So James we had that discussion a few weeks ago about reading authentic texts and some here (you and Sabrina and a few others) expressed an interest in knowing how my level 3’s were going to do with Le Petit Prince after only two years and a few months of TPRS/CI.
You had said that in your own classes there is initial interest for a few days and then it dropped. What was the text you were reading in that situation? Was it a level 3 Latin class? I can’t remember.
So in our situation we’ve had about three hours of total class time on this book since we talked about this last time and we are on page 2. So that means we read the dedication to Saint Exupéry’s friend Léon Werth and about five paragraphs in Chapter 1 up to where adults advised the narrator at the age of six to give up his career as an artist and to interest himself rather in history, calculus and grammar.
The big questions for me in this were:
1. Could I move the discussion in French up the taxonomy to explore how they felt about that because, just like the narrator when he was young, they (these superstar college bound Latino kids) were in the same situation as the narrator in many ways. (The answer is no – they don’t have the French to understand any discussion up the taxonomy, even if they were to answer only with yes/no questions.)
2. Could I stay out of English?
3. Could we maintain interest in the text without having done any backward planning, trusting the Net cast via stories over the past two years to have taught them enough French to identify in reading and speech enough verbs and forms of verbs to make this reading of an authentic French text possible?
The overall answer is a mixed bag. But it is certainly working. Basically, I take the text sentence by sentence. I translate each sentence really slowly, making sure that they get all aspects of each sentence in terms of meaning. I use pop up grammar on the verbs on just about every verb. I have them now identifying verbs in the following way, in four second bursts of English:
1. What does “ait” mean on the end of that verb? That’s right, “was…”.
2. What does that verb that has two parts mean? That’s right, that was an event, not a situation.
3. What does that r mean in front of the “ait”? Correct, it means “would”.
I don’t name the tense, just what it means. I mightily resist going into a long two week lecture with worksheets on the difference between the imperfect and the passé composé, which they don’t care about and would have trouble with anyway because their first language is not English. Anyway, if I allowed my ego that soapbox I would never get off of it, like I did for 24 years with four percenters who in four years of AP French never came close to what these kids can do now.
So we hammer the verbs with pop up grammar and they told me yesterday that they are starting to see patterns and it’s working. My thinking on reading authentic texts is that if they can start to see meaning patterns in verb spellings of the seven verb forms* we need to read this book, they can read authentic texts.
*present, passé composé, imperfect, near future, future, passé simple, conditional (compound tenses and the subjunctve I leave alone, at least for now in this text). I did tell them to notice if they see a really weird looking verb after “One must” (most common use of subjunctive in French) but not to worry about it. The subjunctive needs major unconscious reps so I just again resist the desire to go off on a three week demo of how I know every single use of the subjunctive, which as a four percenter captivates me but not them. (I love me several good helpings of the subjunctive every day, for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Sometimes I splurge on a nice roasted pluperfect subjunctive – heaven!)
Anyway, the good part is that when I use cRD in this work it works and they really respond strongly (much more than I thought a class with a little over two years of French would or could). Key sentence here: I translate each sentence painstakingly for a minute, then jump into reps on it for as long as I need to see that they are comfortable with the sentence, sometimes up to five minutes. With sporadic previous reps over their two years in the Net (so it is potluck whether they know the verb or not) and with no formal backwards planning (I don’t know how any of us could ever backwards plan a novel even though we say we can – there are just too many words!), I then totally dive into circling the just translated sentence. I go nuts with the circling.**
**Since there are 9,714 sentences in The Little Prince, I have calculated that it would take us, on our current schedule, until February of 2023 to finish the book, so that ain’t gonna happen (just kidding – I have no idea how many sentences there are in that book. Gotcha.) But the point is clear. We are not reading the book to finish it. There is a real feeling of just diving in and swimming around in each chapter in the above way with no need to push forward. I would think having no goal but the sentence we are on – that’s the Zen part – would be quite important if we are to use CI successfully to read an authentic text.
Other notes:
1. I think that this book is beyond compelling. It is gripping to these kids. It is just so well written. So the choice of works is going to be a big factor in this discussion. After class yesterday a few kids pestered me in English for facts about Antoine’s life, which I avoid (often unsuccessfully as I said above) during class. I tell them I think it is such a pure book because he probably got a lot of ideas from it while flying his plane; since he was closer to Heaven he got better ideas and purer language. But that is the problem in a way because in class I want to tell them all about his life, since if there was ever a situation of art imitating life this book is it, and so the fail on this so far is my five minute lectures in English about how badass this guy was. It’s a problem when you have a 50 minute class. I need to cool my jets on the English side bars.
2. I have hope that the level of interest will continue. One thing is certain – these kids have been doing stories for two years and that is in my mind the only reason they can do this. Otherwise, stuck in the analytical dungeons of the old way, they wouldn’t be able to discuss it in the TL at all. They might be able to recognize a nice pluperfect fowl sitting there, but they couldn’t rally eat it. So that would be a waste.
3. The cRD approach, or some form of it, is working here, specifically because we take it sentence by sentence with one minute of translation and up to five minutes of circling on that one sentence.
4. No quizzes, no homework, no tests, nothing but formative assessment of each kid during class. I am seeing some quiet kids really stepping up here. It’s because the text is compelling. They are proud to be doing this, all but about two of them. So there is no need for assessment of any kind.
5. I need to add that we only do the book for 30 minutes. When they come in, they read a Blaine book (Le Voyage Perdu) for ten minutes with the classical music playing. It really works. We need to talk about the clip I use James – got it from Annick. I need to share it here. Remind me. It really sets a SSR tone (I don’t use FVR – too random and I don’t have them read in the Petit Prince in those first ten minutes of class – too hard). And then for the next ten minutes we enjoy an appetizer of a French painting on the Elmo. Just ten minutes. I focus only on one or two verbs in this L & D activity, get lots of reps on those targets, and then dump it and head into the entrée for the day, the book. Those twenty minutes of SSR and L & D are needed. We could never sustain the intensity of cRD on the Petit Prince for longer than 30 minutes.
6. I hope this keeps going well. So far the sails are still up and catching some fine wind. The tables on the deck are set with wondrous things for the crew. I’ll report back in a month or so. We might be on Chapter 2 by then. I don’t know exactly why it is working, but the novel is compelling, we have had stories and reading simple novels for two years, and the kids are upper level kids without the chaos of level 1 and 2 classes to prevent them from putting the gas pedal down onto the floor, and that cRD pattern of reading – are all factors in our success up to this point.
7. Of course, before going to the next sentence in the text, I get about five minutes of excellent sneaky reps by summarizing the plot from the first sentence of Chapter 1.