SLAyyy: Second Language Acquisition for Everyone
Join Ben (he/him), Bryan (he/they), and Bill (he/him) as they Gaslight (reflect), Gatekeep (read research), and Girlboss (share successes) language teaching!
SLAyyy: Second Language Acquisition for Everyone
Ep. 18: SLAyyy Multiword Sequences
Gaslight
Isolated Vocabulary
Useful Vocabulary Lists
Idioms and Stock Phrases
Use Language in Context
Perceived Fluency and Proficiency Ratings
It’s Giving Library
Speaking to the Heart
What Even Is Fluency?
Lowering Cognitive Load for Speaker and Listener
Girlboss
Sentence Builders / Chat Mats
Filler Phrases and Repair Phrases
Rejoinders
Teach via Classroom Passwords
Total Verbal Response
How We Present Vocab - Planning Ahead
References
The Art and Science of Creating Sentence Builders by Gianfranco Conti
Text us about how you’ve Gaslit, or Girlbossed your language classroom.
Email us at info@slayyypod.com
Hi everybody, and welcome back to another episode of Slay second Language Acquisition for everyone. We are down a sick Brian. Brian cannot catch a break. So we are down to Brian today, but we are here to talk to you this episode about, multi word sequences. Ooh.
bill:Ooh.
FishRod:is defined as a routinized string of recurring words that have frequently appear together or are statistically strongly with each other. So we're here to talk about, word language chunks, as it were.
bill:Yeah, I remember like when I was in undergrad and like first learning about language teaching, I just heard about chunks all the time.
FishRod:Generally the thrust of the, the article is that teaching
bill:I,
FishRod:chunks is generally a good thing. We'll
bill:mm-hmm.
FishRod:how that is during when we un gatekeep the research. But. How, what are some ways that you've gaslit yourself? In what ways has your instruction not been chunky and funky?
bill:Yeah. Well, I think that at some points it has been chunky but not so funky or vice, vice versa. Yeah. So, when I was reading through this article, when I was reading through this article what I kept thinking back to was how when we introduced vocabulary to students, a lot of times, how we were taught as teachers was with capitalists, or maybe we weren't taught that, but that was, we were given a textbook that just had up. List of words. Maybe sometimes they included like an article or a preposition, which I'll touch on a little bit later. But, they weren't useful language chunks, like they didn't really do anything. So maybe a textbook in Spanish has, number on us or two be a age or to have a number of years and while that is a chunk s to have 15 years to be 15 years old while that is indeed a chunk of language it isn't as useful as things could be. So like if, because we don't say 10 s over and over and over, or that's not something that, is explaining exactly like it'll happen, but it's not what students need in order to communicate something about themselves. So instead of maybe say like, if the capitalist says tens, maybe a better phrase would be tango. He can say onos. So they just learned that phrase as a whole, which is a complete sentence. It communicates something about the person. And it takes minimal change to. Make it be personalized. So like, I'm not gonna, I personally am not gonna say tangle Quin say onions because I don't have 15 years. But for high school students learning a language, like that's gonna be a really useful phrase for them. So one, one way that I, I think that I might have, thought I was doing the right thing, but have learned better since is the language chunks need to be something that is actually usable rather than something that students still need to pick apart, change around so that it works for them, if that makes sense.
FishRod:think when we, when we teach those individual words, then students, when they're trying to compose their messages to us, like in the language by during
bill:Mm-hmm.
FishRod:are taking apart those phrases in English, word by word, and
bill:Right?
FishRod:look for the Spanish, the German, the French equivalent.
bill:Mm-hmm.
FishRod:In the other live and in the moment. And so, you know, that can lead to problems with word order and
bill:Right.
FishRod:that just don't make sense. And you know, german is like English and that you say I am blank years old versus French and Spanish, which say I have this many years. And so again, you, you get kids in the languages kind of doing the wrong things. I've had a Spanish speaker come into my class actually and say I have 15 years in German because they
bill:Right,
FishRod:in that sort of way. But I've also had, when teaching Spanish kids, you know, I, I'm sure every Spanish teacher is nodding their head when they hear they have heard so quins, you're
bill:right.
FishRod:not actually correct. And we
bill:I.
