Differentiation in the TPRS/CI classroom

Definitions: 

Differentiation:  "Differentiation means tailoring instruction to meet individual needs. Whether teachers differentiate content, process, products, or the learning environment, the use of ongoing assessment and flexible grouping makes this a successful approach to instruction."

http://www.readingrockets.org/article/what-differentiated-instruction

I chose this definition, not because I love Reading Rockets, but because I have a lot of respect for the author of this article- Carol Ann Tomlinson- who has written a great deal about differentiation in the classroom. 

Barometer student (aka Pacesetter): the student in your classroom who is often the slowest processor and needs the most supports (visual, gestural, etc.) to fully comprehend everything.  They also need more think time and comprehension checks.  Note: TPRS/CI teachers use this term differently than behavior specialists.  

Every class, regardless of level, has a wide range of students.  That includes (but is not limited to): processing speed, previous exposure to L2, emotional status, gender, executive functioning, motor skills, basic needs being met (or not), attitude about learning, attitude about self, motivation, literacy skills, critical thinking skills, etc.  

photo taken from https://calicospanish.com

In one class, that may look like: native speaker, student who came from immersion school, student whose grandparent only speaks L2 (and lives with them), an extremely good test taker, student with strong oral skills and low reading ability, one with strong reading ability but slow processing speed, one with sensory integration issues, and a student diagnosed as being on the autism spectrum.  And that is only 6 of them.  In my already tracked "honors" class.  

My job is to teach all of them, right?  TPRS/CI is about creating equity in the foreign language classroom and helping each kid succeed.  Right?  (At least it is for me.)  

So, here are some strategies that I use to differentiate for all students.  However, most of these strategies are for faster processors and native speakers because your TPRS/CI skills are supporting your barometer students already.  

My goal is that my barometer student(s) comprehend everything and my other students stay engaged and are pushed. 

 I want to add that this is HARD.  It takes constant practice (on top of juggling all those other TPRS skills!).  This is work that I have been engaging in for years, with a lot of reading, workshops, thinking, trying, failing, trying again.  I am not an expert, but I have a few tricks up my sleeve.    

(I am going to assume that basic TPRS skills are being developed or are in place, because those are the skills that you need to reach your barometer student(s).  These skills include pause and point, going slow, staying in-bounds, translating low-frequency or new vocabulary, comprehension checks.)

Class Jobs that require output for fast processors

(I would like to credit the people whose ideas these are adapted from (or taken from) but I honestly don't remember the specifics.  Probably Bryce Hedstrom, Alina Filipescu, and Ben Slavic, but also probably others.) 

Faster processors during stories can be challenging. Give them a job that will challenge them and help you. 

Story Writer: This student writes the narrative in L2 as best they can.  Great for heritage learners as you can later drill down on the kind of input that they need based on what they write.  You can also use their narrative for when you sit down and write out the story- invaluable for when you have multiple classes all doing different stories!   You could also have a student do this in L1.

Quiz writer: This student writes 5-10 true/false questions in L2 (or L1) based on the story.  You can use this quiz later, at the end of class, to check for overall story comprehension.  

Hint:I print out the directions for each job and stick them at the front of two notebooks, used only for either story writing or quiz writing.  Here are the directions for quiz writer, and here are directions for story writer.  

Daily Records Keeper: This student keeps track of paperwork when a student is absent.  They also note the activities, homework if assigned, any low-frequency vocabulary, etc. that comes up.  I could not function without this job.  Requires no output in L2.  For more about this job, read this. 

Class jobs that require staying focused on the input

Question word sign holder:  They hold up the question word signs (one per kid) when you say them.  Alina Filipescu calls this her 3-D classroom as it moves the pausing and pointing that you do from a wall to the center of the student.  I usually only assign who and what.  This is also a great job for kids who benefit from having an active job that helps them stay focused.

Rejoinder sign holder: This is a great job for a fast processor because they demonstrate their understanding of the story based on when they hold up the sign.  However, I don't only give this job to fast processors.  It just depends on the kid.

What about jobs for the slower processors? Don't they get jobs too?

Yes.  Of course.  But this is a post about differentiating for fast processors and native speakers. 

Teacher Strategies for Differentiation

One place where Bloom's might be valuable!

Questioning: All students should be able to answer yes/no, either/or, and "what does ___ mean?/what did I just say?" questions.  Right?  Good.  But "who/what/where/when" questions are a little bit harder, even with question signs and supports.  You probably should be asking all kids those question word questions too, but they are more challenging. 

"How" and "Why" questions are the hardest, and a great way to ask more challenging questions of your faster processors and/or native speakers.  Yep, they do require output, but you know your kids.  It might even be junky (incorrect) output, but you can rephrase it, and it helps hold them accountable.

UPDATE: Here is Bryce Hedstrom's very in-depth take on differentiation with questioning.  I think he deserves the credit for my basic ideas!  

