Student burnout and teacher exhaustion are common in Comprehensible Input classrooms during the mid-semester slump, and this episode tackles how to keep CI alive when everyone is tired.

Take the CI Proficiency Quiz to assess where you are in your CI journey: https://imim.us/ciquiz.

In this episode of Comprehend THIS!, we talk about student fatigue, low energy classes, and how to adjust CI instruction without panic, guilt, or abandoning what works.

Looking for ready-to-use CI resources that support sustainable teaching? Check out the CI Survival Kit: https://imim.us/kit.

#comprehensibleinput, #teacherburnout, #studentengagement, #CIteaching, #languageteacherpodcast, #midsemesterslump, #languageacquisition, #teacherhumor, #CIclassroom, #comprehendthis

Hosts:

1. Scott Benedict - https://www.instagram.com/immediateimmersion
2. Pamela Parks - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXHEK-1ra4IyzO5avtqEkmQ

Resources & Links:

1. CI Survival Kit - https://imim.us/kit
2. Soundtrap - https://soundtrap.com
3. Formative - https://imim.us/formative
4. The Strategic Teacher - https://amzn.to/4sZBbFh
5. Sink or Swim Game - https://imim.us/sinkorswim

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Host: Scott Benedict — Immediate Immersion

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You ever be deep into a CI story like the

llama is thriving, the

kids are understanding,

and then you look up and

see an admin with a clipboard?

Yeah.

Today's episode is CI

and admin observations.

Smile, nod, and

strategically insert buzzwords.

Because while they're asking for rigor

and engagement, you're

just trying to keep the

sombrero on the llama and

the input comprehensible.

I'm joined by Pamela Parks and Kelly

Garcia, and we're

talking survival strategies for

admin observations that let you play the

game without selling your CI soul.

If you've ever nodded confidently while

internally screaming,

this episode is for you.

So welcome everybody to episode number

23, and we'll be back

after these short messages.

Ever feel like you're clinging to the

edge of your teacher planner?

Just hoping today's

lesson magically appears?

Enter the CI Survival Kit, a monthly

membership made for

teachers who love comprehensible

input but also love not reinventing the

wheel every Sunday night.

Each month you get fresh, ready-to-use

lessons, time-saving

tools, and just enough structure

to keep your teaching life together.

No stress, no guilt, just monthly help

from someone who gets it.

Sign up at mm.us slash survival and let

the Survival Kit do the

heavy lifting for once.

Welcome to Comprehend This, real talk for

real language teachers.

No drills, no dry theory, just honest

stories, practical ideas,

and a reminder you're not

alone in the CI trenches.

Let's dive in.

And welcome everybody.

Welcome Pamela and Kelly.

How is everybody doing this morning?

I'm warm today.

After two days of power outage.

I can't imagine.

I grew up in Michigan and I don't

remember having power

outages in the wintertime very

often, but I could not manage.

I do not do well in the cold at all.

So I could not imagine

two days without power.

Hope you had some warm blankets.

Yep, and a fireplace.

Oh, that works too.

Yes.

So refresh us, Kelly.

I mean, Pamela, tell us a little bit

about yourself again.

I know you were on once before.

Pamela Parks, my

students call me Madame Sensei.

I teach Spanish, French and Japanese.

I also have an English language arts

class and over the summer I teach health.

So I'm kind of Jack of

all trades, master of none.

Been teaching at this

school for about 15 years.

Using comprehensible input all the time.

Love what I do.

I love the puzzle solving.

Just love teaching.

Used to be a professional translator

before, which was also a

dream job, but I love teaching

maybe a little bit more.

Awesome, awesome, awesome.

And tell us about you, Kelly,

you're our first time with us.

Yes, thanks for letting me jump in here.

It's exciting.

I am Kelly Garcia and I have been at ESU

Educational Service Unit

5 in Beatrice, Nebraska

since 2019.

And I threw out my textbooks

in 2012 and never looked back.

And I love my job because our

administrators really get

what we do and how we do it and

why.

So I'm just delighted to be here today.

Happy Sunday.

And we're happy to have you with us.

Yes.

Happy Sunday.

It's so important to

have administrative support.

So I've got some stories about that,

positive and negative,

that we can all talk about.

And most of us can relate to one or the

other or somewhere in

between that we can talk about

and how to better the circumstances.

