Quill English Academy

In this section, we’ll lay out a detailed framework for running a world-class language program. We think a minimum of 4 hours of weekly classroom practice, spread out over 3-4 sessions on different days can provide excellent results, if maintained throughout elementary school.

1. First Steps: Levels 1 and 2
2. Communication Books
3. Levels 3+ Policies and Procedures

First Steps: Levels 1 and 2

While it is possible to conduct a truly immersive, 100% English experience, we believe that is not the optimal approach unless you’re an ESL student, learning a foreign (to you) language in a culture that uses the target language primarily. In other words, full immersion is best, but only if you actually need the target language to survive in the culture you’re living in.

“Holistic Immersion” is our philosophy.

Day 1 Checklist:

• Share some smiles
• Playfully greet your students on their level, as equals
• Learn their names
• Consider letting them sit where they please, unless needs arise that require attention
• Show them how to sit properly (Have fun with showing them how to sit improperly =)
• Start learning about who they are
• Get a few more laughs
• Show them you care – start slowly building the trust necessary for a great classroom
• Get them comfortable repeating after you and following your directions
• Lay the foundations for your classroom vocabulary – begin expanding the communication window
• Show them you can laugh at your mistakes (like trying to get all their names on the first try, perhaps!)
• Hand out books
• Read a story, play a game, have fun!

Communication Books

We believe that maintaining their own communication books is a very valuable experience for young learners. These books are a record of progress and the primary means of maintaining clear communication between school staff and primary caregivers.

Every day, students should write as much of their own communication book as they are capable of. In Level 1, some will need a lot of support, so write a bit for them until they see what’s expected of them. Show them what great work looks like. They’ll be doing it by themselves in no time.

Don’t hesitate to erase their work with a smile and help them to write it better. Do this early and often: the longer something is done poorly, the harder it is to change the habit for the better.
The more you’ve given tacit consent for a behavior, condoning it by virtue of not immediately addressing it, the harder it is for a student to accept and respect your sudden change of heart.

Our Communication Books have been steadily streamlined to their present form. Their present iteration should take a student about 5 minutes to write, and a minute or two per student for their teacher to review. Taking a moment to connect personally, make sure each student can read (and at least mostly understand) the day’s vocabulary, and briefly review the day’s successes and challenges are great ways to use class time.

An “Outstanding” mark represents both impressive
progress that exceeds the instructor’s expectations and reasonable progress that shows effort and generally
meets criteria. Exceptional progress, substantial improvement, and wonderful work merit high praise. Especially outstanding work should be mentioned in the comments! An “Outstanding” mark acknowledges a student’s smart, hard work. It’s a high-five, a pat on the back, and a smile. It’s what most students deserve, most of the time. Think of how much harder these kids work than we did at their age. They are awesome.

A “Not Yet” mark represents progress deemed
unacceptably low by the instructor. “Not Yet” should
typically indicate a serious lack of effort that a teacher believes can and should be immediately and significantly remedied. We cannot fault someone for being unable to do what they cannot do, so by marking “Not Yet”, we believe that something can surely be done to remedy the issue.
It indicates that without significant attention being put into a given area, the student’s growth and/or the shared classroom experience will likely be significantly hampered.

Occasional “Not Yet” remarks aren’t necessarily serious, if given in a convivial spirit. Repeated over time, “Not Yet”
it is an urgent request for further dialogue and assistance to bridge a troublesome gap in a student’s development in which the teacher has been unable to make significant acceptable progress on their own.

If one’s primary goal is measured by their numerical competency on a given exam, then it may be the case that a class that’s largely run in their mother tongue might serve their present needs best. The vagaries of English phonics, grammar, and general usage can be hard to explain, even for those among us who have the vast knowledge base to do so competently.

We believe that a fluency-first approach will, in the long run, serve students better. Academic and professional successes are incredibly valuable. While there may be some tangible benefit to seeking out specialists to prepare students for a particular exam, we think that by maintaining an English-first environment, the broad fluency base that is formed will provide firm footing in any particular context that arises. By not emphasizing any particular “exam” as our basis for fluency, measuring it instead by the simple metrics of 1) ability to comprehend input (written and verbal), 2)vocabulary knowledge, 3) grammatical ability, and 4) the ability to thoughtfully set out one’s ideas in an essay, we set our students up for long-term success.