FishRod:to be able to access those, like you said, the useful stuff instead of. every utterance word by word, because that is also another great way to make using another language. Feel painful.
bill:Right. Like if you have to select every single word and are trying to make a one-to-one connection, for everything that you wanna say, that's going to one put potentially, like, get you lost in translation.
FishRod:Mm-hmm.
bill:But like in production and comprehension as well. Like if, if we don't understand like, what someone's actually trying to say it, like the, the article talks about idiomatic expressions a little bit and, idiomatic expressions don't translate word for word. It's not a one-to-one translation. For example, when I did my study abroad, I was in Costa Rica, out there. And, I learned the phrase, which I learned later that it might have been a phrase that was more used by an older generation. So me as a 20-year-old sounded weird, but yeah. So like there's the phrase like, like literally to iron the ear, but it means to like go to bed. Like, oh, I'm, I'm, I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go to bed, I'm gonna go iron my ear. And I said that. Once because it was a useful phrase. I didn't really have to change it. And like, I just wanted to say like, I'm gonna go to bed. And like my friends looked at me, we were like, where did you learn that? Like, are you staying with a grandma? Which as I went on, I learned like more than just, like say that, but it, you know, just a little bit of a generational difference. But I didn't have to think about when I, when I was saying the phrase like, I wasn't thinking Iron Ear, I was thinking, I'm gonna go to bed, because like, that's the meaning that it carries. So, that might have also actually been the way that I learned the word to iron, but that's like beside the point,
FishRod:I think,
bill:anyway. Yeah.
FishRod:words, like the, where we want our students to get is fable that, you know, like the dreaming and the language, the,
bill:Mm-hmm.
FishRod:without
bill:funny
FishRod:single word.
bill:in a language that Oh,
FishRod:them to have that the, the fluency, right. The, to not go be going back and forth, back and forth, back and forth to kind of eventually get their brain into whatever mode.
bill:mm-hmm.
FishRod:that teaching words, you know, makes it, like we said, it just kinda makes it this game of like, switching out this word or that. When really, like when you and I are talking right now, I'm groups of words and using, gathering words as like an unusual phrase. So like, my brain just had
bill:Mm-hmm.
FishRod:hard of like what I was saying, but I'm like gathering groups of words and using them altogether in these like linked structures more than they are individual words that I'm thinking about to use to express what I'm thinking. And we
bill:Yeah.
FishRod:get that way in their production of the L two, but we don't do that through individual words. I think that that the like individual words teaching also speaks to, to me, immediately puts me into tra traditional teaching methods and not teaching for proficiency and not using something, an approach like CCLT or whatever it may be, kind of in the proficiency vein because Yeah, it is, it is determined by a textbook that is, I. Not really informed by how brains acquire languages. And it says to me that kids are receiving messages in individual words instead of receiving contextualized messages. But the way that students are gonna understand intuitively grammar and understand intuitively what word belongs where is by hearing lots of language, like contextualized, comprehensible language by reading lots of contextualized, comprehensible language and. AAB list just doesn't count like that does, it just doesn't have the same interest, it doesn't have the same kind of necessity that makes you want to read it. And so you're gonna get less acquisition out of that list anyways. It just doesn't stick. And we want them to develop that sort of intuition something is right or wrong based on their, the ear that they've developed, the, you know, their internal ear that they've developed by listening and reading a bunch. I think people can do things with vocab list and if I, you know, try to pretend over here that I've, like never given a vocab list, that would be a lie. But I think that when that is our focus, and when we, we think about vocabulary in this way and we try to get our students to think about vocab as these just lists of isolated words, then we're doing a disservice to ourselves and them
bill:Mm-hmm.