I always say do what you have to do to

keep your job, but advocate for kids.

So do what you have to do because you

don't want to lose your job.

But at the same time, you want to

advocate for kids and

find a subtle way to educate

the uneducated.

And I will give some credit to

administrators because I

know their job is not easy.

And the problem with administration, and

it's not the people

themselves, it's the position,

is that they have to lead anywhere from

25 staff members to over

100 staff members, depending

on how big of a school that you have.

And each one has a different

discipline that they teach.

And they can't be a master of everyone.

They're the master of what they taught,

but they can't be the master.

And it's really hard to apply, let's say,

I remember when they did the, what was it

called the, I can't remember what they

called it, but one person

used to ask the questions

and you're supposed to put them in groups

of four and each one

had a different role in

the groups of four.

And it was talking about, what was it?

Jigsaw.

Oh, no, it wasn't that sound.

I'm thinking something, I'm thinking

Socrates or something like that.

I don't remember what it was called.

The Socrates seminar.

But yeah, those things don't really work

in a language classroom.

And so it comes down and they have to

apply it to everybody.

And you're like, well, how does that work

in PE or band or dance?

Let's say, let's talk

about your trumpet right now.

And you know, it doesn't, and in world

language is more like a,

I call it like more like a

fine art.

It is like dance or, or even a sport

because it's a skill

that you're building.

It's not a knowledge

base that you're creating.

So I give them credit because it's a real

hard thing for them to

be able to take district

objectives and apply it

evenly across an entire staff.

So their job is not easy and we could

help them maybe by

giving them a little bit of

education about how we do it, why and why

we do it and why it's good for kids.

Because most

administrators are on the side of kids.

And so if it's good for kids, they will

more likely side with what we're doing.

So that's kind of my

little opener in there.

Let's talk about first before we go to

the positive, does

anybody have kind of a negative

interaction about maybe not negative,

maybe that's not the right word.

But a counter indicator with an

administrator about CI.

Well the things you were just saying

Scott about you get the

district directives and

they are like across the board.

That's something we've been dealing with

for, geez, ever since I started I think.

I mean the idea that math class has to

teach their class exactly

like history class, exactly

like PE, exactly like music, exactly like

art, those are not the same skills.

Why would we use the same

techniques in those classes?

Absolutely.

And exactly as you were

saying, we are a progressive skill.

So like at one point I was fighting with

the principal, I'd been

through four or five principal

now.

I was fighting with the principal because

he said he didn't like homework.

And I was like are you ever going to tell

a piano student you have a concert in two

weeks, I don't want you practicing at all

outside of piano class.

I need the students to look at the

language for five

minutes outside of class.

This is Ebbinghaus' forgetting curve.

It's well documented.

They're going to forget everything unless

they have some more

contact with it for five

minutes.

So, yeah, I've had a lot of arguments

with admin over the years.

When I first started, my very first PD

day, professional

development day, they were trying

to convince me that oh, well, English

department can do

this, you can do this too.

You need to compare 19th century

foundational literature.

And I was like, they can't even read

right now 20th century

foundational literature.

How are they going to read 19th century

foundational literature?

They can't read Dr. Seuss.

Yeah, I wound up doing a folktale thing.

I don't normally like to do translations

because there's so much

culture I can embed into like,

hey, we're reading a folktale.

There's culture in there, right?

But I happen to have a traditional

Japanese folktale and an

Aesop fable translated.

And I was like, okay,

I'll compare those two.

We'll pretend it's 19th century, but it's

far earlier than that because this one is

800 AD.

And this one is, one was

Aesop, I don't even remember.

But yeah, my biggest knockdown drag out

fight was probably a

couple of years ago, I had

a principal who kept telling me I need to

write up, I need to do a

show her the standards.

Okay, in Washington State, I'm on the

committee to create the

standards, but we don't have

standards yet.

And I kept saying, there is no standard

in the world that says

first year students need

to know how to say the pencil is yellow.

That is not what we do.

We have descriptors.

And descriptors are a totally different

thing than standards.

I'm like, this is one of the skills I'm

teaching my students to use.

This is how they're going to use it.

She's like, no, I need your standards.

After six months of fighting with her, I

looked at her and I

said, oh, wait a minute.

