down
00:50:18.980 --> 00:50:23.119
those barriers it does make class easier and
00:50:23.119 --> 00:50:26.159
it also helps them acquire language because one
00:50:26.159 --> 00:50:29.019
of the barriers i know with my german was self
00:50:29.019 --> 00:50:31.079
-consciousness you don't have the confidence
00:50:31.079 --> 00:50:34.019
and my german teacher in college was amazing
00:50:34.019 --> 00:50:39.329
absolutely amazing but What she did that hindered
00:50:39.329 --> 00:50:42.849
all of us from speaking is we never finished
00:50:42.849 --> 00:50:46.329
a sentence without her interrupting us to fix
00:50:46.329 --> 00:50:49.730
the ending on the verb or fix the adjective ending
00:50:49.730 --> 00:50:52.429
or rephrase our verb. So none of us wanted to
00:50:52.429 --> 00:50:56.480
speak because we couldn't get anything out. edgewise
00:50:56.480 --> 00:51:01.119
because she always would correct us but she always
00:51:01.119 --> 00:51:03.820
spoke in german the whole class even in german
00:51:03.820 --> 00:51:07.519
one in in college and so we all learned to understand
00:51:07.519 --> 00:51:10.280
and then read and she put when i took german
00:51:10.280 --> 00:51:13.260
literature classes a lot of it was in the old
00:51:13.260 --> 00:51:16.300
high German and old low German. And so we'd have
00:51:16.300 --> 00:51:18.579
to read it in that language. Then she translated
00:51:18.579 --> 00:51:21.940
to modern German. So we learned a heck of a lot.
00:51:22.159 --> 00:51:25.179
But the speaking part, we had no confidence.
00:51:25.380 --> 00:51:28.519
And she wasn't trying to embarrass us or anything.
00:51:28.599 --> 00:51:31.420
It's just traditional teaching is don't let them
00:51:31.420 --> 00:51:34.059
make a mistake. fix the mistake right away so
00:51:34.059 --> 00:51:36.500
they don't repeat it but we kept repeating the
00:51:36.500 --> 00:51:38.280
mistakes anyway because they weren't getting
00:51:38.280 --> 00:51:42.400
acquired into our brains so um well language
00:51:42.400 --> 00:51:45.239
is developmental and part of that developmental
00:51:45.239 --> 00:51:49.519
step in german is adjective endings and articles
00:51:49.519 --> 00:51:53.780
and how those change and all of that and verb
00:51:53.780 --> 00:51:57.260
endings you know i mean english is so lazy when
00:51:57.260 --> 00:52:00.179
it comes to verb endings that in any language
00:52:00.989 --> 00:52:03.670
It's a struggle to get them to understand, oh,
00:52:03.730 --> 00:52:07.769
the verb changes every time. Yeah. I mean, they
00:52:07.769 --> 00:52:09.730
always say the Germans always told me that if
00:52:09.730 --> 00:52:14.550
you take away all the rules from German, you're
00:52:14.550 --> 00:52:19.650
left with English. And that's pretty true because
00:52:19.650 --> 00:52:22.210
we took away all the rules. We simplified. And
00:52:22.210 --> 00:52:25.369
English is still hard for a lot of people because
00:52:25.369 --> 00:52:27.510
of all the different languages that make up English.
00:52:29.099 --> 00:52:31.420
And German is just very logical and everything
00:52:31.420 -->
00:52:34.480
that it does. But like in Spanish, we have we
00:52:34.480 --> 00:52:37.219
I use a lot of teachers still, especially their
00:52:37.219 --> 00:52:39.639
textbook. If we have to know the stem changes,
00:52:39.639 --> 00:52:43.820
just like in German. And if they they don't usually
00:52:43.820 --> 00:52:47.800
stem change in first person in Spanish. So the
00:52:47.800 --> 00:52:50.469
kids will still say like. It's supposed to be
00:52:50.469 --> 00:52:53.510
Tengo, but they'll say Tieno because you add
00:52:53.510 --> 00:52:57.789
an O to the end to make it I. And the rest of
00:52:57.789 --> 00:53:02.409
the verbs are Tiene and, you know, Tienen. So
00:53:02.409 --> 00:53:04.869
they do this and then they harp on it, make an
00:53:04.869 --> 00:53:07.590
error. But then a native speaker said to me once,
00:53:07.630 --> 00:53:10.469
he goes, our children make that same mistake.
