CI group work strategies for world language teachers — in Episode 27 of Comprehend THIS!, we break down what makes collaborative activities succeed or fall apart in a comprehension-based classroom.

Most CI teachers have a group work horror story. This episode is about what to do instead of giving up entirely.

Pamela Parks — a former professional translator of movies and TV shows, now a high school world language teacher — and LaDawn Black — who just ditched the textbook entirely this year and hasn't looked back — join the show to talk honestly about when CI group work works, when it doesn't, and what the difference actually looks like in practice. LaDawn brings the perspective of a teacher still in the thick of her CI transition, with more questions than answers and a refreshingly honest take on the process. Pamela brings a language-in-context lens that most classroom teachers don't have. Together they make for a genuinely useful conversation about one of the trickier aspects of comprehension-based instruction.

If you're not sure where you land on the CI proficiency spectrum, take two minutes and find out: https://imim.us/ciquiz

Want a solid starting point for CI in your classroom? The CI Survival Kit has what you need: https://imim.us/kit

TIMESTAMPS 0:00 Introduction 4:30 Why CI Group Work Gets Such a Bad Reputation 14:00 What Made This Group Project Actually Work 24:00 How Much Structure Is Too Much (or Not Enough) 35:00 Keeping English Out of Group Work 46:00 When to Use Group Work — and When to Skip It

CONNECT WITH US Subscribe to the podcast: https://imim.us/live CI Proficiency Quiz: https://imim.us/ciquiz CI Survival Kit: https://imim.us/kit

#ComprehensibleInput, #CITeaching, #WorldLanguageTeacher, #LanguageAcquisition, #CIClassroom, #TPRS, #TeachingWithCI, #SpanishTeacher, #FrenchTeacher, #TeacherPodcast

Hosts:

• Scott Benedict - https://www.instagram.com/immediateimmersion
• Pamela Parks - https://imim.us/pamela
• LaDawn Black - https://www.instagram.com/@profesorablackcore

Resources & Links:

• CI Survival Kit - https://imim.us/kit

Join the Conversation:

Got thoughts or your own story? Share it in the comments or tag us @ImmediateImmersion!

Watch & Subscribe:

👉 Watch LIVE or replay on YouTube: https://imim.us/live

👉 Listen on your favorite podcast app: https://imim.us/podcastlinks

👉 Never miss an episode: https://imim.us/comprehendthis

Connect with Scott:

Host: Scott Benedict — Immediate Immersion

🌐 https://immediateimmersion.com

📧 Scott@immediateimmersion.com

Youtube: https://youtube.com/immediateimmersion

Instagram: https://instagram.com/immediateimmersion

Facebook: https://facebook.com/immediateimmersion

TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@immediateimmersion

Good morning and welcome to episode

number 27. Can you believe it already?

We've been doing this for almost a year.

We started last year in July and we've

been going strong ever since.

So welcome, welcome, welcome everybody.

So raise your hand if you've ever set up

a CI group activity.

Step back feeling pretty good about

yourself and then watch it completely

fall apart in real time.

English everywhere, one kid doing all the

work. I know that was me.

Another kid definitely on their phone and

you standing there wondering why you

thought this was a good idea.

No, just me. Just all of us. Cool, cool.

This week on Comprehend This we're

talking about CI group work, which for a

lot of us falls somewhere on the spectrum

between mild classroom anxiety

and the reason I almost quit in March.

Joining me is Pamela Sparks, who spent

years translating movies and TV shows

before coming a world language teacher

and apparently decided

she hadn't suffered enough.

And we're hoping LaDon will show us show

up today. LaDon Black, she may be having

some technical difficulties this morning,

but who after years of cautiously waiting

into CI finally this year said forget it

throughout the textbook

and dove all the way in.

She's got increased student engagement,

less grading and by her own admission

more questions than answers,

which honestly makes her the most

relatable human being I've

ever put on this podcast.

We're getting into why group work usually

goes sideways and what one project did

differently that somehow kept it alive.

How to keep English from showing up

uninvited the second you step back and

when the right move is just to skip the

whole thing and run a solid

whole class lesson instead.

Because sometimes that's the answer and

nobody says it enough.

We'll be right 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 back Miss Pamela and we are

I'm working with LaDawn. She's having

some technical

difficulties. She is going to be here.

One second. I got to send

a quick email back to her.

While you're doing that, I'll just say

again how much I love being here. Scott

always puts out the invitation for other

guests. So hop on. This is so much fun.

This is this has been a blast. And last

week I talked about all my failures. I

mean last week was where I really showed

how much I was

struggling in the classroom.

This week, this week I know what I'm

doing people. I promise you. Hi LaDawn.

Hi Pamela. How are you? Hi Scott. Hey

welcome welcome. Glad you finally made it

on. Got a little technical difficulties,

but we all understand.

No worries. No worries. Glad to be here.

Well we'll talk to

you in just one second.

I want to say one thing though like

Pamela is talking about. Yes, we're

always looking for guests. So if you're a

watcher you want to watch, join us. I'm

always looking for guests to join us so

we can have different

conversations from different aspects.

And I'm going to put the

link right in if you'd like to.

In the chat there we go.

And put that baby right there. Okay, so

you can go to mm.us podcast to sign up.