Are you talking about scope and sequence?

And sure enough, she wanted a scope and

sequence, not standards.

So she didn't know the buzzwords either.

So that was like, just keep pushing back

and use the terms you know how to use.

Don't fall.

Don't say, oh, well,

they're saying that word.

I should use it too.

Like descriptors, that's

the hill I'm going to die on.

Formative assessment.

I'm going to keep pushing back.

No, this is a formative assessment.

We world language teachers are

constantly, constantly,

formatively assessing.

Don't force me to do a summative

assessment right here just

because you think everyone

should be giving the exact same formative

assessment on the exact same time, on the

exact same day.

It's no longer a formative

assessment if you do that.

So I don't know.

There's a lot.

It sounds like.

I have to take off my soapbox.

Wow.

Let me just say I love

my current principal.

I love her so much.

But it's been like, I've been through so

many principles of like,

there was one where even

the teacher who had the random acts of

kindness club, she would

come to me and say, that guy

scares me.

So I've been through a lot of principles.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Sounds like.

How would Kelly, do you have a negative

or counter experience?

Yeah, actually, in one of my old schools

way, way long ago, we

would have these PLCs, of

course, and then our administration would

create teams within our school to visit.

Like for example, for the Spanish class,

maybe we would have a 10

to 15 minute lesson and

we would have a fourth grade teacher,

science teacher and a music

teacher and an administrator.

They're watching that lesson all at the

same time, trying to give

us constructive feedback

when they knew nothing

about what was going on.

Right.

So they would suggest a polish or, Oh, to

make your lesson

better, you should have the

students speaking Spanish wine.

They're not able.

They are, I mean, they can do memorize

words, you know, and

phrases, but I was in the middle

of a story talking to them.

They were engaged, they were watching.

And then as my polisher, they wanted some

kind of spoken

something from the student.

And that just, it's like, tell me you

don't understand how to

teach foreign language without

saying you don't know how

to teach foreign language.

Yeah.

And I have had a complete

mixture of combinations.

So many people on the podcast have heard

my story before, but I

started in 2001 right

after 9 11.

They hired me, you know, in October

because they had an

overflow of kids and not enough

teachers.

So it was a part time position I had

never taught before.

They hired me on an emergency permit.

They only hired me because they were

desperate because I had no teaching

experience whatsoever.

And I sucked that first semester.

I sucked.

I knew it.

It was horrible.

It was painful.

I was bored.

And if I was bored, they were bored.

I didn't know what I was

doing and I was terrified.

It was Spanish too.

I only had to teach

fifth and sixth period.

It was horrible.

But I knew it was horrible and I'm like,

there is no way that I can

do this for 30 some years.

There is no way.

So I've got to either

fix it or I've got to quit.

So I tried the fixing.

And so in December of that year during

winter break, I searched

desperately for something

and I found Blaine Ray and TPRS and that

was we didn't call it

comprehensible input back

then.

It was only TPRS.

It was the only

alternative to the textbook.

So that's what I did.

And I went whole hog starting second

semester and it was amazing.

In fact, my principal told me that after

first semester, I was

on the no rehire list.

But when he saw me in the second

semester, it was amazing the

transformation I did and

it really wasn't me.

It was the method, you know, I guess.

And I was doing it badly.

I was horrible because I had no training

in it yet because I

couldn't get my first training

until the summertime.

So I was just.

And there was no training, right?

Well, there was.

There was some training.

Blaine Ray did

trainings, but that was it.

So he said that's what transformed you.

And so he was the this.

The other teachers were not

into it, but he was into it.

So it was worked well when the economy

went bad in California in 2005.

I got laid off and then I found a school

district in Vegas and

they were a CI school.

So I didn't have to worry about it.

Then it was the principal wanted it.

The assistant principal.

Everybody wanted it.

The teachers were on

board, so it was easy peasy.

I wanted to get back to California.

So in 2012, I moved back to California.

I got back in because

the economy was better.

And I got lucky into a job where the this

is the best experience I've had.

It was a middle school.

I didn't want to teach middle school.

And I already had a job.

I got a new job.

I got this job.

I only went to this interview because my

friend said I put you on this interview.

That's the only reason you're here.

I went to the interview because I already

had a job committed and I was moving from

where I was in California to a different

district in California, a

different part of California.

