Practical Proficiency Podcast
Where world language teachers gather to transition to proficiency oriented instruction through comprehensible input. All through practical, real-life, teacher-friendly ideas that make teaching language more joyful! Hosted by Devon of La Libre Language Learning.
Practical Proficiency Podcast
Party Host, Not Grammar Ghost: Why Interpersonal Mode is the Secret Sauce & How to Do More Speaking in Class
The moment a language student first connects with a native speaker is electric—that realization that "I can actually do this!" This transformative experience is precisely why students enroll in language classes, yet ironically, interpersonal communication often receives the least classroom time.
Devon Gunning dives deep into this paradox, examining why speaking activities frequently take a backseat to reading and writing in world language classrooms. Beyond the obvious classroom management challenges, she reveals how educational priorities have shifted toward literacy-focused initiatives at the expense of authentic communication practice.
Drawing from years of classroom experience teaching Spanish and French, Devon shares practical strategies for integrating more interpersonal activities without creating management nightmares. From structured speaking quizzes and info gap activities to classroom passwords and human scavenger hunts, these approaches work even for novice-level learners. Her innovative "Soul Train" and "Speed Dating" techniques provide frameworks that make speaking practice engaging rather than intimidating.
The key mindset shift? Viewing yourself as a "party host" rather than a traditional teacher—someone who facilitates connections between students through compelling questions and scaffolded support. Devon walks through a gradual confidence-building approach, starting with small groups before moving to pairs and eventually individual responses.
This episode challenges the conventional wisdom of language education, arguing that the most valuable skills are often the hardest to assess—and that we must prioritize them anyway. "You cannot drill communicative ability," Devon reminds us, quoting Bill VanPatten. "It develops when we find ourselves in communicative contexts."
Ready to revolutionize your language classroom? Devon's practical challenge to carve out just 10% more time for interpersonal communication could transform your students' language acquisition journey. Listen now to discover how making speaking the "secret sauce" of your instruction can ignite student engagement and proficiency.
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What's up, keloke Et salut world language teachers. Welcome to the Practical Proficiency Podcast, where we make the transition to proficiency-oriented instruction in your world language class in a way that works for you, your unique context and teaching style, and doesn't sacrifice your well-being along the way. I'm your host, devon Gunning, the teacher author, conference host, curriculum creator and consultant behind La Libre Language Learning. This podcast is for the creative world language teacher like you who's ready to ditch the overwhelming pressure of switching to acquisition-driven instruction and CI overnight. You're ready to discover how using more target language in class can actually bring you and your students more joy instead of adding to your plate. With practical, authentic and down-to-earth strategies that don't require reinventing the wheel or more training, we'll work together towards the magic of a community-based, target-language-rich classroom, rooted in the power of community and comprehensible input. Let's go.
Speaker 1:Welcome back to the Practical Proficiency Podcast. I'm so excited to talk to you today. We are jamming out today about a subject that is near and dear to my heart, which is doing more speaking interpersonal, the key ingredient, the secret sauce, that thing that is missing in your world language class environment. So let's get into it. In this episode, I'm going to talk to you about why it is the secret ingredient for success for your students, why it seems to be the one that is hardest for us to do in class. And, of course, you know me practical ways that you can start doing more of interpersonal activities and assessments in your class without it being a giant classroom management headache. So let's get into it. Let's first talk about why interpersonal. Why is this so important? Well, first of all, interpersonal, as you well know, let's think about why you are a world language teacher. Think back to that experience that you had interacting with a native speaker or somebody who speaks the language that you teach, and how it felt to connect with somebody for the first time, when you felt like you had just a little tiny grasp on the conversation or understood a little bit of what that person was saying to you. Electric right and that's the moment that made you want to keep working hard towards this language is when you realize like, oh dang, I can actually do this. I can speak another language or sign in another language.