Leading a strong class of complete beginners when you only have a beginner’s grasp on the local language can work well if you:

1. have excellent classroom management skills (attention to detail, consistency, etc.)
2. foster strong, convivial relationships with your students
3. are very careful to steadily grow your communication window, and
4. are using an appropriate curriculum

But sometimes, it’ll still help to have more complex directions or concepts explained in a local language, for beginners. This is especially true for some forms of discipline.

Even in more advanced classes, we do not suggest a 100% English approach. Sometimes, a student will want to express something but will miss a learning opportunity if they’re not allowed to ever use their native language to directly translate. We encourage students to use translation software and/or their peers to openly find ways to express what they’d like to. We suggest always writing the new vocabulary on the board to be copied down in their communication books.

The key here is that everything that can happen while using English does happen by using English.

The closer we are to this maxim, the more excellent our classes will be.

Giving them meaningful challenges to use language to actually do something is the cornerstone of CLT, which we’ll touch on below, and which ties this entire section together.

It’s important to understand that an immersive foreign language experience has a steeper learning curve (harder in the beginning), but progress quickly snowballs with thoughtful teachers.

TPR – Total Physical Response:

This concept pertains particularly to very young learners, but it’s often useful for older learners as well. Think of it as integrating movement and language. “Showing” what a word means with an action can help move class forward more enjoyably and cement concepts more rapidly.

Take a moment to watch some deaf poetry performances to get a feeling for how powerful motion can be in its connection to language.

Once, when interviewing at a local school, I was asked how I’d explain the meaning of the word ‘elevator’ to a group of beginners. I smiled, pushed an imaginary button with my forefinger, said “ding!”, angled the finger up, and moved it toward the sky, with a mechanic hum. The teacher laughed, telling me stories of all the long explanations that other teachers had given. Comprehensive as they were, they’d be all but gibberish to beginners.

Another option is to simply use more pictures, which work wonders in foreign language acquisition. However, using our bodies a bit more can be fun, and we encourage (well, almost) anything that helps bring a few more smiles to classes.

The Communication Window:

For beginners, everything that happens in a second language comes with subtitles in the first language. Hence Nelson Mandela’s observation that “If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.”

This is also why it’s usually not advisable to try to teach a concept in a foreign language that is not already understood, at least in some fundamental or roundabout way, in an already fluent language. That’s why we call it ‘sheltered content’ when we use academic subjects in a foreign language class.

The ‘communication window’, simply put, is the breadth of comprehensible input, specifically what can be effective in some form of communication. Working within the communication window can be very challenging, given students’ propensity to smile and nod. Sometimes we’ll overestimate the breadth; other times, we’ll underestimate it. Keep refining your models as you go.

A gradually widening communication window is what happens in an effective language class.

Mirroring:

Mirroring is very powerful tools that many teachers find themselves using intuitively. Here’s a sample dialogue that shows how mirroring might be used.

T: Hello, Jimmy. How was your Christmas? Did you do anything fun?

J: Hi, Teacher. We go to the Japan. So good!

T: You went to Japan. It was so good! [Nodding, prompting the student to repeat once more]

J: You [Laughs]- We went to Japan. It was so good. We make snowman. So good.

T: You made a snowman? Was this the first time for you? [One finger up for TPR reinforcement]

J: [Nods proudly]

T: You can say, “We made our first big snowman in Japan.”

J: We made our first big snowman in the Japan.

T: [Smiling and nodding encouragingly] In Japan. So fun, right? Can you say it one more time?

J: We made our first big snowman in Japan.

T: [Holds out palms with a big smile] Did you bring me some of your snowman? Where is it?

J: [Laughs]

This simple interaction shows the teacher helping their student be more accurate in a meaningful context. This dialogue also contains a bit of scaffolding, which we will discuss later. The concepts of mirroring and scaffolding overlap quite a bit, with the key difference being that when mirroring, the teacher is actively prompting a student to repeat what they said in a more accurate way. Extra complexity that is suggested, such as being a big snowman, is called scaffolding.

This technique is particularly valuable when teachers feel the need to use students’ L1 in class. After giving directions or explanations in the students’ first language, we think a prime opportunity has arrived for giving the directions again in the target language – here, English. It becomes mirroring if a student wants to say something, gets help saying it in English, then simply says it for herself. The key is that it is always the student who actively grows and takes the step to manifest meaningful change with language.