Tells you the topics we're having each

week and then you can sign up on the date

if we have spots available.

And that's how we got LaDawn with us and

I found out she's about 45 minute drive

from me so she's not too far from where I

am. So LaDawn tell us a little bit about

yourself before we get

started this morning.

Sure, sure. Thanks. I have been teaching

for 20 years and teaching

Spanish for about 13 years.

About five years ago, I started dipping

my toe into CI. I am a grammar lover. I

am a recovering grammar hammer. And I

discovered CI and at

first was very resistant.

And I was like, you know, reasoning that

like, hey, good teachers are passionate

about what they teach and I'm passionate

about grammar so why shouldn't I teach it

and and you know, the problem was I was

seeing issues with my grades and it

didn't seem like ability matched up with

letter grade and all that kind of stuff.

I kept listening. I was involved in my

local World Language Teachers Association

were known as flash inspiration for

language teachers all in the Sacramento

area and above up to the Oregon border.

And I just kept attending and kept

getting nuggets and kept putting them to

use and then this year for the very first

time I ditched my textbook completely and

went all in with CI only and have been

trusting the process.

And now that spring I'm seeing lots of

wonderful results and it's been a joy.

That's one thing that's measurably

different from before and after is the

amount of joy I have in my

classroom. So I'm loving that.

And I would like to say you don't have to

throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Totally. You love grammar. I mean,

there's there's something important in

pattern recognition, you know, and I do

think that many different methods can

coexist peacefully in your classroom.

So I'm hearing that and it's interesting

been what I've watched like the pendulum

swing, right? Like it used to be all one

way and now in my first total attempt,

it's a little bit all the other way.

But I anticipate that in the coming years

there will be a little more equilibrium

and and I'll find my sweet

spot. So I'm excited about that.

Awesome. Yeah, I was going to say I

jumped in full fledged when it was time

to go in. So I didn't get my first

semester. I was the grammar and I do love

the grammar. I'm the

grammar person as well.

And it just wasn't working and I dove

right into CI. I didn't dabble my toes. I

went 100 percent right away. My second

semester of teaching haven't looked back.

This is my 24th year, I

think I've been teaching.

So I haven't looked back. And one of the

things I was going to say, my kids are

loyal to me. Like in the beginning, my

level ones didn't know any different. So

I'm new at this school.

It's my second year at this school. So

last year when I started, my ones didn't

know any different. But they liked the

way I taught. They had fun. They were

learning. And then they talked to some of

their friends who had the other teachers

who are more

traditional in their approach.

And they're like, oh, I don't want to do

that. So they begged the counselors to

put them back with me the second time

around. And then this year and then my

twos last year were a little resistant

because they had come from the

traditional method, you know, and using

the grammar books and all of those kinds

of things, doing projects, which we're

going to talk about

today, all that kind of stuff.

And then they're like a little bit

resistant, but I won some of them over

and some just wanted because CI is more

work mentally for them. They just can't

look at the grid and go, okay, I've

already answered further questions. I

know what the fifth one's going to be

because Zillow and left.

They had to think a little bit more. And

I was expecting them not just to answer a

question rotely, but to actually

understand what the question was asking

those types of things. And I asked

questions that you didn't find in the

textbook, like how many

sloths fit in your bedroom?

You know, that was you won't find that in

any textbook. So, um, so that I found.

And so this year, now I have kids in my

twos that I had my one

last year, who are like,

we're not taking three unless you teach

it. We're not taking three unless you

teach it. Because they don't want to go

back to that way, because they also know

that they're able to understand and speak

and write more than

their counterparts could.

Because we just focus it on, you know, we

do those things and those things that

reach into it. And I watch

this guy. He's not a language.

He is a not a language guy. He's a

Russian guy living in Berlin. And he was

just took the B2 exam for German, which

if you don't not familiar there, they use

the, I'm going to see for the Central

European framework and I

don't know if the R stands for.

But they I like their system a little bit

better. It's a little bit more concise

than the actual one is. They have three

levels A, B and C, C being advanced, B

being intermediate and A being beginner,

and they break those up into two.

A1, A2, B1, B2, C1, C2. Well, he took the

exam and he made some really good points.

He's a comprehensible input self learner.

He went on because he's

doing this all on his own.

And he said he just took the test. He

doesn't know how he did yet. And he said,

couple of things I would practice more

that I didn't. Writing. I thought because

I knew the vocabulary, I knew the

grammar, that I could

write this, the email.

I had trouble. I had trouble. I didn't

have words and expressions that I needed

to be able to do. He says, I would

practice writing a little bit more. Ding,

ding, ding. Quick writes. We do that

every week. So they get

that practice in there.

He said also, this was kind of funny. He

goes, I would have focused more on the

listening because this is what I did. I

did the listening practices because the

exam gives out practices for them to

practice with. He goes by listening in a

quiet room with perfect headphones that

had noise canceling.

And in the testing situation, there are

no headphones. They're coming out of it.

He goes, crappy laptop speakers and there

are people talking in the background. So

it was hard for me to understand because

it wasn't perfectly isolated sound.

So he was hearing it in the real context

kind of thing. He goes, I would focus on

that. He said, building my vocabulary, I

need to read more. I was not reading

enough in German. I'm like, he's quoting.