FishRod:putting our teaching into that mode. That just isn't as effective for a lot of reasons.
bill:Yeah. So something that that reminds me of, like, I have, I've had students throughout the years that have said, oh, like I want to do some more independent study on my own, or like, at home.'cause like, I don't give formal homework. So students sometimes be like, oh, like what can I do? Like, so I try to give them some suggestions, which we can talk about some other time. But, what I've heard kind of frequently from, from students is that like, oh yeah, like I just wanna, take whatever we read in class and go home and just translate it. And what that, what, like the, the problems that come up with that. It are like, well, not every group of words needs to be translated word for word. And we almost kind of see that a little bit with like in Spanish, at least, like the phrase I call myself, like the literal translation, like I said, I call myself, but sometimes we tell students it means my name is, so once students learn the word for is they think may my yamo name is, is. So we're giving them chunks sometimes. But, I feel that if we're not giving them what it actually means and giving them like a literal translation versus, I don't know, a, an everyday translation, I guess, that is going to put things in the wrong parts of their brain. Like if they're connecting May with my and Yamal with name, then that might cause issues with comprehension or production later. I think the same would go for in, in Spanish. The verb that we teach as to like, so like gusta doesn't literally mean too, like it means like. Something is like a pleasing experience to me. I try not to say it like like I'm not going to, if we co we in everyday speech translate to I like apples. But if we take it literally, that apples are pleasing to me, like that's not how we talk in, in English often anyway. Especially now for teenagers. Like, oh, this, this apple pleases me or whatever. Like we, we, we just don't, we don't talk that way. So if, so we try to translate things or we try to establish meaning in like student terms, but that's not always. Like how we actually need to explain the term, if that makes sense.
FishRod:Students need to know that language exists in a variety of contexts and use it in a lot of different ways, and that is through exposure. I, I found, I've been thinking about how
bill:exposure.
FishRod:robust even is
bill:exposure.
FishRod:If my students get too hung up on translations, it means that I've been doing a lot of translations in class. Like I, I do choral
bill:Mm-hmm.
FishRod:of texts that we've written together or that we're reading together. But if I, I find that if I do too much of that, then kids get really hung up on individual words a little bit more. I think if there are other ways that I can get them to show comprehension through drawings, through gestures, through you know, indication of yes or no or like, you know, sorts of voting with their bodies or so, you know, any
bill:Mm-hmm.
FishRod:that we can check for comprehension, that they're getting more holistic language and not getting bogged down by the individual words, which is where I would want them to get eventually.
bill:Right. And question real quick about that. Like, do you think that, which I, I know that what the, what this article says, so I'm, but I'm gonna like ask first, if, like, I understand that like it's really easy to tell students. Make gusta means I like, and then we throw an in on if I like more than one thing. But like, maybe, maybe there's a question on like when, or is if there is a point in which we circle back and say like, Ooh, actually here's how this works. Now that you've been using it, now we can correct it a little bit. Or at least I can maybe try to make you a little bit conscious of like what, what it means if you say this versus what you say, what it means if you say this.
FishRod:Remember.
bill:So even like maybe establishing meaning of student production, I guess. And do you think if there is like a certain point at which we should be moving towards something like that, like, if I teach in Spanish one on day one, do I go back a little like halfway through the year and be like, Hey, you remember when I told you on the very first day that me gusta means I like, well, it's not exactly that. It let's deconstruct it a little bit or like, let's give, or maybe at me as the teacher, I'm going to give a lot more examples of I like a plural thing versus I like a singular thing or, I, we like something, whatever, all that. Like, is there a point that we start talking yet about that? Or at least make, I guess popups, like when, when do we just start doing popups on those kinds of things?
FishRod:I wonder if it's one of those things where we forefront the, it's almost like when we talk about quotation marks, teaching grammar and comprehension based teaching is that
bill:Mm-hmm.
FishRod:the end quotes is that we, the students need robust exposure to the language and context before you can contextualize any discussion of how form works in a language.
bill:Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
FishRod:I'm wondering if the, that is again, just like a matter of feel where either the students start asking questions or
bill:Which is a great time to answer them.
FishRod:Yes, absolutely. Or you have given so much input on, on certain structures or certain constructions, like you said, like, whatever it is,
bill:Right.
FishRod:and that they have been understood in context and you're certain of that, that once you feel that the students are confident with it, then you could go back and maybe break it down. Well, and even in like Mesta, they're gonna see meh in other
bill:Right.
FishRod:a like, like as a pronoun in other situations. And so that is gonna come up and maybe, maybe that will pique their curiosity. There was like, oh, it was a, when he gave me something, I used that same word that I used in Megha. Right. So,
bill:Mm-hmm.