00:53:10.750 --> 00:53:13.670
They learn to add the O to the end of a verb
00:53:13.670 --> 00:53:17.150
to make it mean I, and they overgeneralize it
00:53:17.150 --> 00:53:20.639
to all the verbs. And they have to get to that
00:53:20.639 --> 00:53:23.099
step before they can get to the irregularity
00:53:23.099 --> 00:53:27.099
of the verb. And so I stopped harping on it.
00:53:27.119 --> 00:53:29.760
And I tell my fellow teachers, stop harping.
00:53:29.780 --> 00:53:31.860
That's actually a good thing. It's showing they're
00:53:31.860 --> 00:53:34.119
acquiring the language and they're assimilating
00:53:34.119 --> 00:53:36.480
that roadmap of their brain of how the language
00:53:36.480 --> 00:53:39.079
works. And we don't want to stunt that growth
00:53:39.079 --> 00:53:42.579
because they need to go there to get to the irregularity
00:53:42.579 --> 00:53:46.110
of that verb eventually. And without that. you
00:53:46.110 --> 00:53:48.269
know step in there you've got it's a step it's
00:53:48.269 --> 00:53:50.809
a bridge without it there they can't make that
00:53:50.809 --> 00:53:54.909
jump from this and go straight to the irregularity
00:53:54.909 --> 00:53:56.690
of the verb they've got to go through that step
00:53:56.690 --> 00:53:59.849
just like there's no american anybody who learned
00:53:59.849 --> 00:54:04.349
english never ever ever went straight from i
00:54:04.349 --> 00:54:07.309
go to the bathroom to i went to the bathroom
00:54:07.820 --> 00:54:11.500
They always had to go goad in between. And one
00:54:11.500 --> 00:54:13.380
thing I love about Bill Patton, what he said,
00:54:13.500 --> 00:54:16.980
and it makes so much sense. He says, everybody
00:54:16.980 --> 00:54:20.599
who acquires a language, the same language, whether
00:54:20.599 --> 00:54:23.119
it's their first language, their second or their
00:54:23.119 --> 00:54:27.250
15th. They all go through the same stages. So
00:54:27.250 --> 00:54:30.869
every English acquirer has made that mistake
00:54:30.869 --> 00:54:34.469
to go goad before they said went. He says the
00:54:34.469 --> 00:54:37.409
only difference between if it's your first language
00:54:37.409 --> 00:54:41.070
or your 15th is how long you stay in those stages.
00:54:41.429 --> 00:54:43.730
Because if you come from a language that has
00:54:43.730 --> 00:54:46.829
verb conjugations where English does not, you
00:54:46.829 --> 00:54:50.139
understand that a little bit better. than someone
00:54:50.139 --> 00:54:53.440
from English who doesn't have them does. So a
00:54:53.440 --> 00:54:55.940
German learning French is easier because they
00:54:55.940 --> 00:54:58.880
go, oh, we do it this way. So do the French.