He's quoting. He's not a teacher. He's

not a teacher. But he is coming up with

the same kinds of things that we're

talking about when we talk about CI. And

he said, I did do well on the speaking

only because you had to speak for 15

minutes and part of it is introducing

yourself in depth, not

just hello, my name is.

So he goes, I rehearsed that I had that

down like this. And he goes, it was

memorized, but it was, you know, I had

I've been practicing it for weeks. But

then the next part that they asked me, I

couldn't prepare for because you really

can't prepare for the speaking part.

But he said, I would say, you know, it

was just it was a really good, you know,

thing. It was only a five minute video

because he was talking about

studying for this beat Tuesday.

He goes, he goes, I also spent way too

much time focusing on the grammar and

German grammar is much more complicated

than Latin based languages, grammar. And

speaking to that as well, because you

said your grammar, Queens, I'm learning a

very complex language.

It's complex in some ways and simpler

than other. It's I call it a Frankenstein

language. It's my native language. I

don't speak it though. I'm learning it

called Maltese. And its

roots come from Arabic.

But it has sprinklings of English,

Italian and French in there. And if the

words come from French or Italian, they

have a whole different grammar system

they use. And then if it comes from

Arabic, it's a whole it's the Arabic

grammar system that comes through.

And I have a tutor every Saturday and he

I like what he well, there's a couple

things he does that are great and a

couple things that he doesn't make it

comprehensible right away. So he talks to

me at normal speed and Maltese.

And I'm like staring at him with deer in

the headlights. I have no idea what he

just said. They go, I don't understand.

And it's directions. He's giving me

directions on what to do for what he

wants me to do. I'm like, those should

definitely be in English because, you

know, I'm trying to follow directions.

But he's trying to do that immersive

thing. So I'm giving him credit for that.

And I am learning a lot from him. I'm

giving a lot of stuff that I do. But what

he did with grammar, especially this

week, we learned how to do.

They only have two tenses, present and

past, which that instead of 14, that's a

whole really good thing.

Yeah, so, um, yep.

Only present and past, which is very

different coming from romance languages

and Germanic

languages. We've got 14 tenses.

And what they, he, we went through the

conjugations and the conjugations are you

add something to the front and the back.

You don't have to use a subject like

front, like Spanish. You don't have to

use a subject, but you have to add

something to the front and

to the back to make it thing.

And he didn't tell me that. He just says,

here are the conjugations. We did three

verbs we practiced with. And he goes,

what did you notice about these verbs? So

he asked me to notice the grammar before

he explained what it was.

And sometimes they can make a verb by

taking a noun and putting a, not a

pronoun, a possessive adjective connected

to it. So they put it as a

suffix. So they have name.

And then you will name my is my name is.

Okay. Yeah.

Just kind of, and they do that with some

words. They do that with have, have, they

use the preposition with me. And then

they add the personal, the possessive

adjectives afterwards. So it's really

saying, um, with me is I

have. With you is you have.

So it's kind of, it's kind of just weird,

but I'm fascinated by it because it's so

different from everything that I know

about languages. And he went to try to

explain to me the number system.

He was ready to spend 10 minutes with the

number system because they do it

backwards. They do it five and 20, three

and 40. And I'm like, oh, you don't have

to explain it. That's German. German does

that way. I know. I got it.

I got it right. I don't have to explain

that kind of stuff. So I can see elements

of different things in there, but it's

just very interesting. It is very

interesting. And they have plurals are

weird because they have one word for one.

And then if it's exactly two things, they

have a different word for it. And then if

it's more than two things up to 10, it's

a third plural. And then they go back to

the singular from 11 on, which is really

very unusual. Yeah, it's just very weird.

So but it's interesting, like, because

we're all grammar people and we want to

learn the grammar, but I like learning it

the backwards way. Show them the

comprehensible input. Let them determine

the grammar rules because

that's what not crashing.

And so this is much more helpful because

I noticed I don't know if any of you've

noticed when we've done grammar in the past and you teach grammar, the traditional grammar way after you've done the input, it destroys the input. I find it's a mess.

them up where sometimes they'll get the

imperfect and preterite in Spanish and

French, they'll get it going pretty well.

And then I explain the rules to them. And

now that the rules have now interfered

with what they thought the math, the

brain was saying the map was supposed to

work and they mess it up. So I think the notion of the input is that it's not going to work.

I think the noticing is a better way to

approach that grammar if you have to

teach grammar explicitly. I feel like it

kind of depends on the learner too,

because I like I have a student who we

all have those students that are like us

maybe and are super interested in the

rules and oh, well, why is this that

instead of this and, you know, and they

notice those patterns, but

it's also I have a current one.

And he's also like the same one that

really struggles when I answer his

questions because now he's got that

monitor inside of him and he knows this

rule. And so he hesitates and he can't,

you know, speak fluently, even though all

the words are in there and he's really

interested. And, you know, he wants to be

speaking Spanish and he has the

ingredients in his mind, but he's just

constantly checking for them.

So much so that it impedes his speaking.

And so you have to be careful who you're

answering questions for. And

unfortunately the ones who have the

questions and know what to ask are the

ones that are going to kind of get, I

don't know, dammed up a little bit by

getting those answers. So

that's what I found anyway.