FishRod:I'm wondering if that, again, is just like a matter of feel for us as teachers about our students' level of comprehension and like how acquired those things feel when we make the transition to being a little bit more analytical in comparison with the language. Because I'm, my thinking is at first, like, yeah, like right off the beginning, I want the conversation. We have to be like, my name is so-and-so. What's, what's, what's your name? Oh, your name is this. Hey, everybody there so-and-so's name is, this is so-and-so's name this, or so-and-so's name this, right? Like,
bill:Mm-hmm.
FishRod:so easy, digestible. right at the beginning and immediate feelings of success. And I would
bill:Yes.
FishRod:like if it was like, Hey, when I said that it like, and immediately into grammar explanation that it
bill:Yeah.
FishRod:like is like, has like a dampening effect on motivation or it just breaks the flow a little bit more
bill:Mm-hmm.
FishRod:can circle back to, circle back to that later as it were.
bill:Yeah. And also like something to keep in mind is like sometime going back to like students ask questions like, oh, that, like, that shows me that they're moving past just meaning. Like they're getting the meaning. And now they have freed up and they, they understand it so well that their brain has freed up space for them to pay attention to something else. If that's something students notice something, I explain it. I. I can't expect them to just get it right because they still have to process it and they might just be a little bit more conscious of what it is that they're saying or of what they're trying to say. But it doesn't, just'cause I've explained it doesn't mean that they're going to fix, I'm putting that in quotes. Fix like a, a non-normative language structure.
FishRod:Sure.
bill:So, alright. We've been
FishRod:talking
bill:gaslighting for a while. I know so many, so many things.
FishRod:these individual phrases and so
bill:Yeah.
FishRod:The, because the point is that this article is about multi word sequences, m
bill:Right. Let's dive in.
FishRod:how they, yeah. Like, yeah, uncap this, keep
bill:Yeah.
FishRod:for us.
bill:So this, the article that we read for this episode is titled the Role of Multi Word Sequences in Fluent Speech, the Case of Listener Based Judgment in Second Language, argumentative Speech. And this is in studies and second language acquisition. Great journal if you're able to access. It is by Karu, AWA and Shung Suzuki. So right off the bat, multi word sequences kind of touched on that, what that means already. But. Like, if you've got a single word, obviously that's not multi word. So we just jump up to the two word pairs. And so that, are, those are called bigrams. And the study also looked at trigrams, so two word groupings and three word groupings. And, so to start off, like they, the, the authors talked about the perceived fluency and usage of multi word sequences. So as you might be able to imagine if you give a student a multi word sequence, like, and where they don't have to break down the different parts of the phrase, and we're just told like, we use MEO when you're introducing yourself. MEO bill, bin May O'Brien, what that, how that might be perceived by a listener, which could you could you help me, like, help remind me of who they were asking to like do the perception of fluency?
FishRod:Their Raiders are, were also L two learners of English.
bill:Okay.
FishRod:perceived to have the higher proficiency level so that the, the study subjects were kind of in the, in the B one neighborhood, in the SR ranking system.
bill:Okay.
FishRod:the Raiders were trained teachers who were like PhD candidates and had taken courses in linguistics and were giving a training course. But their linguistic skills were rated closer to like a C one level.
bill:Okay.
FishRod:like a major, step up in
bill:Yeah.
FishRod:closer to native, like in quotation marks production or, you know, standardized production than the learners who were the, you know, the subjects of the study. But that also, they mentioned that as part of the limitations is that it was more, you know, this was a L two learner judging, an L two learner. And there might
bill:Right,
FishRod:perceptions if, like an L one speaker of a language was judging an L two speaker of a language. So
bill:right.