00:54:59.980 --> 00:55:02.980
English goes, we don't do it this way. And so
00:55:02.980 --> 00:55:06.139
any language that has conjugations in it makes
00:55:06.139 --> 00:55:08.079
it a little bit harder. So we stay a little bit
00:55:08.079 --> 00:55:11.480
longer in that phase where a German to French
00:55:11.480 --> 00:55:15.500
or a Spanish to German would be in that conjugation
00:55:15.500 --> 00:55:18.079
phase shorter because they already understand
00:55:18.079 --> 00:55:20.280
the concept of it. It's something they already
00:55:20.280 --> 00:55:24.679
have in their language already. Yeah, yeah. And
00:55:24.679 --> 00:55:28.260
I love, I think it was Bill Van Patten that has
00:55:28.260 --> 00:55:33.840
the you. um, shaped curve where, you know, if,
00:55:33.980 --> 00:55:36.599
when you first learn it, you're up at the top
00:55:36.599 --> 00:55:39.599
of the U and you do it right because you're really
00:55:39.599 --> 00:55:42.599
paying attention and you're trying to do it right
00:55:42.599 --> 00:55:44.699
because you just learned it and you really want
00:55:44.699 --> 00:55:47.400
to do it right. But then as you get more confident,
00:55:47.460 --> 00:55:49.820
you kind of fall down into that bottom of the
00:55:49.820 --> 00:55:53.630
U. And you're making all these mistakes and I
00:55:53.630 --> 00:55:58.250
goad and I sawed and all of that. But then you
00:55:58.250 --> 00:56:00.989
start coming back up the other side of that you
00:56:00.989 --> 00:56:04.530
as you're acquiring that skill and you're acquiring
00:56:04.530 --> 00:56:08.070
that chunk of language until you get back to
00:56:08.070 --> 00:56:11.550
the top of the you where you're doing it right
00:56:11.550 --> 00:56:15.710
the majority of the time. And for me as a teacher,
00:56:15.750 --> 00:56:19.429
understanding that, which nobody had taught me
00:56:19.429 --> 00:56:22.449
in class, college. When I took my methods course,
00:56:22.550 --> 00:56:24.789
nobody taught me about second language acquisition.
00:56:25.329 --> 00:56:27.909
And it makes no sense to me why nobody thought
00:56:27.909 --> 00:56:29.650
that was something that I might need to know.
00:56:29.989 --> 00:56:34.929
But as a teacher, when I watch my students understand
00:56:34.929 --> 00:56:37.769
something and be able to do it and then fall
00:56:37.769 --> 00:56:41.730
into
that abyss, I don't have to say to myself
00:56:41.730 --> 00:56:45.659
anymore, what did I do wrong? yeah why didn't
00:56:45.659 --> 00:56:48.860
they learn it i did something wrong i've taught
00:56:48.860 --> 00:56:52.519
that so many times they should know that i can
00:56:52.519 --> 00:56:57.139
with some confidence continue giving them that
00:56:57.139 --> 00:57:01.139
input and hopefully in the course that they're
00:57:01.139 --> 00:57:04.780
with me they come back up that you and they come
00:57:04.780 --> 00:57:07.139
to the other side of that you or at least they're
00:57:07.139 --> 00:57:11.059
making progress back up the other side of that
00:57:11.059 --> 00:57:15.119
you shaped abyss because that's you know i've
00:57:15.119 --> 00:57:18.460
i've started working with teachers um in my district
00:57:18.460 --> 00:57:22.679
doing some training in ci um and that's like
00:57:22.679 --> 00:57:25.659
when i introduced that concept that you shaped
00:57:25.659 --> 00:57:29.730
concept there's inevitably a handful of teachers
00:57:29.730 --> 00:57:32.730
in the group that are like are you serious is
00:57:32.730 --> 00:57:36.949
that right and i'm like yeah it's right this
00:57:36.949 --> 00:57:40.949
is proven like data there it's there it's been
00:57:40.949 --> 00:57:43.150
there we just have to understand it and they're
00:57:43.150 --> 00:57:47.010
like so when my level ones go and the teachers
00:57:47.010 --> 00:57:49.110
like what why didn't you teach them anything
00:57:49.110 --> 00:57:52.590
it's not my fault and i'm like no it's not your
00:57:52.590 --> 00:57:56.210
fault no you know and it's something I'll tell
00:57:56.210 --> 00:57:58.090
you one thing that helped me become a better
00:57:58.090 --> 00:58:00.889
CI teacher or a language teacher in general.
