We are so lucky to live in an age where if we want to learn something new – about whatever topic! – we can just look up the topic online and find all sorts of help, tutorials, guides, etc. As interest in Teaching with CI grows, more and more high quality training materials are appearing online every day, from webinars, to blogs, to whole books that people are writing to support new to TCI teachers in finding their way through the thicket of innovations available to us now.
What’s more, many teachers are catching onto the fact that it is often easiest to learn teaching skills by watching them happen in real teaching contexts. Teachers have taken to YouTube and Vimeo to post videos of themselves teaching their real students, so other teachers can get a sense of how to bring all the skills of teaching with CI together with the ever-expanding repertoire of activities/contexts for delivering CI. Sarah Breckley recently made a plea to teachers to film their classes as much as possible, and post the videos on YouTube. If enough of us do this, then we all get to learn from each others’ expertise, and seeing the same activity or skill used in different ways may help us build our own individual conception of how to implement what we learn in a way that works for us. (I recently bought this tripod for the purpose of recording my classes! #NotAnAd)
(Now, maybe you can’t post your own videos because of student privacy concerns – always make sure you have a release before you post anything! BUT I think the process of filming yourself and then watching the film back can be INCREDIBLE for pushing yourself into exponential growth. At first, hearing your own voice is awful, but it gets easier with time. And being able to see what you’re doing well can be a great motivator to keep improving!)
Now, I myself have spent many hours getting some “YouTube PD,” watching other master teachers do their thing with real students. But my recent reading of Ten Mindframes for Visible Learning by John Hattie and Klaus Zierer has given me a lot to think about when it comes to what I’m getting out of all that viewing. It can be easy to fall down a rabbit hole of watching video after video of a teacher that you’re obsessed with…I mean…enjoy watching. I am guilty of sometimes thinking, “Oh goodness, why am I even trying? This person is a super-teacher and I would never be able to get to that level of organization, participation, etc etc etc.!”
But after my reading of 10 Mindframes for Visible Learning, I am going to approach any video I watch with the mindset that Hattie and Zierer pose as the first (and maybe most important) mindframe: I am an evaluator of my impact on student learning. This mindframe has been helping me, well, frame my thinking for what I’ll be doing this year. I have sometimes been guilty of assessing a lesson’s “success” based on whether we get through all the activities I have planned, whether or not students “behaved themselves,” and whether or not I thought the activities were cool. But now, I want to look for evidence that my students comprehended everything that happened, that they felt comfortable interacting with whatever new vocabulary came up that day, and that they felt increasingly more comfortable contributing to class.
Video Watching Mindframe
I want to carry this mindframe into my viewings of YouTube videos of other teachers teaching. I don’t want to get blinded by other teachers’ brilliance – I want to learn from it! Here are some questions I want to keep in mind to guide my viewing and personal professional development:
- What is the impact of what I see while watching this video? How do I know that this instruction is having an impact?
- Is there a “din” of Target Language in my head by the end of the video? (The “din” is an idea that comes from Krashen – hearing the L2 bounce around in your head after the class is over, which Krashen posits indicates the activation of your brain’s Language Acquisition Device. If you’re experiencing that, it may mean that the teacher used a ton of Target Language and – even better – provided a lot of Comprehensible Input to the class! Sweet – it’s acquisition time! Now, how did they do that? Watch the video with that in mind!)
- Do you feel like you can answer the teacher’s whole-class or individual questions when they are asked? (If this is in an L2 you don’t speak yet, this means the teacher made themselves comprehensible – again, how?)
- How do students respond to teacher questions or classroom events? (This can mean “with what language resources?” as well as “with what affect?” Both of these are worth looking into!)
It is easy to be dazzled by other teachers, but always keep in mind that we’re usually seeing teachers on their best days. (Nobody is going to post a lesson that ABSOLUTELY bombed, unless it’s a “cautionary tale” sort of situation.) But make use of these questions as you watch teacher videos on YouTube, and it might accelerate your learning of new skills as you dive into the world of Teaching with CI. What did the teacher do, and what was the impact?
So, Ben, who are your favorite teachers to watch teach online?
Thanks for asking, myself! Here are some faves that have helped me learn and grow a lot in my journey:
- Tina Hargaden was the first teacher I watched using non-targeted CI, and my mind was blown wide open. Here she was, on the first day of a class, speaking so close to 100% TL! Her channel has TONS of video, as she filmed herself every day for an entire year, but this video in particular got the wheels a-turnin’ for me.
- Alina Filipescu is a TPRS master teacher. Her classes always look so engaged, so lively, and so fun. She has really driven home the power of expectations for me, as she teaches and reteaches her expectations constantly to keep the class on point. I could watch this video all day.
- Brett Chonko teaches in Virginia, and his videos always start with a good-natured “Welcome to Spanish class!” Here he is on Day 1 of a Spanish class, explaining how the class will look in a fun, relaxed way, and getting to a Write and Discuss on Day 1! What a pro.
- AnneMarie Chase is an awesome TCI teacher located in Nevada. Her blog is also incredible – she has so many ideas for organization, grading, games, you name it! See her ideas in action on her YouTube channel.
- The aforementioned Sarah Breckley is a ball of sunshine energy! It is a lot of fun watching her teach, because she always looks like she’s having a blast. Her blog is awesome, too. Watch this video if you want a great overview of how to provide high quality, comprehendED input.