FishRod:a thought, an aside.
bill:So some things that they looked at were like speech rate. So if we're able to pull out these like two or three word phrases, and like they communicate a thought that we have, like, we're gonna be able to spit that chunk out pretty quickly, because we've already got in our head. So, it could improve like the perception of speech rate. So if you don't have to stop and think, what is the next word that I'm going to say? But you've got a chunk of words that you can just say like, off the, like, I don't know. Off the cuff. That's the phrase. Thank you. I didn't have that multi word sequence. Yeah, that is exactly. So, and I did not have that multi word sequence ready to go. But, that's one thing that they looked at, like if you're able to say things quicker, when it, when it is a chunk of, of language. It also they, they looked at pause frequency. So again, if we have these ready to go phrases. We probably don't have to pause as frequently to think about what the next thing that we wanna say. They also brought up self-repair. So when you do make a mistake or I'm saying mistake, even though I've got thoughts on what a language mistake is, check out t with BVP or talking L two. With BVP, they had an entire episode on if errors are even real in language learning, but, like being able to fix, like if a student says, I'm gonna keep going back to like, or, or whatever. But if they say, if they intend to say, but they say MEMA with an A at the end having this chunk of language in their head, they'll be able to like repair it. They'll be able to like self-correct. And be like, oh no. And, and keep going on. Like, I, I was just talking to students earlier this week about how like, I wanna get you to the point where, you know what sounds right, like, but in order to know what sounds right. You have to have a lot, a lot of input so that you're like, oh, I've heard these things before, but I've heard I've not heard them in that order. Or I've not heard them in that construction before. So that it like helps students, when it, when they're talking with someone else, like understand what is or is not, common speech. So in that, when people are using these multi word sequences, it improves their perceived fluency. It makes, it makes you sound, more fluent if you can just rattle off, some things and another one in Spanish anyway, like they, based on kwando, like from time to time. If, like, I don't know if I've ever, I mean now that I'm, I'm like a fluent speaker of the language. I know what every single one of those words mean. But, if I were to, again, if I were to translate it literally, it's like from time and when, which is again, going back, it's not a one-to-one translation, but like, if we have the meaning, then it doesn't matter if it's a one-to-one translation because we know the message that we're trying to explain and we get our message across to our other interlocutors. Multi word sequences also help, it mirrors native speaker patterns. Native speaker patterns. So, there's so many things that we say every single day that are chunked language. So, for example, idiomatic expressions, like I even saw this like today in class, we're watching Pan's Labyrinth in Spanish four rate film. Make sure that it's an appropriate film for you to show at your school. But it's a great film and the, the word to heal came up like to heal someone, someone is sick, heal them, or someone has an injury, heal them. And I know that you've brought up before, maybe like you using passwords in class. And I have as well, one of my phrases this year was Ana, heel, heel, little frog tale, if you don't heel today, you'll heal tomorrow. So like I know if I, if someone, if I hear someone say that, like I know that I don't have to think about every single word in that I know that they're wishing me well. And so when you can rattle off something like that, it shows like, it gives you like some idiomatic expressions, or other, or communication strategies that native speakers use. And they do talk about how. Like in for beginners, like basic locations, like, what's something in French or German? Sorry, Brian's not here. What's something in German? Like, what's that?
FishRod:was ready though. I was, I was like, gem, like, I like, right?
bill:Yeah, yeah,
FishRod:or like, you
bill:yeah, yeah.
FishRod:a great one because it's the same thing I call
bill:I,
FishRod:just like, F finish.
bill:yeah.
FishRod:Yep. There you go. German, like, Eski is, there is, or there are, but it literally means
bill:Okay.
FishRod:which my kids are always like, it's giving.
bill:giving
FishRod:no, no, no, no. And I'm like, please
bill:slate,
FishRod:Yeah, but those, those phrases like you, you just kind of have to like, I can't be like, es skip means it gives, because then
bill:right?
FishRod:I don't know you for our listeners, if you're not aware, that is a you know, colloquial thing to just describe how the the vibe that something is giving.
bill:Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
FishRod:you know, I think if I, if I taught it in that way, it would be funny and memorable. But I think it would accidentally, you know, if I was like, oh, escaped. Means there is a library. But if I taught that kind of in the English way, they're like, it's giving
bill:It is giving library.
FishRod:I'm not trying to say this room is like a library. I'm saying this room is literally a li there is a library at our school. So yeah, the, again, the, the like literal or, or you know, like colloquial translation and stuff like that. It's
bill:Right.