My house was all packed up

and school started in a week.

So that's what I was doing.

So I only went to this interview and I

knew I did not want middle school.

I already accepted this job.

So there's nothing like I'm

just doing it for the formality.

It was a weird interview.

I should have known this about this

principle to begin with.

It should have set up bells.

He was weird.

He called me in for an

interview at seven o'clock at night.

He was the only one in there and he's in

t-shirt shorts and flip flops.

And I am like, this is the strangest

interview I've been on.

So I'm going and doing it.

And he's telling me all about

the school and all this stuff.

And I'm like, um, I go, forgive me.

But this is a really strange interview.

He's like, this isn't the

F-ing except he said it.

He cussed through the whole thing.

He goes, this isn't the F-ing interview.

I'm preparing you for the interview.

The interview is tomorrow.

I'm like, okay, well, I did tell you I

already have a job, right?

I'm just here for formalities.

He goes, yeah, you told me,

but I'll see you tomorrow.

So I come in for the interview for

tomorrow and he says,

um, you know, um, we'll let

you know in a couple of days, uh, whether

you get the position or not.

And um, and that I'm like, I'm telling

you right now, I'm not

accepting the position.

I already have a job.

I'm only doing this to honor my friend

who scheduled me for this.

I go, I need to fill out your paperwork

because at the time this

school district did not do

online applications.

You had to do everything by hand.

And I'm like, in California, we do ed

joint and it's all digital.

So I'm like, I am not

filling out all this stuff by hand.

There's just no way.

I'm not even doing that part.

He's like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

We'll call you in a couple of days.

He calls me that afternoon, says, can you

come back to the school?

And I'm like, yeah, I can come back.

What do you need?

He goes, just come on, comes in and he

goes, um, I want to just

show you around the school.

This is your room.

This is the, we just

got the PE floor done.

See our new mascot is put on the floor.

It was done.

This is a beautiful school that I'm like,

did I tell you I already have a job?

He goes, yeah, you told me

just quit that job and come here.

You're here.

He goes, here's your keys.

We start tomorrow.

I'll see you then.

So this is the kind of principle he is

and he was an amazing principle.

So I had to give you all that preamble to

get to the point of what we're doing.

So they were just

starting world language.

They are becoming an IB school that year.

So they were starting the world language

program and they wanted to do CI.

So it was a CI and he

didn't really know much about it.

He was a math teacher.

And then he paid for

all of us to go to NTPRS.

I had been going for many years, but he

paid for our whole team to go, which at

the time was only three teachers.

Cause we were just starting

and we're all teaching level one.

And, and he showed up too.

He came with us and he took the level one

with Katya, the Russian.

And I don't know if it was, he was

interested in Russian or he was more

interested in Katya cause

she was a beautiful woman.

Um, cause he always said, he goes, if I

leave my wife, that's

the one I want Katya.

So, uh, it was so funny, but he picked up

some Russian and he was really amazing.

He goes, this is amazing.

This is what our kids need.

And for him, language was not a

afterthought and elective.

It was a must have because he

goes, the future is language.

You need the world's getting smaller and

it's not an elective.

It's really important that

our kids have a second language.

And this is amazing because my, um, you

know, cause I took Spanish.

She goes, I can't speak a word of it.

I took it for four years and I can speak

some Russian after a few hours.

And he said, this was

just really amazing.

So, um, I don't know again, I don't know

if it was the method or Katya, but, uh,

either way he was on board.

And so he was very, um, advocated for us

a lot and so made sure we got what we

wanted, what we needed, he came two more

years to that conference, going through

and doing it and learning more about it.

And I was in there one time and I go, um,

we were in, uh, uh, a presentation and

she was talking about desolate classrooms

and I'm like, that's what I want.

And he goes, well, why don't you have it?

I go, because I asked our assistant

principal is in charge of facilities.

I asked, he said, no, you can't do that.

You got to have desks in your classroom.

And he goes, he goes, hold on a minute.

And he starts texting.

And he goes, your desk will be gone

within 15 minutes

because it was summer break.

And he got rid of the desk and then he

goes, but your kids need something to

write on, so let me

get you some clipboards.

And so he ordered some clipboards for us

and they were waiting when I got back to

school, you know, in the, in

the, at the end of the summer.