00:58:01.090 --> 00:58:04.710
I don't have kids. So I wasn't exposed to seeing
00:58:04.710 --> 00:58:08.650
how the language developed firsthand. But with
00:58:08.650 --> 00:58:13.030
my niece and my nephew, I saw it. I used to harp
00:58:13.030 --> 00:58:16.329
on way back when, in the beginning years of CI
00:58:16.329 --> 00:58:20.570
even, when my kids would forget the verb. Especially
00:58:20.570 --> 00:58:22.949
the verb is. They would forget it, leave it out.
00:58:23.070 --> 00:58:27.039
And I'm like, okay. There are very few languages
00:58:27.039 --> 00:58:29.000
that can do what Spanish can do. You can have
00:58:29.000 --> 00:58:32.900
a one word sentence in Spanish and you can't
00:58:32.900 --> 00:58:34.960
in any most languages. I know you can't because
00:58:34.960 --> 00:58:37.159
you need at least a subject and a verb. But the
00:58:37.159 --> 00:58:39.880
subject and a verb are mixed together in Spanish.
00:58:40.000 --> 00:58:41.920
We don't have to write the subject. It's built
00:58:41.920 --> 00:58:44.380
into the verb. So you can have a one sentence,
00:58:44.440 --> 00:58:47.179
a one word sentence, but it has to be the dang
00:58:47.179
--> 00:58:50.099
verb. You can't leave that one out. So when they
00:58:50.099 --> 00:58:54.980
would start doing that and go, she pretty. Boy.
00:58:55.829 --> 00:58:59.070
Tall. I like it. You need the verb. You got to
00:58:59.070 --> 00:59:01.289
have the verb. You can't take a sentence without
00:59:01.289 --> 00:59:03.769
a verb. And then I watched my niece and nephew.
00:59:04.110 --> 00:59:06.989
They do that. You just like you said, they started
00:59:06.989 --> 00:59:09.010
right in the beginning. And as a baby, they they
00:59:09.010 --> 00:59:12.070
would use the is. But then it would drop out
00:59:12.070 --> 00:59:15.349
and leave out and they would come back. And then
00:59:15.349 --> 00:59:19.010
Bill Van Patten. I mean, I I didn't learn about
00:59:19.010 --> 00:59:23.670
Bill Van Patten until late 2000s. So is Stephen
00:59:23.670 --> 00:59:26.130
Krashen. So Stephen Krashen, you know, said this
00:59:26.130 --> 00:59:27.849
was going to happen. And then Bill Manhattan
00:59:27.849 --> 00:59:31.949
said, the reason why that happens is, especially
00:59:31.949 --> 00:59:36.539
with the verb is, it has no meaning. There is
00:59:36.539 --> 00:59:39.059
no meaning. What does is look like? There's no
00:59:39.059 --> 00:59:42.780
meaning to it. It's an abstract verb, so it's
00:59:42.780 --> 00:59:46.440
not necessary for communication. In fact, the
00:59:46.440 --> 00:59:50.639
Semitic languages, Arabic, Hebrew, Maltese, they
00:59:50.639 --> 00:59:53.599
don't even have a verb for is. They leave it
00:59:53.599 --> 00:59:56.039
out completely. It doesn't even exist because
00:59:56.039 --> 00:59:59.659
it doesn't hold any meaning. She says any verb
00:59:59.659 --> 01:00:02.920
that doesn't hold meaning drops out before it
01:00:02.920 --> 01:00:06.219
comes back in. And so that ding, ding, ding,
01:00:06.360 --> 01:00:09.139
ding, ding. So learning about second language
01:00:09.139 --> 01:00:12.539
acquisition and then seeing it firsthand in my
01:00:12.539 --> 01:00:16.059
or secondhand in my niece and nephew really helped
01:00:16.059 --> 01:00:18.199
me understand what my kids are going through
01:00:18.199 --> 01:00:24.400
in class a lot better. I agree. We are natural
01:00:24.400 --> 01:00:27.480
language teachers as humans. And then we go to
01:00:27.480 --> 01:00:29.539
college to become a language teacher and they
01:00:29.539 --> 01:00:32.889
beat that out of us. But really being a mother
01:00:32.889 --> 01:00:35.909
or a father to a kid when you've taught them
01:00:35.909 --> 01:00:38.349
their first language, that's what we're supposed
01:00:38.349 --> 01:00:40.969
to be doing in our classrooms. That works. And
01:00:40.969 --> 01:00:43.610
we know that works because it's worked hundreds
01:00:43.610 --> 01:00:46.289
of thousands of times over hundreds of thousands
01:00:46.289 --> 01:00:52.230
of years. Yes, absolutely. Yep. Well, we're just
01:00:52.230 --> 01:00:55.150
about our end of our time. So thank you so much.