Speaker 1:And your students are in your class and they have enrolled for the exact same reason. They might be in love with the culture or the music or the food, but they could also just cook that food at home if they really wanted to, or if they have a family member who speaks that language, like they could appreciate it in another way for sure. But there's nothing quite like actually using the language in the way that you want to, and that is why we're here, y'all. That is why students have signed up to take your class. Sure, I taught Spanish 1-2. I know that there are a ton of kids who are in your class because they feel like they don't have other options and they didn't actually one too. I know that there are a ton of kids who are in your class because they feel like they don't have other options and they didn't actually sign up. I get it. But guess what? A lot of those feelings go out the door when you show them how real world your class really is. Because Spanish is such a useful language, and so is French, because I also taught French one. But we can only show them how useful it is if they actually get to use it in class. Now, my specialty is Spanish one and French one. So, no, we're not just going to be talking about how your upper level quote, unquote kids can use more language in class. Class I'm talking about, in level one, how you can do, when it's appropriate, more interpersonal tasks, and even in level one, how you can appropriately build up to this so that your students can do what they signed up to do, why they're here, which is be more, connect more with other speakers of this amazing language that you teach, and be more connected to global citizens in their environment. So let's get into it here.
Speaker 1:Interpersonal is really the missing ingredient in here. We've talked about why students are here, and the real reason is because they want to interact and they want to speak. However, what's getting in the way? I mean, don't we teach world language? Isn't that the whole point? But take a look at your lesson plans and just think about what you're planning to do this week.
Speaker 1:What percentage of time is actually spent in communicative contexts? How much of that time do your students actually get to try out their communicative skills? When are they actually going to be responding to questions from you? And in level one, when I say responding to questions, I literally mean saying we know that's really what you're looking for for the first couple months, although I'm recording this in the springtime. You may be listening to it later on, but at this point in class, your students will probably be able to answer things like either, or questions as well, or be able to find some common ground between them and their peers, like oh, moi aussi, or yo tambien me too, things like that.
Speaker 1:So when I'm saying doing any kind of interpersonal work, that's really all you need for level one, and then your twos, threes and fours. Of course, more will be expected from them. But yeah, even in level one, how much of your day are they getting any kind of interpersonal communicative context? So I would say that's the first issue that we have on our plates here is that we simply don't spend enough time doing this in class, and I get it because I didn't use to spend enough time doing it either, even though speaking was the focus of my class.
Speaker 1:I find that every world language teacher has their focus, and speaking was mine. Some people are more into literacy and reading and some people are more into writing skills, but for me, speaking is the whole reason that students are in class and that's what we're going to focus on, even in level one. So let's talk about those other focuses for a second and why. I am going to perhaps ruffle some feathers and tell you that your focus really should be speaking, because in a school environment things can often get a bit kerfuffled, we'll say, since you are in a quote-unquote academic subject, people will mistake something that is as tactile, as real-world and as skill-based as interacting in a language or signing in a language. They still think that that means lots of worksheets, lots of paper and lots of writing and reading, and although we know that reading drives acquisition, we know that from a lot of research, there's also this important piece of interaction. It's input plus interaction that makes the difference. So what's the difference between a book and a book?
Speaker 1:Our classes, even though they are technically, academically built, they are skills. They are not an academic subject. You cannot teach French the same way that the teacher across from you who's teaching English teaches English. You cannot teach it the same way the history teacher does, or the science or the math teacher. If you've heard any of my podcast episodes, you probably heard me talk about this before, because it's really important is this mindset shift that we all need to do, and this is one of the reasons why interpersonal skills are so lacking in North American world language students. So, with this idea in mind, think about it this way, since literacy is a hugely important initiative justifiably so in at least the United States, which is is my teaching experience. It has taken over many other classroom initiatives and we can certainly do our part in world language and in a lot of states it's even mandated. I know in my state in south carolina we have to do a certain amount of literacy work in class. However, think about it we're language, we are a world. However, think about it, we're a language, we are a world language.