That is absolutely true. So because I

really want to capitalize on this

inductive learning that we're talking

about, I always start the first day of

school. I don't do the fire drill with

them. I don't do the introductions quite

yet. I start the first day of school with

here's a Sudoku puzzle.

I'm going to teach you how your brain is

going to feel when you're doing language

because you've got to be having that

logical puzzle that you're puzzling it

out. And then we can always call back to

that. Oh, guys, we're doing Sudoku now.

Like, this is exactly the same thing.

Does your brain feel the same way?

Because it is, it's inductive learning.

And, you know, like you said, there's

another teacher who talked to, it was

Susie Gross who always used to say, "When

a kid asked a question, they're ready to

hear the answer." They aren't ready to

hear the answer if they haven't asked the

question. So she does this. And she goes,

it always, they think it's kind of just

funny. I'll explain it afterwards. She

always says, "Okay, the rest of you,

Johnny is a good teacher.

And he's asking this question. You guys

are not ready for this question yet. It

is way too advanced. Cover your ears.

Everybody cover your ears so I can talk

to Johnny just for this moment." And then

nobody covers their ears.

They all want to hear, right?

Because they want to hear.

So we talked to her. She was a Swiss

lady, spoke French, German, and English.

She might have had Italian in there too,

I'm not sure. But she was amazing. But

one of the things that I wish she would

not have done is when we were speaking,

she would stop us right at the point we

made a grammar

mistake and had us refix it.

So we never got a full sentence out. I

never got a full sentence out. And it

makes you not want to

talk. Nobody wanted to talk.

But the problem with theories is, oh no,

you're going to get fossilized if you use

the language wrong. And I mean, when I

was in graduate school, that's what we

learned. And so it took me a while before

I stopped doing that

with my own students.

Because that had been such a foundational

theory of like three methods of pedagogy,

right? The audio-lingual I know. Let me

think. But there's, yeah, certainly

grammar translation.

And you know what, mate? And I followed

the same thing when I first started

teaching. I mean, I heard about Crash and

I studied the Crash and I didn't believe

him. I'm like, what does he know?

So I and I hadn't even heard of Van

Patten until like 2016. So I used to

correct my kids all the time, especially

like, like, they would write, boy, tall.

And I'm like, okay, guys, you got to have

a verb in that sentence in Spanish. You

have a sentence can only be one word, but

it has to be a verb. You got to have a

verb in there. And I was

freaking out about this, right?

Or when they go, Tieno, I was freaking

out about them. Like, no, it's Tango.

Come on, get this in your head. Tango,

Tango, Tango. But then I don't have kids.

I do kids because I take it back. I rent

them from September to June.

And I send them back for some. So I rent

kids for a living. I don't have my own.

So until my niece and I know this sounds

bad now, I rent kids.

My until I heard my niece and nephew

learn English, their first language, I'm

like, oh, that's crushing said that. Oh,

crushing said that. Oh, crushing said

that. I'm seeing it. And I saw that the

verb is because it doesn't carry meaning

falls out of the language in English.

And in Maltese and Arabic, there is no

verb to be. It doesn't exist. It doesn't

exist. So if you have to use it for

clarification, use the subject pronoun.

That's the verb is if you have to use it.

So use the subject pronoun so you can

have a verbless sentence.

That's kind of weird. But so I saw it

drop out in my niece and nephew and then

come back. And so I'm like, OK. And then

when I'm speaking with native speakers,

they go, every kid, every one of my kids

made the TNO mistake.

Because the brain says, OK, I haven't

heard the detour yet. We add O to the end

of the verb and that means I and then it

finally learned there's a detour there

with Tango. And so that fossilization

doesn't really apply like we thought it

did because native

speakers make the exact.

This is what I got from Bill Van Patten.

Native speakers make the exact same

errors that our second language

acquisitioners do. The only difference

between a native speaker and a second

language speaker is how

long they stay at each stage.

So French speakers can learn Spanish and

German easier because they already have

the verb conjugations. They understand

that pattern. They don't get stuck in

that phase as long as Americans where we

don't have the verb endings on ours.

So it's really interesting.

Yeah, exactly.

Like, tell my students, you've got two

concepts as long as you master these two

concepts, you're going to be fine. Verbs

have to conjugate to match the subject

and adjectives describe nouns. There you

go. You could be fluent.

Yeah. So it's kind of really interesting

along that way and using those things. So

they have to make the mistakes just like

our American kids make,

say, goad until they can learn.

They can learn, they learn when. And it's

not fossilized. It's not still there. You

know, when they get to kindergarten,

they're not doing it

anymore. You know, but they have.

Yeah, I love the idea of, you know,

viewing student mistakes as

developmentally appropriate or

inappropriate. And if you know it's a

developmentally appropriate mistake,

leave it alone. Why are you going to, you

know, do something with that? Just like

you said, it's a natural process.

But, you know, when it's impeding meeting

or when it's not a developmentally

appropriate mistake, maybe some reminders

are needed. But one of the things I want

to sort of speak back to about the

reading, it seems, I just noticed

recently a real

advantage to reading time.

