I was watching a video reflection by another teacher recently, and the teacher remarked that they had recently made changes in their instruction to go even slower than they had been going. The payoff had been that all his students were showing incredible gains, just from the single change of going so much slower.
Going slower required the teacher to provide even more repetition of the language and content to be learned, and to check in with each individual student and have them describe what was happening in the Target Language. The contention of the teacher was that before, by just developing strong responses to whole-class questions, he had been going too fast, and leaving students behind. That even though he had been implementing a Comprehension-Based Communicative Approach, he had been achieving the same level of student frustration and skill stratification within his classes as he had seen with a traditional approach. I shuddered.
For some reason, I flashed to a German class I had taught to other teachers as part of a conference. The class was fun, upbeat, and developed its own in-jokes (in German!) pretty quickly. They were all language teachers, so they just seemed to understand how things “should” work.
And there was one participant who wasn’t quite on the same ride as the rest of the class. She indicated that she didn’t understand as much of the language as she would like, and that some things were going over her head. She was more reserved than her classmates, and didn’t seem quite convinced that what we were doing was the right way for language teaching and acquisition.
I found myself overlooking her, even somewhat consciously, and just enjoying the laughter and creativity of her classmates. The class moved right along, and we generated tons of content from all the various activities I know how to do that made some great memories for us all. I convinced myself that the choral responses of her classmates would help surround her with the information she needed to be successful, that it would all click into place, eventually. She was trying – surely she would get it!
I look back now and feel sad that in a way, I gave up on her feeling successful in my German class. I had tried to repeat that “just getting the gist” was okay and totally where we all should be, but how much can one enjoy always just grasping at getting the gist? Especially while everyone else seems to “get it”? I can’t imagine how defeating, maybe embarrassing that felt. I wouldn’t be surprised if she didn’t turn around and start a Comprehension-Based Communicative Approach in her own classes, if she wasn’t already. I hadn’t really sold it to her. Success breeds confidence, and I had, in some part, withheld success from someone who was really trying.
I flashed forward, then, to my own classes now. I was embarrassed to realize that I could quickly name students in each class that I give a similar “overlook” treatment. Their classes are moving along, we are “covering content,” some of their peers are outputting in alignment with my goals for them. But what about their goals? What about truly everyone being along for the ride so there are not clear “strugglers” in each class, ones that come to mind quickly?
The video I watched was a reminder to go slow, slower, even slower. I want to:
- check comprehension even more to ensure that everyone is along for the ride.
- look into the faces of all my students as we engage in whole-class discussion.
- ask more processing questions to make the language deeply part of each student, so they can enjoy it the same way that I do, that their peers do.
“Just holding on by the skin of their teeth” for some of my students just doesn’t work for me, for the inclusive vision I have built for my entire German program. I am on a weeklong midwinter break as I write this, and will return with a plan to go slow, painfully slow, stick with students, try my hardest to make sure that every student is experiencing success. I know that it will be hard, but that these adjustments will end up making all my students feel stronger, more confident, more like the German speakers they want to be.
Another set of images flashed into my mind:
For five summers in my twenties, I was the program director of an outdoors summer camp. Every year, our staff included new counselors who, like me, had once been young campers at the same camp.
Reliably, these young staff members were thrilled at the speed at which they could hike with other adults, and would blaze ahead on the trail at grown-up speed. But that also meant that they were leaving slower hikers behind, hikers who were inexperienced rock hoppers or who just needed an extra bit of time to get to the destination. When they would eventually catch up, the fastest hikers were finished resting and would power on, leaving the slower hikers out of breath and scrambling to follow.
Eventually, frustrated by how these trailblazers were burning up the stamina of their peers, and that they were missing out on opportunities to slow down and connect with their peers on a personal level, I decided to be the voice in their head that would encourage them to keep track of their slower peers. At intervals, I would shout up the trail: “look back!” Those in the front would turn to check that they could still see the furthest hiker back, and would adjust their pace to keep the group together.
When we would stop to drink water or catch our breath, I reminded everyone, fast and slow, to rest. The idea was not for everyone to just stop breathing hard and double up protection against blisters, but to really be ready to conquer the next stretch of trail with confidence, connection, and enjoyment.
We saw so much more, hiking together. The mood was so much brighter, even if it took us longer to get to our destination. And the young staff members were so much better prepared for the real-world task of being able to accept whatever skills and speed their young campers brought to camp during the actual weeklong camping session.
Maybe this is a good metaphor for what we must seek to do with our learners. Look back, and rest. If not, we run the risk of turning something as beautiful as the slow hike of language acquisition into a blur of exhaustion, isolation, and pain.
Thank you for this inspiring reflection to go slow!