01:00:55.389 --> 01:00:57.449
It's been so interesting talking about you. If
01:00:57.449 --> 01:00:59.329
people want to connect with you, how can they
01:00:59.329 --> 01:01:04.050
connect with you? Well, I am in the major Facebook
01:01:04.050 --> 01:01:09.969
groups. And I mean, I'm happy to offer my email.
01:01:10.829 --> 01:01:14.090
I'm on Instagram. What's your Instagram handle?
01:01:14.150 --> 01:01:16.110
I'll put that up there for everybody. Oh, gosh,
01:01:16.269 --> 01:01:18.309
that's a good question. I don't do as much on
01:01:18.309 --> 01:01:22.889
Instagram. But I do check Instagram. I definitely
01:01:22.889 --> 01:01:26.210
check Instagram because that's where my children
01:01:26.210 --> 01:01:30.710
post things. So I have to be adept enough there.
01:01:33.010 --> 01:01:39.150
Let's see. Where do I, oh, it's there. It's Lynn
01:01:39.150 --> 01:01:41.630
Redinger Hendrick is the name that it's under,
01:01:41.690 --> 01:01:48.150
but it's L -M -H girls. Okay. So let me put that
01:01:48.150 --> 01:01:50.730
up there. See if that comes up right when I put
01:01:50.730 --> 01:01:56.369
it up there. Yep. That is right. Awesome. So
01:01:56.369 --> 01:01:58.690
I thank you so much for speaking with us today.
01:01:59.010 --> 01:02:00.909
And I always forget this, so I've got to mention
01:02:00.909 --> 01:02:04.079
it before I forget. If you liked what you saw,
01:02:04.159 --> 01:02:07.800
please like and subscribe so that we can get
01:02:07.800 --> 01:02:11.239
this out to more teachers. If you enjoyed this,
01:02:11.280 --> 01:02:12.780
share it with some other teacher who can learn
01:02:12.780 --> 01:02:17.059
from it as well. Senorita Thornton put in here,
01:02:17.219 --> 01:02:20.860
thank you for the kind presentation. You're absolutely
01:02:20.860 --> 01:02:24.719
welcome, Senorita Thornton. We're glad you are
01:02:24.719 --> 01:02:28.239
joining us today. So thank you so much. If you're
01:02:28.239 --> 01:02:30.409
watching this on the replay, Feel free to put
01:02:30.409 --> 01:02:32.889
your questions in the comments. I will pass them
01:02:32.889 --> 01:02:35.630
along to Lynn so that she can answer them for
01:02:35.630 --> 01:02:40.030
you. We have our next, I got to see when our
01:02:40.030 --> 01:02:44.230
next one is, our next CI Stories. Let me see
01:02:44.230 --> 01:02:46.690
my calendar here. Bear with me while I take a
01:02:46.690 --> 01:02:58.190
look. Is Gregory? Schwab on the 24th of April
01:02:58.190 --> 01:03:01.750
is our next one. Five o 'clock Pacific, 8 p .m.
01:03:01.829 --> 01:03:06.130
Eastern. So that'll be our next one. You can
01:03:06.130 --> 01:03:09.510
catch us live on Tuesdays, 5 p .m. Pacific, 8
01:03:09.510 --> 01:03:12.809
p .m. Eastern. And I hope to see all of you next
01:03:12.809 --> 01:03:15.030
time. Thank you so much for being with us, Lynn,
01:03:15.070 --> 01:03:18.909
today. Thank you. Have a good night. You as well.