Connectionism, but in the last place I thought I'd have it done. The 4th grade KET I co-teach with is rather strict on the kids, and perhaps methodologies too. Up to this week it was an unfair evaluation. One of the new CI's I'd devised, worked, in one of the classes I least expected it too. Have the students, or in this case, student say the target language. She, the student did lead off, and the rest of the class followed, repeating her iterations of the TL. I bounced this around the room, asking willing students in turn to say the TL, which was said by the rest of the class.
Aside from some prompting of the TL on my part, not a word was said by me. KET happy, Me, very happy. Class, well, how does a 4th grader feel? I tried the same "you say it, they'll repeat it" CI in the next class. No dice. Maybe it was how I approached it, but none of them wanted any of it. A mixed response with a 50% success rate. Not bad.
Good that Ss voices are used, but you do understand that what they are saying constructs no meaning?
ReplyDeleteI do have trouble hearing in a noisy classroom, but I was fairly sure that I was monitoring the output at the time.
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