And here's what it was. So you guys are

probably familiar and I hope I'm not too

much of a cheater weeder to rely on these

things. But I love Seniorita Spanish and

the things you can get of hers on TPT.

And I'm not being paid to say that in any

way. But, you know, I'll go and get these

readings and these great, you know, walk

around the room and you post the little

paragraphs all over the room and they've

got a sheet and they're walking around

and there's so much reading happening.

And that's great. And I was doing that

for a long time. But then Women's History

Month, March, came along and I decided

instead to do a slide version of it. So

they had the worksheet that normally

would be one day walking around the room.

And instead we did one paragraph as part

of our, you know, the slide deck that I

do it every morning, along with the

weather and the date and all the things

that you just kind of go over.

John Seifert has some wonderful things

about like this day in history, is it a

truth or a lie, all those kinds of

things. So I have this routine that we go

through and then I added

these paragraphs to the routine.

So we were at first I was reading to them

and then we read Corley and then by the

end of the month I was just like, okay,

get out your sheets.

And we read one paragraph each time. And

I saw my students, honestly, their

grammar, their understanding of word

order, their understanding of where the

adjective goes, their understanding of, I

mean, it's not an understanding of

conjugation because it hasn't been

discreetly taught, but they're repeating

it more correctly because now they've not

just heard it, but

they've seen it repeated.

And of course these paragraphs are all

very formulaic and so they're getting a

lot of repetition. Everyone knows how to

say when their birthday is and so forth.

So I loved that little switch up from

having lots of reading on one day to a

little bit every day. And I

feel like it made a difference.

Yeah, I think so too. And as you said

about the celebrating that their brain is

actually working, when they make that

mistake, tiano, their brain is working

because they've already acquired the rule

that the I verb ends in an O.

So you know, they're on the right path.

They just haven't gotten to that detour

they need to get to just yet. So I

celebrate that you got, you're not making

a mistake. You are being developmentally

appropriate because Van

Patten says there are no mistakes.

There are no errors. There's nothing to

correct because they're

just making... Go ahead.

I love what you're saying. Celebrate it.

I was in a workshop. We were fortunate

enough to have Annabelle Williamson, La

Maestra Loca come to our Flash Fall

workshop a few years ago.

And she was teaching us Chinese. She was

doing a CI lesson in Chinese. And you

know, I know nothing about Chinese. This

is a brand new experience for me. Plus I

wasn't super versed in CI yet. And so

this was all new to me.

And of course, I don't remember the

Chinese that I do actually remember one

word, but she was asking a question and I

knew that my answer was yes. And I'm just

part of an audience here. And she has us,

you know, popcorn and responding. It's

almost like church, you

know, and I said C for yes.

And it had nothing to do with Spanish.

You know, we weren't speaking in Spanish.

We weren't talking about Spanish. I was

learning Chinese. And she stopped the

entire thing. And she said, "What did you

just say?" And I

said, "Oh, I'm so sorry."

See, I said C. And she goes, "Everybody,

look what just happened." And she

switched to English. And she celebrated

that moment. She said this, and she

didn't know me. I was just part of the

audience, you know. And she said, "This

learner just went into L2." She confirmed

with me that Spanish was L2 for me. And

then said, "Because she's learning

another language." And that's what the

brain does. It goes to where it knows,

you know, how to

acquire another language.

And she just celebrated that. And not

that that comes a lot up a lot in my

classes, but what I learned from her is

how to celebrate students and how it's

okay to switch into English to point

something out like that. And oh my gosh,

did you see those wheels turning? I

almost heard those synapses popping in

that kid's brain right now. And to be

able to call that out and have everyone

go, "Oh, wow." Okay.

And it normalizes mistakes and it

normalizes trying, even if it's not

perfect, it normalizes growth. And I just

love that kind of celebration.

Because kids are so afraid of failure

nowadays. They are so afraid to invest in

the try and fail cycle. Absolutely.

And I think that's, you know, people

always say that as you get older, it's

harder to learn languages. I don't think

that's true. What I think it is, is as we

get older, we're more self-conscious

about making mistakes. And we're little

kids, they don't care if they may make a

mistake. Me want cookie now. Me want

cookie now. You know, that's

what they're talking about.

So true. This is when I was totally

paralyzed. Okay. I told you, like I was

totally paralyzed and I had to learn to

walk again. And I had my walker and I had

come up to the bathroom counter and I was

trying to get the toothpaste cap off, but

my fingers were numb and the toothpaste

cap fell off and fell onto the floor.

And I'm like, Jay, my husband, come get

it. Because I couldn't bend down. I

couldn't figure out how to bend down and

get it. My two year old son is like

running around me and everything. And he

is standing up on the edge of the

bathtub. And I'm like, Sterling, get

down, get down. You're going to fall.

Sterling fell flat into the bathtub and

I'm like holding onto the walker. And I'm

like, how am I going to get him out of

the bathtub? Oh my gosh, he's going to be

crying. I've got to somehow get him over

to the rocking chair where I can hold him

and comfort him. He jumped right back up.

He jumped right back up and laughed. And

I'm like, there's a lesson here for me. I

am so afraid of falling. And here's my

son. He falls down. He gets right back

up. So Scott, you are absolutely 100

million percent right about that.

Yeah. Yeah.