Partners and Groups:

This is tough.  In a TPRS/CI classroom, I rarely do partner and/or group work, unless the activity is completely input based.  And it is something that I am sure they can do on their own.  And it is completely scaffolded.  And...you get the idea.

However, here are some strategies that I have used successfully. 

1) Homogenous groupings with embedded readings.  Groups or pairs of faster processors start with harder versions of the embedded readings, and progress further.  Groups of slower processors start with the easiest versions of embedded readings, and progress at their own pace.  

2) Heterogenous groupings for input based group games.  (Whole class activities like Word Chunk, scrambled eggs, running dictation, Jeopardy, Unfair Game, etc. are different in that the teacher is still controlling the input.)   I don't love games in the classroom.  They take forever to make and require a lot of work to make them truly input based (or secret input based), and a lot of teacher management to justify their use in class. (In my opinion.) 

 However, if you have a good input based game, faster processors and/or fluent readers can help provide the input by reading out loud.  That is not to say that the others don't read.  I just don't use homogenous groupings when I want things (sentences, not paragraphs!)  to be read out loud.  

What do I mean by input based group games?  Here are examples:  

Chain Reaction

First, Second (I haven't played it but plan on it)

Go Fish with TEXT on the scenes (so students read the text and get the input!)

Memory- I made this one for the last chapter of Brandon Brown Quiere un Perro.  In each "deck", there is a question, an answer, and a visual of that answer.  (See images)

Using Profiency/Standards based grading- I can't even start to discuss why this is a good practice for differentiation. It is too big of a topic and I am not an expert. And this blog post is getting really long.

There are a lot of resources available on this topic; assessing knowledge and competency is, for me, the core of differentiation.  Carol Ann Tomlinson, Robert Marzano, and TPRS teachers/trainers such as Lance Piantaggini (MagisterP) and Scott Benedict (TeachforJune) have a lot of information.  Books such as Grade Smarter, not Harder, Fair is not Equal are good resources as well. Here is a good great  intro written by Scott Benedict over at TeachforJune.


There are many more differentiation strategies. These are just a few that I turn to daily to try to meet every student's needs.  I didn't even go into alternate assignments or novel-based independent studies.  For more on that, check out Martina's blog post on multi-level classes.

Updated: I just stumbled across this incredible post by Kristy Placido.  Read it!  You can thank me later!  

 Updated again:  I am presenting on Differentiation in the CI classroom at Comprehensible Online 2020.
Use code ELICIA for a $25 discount!

https://comprehensible.online/

Guatemala: La Escuela de la Montaña

Disclaimer: this post is not about TPRS.  It may come up as it usually does, but if you are reading because you want to know about TPRS, this may not be the most relevant.

This post is about a small language school in rural Guatemala, what life is like there, my experiences there as a student and student coordinator, and why this place is so important in my life.

La Escuela de la Montaña is a small language school that is a project of a larger school, PLQE (Proyecto Lingüístico Quetzalteco), in Quetzaltenango (Xela), located in the Western Highlands of Guatemala.  The school is located about two hours away from Xela, and about 10 kilometers from a small town called Columba.

There are so many things to say about this place that it is difficult to know where to start.

School and Community
The language school is an integral part of the community.  Both communities are groups of former coffee finca (plantation) workers who organized (and suffered) after violations of human and worker's rights.  With support from PLQE and the Catholic church, both communities were able to leave the finca and start over again on their own land.

La Escuela provides work for many women in the two main communities (Fátima and Nuevo San José), where there are few opportunities for anyone in the family to earn a living.  The majority of the men in the area are day laborers, and have to travel 2-3 hours a day (and pay for transport) in the hope of getting a day's wages.  The work for the women is primarily cleaning the school in rotation and cooking for students.  (More about that later.)

The school has created a well-used community library staffed by a teacher for all ages to read and learn.  Most households do not have books, so this is an invaluable resource for the kids and adults.

There is also an arts program that is free for anyone during the school year, adults included, that provides some music and visual art teachers on Saturdays.

http://escuelamontana.org/our-projects/becas/103.html

Scholarships
In addition, there is a very strong scholarship program that serves all the surrounding communities.  In Guatemala, public education is free until the end of 6th grade.  After that, families need to pay tuition, supplies, uniforms, and transportation costs.  There are four more years of education available for those who can pay.  The nearest schools that provide these levels (called Básico and Diversificado) are 1-2 hours away by pickup truck, bus, or microbus.  As such, an education is beyond the reach of many people in the campos.

 La Escuela administrates a scholarship program that  is truly amazing.  Scholarship recipients participate in community service, classes on budgeting, health and adolescence, politics, government, and more.  They have to keep their grades up and attend school regularly, and participate actively in their communities.