Speaker 1:Acquiring a language naturally boosts literacy. Bilingual students do better in every version of tests that they've done when they compare how well they can make connections between words, how fluently they can cross between ideas. There is so much power to be had when your students have competency in another language. So I would say that our focus aside from the legal things that you have to do in your classroom because I know that's a reality but aside from that focus, I am not really okay with hearing in meetings anymore justifying a huge excess of writing assignments, especially in level one and level two. Whenever I work with departments and things and I see what they have lined up for the week or for the month and the types of finals that they're giving. It is hugely overburdened with writing assignments instead of the whole point that students are there, which is speaking. So let's dial back on this idea that more writing and more reading will contribute to students' literacy skills. Acquiring a language in general will, of course, expand the language centers, all the different language centers of the brain, and will add on to a student's ability, once they're in high school, to do better on the SATs, do better in all other realms of literacy focused work.
Speaker 1:And asking students to do more literacy focused reading not like reading for acquisition, but like long paragraphs of more difficult language things like that, as well as long sections of writing that are not appropriate for their proficiency level that this push towards literacy is actually detrimental, because the literacy focus really happens. That magic happens in a world language classroom when students are reading, compelling input at their proficiency level and then responding to it. That's where we can work on the literacy. And, of course, we can do that all day long, because reading in the target language does nothing but benefit our students when it's at the appropriate level. The other side that I would think about this is that there's also this element of rigor that I would like to address. Reading in the target language is hard enough, you don't need to add anything to it. Writing in the target language is hard enough. You don't have to add any other extra layers to it. Your students are still in levels one and two. They're working towards the goal of novice high. That is an appropriate goal for if you're in middle school or high school, a novice program Now is an appropriate goal for, if you're in middle school or high school, a novice program Now.
Speaker 1:I was just working with another school internationally who has a multilingual population, so their students will be moving through this faster. So make sure that you're looking at your school context to see what that might be for you. But for the majority of schools in a North American context, if your students are having are in your program for approximately a year for level one and then approximately a year for the second stage of that course, whatever it may be, then yeah, you're moving towards novice high. So with that in mind, your language activities should be appropriate for that proficiency skill and for output for novice high. You're really looking at like nine sentences, maybe 12, if your students are reaching towards intermediate low and they're not going to be like cute connected ideas. They're going to be repetitive phrases that are just going to recycle the things that they already know how to say, and there's going to be a few little conjunctions in there that will make you excited, but there's going to be some errors and they're going to have to work really hard to get sequential ideas in there. So that's what we're looking for in this stage of the game. That is an appropriate measure of your student's proficiency.
Speaker 1:If you're trying to go for more, you're taking away precious time from the interaction and the communicative settings that they can only get in class. They can only get that in class. I'm not a huge fan of this, but if you really need to, your students can do writing assignments at home, but they can only interact with you in class. It is such a precious skill that will give them the most bang for their buck. So, with that in mind, looking at my notes here, oh, I want to bring this all home, with this idea of literacy in the world language classroom being really, really important, but putting that towards the books that you're assigning, the novels that you're assigning, the reading time that you're assigning and not focusing on. Well, let's make our writing assignments stronger, or let's make them more complex, or let's give them full-length articles written for native speakers and call that our reading assignment for the day and that we're promoting literacy. Because, surprise, you're not. They can't read that, unless you're adjusting the task for the text, of course.
Speaker 1:So think of it this way if you were the music teacher and you were teaching such an important skill like expressing yourself through music, a way to understand the world and other people around you through music, and you were taking away the only time they have in class with you to learn more about being more proficient in their instrument and handing them articles to read in order to boost their literacy, don't you think your district would be upset, and rightly so? That's not why they're here. You are improving their literacy by helping them learn to read music, which is incredibly difficult, trust me. I've been there. I played an instrument for 12 years and I loved it, but it's a difficult skill to read music. So that's the same thing for language teachers is. You're far more like the music teacher. You're far more like the welding teacher or the gym teacher or the art teacher.