So we have talked about CI. We need to

really get back to our subject of

projects. And I know LaDon confessed to

me secretly that she's not a big project

girl. And I'm going to confess to I'm no

longer a big project guy either. But I

know Pamela does

projects. So that's great.

And I'm going to tell you two things.

This is why I don't like projects. Well,

that's three things. Number one, I am an

introvert. I know it's not obvious as I'm

doing this podcast, but I am an

introvert. I use all my extroverted stuff

at school and it's

completely gone after that.

You want to you. You want me to turn off

from your workshop or your meeting or any

of those things. And no offense to people

who enjoy these things. I do not. And

introverts generally do not.

Icebreakers can't stand them.

You say that my my skin, the hair in the

back of my neck goes up and I am bare. My

anxiety is way up here. Or the other

thing, let's take a moment of silence.

Let's breathe in and breathe out. I am

not that person either. And I know there

are people who love it and enjoy it.

I am not. I that one doesn't give me

anxiety, but I'll just sit back there and

just not do anything. I am just not that

person. I can breathe naturally on my

own. I have no trouble breathing. I don't forget how to do it.

It works really well just the way I've

been doing it my whole life. So I'm

again, I know I'm offending some people.

I don't mean to offend you. I'm just

saying for me as an introvert, these

things that people do. So I don't do

icebreakers in my classroom because I

know there are kids just like me who

brings that anxiety. And for the kids who

need icebreakers, I know in their other

four other classes, they will do

icebreakers. So they'll get them. They

don't need them from me. So that's the

first thing. The second thing, projects are not just for me.

The second thing, projects or group work

in general, I am a perfectionist as well.

I didn't trust any of you people to do as

good of a job as I was going to do it. So

I did the project. I did the group work

and I let you all copy off me because I

knew it was going to be

quality work that way.

People wanted to be my science partner

because they knew I would do the work and

all they had to do was copy off me

because I didn't trust anybody else

because I'm a perfectionist. And you

know, there's always that kid who wants

that that I don't want to do any work.

I'll be that partner

just to do that work.

But you know, in a group, there's two or

three who might do all the work and then

there's always two or three who don't do

any of that work. And then group work

again, very anxiety for me because I

don't warm up until I

know you one on one.

So people tell me I'm very standoffish

when they first meet me because I don't

know you. So I'm very reserved. I'm very

back. I'm because my anxiety is going up.

I hate going to parties. I don't. That's

just not me. And my old principal said, I

don't care if you show up to work, but

you will show up to my parties.

I've never showed I'd already taught 12

years. I've never been in a single

Christmas party. I don't go to those

things because it's anxiety written for

me. It's just it brings up. So that's

where I come from. And I have done

projects. I do have some comments, but

we'll let Pamela talk about how she loves

her projects. And LaDon and I will just

kind of pop in as we pop in.

Actually, I do mind if I just say before

I hear the good stuff, I don't know if

this is for everybody's benefit. But like

the reason I don't like projects is

because the ones that I did when I had a

textbook when I was teaching in English

about Spanish and not, you know, not a

whole lot of immersion going on, it was

perfectly fine for this to be happening.

And I thought it was output. But what I

see when I'm doing my projects this year,

I did one and swore never again. And that

was the Spanish two, three, I teach a

combo class doing a newscast. I apologize

for the reflection happening. I apologize

if that's distracting. It's certainly

distracting me. There are things going on

outside. I get control.

The student so it was a newscast so so

that they could use the proterit. And

this is at the beginning of the school

year. And so they're getting together and

they're making up these fantastical news

items. And it's a lot of fun. And then,

you know, what happens is they use Google

Translate to translate their thing that

they made up that is so hilarious, you

know, and then it's not with high

frequency vocabulary.

None of none of us can understand or the

rest of the class can't understand what

the joke is when we're hearing them

recited, which is either being read or

memorized. And now we have, you know, one

entire class period where we're watching

each other's videos and the group that is

doing it is having a great time because

they laughed while they were doing it and

they understand the joke.

The rest of us are just watching this

thing happen and not getting anything

from it. No, absolutely. I just I swore

them off. I was like, no more group

projects. It was too much English in the

groups and too much, you know, not

substantive language that they could keep

and repeat for later. So that's my

objection. How are you going to take that

on, Pamela? Let's hear it.

Absolutely. First of all, I'm yeah, I've

been there, too. I've been there, too. It

used to be filming the students and

having the fake newscast was great. And

then suddenly one year, it wasn't great

anymore because of Google Translate

because of being translated. And now I

don't even want to go to chat GPT.

OK, so absolutely. First of all, first

thing, let me redefine what you are

thinking about as a project. OK, a

project does not have to be something

memorized, prepared, presented. All

right. I think I'm going to start with

the easiest project that we do.

Maybe third week of school, I'm like, you

guys need to know your numbers and

colors. We are going to play a game of

UNO. And I went to my P.T.S.A. and I had

them help me buy UNO decks for I've got

like 36 students per class.

One class is 39. Don't ask.

But I've got six table groups of six

students of each each class. So I have I

have I have actually seven decks of UNO

just in case some people don't want to

play with each other.

So, all right. So, guys, so the first

thing is they do need the drill and kill

to be successful. But I feel like I feel

like with my I'm going to come projects,

but they're really games.