FishRod:of be very clear.
bill:Also something that, just like with your, with your example there, something that like clicked into my mind was in, in Spanish, the, the phrase there is, is I just one word and, I see students like kind of go in reverse from, instead of, from like Spanish to English, English to Spanish. Like I see a lot of, I ace. For, to say there is, but I'm like, oh, that would just mean like there is, is, which is like, that's just silly. I know what you're trying to say, but I get, but, but, but it is what? It's and then so for beginners, like some basic colocation basic grouping, basic bios, trigrams and then the article talked about in, for more advanced, learners using idiomatic expressions. So, like, and or, like which, eh, the English compare English thing, version of that translation I guess would be something like every cloud has a silver lining, but like the literal translation, for something good comes from, from bad things. Like anytime there's something bad, something good will come. And again, you don't need to understand every single word of that to be able to learn that phrase and learn the sentiment behind it, which is going to one, lead to you sounding more fluent. But also, being able to use those kinds of phrases. It's what is going to help students that are already performing maybe at like, I don't know, intermediate, low, intermediate, mid is using these extended colocations, these idiomatic phrases are what, and like sounding, I'm putting this in quotes, sounding more native, like is what's going to help them get a better. Rating on like a proficiency test. Like I know with a stamp being able to use idiomatic expressions and cultural language, it shows a deeper understanding of the language that you already have. So if I know that this phrase that doesn't exactly translate works in whatever context I'm writing about, and whoever's writing my writing or speaking or whatever, it's going to demonstrate to that person that not only do I understand how to put language together, I also understand that that I, that I need to add something to my language to really demonstrate that not only do I know how to translate words, but I can like, share my heart in the language, which I am gonna say. Dr. Bruno, she's at Michigan State. She had posted on social media a while ago about like, artificial intelligence, ai she had posted on, on social media about how like, you know, AI can translate for us, but it can't really like, help you speak to someone's heart. So like, it doesn't, translators in general as well, like don't understand sentiment of what we want to say. So by using some of these like multi word sequences, we can take all of like the meaning that we have, that we want to communicate and share it succinctly in a culturally appropriate way. And I think that's just real cool. So long story short, I, these like groupings of phrases. Or groupings of words can help, students communicate more easily. It can help them be perceived as more fluent and when you're thinking about how to organize, like the vocabulary that you're giving to students, see how you can put some words together that are like natural combinations that will be used over and over and over.
FishRod:What I appreciate about this is that, you know, it kind of laid out what fluency is, is that there's fluency of the, the use a model from sitz which it, there's fluency of the utterance. There's cognitive fluency and then perceived fluency. So utterance is just literally how
bill:Thank you.
FishRod:are you getting the words across your lips? What sort of pauses are you taking, that sort of things. Cognitive fluency is then like how you're processing the language, like how quickly it's moving through your brain and, and through the brain of your listener, that sort of thing. And perceived fluency is then somebody else is listening to you. Do they perceive that you're fluent? And what, you know, what does that look like? And that kind of in the, the literature review was, it was helpful and interesting for me to see that. Y yes. Like most of people's perceived fluency is based on their rate of speech. How often do they stop to take pauses and how many words can they get their tongue in a certain amount of time. And so what was cool is then when you have this study. They controlled for the rate of speech because they were like, yeah, we understand that if people speak faster, people perceive them to be more fluent, just as like a fluent as an idea. And we know that that is the biggest component of their fluency score. So they controlled for that and said, okay, we're gonna take people who are saying roughly the amount, same amount of words at the same time. You know, we're gonna put their kind of samples next to each other. But then compare was using more of these diagrams and trigrams, which again are two word phrases three word phrases. You know, even the, the example that they gave is like, agree with is a
bill:Mm-hmm.
FishRod:that
bill:Yeah.
FishRod:just say as a thing. So I agree with the speaker, but if you said, I agree, the speaker. Even with the same speed, it sounds, it might sound less fluent. And
bill:Yeah.
FishRod:You know, in Spanish,
bill:Yep.
FishRod:like this, that's a phrase. If you can just get I agree. I I am, I am in agreement with I am of the agreement.
bill:In concordance with,
FishRod:Exactly, yeah. That if you,
bill:yeah.
FishRod:that speed is rate of speech of neutralized. It's the people that are using that, these more, like you said, native like con connections, these more native like groupings of words that are getting perceived as being slightly more fluent.
bill:Hmm.