Speaker 1:If you're taking away time from painting in class in order to read, then you're not doing your students a good service, unless the reading is with a thoroughly comprehensible novel where you are reading all of the time with compelling and interesting and short, appropriate level of materials and there's a whole podcast episode about that with DigiLangua, the DigiGals, who will talk more about the importance of literacy and how to do it right. So let's not carve into our precious class time, interpersonal time, by doing too much writing. So, with that in mind, you've heard my giant soapbox about why I think we're not spending enough time doing, speaking or interacting in conversations in class. There's another important piece to this is that, in addition to the ideas we've already talked about, there's this whole thing called classroom management, which makes it very difficult to lead any type of interactive activity in class where you have you having a conversation with students or students having conversations with each other. That's so hard to do. So we're going to talk about how we can make that easier. Now it's really chaotic in a classroom environment, even if you have a, you have a really good handle on classroom management and you only have 13 students. Or if you're like me and you're good at classroom management, but you have 35 students and they have a lot going on and half of them don't even want to be there, so it's a whole thing. This is what I used to do in those types of environments.
Speaker 1:First of all, I would say, too, that a lot of people don't make enough time for this, not only because it's hard to do, but because it's really difficult to give a grade to these right, like when you are working in a classroom setting. It's so much easier to just pick up a tangible piece of paper or an assignment and put a grade in the gradebook for that right. That's so much easier. It's so much less stressful. Students get it. You get it, I get it, you get it, I get it.
Speaker 1:Frankly, however, the intangible skills are the most important. If we don't give our students enough opportunities to use the language in a meaningful way and give them sentence starters and scaffolding and things like that, so that when you give them a question they know how to answer it, then what are they going to do when it comes time for well, practically speaking, the speaking final that you're about to give them at the end of the year or, even worse, the whole point of the class, which is to learn how to speak and interact? If you don't give them any chances to do it. They're going to have a hard time with it. Simple as that. So here's the how, and I'm going to give you examples from a level one point of view, because honestly, I think that's the hardest class to do this in. And then if you teach higher levels, you can, of course, adapt these. So because your students have a little bit more in I was actually it's a perfect analogy more in their language iceberg.
Speaker 1:I was just doing an interview today with Bryce Hedstrom that y'all will see at Practical and Comprehensible, my free conference for comprehensible input. Enthusiast teachers Come and hang out with me this summer, july 8th through 11th. My first presentation we did today with Bryce and he was talking about the language iceberg, which is the idea that in a student's language ability, in their heads, they have the iceberg, where, if you look at it, the tip of the iceberg is what they're able to say and the bottom of the iceberg all that stuff underneath, like 80% of what you can't see is how much they can understand from you. So with that language iceberg, we do really need to build that up first. It is important that your students have enough input before they can start to use any of that output that they have on the tip of their iceberg. Here are some of the hows that I would make this happen in level ones, and then, of course, in levels two, three and four. If their language icebergs are bigger, then you'll be able to expand on these ideas too.
Speaker 1:But in level one, these were my go-tos to make speaking a focus in my class. Again, once it was appropriate, after like two to three months of solid input, I would schedule speaking quizzes and, honestly, I would do this from the very beginning of class for my own reasons. There's a whole blog post on this. If you want more information, I'll link it in the show notes below. But in level one, yeah, I used to do simple speaking quizzes every two weeks and this was a high school class block schedule, 90 minutes. So they would have, you know, a good four weeks quote unquote before they would work on a speaking quiz. But I would schedule speaking quizzes regularly and they would be very simple Two to three simple questions that we would review quite a bit and I would give them a lot of practice on how to answer it. And it would technically be more of a performance assessment than a proficiency assessment, performance being that they had rehearsed the language a lot, that they they knew and they were ready for that task. Performance is not a bad thing. It's actually very appropriate in level one. You're not going to find a lot of proficiency again if their language icebergs are pretty small, so I'm not going to ask them a spontaneous question in level one. They're not ready for that, not maybe until the end when they're more displaying novice mid or novice high.