And so he was very, uh, he was an

advocate for it, even

though he was a math teacher.

And then I have another principal and

this is going to go to the

negative who has no clue was a special

needs teacher, which is awesome, but

doesn't really have a clue of how

language acquisition

works and all of that kind of

stuff.

And so he's telling me, like you said,

the multiple

assessments I, you need in this,

I need you.

How do you know that your kids learned

what you were supposed

to teach them that day?

Like, oh, it's progressive.

It's not, it's not a, uh, no, I taught

and they learned kind of a thing.

I said, I'm asking questions.

Well, Cora, you can't ask coral questions

cause coral questions

don't tell you about

individual students.

I go, but they do because I can see which

kids are answering and with, with

confidence and who are whispering or who

are looking around at people.

I'm watching the kids and I do do

individual questions.

You just haven't seen them yet because my

lesson is not a one hour lesson.

My lesson is a whole week long

lesson and we haven't got it.

I just introduced on Monday and Tuesday

what we're working on for the week and

you're only seeing the beginning stages

and didn't like the,

uh, even though I gave

him research about the no desk thing,

said I had to put

desk back in my classroom

because kids have to

have their own space.

I'm like, my kids do have their own

space, but he's like,

well, they don't have a

place to put their backpacks.

Nobody puts their backpacks on a desk.

They put them on the floor, which is the

same place they put them without a desk.

So we just got butting heads and butting

heads all year long has no real

understanding because he's seeing a

textbook version and sees that every day

they're doing a physical

assignment that they're turning in.

And so I ended up having to make

everything that I do an assignment and

have to turn it, we do calendar talk.

I have to ask you three questions to

write down on a piece of paper and

turn it in about calendar talk.

I'm like, really?

Calendar talks only supposed

to be a five minute activity.

It's not supposed to be a 15, I don't

want to spend 20 minutes on this because

that's just kind of keeping the dates

fresh in their mind.

It's not really the

content I'm trying to teach.

So I've had that big struggle and I had

one administrator come in in Vegas and

they said, why are your

kids level one week four?

Where are those do K three questions?

I'm like, do Keith do K three questions.

My kids barely can communicate in

English, let alone in Spanish.

And you're asking to do deal.

Do you do do K three

questions in kindergarten?

It's really not, you know, they just

don't have a clue of what they're doing

because they only know the experience of

teaching about language like the

textbook does and not

the actual language itself.

Cause I mean, you don't ask your, your

infant when you're teaching them,

but their native language, can you give

me a do key three question?

Give me some thought

provoking questions about that.

No, it, it, it, there's a disconnect.

And again, it goes back again, no fault

to many admin, administrators who

don't want to learn or be educated is a

different issue, but for the majority

of educators, there's too much to learn

for them to be able to understand

every discipline.

So I'm not faulting them for that.

But when you, when us teachers provide

you with information to help you do your

job a little bit better

to make your job easier.

Please trust us that we

know our, what we're doing.

Yes.

Scott, I want to go back to

how you started your story.

Cause I think this is really crucial.

You know, our students come in the room

and they know nothing, they know zero.

And so we have to teach them, right?

Why is it that educators don't get the

same grace that we give our students?

Okay.

You said for the search first six months,

you were a crappy teacher for the first

maybe, maybe seven

months I was a crappy teacher.

You know, we all, we all

were awful when we started.

It's called the learning curve.

Yeah.

And I mentor a lot of teachers and I keep

saying, Hey, cut them some slack.

They're just learning.

And it's the same as if, you know, we

were teaching students when we teach

other teachers, it takes a while.

It takes some repetition.

It takes practice.

It takes failure before

you get good at something.

And so why don't we offer that same

amount of grace to educators?

Like we're supposed to roll out of bed in

the morning and be like, absolutely.

Bobby, this is how I teaching English

this year is my previous principal said,

um, well, gee, you can teach, uh,

Spanish, French, Japanese, you can

teach English too, but you know, teaching

English as a second language, which I've

done is totally different than now.

Let's open our copy of great Gatsby.

And so I have to learn all sorts of

different skills now to teach English.

My bag of tricks I'm using my language

classes does not work on my

junior English 11 students, you know, so

just, just like, let's cut educators

some slack, it is a learning curve.

