On a teachers’ list, someone recently asked (paraphrased):
How can I help students review vocabulary for our semester exam? I create a story (this year I’m narrating a video), they will listen and answer multiple choice questions. They will read a novel chapter and answer questions in English and they will write an original story using vocabulary we have used in stories this semester. They will present their story with a PowerPoint for the speaking portion.
If I just give them time to review on Quizlet, some will take advantage and others will not. I need a concrete assignment. Something they have to do with the vocabulary as they select words for their stories.
First, the format of the proposed test isn’t going to test acquired language, which kind of matches, since the review is going to favor short-term “freshening” of words that apparently haven’t been acquired (or review wouldn’t be required to select them). So there are two issues going on here in my view.
I favor having kids write for testing based on a picture prompt — the more detailed the better. Or offer multiple picture prompts and allow them to choose. There are many good pictures available that include multiple actions and actors in the same picture, which allow kids a lot of freedom to write and use all their language. Having them write based on specific words might show you whether they know (and this could be knowledge based on acquisition or knowledge based solely on memorization) how to use them correctly in the instances that show up in the writing passage. But it won’t show you what they could have come up with when confronted with a situation they want to talk about, or talk their way through.
The speaking portion of this proposed test is likewise going to showcase the kids who do their homework — literally. Speaking from a PowerPoint means preparation. The motivated, “good students” are going to write out that story and practice it a hundred times at home, then recite it along with the PowerPoint. You won’t see what language they have acquired this way. You’ll see what they could put together. Reading (even from memory) a passage that has been previously written is not speaking and doesn’t show acquisition. It shows the fruits of a combination of acquisition and rule application during the writing process, and there’s no way to tell where along this continuum the performance stands.
Of course my first reaction to this post was far more basic. Why is there a need to review? If we are constantly spiraling vocabulary, the vast majority of those words should be fresh at the conclusion of a semester. If they are not, it’s time to check the number of repetitions during input, and also (IMO) to look at something else: is the delivery of CI being biased toward teacher-centered activities like narration of videos, instead of student-centered ones like the joint creation of stories? No matter how cute or appealing a video is, the fact that the story is being told, not asked, is going to reduce the level of involvement the students have in it and the level of connection they have to the language.
People are always looking for ways to “incorporate technology” and to be able to provide CI without having to go in there and work the classroom. It’s work to ask stories. It’s much easier to download a video and go over the same story a couple of times. But I haven’t seen the same outcomes from video lessons that are narrated as from asking stories. Some things aren’t broken, and I firmly believe that the story-creation through asking questions that TPRS is centered on is one of those things.
Oooh…ouch, Terry! “People are always looking for ways […] to be able to provide CI without having to go in there and work the classroom. It’s work to ask stories. ” This is SO true, for myself anyway! There are so many easier ways to provide CI than asking stories. I have not noticed a different trend in outcomes from video-based (or other lessons in which students are “told” the story versus story-based lessons (in which students co-create the story), although certainly I have seen different outcomes from individual lessons: both story flops and video flops. I have not analyzed this specifically, though, so perhaps if I were to set out to research it I would find what you observe. Okay, time for someone to gather some data! My takeaway question from the last paragraph of this post, though, is “am I choosing to use a video based lesson to give myself a break or because I really believe that [video x] will help students to acquire the structures BETTER than story asking?” Also, I would love to know how you keep students from getting bored with story asking. It seems that after [x] number of stories, my students grow tired of the process. What questions would you suggest that I consider to know whether they are really just “done” with the process, of if it’s a teacher (a me) problem?
And as for the first part of this post, yes, yes, and yes! “If we are constantly spiraling vocabulary, the vast majority of those words should be fresh at the conclusion of a semester. If they are not, it’s time to check the number of repetitions during input” I no longer have to take time away from new learning in order to review for benchmark exams. What a blessing!
I suspect you are not simply narrating a story to a video, but using the video as a visual and allowing the students to make a lot of decisions about what’s “really” going on — which is personalized or customized, not just narration. I think a lot of times, maybe that distinction isn’t made as strongly as I might like to see it. To me, the basic-est skill of TPRS is asking questions…lots of them…comprehensibly…and keeping them connected to the ‘thread’ of what’s going on, whether it’s a free-form story, a story made up based on picture or video prompt, or PQA.
I constantly tell my students, “If you are bored with the story, it’s your fault. Really. You are the ones with good and interesting ideas. I’m over 50. What do you expect out of me?” 😉
You don’t REALLY look over 50.:-)