Speaker 1:To prepare for speaking quizzes and make sure that students were ready for these, we would do a lot of activities in class to get them ready, especially the day of the speaking quiz, so everything would be really fresh in their mind. We would do things beforehand, called info gaps. Info gap activities are these wonderful ways where you can give students in pairs different pieces of information and they need to ask each other questions about it in order to get the full picture. Simple, simple, simple questions On one of my activities that I have for sale on TPT. It looks like this it's a physical personality description deal and there's pictures of different people and student A has four pictures and student B has four different pictures and student B has the clues about student A's pictures and student A has the clues about student B's pictures, and they have to ask each other questions to figure out oh, who was that person? And match them up, kind of deal. So that's what an info gap activity can look like. It can be as simple as does your person have curly hair? And they would say yes or no? How about brown eyes? Or blue eyes or green eyes? And the person would have to respond my person has green eyes, and that would be your answer. So that's how you can do info gap activities, and you can do that in so many different ways.
Speaker 1:I mean, I used to do them in class when I was a seventh grade french student where my teacher would give us a slip of paper like info gap activities are old as the game itself that my teacher would give us one slip of paper to one partner. That would be like you're going to this, this place in France, and your other friend is going to this place in France. These are some key, cool places in that area. You have to guess where your partner is going, stuff like that. So on that sheet of paper, though, I would say where we've come from since my seventh grade class is. You should put some hints or some questions on there to help them with that info gap activity so that they know how to ask the questions, because asking questions is really hard for level one students. It's a novice high skill, really, I would say too.
Speaker 1:Another thing that you can do is do classroom passwords. This way, students are used to producing language or answering questions from you. If it's a call and response, question answer type deal, what are classroom passwords? They are, oh my god, so much fun. This is another Bryce Hestrom tactic, actually, that he taught me, but he invented these as a way to create classroom community as well as teach his students cool Spanish idioms. The way it works is you set a password for the week and students cannot get in your door unless they answer your question correctly or say the classroom password, and you get to set a new one every week, and I would do things like write the password on the board so they'd be able to see it, you know, but it's a really nice tradition that helps your students get used to producing every single day.
Speaker 1:Another thing that you should be doing, if you're not already, is have a routine for classroom conversations. I ask the people who study with me the ways to make comprehensible input more practical in your classroom. Through my membership, the Practical Proficiency Network, we do this tradition and this routine. I teach every student in here to do it, which is doing structured classroom conversations. I give every student in that program a goal of get to the point where you can talk every day, or at least you know, start with two to three times a week, if you need to, for three minutes with your students and we talk about how to do it. You know ways to instill routines, things like that, and then we move up to five minutes and then 10 minutes and then 15 minutes and then doing the routine every single day. There is nothing that will give your students a better communicative ability than actually conversing with you in the target language. Now it doesn't look like they're doing much speaking at first, honestly, because really they're just going to be responding to you with yes or no questions, or either or questions. That's really all it looks like.
Speaker 1:And some other activities I used to do with students is I would do things like a human scavenger hunt, where you would give them like, let's say, it's a family unit. You would give them some pre-written questions on a simple worksheet that says like do you have an aunt who lives nearby, or do you have a half brother or a half sister or something like that? You ask them. You know nine or ten questions and then you give them the assignment. You have to go around the room and ask students in your class to sign if this is true for them. So it involves a lot of interaction. It will involve you making sure that everybody uses the target language, because they'll totally want to teach and do it in english, or just not say anything and sign each other's papers. So make sure that you're walking around and ensuring that they're using the target language. This is a really easy way to get around that problem of how do I grade speaking assignments or how do I grade these easily is go around the room, make sure that everybody's using the target language and then at the end of class, collect all of the signature papers and you can see who did it and who didn't. That kind of deal.