And I hope that's why people are tuning

into the podcast right now is

because they want to learn and even

veteran teachers, such as ourselves.

I'm still learning.

There is so much I will never be a master

at what I do, but I sure as heck you try.

And I think that's, yeah, I've never been

able to reuse a

lesson plan that I've done

previous years for 25 years and all the

lesson plans, I have to adjust them every

single time.

Thank you so much for saying that.

Cause right now the district is making us

write our lesson plans and etch them in

stone.

And I'm like, I changed it here.

I am not going to do

the same thing every year.

I got two Spanish one classes.

I don't do the same thing with my two

Spanish one classes.

My colleagues in the district, cause I'm

one of four Spanish teachers.

They don't do the same thing.

Like class dynamics makes a difference.

Teach the kids.

And I'll just interrupt

real quick about what you said.

Cause I don't know if

this came from Blaine itself.

That's all I heard it.

So I'm going to credit to Blaine, but I

don't know if he got

it from somebody else,

but he always says, and I

love this little phrase.

He goes, anything worth doing is worth

doing poorly at first.

So it's so true because whatever we do,

and it has nothing to do with education,

anything you do, if you learn to

skateboard, you learn

to swim, you learn to

play football, whatever it is, you suck

when you start, nobody starts at

perfection. And so you

have to build that skill.

And so if it's something worthwhile to

you, then it's

worthwhile that you're going

to suck for a while.

It's going to be painful.

You're going to be putting lots of effort

in, but the reward will come if you keep

at it. And this is something that really

hit home with me because, and this is,

I don't mean this to be offensive, so

please do not take it.

It's my, my boards never come out the way

I want them to, but I am the

most autistic, non-autistic person.

I have very these quirks that go with

things that make, I swear I'm autistic in

many cases, but one of the ways I was

when I was a kid, if I wasn't good at

something right away,

I quit it right away.

And so that was, yeah.

Right.

And I, but everybody's got it for

everything and we need buzzword time,

growth mindset.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

So Kelly, tell us about you,

what's your experience here?

Well, I just think like, like Pamela

said, give yourself

grace because no, we don't

know what we don't know in the beginning.

And when we know better,

we're going to do better.

And I guess that's just the thing.

And if that's another my opinion, if we

want to, if we want to educate the

administrators on what we do and how we

do and why we do it and what to look for,

Bryce Headstrom has a superb checklist

for observation in the world language

classroom, so it helps the administrators

unpack what they're seeing.

And I think it's really important that

there's a little quote here.

And if, if you don't

mind, I'll share it with you.

Not using the target language in a class

is in a language class is like a band

teacher, letting students play ping pong

every day and never playing music.

It's messy.

And there's a lot of mental gymnastics

when we are trying to

teach students, we're

doing our CI lesson, we're telling that

story about the, the

llama with the sombrero.

And then there's a lot of mental

gymnastics that, that people can't see

going on inside the student's head

because we're teaching for the long haul.

We're building background knowledge.

We're teaching for proficiency and it's a

marathon, not a sprint.

We have to make them understand that.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

And I love that you quoted because I

don't know if you knew that you quoted

Maya Angelou, but she says, do, you know,

I, I'm going to mess

up the quote exactly,

but, um, do the best that you can, but

when you know better, do better.

And so that's what I always use for when

I try to train people to do CI because

then they go, well, I've

been doing this for 15 years.

And so was I a horrible

teacher for the past 15 years?

No, you did the best you could with what

you knew, but now you

can do better.

So now you can do better.

And I think that's a really, another good

quote that really works really well.

And I've got, I'm going to

put it up on our screen here.

Give me one second.

And I've got that checklist that you

talked about from Bryce.

Yes.

Love Bryce Hadrum.

Oh yes.

Awesome.

Awesome.

Awesome.

And you know, it was funny when I had a

job, when I was looking for a job, I had

an opportunity to work with him or with

Carmen Andrews in Vegas.

Oh, wow.

Wow.

I was interviewing, getting ready to do

the interview for him in Colorado.

And it was, I was talking with the

assistant principal was on board,

bringing me on.

And then the principal had another idea.

So I didn't even get the interview

because the principal

override the assistant

principal, but I had almost

got a chance to work with him.

It would have been amazing, but I did

work with the amazing Carmen

Andrews from Vegas and

where, where'd that download go?