They're always games. I feel like I get

more authentic language production out of

the students, which is why I turned to

game based learning. OK, because the

students are playing a game.

They want to win the game. Their

effective filter is lowered because

they're not really like, oh, my gosh, I'm

saying are they wrong? They're they're

really trying to win the game.

OK, they're so focused on that. They're

just not listening to what's coming out

of their mouth, which is good. OK, so

they got to learn their numbers and

colors. And we have to do that by rote.

OK, that's language learning. The

foundations are you got to learn that. So

we've got to scaffold everything.

You need to know that they have to take

notes. Students think they can hold

everything in their brain. They can't

hold everything in their

brain. They've got to take notes.

We've got a lot of little mini games

before we get to the big game. We've got

a lot of number games. We've got, you

know, roll the dice and add these for me.

We've got mini whiteboard games with

numbers and everything. We've got games

where I get them on

their feet and I have them.

I have them walk around and and then I

call out a number and they have to get to

a group with that many people in it. Lots

of little games to get there.

We learn their colors. We learn a bunch

of games. And then we start practicing.

Hey, guys, next week we're

going to have our Uno test.

Here's the cards. I want you at your

table. Just start getting into the rhythm

of practicing every single

time you put down a card.

You have to say the number and the color.

That's what your grade is. OK, we

practice that and there's a lot of

English the first day

because it's just practice.

OK, all right, guys. Second day. Now you

practiced yesterday. I want less English

here up on the board. I

have some sentence frames.

Maybe you want to say I'm all out of

blue. OK, how do you say I have? All

right. You already know how to say to

Tango. OK, how do you say I don't have?

They already OK. Joe no Tango. OK, how do

you say blue? All right, here you go.

Here's your sentence frame.

And then maybe day three, I'll give them

all the reverse skip all that. But

remember, the test is

just on numbers and colors.

OK, so if they can remember how to say

reverse, if they can remember how to say

skip, that's icing on the cake.

OK, so Scott and I were talking about

cupcakes last week. Right. So I will

always have sentence frames on the board

and cheater questions,

treater things on the board.

OK, not the numbers and colors because

they're supposed to be

remembering those. Right.

I make sure the students know where in

the room to look for the scaffolding.

Where's the word wall for

you? Here's the Spanish class.

I pulled down the Spanish chart. I wrote

I had my my custodians rescue many years

ago, the projector screens from the

dumpsters because everyone went to like

TVs in the class, the projector screens.

I'm like, give me those projector screens

on one of the projector screens. I wrote

all the Spanish word wall that I would

want on another one.

I have all the French and another one. I

have all the Japanese. So depending on

what class, like you pull it down.

So because real estate is hard when

you're teaching so many different

languages, students know where to look.

Now, the best thing, the absolute best

thing, OK, is as much as I can, I have to

figure out a way for the

students to police each other.

That's less work for me. I'm I'm still

nursing a broken leg. I'm

hobbling around the classroom.

I can't get to everyone quickly. If the

students can keep each other from

speaking in English, then by the time I

get over there, everything's good. Right.

OK, so the rule for UNO is if you hear

someone at your table speaking English,

you force them to take another card.

Nobody wants to take another. OK, so

they're all trying their best. And then,

of course, they also know

that they're get out of jail.

They know that they're get out of jail.

Free card is for Spanish. Como se dice,

blah, blah, blah en español.

OK, so como se dice. You're such a

cheater en español. And I can run up to

the board and write down mentiroso,

mentirosa, you know, or whatever.

So they can yell at each other because

that's part of the fun is all these

accidental things that they pick up in

talking to each other.

OK, again, the only thing I really wanted

was numbers and colors. They get 100

percent provided they say their numbers

and colors and

español, no ingles. Right.

Or en pense, padangle, or, you know,

whatever language I'm teaching. And

they're so invested in the

game. To me, that's a project.

OK, because I've had a whole hour and 20

minutes of them not speaking English at

all. They're using the language and

they're taking it to a higher level than

if I were working out of a textbook.

Yeah, I love this. And what's great about

Pamela, as she's been on a podcast quite

a few times, I've learned a

lot about how she teaches.

She does your sentence frames and she

teaches them the language that they need

to be able to communicate doing these

games in projects that she does

beforehand, because that's one of the

problems is, you know, I was in a school,

this project based learning.

I'm like level one. They want us to do

this big old project like in week two.

I'm like, they don't have the language.

They're going to do it all in English.

So by giving these sentence frames, the

things that you need to come up and as a

teacher, you might not anticipate

everything they need. So the first time

you do this, you know, you've got some

that you prethought of

and you've gone there.

But when kids ask, you now add to your

list and you can use it for the next

year, next time you do it. But you give

them the sentence frames that they can

rely on and have them up there. You're

not assessing them on those things, but

you're allowing them to

stay in the target language.

That is absolutely gold. And I love that

she does this. And it's not just for

projects. She does it all the time. She

gives them the language that they need to

stay in the target language for whatever

activity that she's doing.

And I think that is a real key to one of

the objections that many of us have, that

there's way too much English going on.

So this took me a really long, long time

to learn. But, you know, we have in our

head this idea when we go through

teaching school and everything, this is

how to teach. We have in this idea that

everything has to be memorized.