Speaker 1:But my two favorite ones for this are my own personal creations, and that is Soul Train and Speed Dating. They're not really my creations, but they're just like twists on classic themes. But whenever I would have a speaking quiz day, I would ask students to get in a tunnel right across from each other somewhere in the room so that they're moving and working with different people all the time. I would give them a question and say here's the question, and it would be something like how old are you, in the target language, like cuántos años tienes, and they would have to answer it to each other and then, as soon as they answered to each other, the two people at the very front of the soul train would have to go through the soul train and then they would move to the back. Oh, actually it was only one person, so that you'd have only one side moving each time. That way, this side would always have somebody new to talk to and it allows students to get that repetition that they need of working with that question you know multiple times without getting super bored. The other thing that I would do is if your students would prefer to be seated, as many high school students would like to be, is they can still move around, but be seated by doing something called speed dating, where you move the desk so that they're facing each other. Same concept, except each question they are going to move seats and talk to somebody new. So those are some simple ideas that you can do, but I would say all of the time for interpersonal activities.
Speaker 1:When you're looking for something to make this easier to do in your class and get more response from students, keep in mind you're a party host in your class. The whole point of being a world language teacher, or really a world language facilitator, is that you are looking for opportunities to help students connect with each other through the target language, which means borrow from all the fun party games that are out there and find fun questions that would get them interested in talking to you and answering questions from you. So anytime that you can find things that are like really fun this or that, or icebreakers would you rather all of that you can do that in the target language. That makes a huge difference. So keep in mind that whole idea, this mindset shift that is so crucial to being a good language facilitator, is that you are a party host. Your job is to be really interested in your students, ask them questions so that they want to answer and be interested in their answers and keep the conversation going. That's it. It's very simple to say and it's very difficult to execute, which is why that simple idea will require some practice, for sure.
Speaker 1:I would say, too, something that you can do to make this a lot more practical on your side is there are tons and tons of activities available online where you can avoid the question. I'm thinking of things like where your students don't necessarily have to have their eyes on you all the time or they don't have to be constantly asking questions of each other, but you can get those little question cards, sets of question cards and conversation starters and things that they can ask each other, and you can hand those out and have those be activities that they work on with each other. They can ask each other questions, or they can come up to you and get points for asking questions, things like that. Anything that you can do to avoid the question, like posting the question on the board or have students answer the questions with each other. That makes a big difference, because the question is usually the barrier. It's the hardest part.
Speaker 1:Now, with that in mind, I would say that another reason why interpersonal activities get neglected is because, let's face it, you might be feeling a little neglected too. How many times have you done this awesome speaking activity or conversation activity or partner activity and your students didn't do crap with it. They were not responding. You were getting a lot of crickets, whatever it might be. We're going to troubleshoot that a little bit. Right now, I have a lot, a lot, a lot of information about this on my blog for you too as well, and on my YouTube channel. There's tons of things that you can find for what to do if you're hearing crickets, how to get more response, engagement all of that.
Speaker 1:But in a nutshell, when it comes specifically to interpersonal, I would like to say that, besides the usual suspects for engagement, that there's some other things going on here as to why your students aren't responding to these types of activities. First thing is to think of this If you are asking your students to answer a question on the spot from you in front of all of their peers and that's the first way that you're introducing any type of communicative activity to them you're going to encounter a lot of crickets. Some students may be comfortable with that, but most of them will not be. Try this instead. There's safety in numbers, and your students don't have that confidence in their communication yet, so can you build on it? I would say. A huge reason that your students are not responding to you is because they don't have the confidence yet in the language and it's our job to build that up. So what does that look like? It means you're going to ask them extremely simple questions like simpler than you think they need to be with extremely sheltered vocabulary not grammar, but sheltered vocabulary where you know they'll be able to understand your question and you can provide them anything they need to help with one word or two. But if you need to break down the whole question, then the first problem is the question. Let's assume that your question is a good one. It's appropriate for their level, it's completely comprehensible, all that jazz, and they're just having trouble responding to you.