So I did get a good experience.

And we're just name dropping.

We talk about Blaine Ray a lot, but, um,

yeah, my introduction to

comprehensible input

was through Ben Slavik.

And, oh yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Really, really.

Yeah.

So I'll just name drop that.

Yeah.

I've learned a lot from him too.

A couple of his books I use.

So here is, uh, let's see

if I can scroll through.

Let's make it smaller.

So you're not going to be

able to really see this.

I'm going to put the link though in the,

um, let me go ahead and put this link.

Definitely the chat so you

can download it for yourself.

There is the link.

Sorry.

It's so long, but that's the actual link.

So you've got the things in here, the

checklist for observing

a world language classroom.

So target language use the teacher speaks

in the target language,

less than 50% of the time, 75, 95% of the

time, 50 to 75% of the

time, or 90% or more.

We also in that school where I had that

amazing principle, we decided as a team

to observe each other on our own.

And it was just a private between us.

It was not going to admit in any way.

Um, and one of the questions we asked, we

only asked three questions on the little

form, the observation form, how much

target language was being used?

What did they do to make

the language understandable?

And then what did they do to make the

kids comfortable in class?

Those are the only

three questions we asked.

Then you had a free form and can only

talk about positive,

but it is so important.

How are they going to learn language?

If they don't hear language, um, teacher

uses a variety of comprehension checks.

Teacher offers opportunities for

sophisticated language use.

You know, you don't see a lot of that in

level one, but you still can.

You can still ask those.

I call those the how and why questions

because the how and why questions require

a little bit more language.

And I know which kids to target.

See my administrator thinks I don't know

what my kids can do.

I do know because I know who

to ask the right questions.

I know to ask little Joey over here, a

simple yes or no question where I am

pointing at the word yes so he can get it

and feel successful.

And then I know little Sarah over here,

you know, she's just the average kid,

just a really everyday kid, good kid.

And I need to know I got to stick to a

who what where a concrete question.

And I still may have

to point to the answer.

And then I've got superstar, um, uh,

Stephanie, let's call her superstar who

wants to prove and show off that she can

do all this language.

So I'm going to ask her a how or why

question because I know she can do it.

And that gives her little

way to show herself off.

So there are ways to do this.

And we use a lot of these comprehension

checks to be able to do it.

And a lot of ways to give them even at

their level ways to use sophisticated

language, and then he's

got the best practices.

Teacher raises the level of student

attention by all the

different things that

we do, students are

actively engaged in lesson by.

And notice it doesn't necessarily say

that they're out there speaking.

They don't, especially in level one,

they're not doing a lot of speaking.

I was asked an interview question.

What do you think about the target

language use in the classroom,

both from the teacher

standpoint and the kids standpoint?

And my thing was, well, let me be honest,

my expectation is that everybody try to

use the language as much as possible.

But the reality is the only language I

can control is my own.

So I control my language and I strive for

my 90 to 95 percent.

But I use the lack of language

as a formative assessment that either one

of three things are happening.

They're still in the silent period

because we don't

expect infants to be able

to talk instantly out of the womb.

They don't have the

vocabulary for what they want to say.

And nine times out of 10, they do.

But they're thinking at their grade level

vocabulary, not at

kindergarten vocabulary.

They want to say a much more

sophisticated sentence and they.

And then the third thing is they don't

have the confidence.

They they're not in the silent period.

They do have the

vocabulary, but they lack confidence.

So they're not using the language is a

formative assessment for me.

And then I need to ask further questions

to find out which of those three stages

are they in so that I

know how to combat that.

So but notice it doesn't say there.

And as you know, students are actively

engaged by speaking the target language.

They show us in so

many other different ways.

And then students are held

accountable by the lesson.

By here is where

you're showing the evidence.

The speaking is in there retelling

materials in their own words,

formative assessments, helping each

other, translation when asked,

writing in the target language or an L1

to show that they understood.

So there's lots of different things.

This is an incredibly useful document.

And I provided this with my administrator

and said he had his own checklist.

So and in fact, this administrator also

and the kids notice as well

fell asleep during an observation and was

also showing boredom

because he couldn't

understand the language.

So he couldn't really verify

the stuff that was going on.

So thank you, Kelly,

for bringing this up.