Okay. And the answer is that some things

have to be memorized. But we have a class

of, you know, okay, I've got an embedded

class two of French two, three and four.

All right. Some of my French two

students, they don't really remember what

we did in French one. Some of my French

two students are really in French four.

They really they're doing all the work of

the French four students, you know, the

differentiation that we

need to do in the classroom.

My Spanish class often has some heritage

speakers in it. Spanish one. I only teach

Spanish one because I want to four

Spanish teachers. Okay. And I'll have

heritage speakers in Spanish one. Why are

they in my class? I don't know.

I need to differentiate. So it took me a

long time to realize that when I give the

sentence frames, when I give, when I say

where is the word wall, look at the word

wall. Hey, do you have this in your

notes? Get out your notebook.

It took me a long time to learn. That's

okay for the students to look at their

notes because the high flyers, they're

going to take the chat mat you gave them

and they're going to toss it aside. Okay.

The middle of the road students, they

just need something in their hands.

They're just not confident. Okay. My

notebook, it's in front of me. It's open.

I know where to look if I need it. I know

where the scaffolding is on the wall, but

they forget about it. They

don't have to look at it. Okay.

They just kind of physically need it

there as a crutch. Your students who are

struggling, yes, they need the

scaffolding. Yes, they need to look at

the sentence frames. Yes, they need their

vocabulary list in their book, whatever.

But the way they're putting it together

is communication and they're

communicating to

everyone else at the desk.

So when your principal walks in and says,

wow, you look at all the differentiation

you're doing, it's really the students

are self-selecting. So for me, it's not

any extra work. It's the students kind of

automatically know what level they're at.

And they're all able to access the game

at the same time with each other

communicating. So another thing we do to

learn our matching adjectives to nouns,

because that's difficult in French and

Spanish, is apples to apples, I think is

the best game for that.

So I made up a bunch of cards that I

printed up on cardstock of things that,

so I'm one of four Spanish teachers, so I

have to follow the textbook because

that's what my colleagues are doing. So I

take what I'm supposed to be teaching and

I turn it into a game.

So I took everything out of the textbook.

I took all the goofy stuff that we added

in class. I take all the rock singers

that they really like and I added them

and everything. And so the students who

are really struggling, they're just going

to say red card S, green card.

Red card is green card. Okay. The noun is

the adjective. Okay. The students who are

middle of the road, they're going to be

able to say, my red card is more green

than your red card. Okay.

The students who are high flyers, they're

yelling at each other. They're like, how

could you choose that? That was that my

card should have won. You know, and all

that is the icing on the cake. That's

what makes me happy.

So it's just, can they sustain our

conversation in the target language?

That's what my projects are all about.

And that's a great way to look at it.

The big brain explosion that's happening

for me is the idea that group work does

not have to be groups getting together

outside of class to create a product that

gets presented in class because that's

how I've always thought of it. And that's

what my big fail was.

But if you redefine group work. Yeah. And

if, but if you redefine it as anytime

students are working together and using

language, then I'm, I'm gung ho. Like

let's go. I love group work.

And I will say there's two things that I

have always found. I used to do those

skits and the kids would always memorize

the lines and that's no longer a

proficiency assessment. That is a

performance assessment. That's drama

class, not language class.

And I'll tell you right away, I remember

from Spanish one in 10th grade, 1986,

okay, I'm aging myself. 1986, I was in

10th grade and I still remember my

project. We were doing the, I mean, I'm

really gonna date myself.

We did a commercial with the Pepsi

challenge. Oh no, that was a different

one we did. This was the, the great guys,

the little great guys were

on, on TV in the commercials.

Yeah. So my line was I opened my lunchbox

and the little great guys were in there

and go, look at what I have. Mira lo que

tengo. Okay. That's my line. I have never

in 24 years as a teacher.

And since 1986, how many years it was,

have I ever used that line exactly that

way ever. So it really didn't help me. I

still remember it, but I've never used it

in real life. And the other thing are,

I'm lucky because my I'm, I'm off campus

so they don't know that I don't do this.

But in my department, they spend two full

weeks in October teaching about day of

the day. Because most of the teachers are

Mexican. So it's really important to

them. And I get that. But what are they

doing? They're creating art. They're

making paper flowers and they're making,

you know, the, the different designs and

the tissue paper and

they're doing all my,

where is the language skills coming out

of this? These are art projects. I do

that. I do that. But it's in Spanish.

Okay. You do that, but they do not. And

up on the board and I am folding it in

front of them. And I'm, I'm saying,

doble, des doble, you know, corta, you

know, and I'm, I'm showing and yeah, and

they have to talk to each other. And I'm

like, this is our project is, um,

it's doing something and using the

language. But yeah, they're not using the

language. Yeah. They give an assignment

like level one is making the little

orange flowers. Then level two might be

doing, um, they might be doing the alters

or whatever they have the different

things. I'm like, I always, my excuse is,

um, I don't have the room, like they,

they decorate the whole hallway with all

this stuff. And I'm like, I don't have a

hallway to decorate.

So we do coloring pages.

While we're doing stories, they color

thematic, um, day of the dead pictures.

And then I put them on the window. That's

as close as I can get. I'm not spending