FishRod:You know, fluency is one of those things. It comes up in my class all the time. Like, how do you know when you're fluent? What do I gotta do to be fluent? What does fluency look like? And I, I think when we're teaching in a communicative way, we need to like, be able to put markers on our students' path of like, I. You fluently communicated your age, you know, like you fluently communicated
bill:Mm-hmm.
FishRod:likes and interests and who's in your, who's, like, who's close in your social circle, that sort of thing. You know, whatever it is. Like we need to put those markers on there, but, you know, kids are also competitive with themselves and want to put little you know, these kind of, wanna speak faster and speak more words and all these sorts of things. And so if we can give them these phrases, it's nice also to just pump them up with like, yeah, and you sound like a native speaker. Like you sound like a
bill:Mm-hmm.
FishRod:like an Austrian when you say, you know, when you say blah, blah blah. And then like, rattle off a list of things versus like stopping and being like, a lot of my kids have, have hit me with like the deist, which is just the, is, it doesn't even make sense in German. But it's
bill:Mm-hmm.
FishRod:like English braining it still. But
bill:Alright.
FishRod:once they get like steeped as a construction, then they can rattle off lists of stuff like all the time. And so yeah, we want them to speak faster. Like that is a huge component of their fluency. But what if you neutralize for that? It's the people that are using these natural groupings of words together. And again, it's even as these, as small as groupings as two and three words that are making these speakers come across as more fluent to the person listening to them. Another part that was interesting to me that I enjoyed reading was about that, because your brain not necessarily just access one word at a time when
bill:Mm-hmm.
FishRod:Like we're not just going dpe, dpe, dpe. We actually are activating pathways of multiple words at the same time. When you're learning these groups of bigrams and trigrams or longer phrases that just kind of go all together, like De San Juan, like that sort of thing.
bill:Quad grams
FishRod:that's it. Quad Yeah. Quadgrams,
bill:in qua. Anyway, sorry.
FishRod:But like that, when you're learning those. learning that as like one thing. So you're not learning
bill:Mm-hmm.
FishRod:you're learning one thing. So when your brain is accessing it, it's not using energy to access four things, it is using
bill:Yep.
FishRod:to
bill:L
FishRod:the one
bill:Yeah. Lowering the, lowering the cognitive load,
FishRod:when you, when you lower their cognitive load, they are feeling more fluent because they're again,
bill:Mm-hmm.
FishRod:one thing versus four things. And not struggling to pull each word out, but then the person listening to them, cognitive load is also reduced because they are hearing. The group, which to them is also one thing.
bill:Mm-hmm.
FishRod:they're activating networks of language versus, again, trying to pluck individual words out, which have been learned kind of in isolation.
bill:Yeah.
FishRod:exist in isolation in the brain. And so it is helps, it's a processing advantage for the speaker, but also for the listener. And so I think again, that speaks to like the power of teaching these that go together because they are learning them together. They are then accessing them all together.
bill:I'm wondering about from, from the production side, we see that it's easier to pull out these two, three forward groupings and just like spit'em out. But I'm also thinking about how much, I mean, you've already said this, I'm just restating, I guess, but like, it's easier to guess what's going to come next and when, when you're listening to someone, when you're reading something, it's easier to guess what comes next. It's easier to have like, a little bit more context when you're like, oh, I know this whole phrase already. So like, it's easier to just like, which good thing, bad thing, I guess. Like it's easier to just like skim over. Yeah, like if it looks familiar enough and it, and the meaning works, it's easier to go on to the next part that maybe you isn't as clear. But then your brain has the power to think a little bit more about it. Like taking apart the individual parts of individual pieces of the word, the, the morphemes, if you will, and be like, oh, that goes there, that goes there, that goes there. And all of those things are connected, and now I know what it means. And so I, I don't know. I would be interested in like a further study about, what learners, like what learners guess would come next. I guess. Like if you give learners like the start of one of these multi word sequences like. What do they think is gonna come next, or something like that. But that's just my teacher researcher brain. Just a thought.