This is an excellent resource.

And Bryce has tons of stuff on his

website on Bryce Headstrom dot com,

free and paid that I highly encourage

people to take a look

when they get a chance and look at that.

So for those who are

listening on the podcast,

I'll put the the link as

well in the show notes.

So if you're only

listening and not viewing,

you can look at it yourself and download

it for yourself as well.

I'll put those in the show notes when I

put them up there for you guys.

At least it can start a conversation

between you and your administrators.

And that's what we're talking about.

I think that's what we need to have.

I remember I told you at the beginning

that my firm belief was to do what you

need to do to keep your job, but advocate

for the kids and do some education,

if need be. And so having a candid

conversation where we're not accusing

anybody of anything and we're being

empathetic to both sides,

they are being empathetic to our position

and we are being

empathetic to their position.

We can have these candid conversations

about what's what's going on and why we

do what we do and

give them some assistance

to help them and any educator, not just

administrator, any educator,

work their salt is

always willing to learn.

We we I have not met a school district

that does not

encourage lifelong learners.

And if we cannot model that ourselves and

if our administrators cannot model that

themselves, then we're

in the wrong business.

And I totally and I'm going

to try to look it up here.

I'm probably not going to find it before

I have a book and it

might be out of print.

Elephants.

Teaching book, I have

to look for this book.

We'll keep talking and I'll look for this

book because what I love about this book

it has nothing to do with education,

education, nothing to do

with teaching languages.

But I'll find it's a short novel.

They asked us to read it in college

during my education thing.

And I love the book.

I have it.

But what I love about this book and we

kind of talked about

this earlier with Pamela.

It's about an English teacher who

literally had his lesson plans laminated.

And they didn't have a date on them.

And they had the fifth day of school, the

sixth day of school,

the 10th day of school,

all of that.

And he used this grammar textbook.

But his clientele had changed.

He's now an inner city

English teacher with

inner city kids of color.

And he couldn't relate

to these kids at all.

Could not relate to these kids at all.

And he just kept teaching the same way he

did when his school was mostly a white

population. He taught the

same way to the same to the kids.

And it wasn't reaching them.

And he's asking them to do these

different types of essays.

And the kids are like,

guy, we don't know where

our next meal is coming from.

We are not thinking about when we go home

to write a 500 word

essay going back and forth.

Then there's this custodian who's an

immigrant custodian.

And I can't remember.

He leaves in the middle of the book.

But I don't know if he had to leave

because of immigration status.

I don't remember.

But he had to leave.

But he left these quotes on the board

every day after he cleaned the room.

He left. And the kids

thought these were warm ups.

So they were starting to

respond to these quotes.

And throughout this, the novel, and it's

short, it maybe I don't even think it was

200 pages.

The teacher starts to

learn to throw out the textbook

and to actually teach

the kids in front of us.

And this was before I even

knew what TPRS was or CI was.

And this is exactly what.

The whole.

Movement for CI is, is to teach the kids

in front of us and not from a concrete

textbook, which is out of date, the date

it was published, because it's a piece

of paper and it doesn't

change the culture points.

They put in there are the things that at

the time the book was created were

interesting to kids is no longer

interesting to kids by the time it gets

published to the us and get bought by us.

So and then we keep the books for 14

years on average for language teachers.

So by the time it's done, like I remember

one was talking about Michael Jackson,

like Michael Jackson is a pride now.

Nobody talks about

Michael Jackson anymore.

And the whole book is taught, you know,

trying to relate to Michael Jackson.

I'm like, this is not good.

This is not good.

So my that has me

teach the word CBR Cafe.

You know, or why VHS tapes.

My kids don't even

know what a VHS tape is.

They barely know what a DVD is.

Oh, elected to David Day.

I've got that my French textbook.

Yeah. So it's it's so funny.

But you don't even have

to move to the inner city.

Like, you know, in the last decade,

students have changed their

attention spans have changed.

What they're willing to do has changed.

There's been a societal shift.

So, yeah, absolutely.

I'm trying to find this damn book because

it is such a good one to recommend.

I love to recommend.

While you look for the book.

So you were talking about it

should be student centered.

And I think every single

admin will agree with that.

Yeah. So I know here in Washington State,

we use the Danielson framework for all of

our evaluations.