Speaker 1:Start with this to build their confidence, safety in numbers, work first in groups of four to five and allow students to hear the question from you first and then answer with each other in their little groups. So they're going to answer to each other and they're not going to say it out loud to the class at first. They're just they're going to say to each other. You will give them plenty of time to do so. Even if they start breaking off into little chattery groups, it's okay. Walk around the room to each group and hear each person's response and talk to them. Talk it through with them If you're noticing that they're having trouble with how to respond to you, because you might discover, like, ooh, I thought they would know how to answer this because we've gone over it, but I'm noticing that they're forgetting this important verb structure. And then you can write a sentence starter for them on the board and have them try it again. So go around the room and do that feedback round.
Speaker 1:Then, the next time you try something like this, do it in groups of three, make the group a little bit smaller, let them answer with each other, and then do that small one-on-one interaction with them to check in and see how are these answers going. And then, of course, any student that you know is needing a little bit more support. You can give that support. Then you can put them in partner groups, and I would say too that, if classroom management allows it, let them work with people they're familiar working with. This is the hardest skill you're asking them to do in your class ever. This is really difficult. So allow them to work with people that they're comfortable with and then, once you're starting to whittle down, to like, okay, it's been two weeks, they've been working in partners for a while. I bet you they're ready for one-on-one now. So now you can do some of those activities where you can ask, like in the middle of class, be like hey, jeremy, what do you think about this, do you prefer bananas or oranges? And they'll be like naranjas, like so proudly. That's where you'll start to see that confidence happening, because they've been given lots and lots of trial runs to make it happen first, and you've also been giving them lots of language and input so that they're ready for it right. Wink, wink, hint, hint.
Speaker 1:I would say too that a huge thing that you can do to build your students' confidence is provide them with the language they need to be successful. Give them rejoinders, give them ways to respond to you that aren't just like okay or yes or no, like they want to respond to you. You need to show them how and if they need help, they also need that. To show them things like no entiendo, like. Show them how to say things like I don't understand, so that you can keep the conversation going in your target language. Also, don't forget this is my last tip for you Do not forget the sentence starters, even though you may have gone over that structure a million times in class.
Speaker 1:You're talking about communicative context. Communicative context is a different part of your brain than the memorization section of your brain. We're talking about the difference between declarative and procedural those are really fancy terms for saying stuff that your brain can consciously pull out and stuff that your brain can unconsciously rely on. This is the acquisition part of this game. So if you are teaching a lot of vocabulary words and focusing a lot on grammar, then you are focusing on declarative stuff. This is stuff that your students can pull from memory, that maybe they can construct some things with.
Speaker 1:But like kind of clumsily, and if you give them not very many opportunities to communicate that whole section of their brain, the communicative area is gonna be pretty empty and they're not gonna know how to do it. You need to give them lots and lots of opportunities to do this in order for that skillset to build up. That muscle will be weak until you work it. So I will leave you with this thought. This is a quote from BBP Bill Van Patten, from the language educator 15 years ago. This is not a new idea. It's from a long time ago that you cannot drill communicative ability. It develops when we find ourselves in communicative contexts.
Speaker 1:So I will leave you with this thought to mull on the idea of how you can make interpersonal the secret ingredient that it deserves to be in your classroom. How many times this week can you schedule some sort of interpersonal opportunity? But before that, how can you set your students up for success in interpersonal communicative contexts? By giving them the right amount of input, lots and lots of comprehensible things to read, as well as structured, scheduled and scaffolded opportunities to interact in a way that is appropriate for their level, so that when it comes time for when you do the big thing that everybody always judges their success of their class on, which is, oh, we're going to do speaking now, if you don't spend enough of your time in class giving them opportunities to speak and sign, you will get what you work for.
Speaker 1:So my challenge to you is to carve out at least 10% even more, but 10% is the minimum I'm looking for. Carve out 10% more time in your lesson plans this week for your students to interact with you and interact with each other, and you will be amazed to see how much just that small change will help your students' communicative ability and the communicative centers of their brains to grow and thrive and, of course, lead to the whole goal acquisition and interacting with native speakers. Thank you so much for sharing some of your time with me your commute with me, maybe and I'm excited to hear what you think about this episode and to get your students conversing with each other or signing with each other more. This is Devin signing out and I hope to hang out with you for our next episode. Bye for now.