With this post, we come to the end of the sixth High-Leverage Teaching Practice but not to the end of the book Enacting the Work of Language Instruction; High-Leverage Teaching Practices by Eileen W. Glisan and Richard Donato, available from ACTFL.
As they do with all of the teaching practices they present, the authors close off the chapter by deconstructing the practice, providing tasks to rehearse the practice, assessing the practice, and putting the practice into a larger context, as well as providing suggestions for further reading.
Last week I included a “flow chart” (in quotes because it wasn’t really a chart). This week I have it in chart form. Let me know if you have difficulty reading it. The font I can work with; the layout comes from Glisan and Donato (2017, p. 149).
As you can see, the teacher has a number of decisions to make in a very short period of time: Contextual Factors (the first set of questions), Learner Factors, Kind of CF.
At first, this can seem daunting, but in general conversation, we make these sorts of decisions spontaneously all the time. Do we stop someone to clarify, or do we smile and nod? If we seek to clarify, do we repeat, recast, provide language needed (even for native speakers), etc.?
It looks to me like this High-Leverage Teaching Practice is simply the art of good conversation. Somehow, I think we are trying to “didacticize” something that is intuitive, much as the “Young Einstein” craze attempted to turn the intuitive parental interaction with children into an exercise designed to “make kids smarter”. (cf. Stephen Camarata, The Intuitive Parent)
However, Glisan and Donato note the following:
“The key to carrying out this practice is the decision-making that must take place in a moment-to-moment fashion as the lesson unfolds int he classroom.” (2017, p. 150)
The practice cannot be planned in advance, but the teacher can improve his or her skills in “(1) recognizing the conditions under which CF would best contribute to language learning and performance, and (2) selecting the specific CF strategy that would be most appropriate given contextual and learner factors.” (ibid.)
The specific steps that the teacher must take are as follows – and remember, these happen in the middle of dialogue:
- The teacher recognizes an incorrect utterance
- The teacher considers contextual factors and decides whether or not to consider correction; if proceeding,
- The teacher considers factors related to the learner and decides whether or not to consider correction; if proceeding,
- The teacher decides whether to ask the learner to attempt to repair the utterance and respond to the CF. If yes, the teacher uses a prompt; if no, the teacher uses Reformulation.
It is under the rubric of “Prompts” that Glisan and Donato show their commitment to teaching grammar and linguistics in the foreign language classroom. Here, they suggest three possible responses: Clarification Request, Elicitation, and Metalinguistic Clue.
The Clarification Request is commonplace any time there is a lack of understanding in a conversation. It can range from a simple “huh?” to a more elaborate request. Not much new here.
The Elicitation is something that fits into the classroom context. If the teacher is certain that the student knows the correct form, then the teacher can seek to elicit that form by providing a signal. Glisan and Donato give the following example:
S: If I had more time, I will travel around the world.
T: If I had more time, I ….?
By stopping sentence at the point of error, the teacher elicits a correct response from the student. Since this is a conscious act, it is part of the monitor function. As a spontaneous, fleeting prompt, this does not materially take away from time providing comprehensible input and can be used effectively.
Metalinguistic Cues are different, though.
Specifically, the Glisan and Donato provide the following sample metalinguistic cues: Do you mean to use present tense? Do you remember how we represent hypotheses in Spanish? In which part of the sentence is the imperfect subjunctive use?” (2017, p. 151)
In this case, we see that Glisan and Donato advocate using formal grammar terminology, which means that the teacher had to have taught it. This means taking class time to teach grammar and linguistics rather than providing the raw data for language acquisition, i.e. comprehensible input. Questions that the authors fail to answer are how much of the course time is spent doing this? Is teaching this terminology the best use of class time if the goal is acquisition of the language?
As far as Reformulations are concerned, Glisan and Donato provide examples of recasts – which can be used as CF or simply as conversational recasts -, of giving students language that they do not yet possess, i.e. supplying the missing word(s) (again, a commonplace strategy used by and for native speakers regularly), and foreshadowing.