I had the great fortune to attend one of the classes on health and puberty and was blown away by the number of kids who were receiving these funds.  It is truly a program that can change the world.

Life for students attending La Escuela
Here is a review I wrote for goverseas.com

Cement block house in Fátima

Let me get a bit of terminology out of the way before I explain a little bit about living in these communities.  Think of a city block.  That is about the size of Fátima.  Nuevo San José is about three blocks in total.  There are a couple of little stores (tiendas), a church, a local primary school, a health house (now mostly defunct due to lack of funding), and a bakery.  Down the road is a larger community with a few more services.  Most houses have some form of electricity, but some don't.  Many have dirt floors and most women still cook off of wood burning stoves.  Many men in the community have traveled north to the USA and send money home, so some homes have more resources than others.  Sinks (pilas) are outside.  Many showers are cold, hooked up to the sinks, and are outside.

It is important to me that readers do not think "How awful" or something like that.  It is easy to be shocked by the poverty and developing country living conditions.  (Also, if you think that only happens in developing countries, I suggest heading to inner-city Baltimore or the Navajo Reservation.) This is just the reality.

Students at La Escuela do not live with families.  They live in relative comfort in a former coffee finca house, in dorm rooms, with relatively hot showers, potable water, indoor plumbing, a kitchen, and usually, electricity.  Also, fresh organic french-press coffee.

Maíz

For meals, you walk down to Nuevo San José or Fátima. The cobbled road is usually slick with rain, moss, and cow dung (a local herd gets walked up and down the road daily).  Students eat three meals a day with a different family each week.  Meals are usually simple- beans, pasta, eggs, some vegetables (which are only sold from a cart on Thursdays, or in Columba), and mountains of home made corn tortillas.  Many families grow their own corn and beans, and late July/August is when they start harvesting.

Reading to kids

Students are encouraged to bring books from the school's library to read to the kids in the family, or art kits that can be checked out.

Classes and Activities

A ranchito

Students take classes either in the mornings or in the afternoons, for four hours a day.  Classes are taught one-on-one by an incredibly talented group of professional language teachers. You meet with your teacher in a little ranchito (a little covered area with a table and whiteboard) outside.  The teachers are passionate, committed, and very good at their work.

Each week, there are a handful of speakers who come to the school to educate students about the political realities of Guatemala.  In the two weeks I was there this time, I got to translate the story of one community's fight for unpaid back wages, that included threats, starvation, and more.  Another community leader came to tell the story of how his community decided, after a lot of injustice and no support from the legal system, to occupy a finca, and how they are working now to transform it into an organic coffee and banana cooperative with community programs to empower women and youth.  In the past, I have translated the story of a torture survivor (during the internal armed conflict), an ex-guerrilla fighter, and others.

There are also community members from Nuevo San José and Fátima that come to discuss their own lives and specialties.  This year, I worked to translate the story of the local midwife, a current-events discussion that focused on corruption in the health system, and a lecture from a local herbal expert who received medical training to help his community use plants and local resources to maintain their health.

In addition, there are soccer games in nearby Columba, hikes to see (or not, depending on the weather) the local active volcano, weekly cooking classes, and more.

Coordinadora
I was invited to work as the fill in coordinator during the time I was there as the full-time coordinator had to return to the States for a couple of weeks.  My role was to translate, support the students as needed, and bridge the gap between the incredible school staff and faculty and the students, some of whom did not speak any Spanish (yet).

It was a lot of work but very fulfilling and kept me busy.  I also attended class each day with the intention of figuring out how to do a TPRS training in Spanish.  (There! I knew I would work TPRS in somehow!)

3 Hypotheses (with spelling errors) about language acquisition

 I was incredibly gratified to learn that the teachers at the school were starving for training, and we had an amazing time working together to help me explain clearly what TPRS is all about for them.  I got to do a demo class with the Spanish students, then a brief demo and explanation with the teachers.  I plan on returning to do a more complete training next summer.

This school is a very special place.  People who end up there tend to be people who are interested in social justice, worker's rights, and human rights.  They tend to be ok with not having internet for a few weeks, and they are usually motivated, compassionate, and interesting.  So that is great too- I get to hang out with interesting people.

Anny, a teacher, and her student, an organizer for worker's rights in Los Angeles,
 doing a brain break with me during class time

Living in Guatemala is not easy.  Transportation is uncomfortable and unreliable.  (Think of a school bus that seats 6-8 adults across, or the back of a pick up truck that is standing room only.)  You can't drink the water and you have to be careful about food.  During the rainy season, nothing dries, and the bugs are out to get you.  And yet, I will continue to back again and again, because it is important, and because I love it there.  

One night, I brought paper and colored pencils to dinner and colored with the kids.
This guy and I clearly have a lot in common!  This is why I come here.

Please get in touch if you would like more information about the school.  I would be happy to answer specific questions or support you if you are interested in going.