In the area of Reformulations, I believe that Glisan and Donato align the practice much more with the tenets of providing Comprehensible Input than they do when discussing Prompts. I find it noteworthy that recasts and word supply are common conversational strategies when negotiating meaning, anyway. Foreshadowing fits very well with the dictum of sheltering vocabulary but not grammar. The authors write, “For example, in a beginning-level class that has been speaking only in the present tense, you could begin to use some past-tense verbs in recasts when this time frame would be the more appropriate to use but learners have not studied it yet.” (2017, p. 151)
Although I applaud the encouragement to use the more appropriate tense in the conversation, I also observe some assumptions in the way that the authors have stated their example. They assume that a beginning-level class will speak only in the present tense until the past tense has been “studied”. This presupposes a grammar syllabus.
As Bill VanPatten puts it in his article for Language magazine, “What tends to happen is that teachers generally stick to the historically motivated scope and sequence of vocabulary and grammar for language courses and look for novel ways to teach those things. That is, teachers look for input and output activities for teaching ser versus estar in Spanish, or the choice of avoir and etre with the passé composé in French or the case system in Russian. This it not at all what is implied in the roles of input and output in language acquisition.” (“Creating Comprehensible Input and Output“, p. 26) It seems, however, that that is precisely what Glisan and Donato are doing here.
It disappoints me.
Anyone interested in Rehearsing the Practice and Assessing the Practice is encouraged to read that section of the chapter. I believe that in the right setting, practicing and assessing one’s performance is quite beneficial. Finding the right setting and colleagues can be difficult, however. That is why I recommend attending conferences, workshops, or sessions presented by teachers who focus on comprehension-based strategies rather than following a grammar-based syllabus.
Putting the Practice Into a Larger Context: Instructional Goals and Challenges provides us with some good reminders about how anything we do should fit together with other high-leverage practices, as well as the approach we use.
After discussing the practice from a sociocultural perspective, the authors address “larger teaching challenges”, such as assessment.
Contrary to what happens in many schools and classrooms, assessment and instruction should be integrated “in a seamless fashion”, modeling and feedback are critical in a learning culture, and the teacher should be a joint participant in the learning process “instead of an external assessor of learner performance”. (Glisan and Donato, 2017, p. 153)
Glisan and Donato also note that “offering oral CF prompts teachers to work within their learners ZPD …”
ZPD is Zone of Proximal Development, a concept created by Lev Vygotsky. Essentially, this is the area between what a learner can do independently, i.e. without help, and what a learner simply cannot do. In other words, in the ZPD, the learner can complete the task with the assistance of someone who already possesses the necessary skills and knowledge. As teachers work within students’ ZPDs, they are able to “bring the students along” and help learners improve their performance.
In certain respects, this reminds me of Stephen Krashen’s l+1, language that the learner cannot yet produce but can understand. It lies between what the learner can do alone and what the learner cannot do at all.
If Corrective Feedback can indeed bring students along in their ZPD, then this is a good thing. The current chapter, however, does not convince me that all CF does this. Not all Corrective Feedback is created equal. Thus, the teacher must be judicious about not only when or if to offer Corrective Feedback, but also what kind(s) of Corrective Feedback to provide.
Glisan and Donato maintain that CF helps create the classroom dialogic community. Once again, I find that their expression of support is a bit too broad and perhaps overly optimistic. Yes, the right kind of CF can help establish the dialogic community, but we also know that this can be used in ways that stifle dialogue and community.
“Finally, this HLTP also prompts teachers to engage in constant self-reflection …” Self-reflection is a good thing, and I support Glisan and Donato’s statement here.
Once again, we see that the High-Leverage Teaching Practice has both promise and peril.
We’ll take a look at the final chapter and an overview of the book next time.
I hope that everyone had a happy and blessed Easter.