FishRod:If we know that, if we know that teaching and learning multi learn word sequences makes our learners be perceived as more fluent, how can we go about doing that in instruction? How can we girl, boss using those multi word sequences in our fluent speech.
bill:Yeah. So one of the tools that I like to use, although again, it's, it's a tool. I use this from time to time. Sentence builders, or you might know them as substitution tables. So in a sentence builder or substitution table, it sometimes looks like a bunch of columns. So in, I'm going to give a very, very rudimentary example, but maybe we can find a link to something to post in the, in the notes. So maybe the first column has like subject pronouns. And I'll just do like a simple subject verb object. The second column has, maybe different, just like I, so I'm thinking Spanish like I walk, I talk, I run, and then, and the next column it would be like. Con amigos with friends or solo by myself. Something like that. So again, bad example, like a very rudimentary example. But the idea is that if you take something from the first column, something from the second column, something from the third column, no matter what it is in the list it will make like a logical cent or not, maybe not logical, but like, dramatically correct sentence.
FishRod:Yeah, sure.
bill:It, and what you can do in those is make it so that it, these word groupings have to go together. So, we've already got columns, but then you start adding rows. So like, you have to select something from each column, but then the rows have to line up. So. Maybe in the first column, in the first row, there's, first column, first row. There's just the subject pronoun I in the second column. First row you got a couple different I forms of verbs. Again, that's for Spanish or some other conjugation languages. And then the third column, it would be like prepositional phrases, objects, adverbs of time, something like that. That could go potentially with just that first row or maybe it goes with anything. So you have to take column one, row one, column two, row one, but then maybe column three, any of'em can go with any of the other rows. And again. Theoretically makes a grammatically correct sentence. Now, what this does is it forces students to, create grammatically correct sentences in a way that like, one lowering cognitive load. I know that these two rows have to have something in common, and then the third row, some whatever. But, then for, well, for me, the magic comes from going from, again, like individual words. So instead of just like, first column being subject pronouns, let's just get rid of that. And then the second column, instead of like, Camino put Yo Camino, so they have to use that chunk. And then that chunk has to go with whatever in the next column to make, again, grammatically, but perhaps not logically, comprehensible sentence. And if you use the, if you ever look into the sentence builder website, like you can set these things up so that, like say I do something that I've, I've done this year is like I, medical recommendations, so I've got a headache. Okay. And then that might be like the phrase, that might be the multi word sequence. I have a headache. Or like, with subjunctive, like I suggest that, like the, that needs to go with it. So like, if I'm trying to teach the students that, like, when you're giving suggestions, you need to have a, the, the word that in Spanish, even though we might not say it in English, just by like showing'em in the sentence builder over and over and over, that this, this word and this word have to go together. That's gonna hopefully, I guess, I need to do more research into like what these like sub substitution tables or sentence builders. I need to do more research into them. I've only done them like practically and they're fun. Like I, I like them. I think I've seen some good results from using them. But again, like it's, it's all about like patterns and I. Making sure that the words that are supposed to go together completely go together. So that's something that I've, I've done that I've found, to be at least like n noticeably helpful.
FishRod:I've seen that for German as well. And a lot of the times, like you said, the options that you're choosing from in any given column or row. Are not just individual words. So it'll be
bill:correct?
FishRod:with my friends la say three word
bill:Yes.
FishRod:with
bill:Mm-hmm.
FishRod:as a three word phrase. Right? And so I think that those can be helpful ways to model those, know, phrases that they wanna be able to whip out at any time. They don't want to have to be like,
bill:Mm-hmm.
FishRod:what's the word for my, what's the word for, you know, they, they don't need to analyze it, they just need to be able to whip out though with my friends, with my family. And so I think, yeah, that can be a good way to model those like diagrams and diagrams and,
bill:Yeah.
FishRod:so I've used those to a certain extent. And I used use you know American, US American listeners might be, you know, have seen a conference session or two about chat mats, which function in a similar
bill:Mm-hmm.
FishRod:Often
bill:Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. For sure.
FishRod:groupings of words together versus just one individual word. So it's putting language in context, like, here's how you might use it in a sentence versus in a very dry list that doesn't, you know, I. Show usage doesn't show real world communication. I think another thing we can
bill:S.
FishRod:the service of our students is to teach them like fillers and repair phrases. Because even if, you know, if they pause and are trying to draw on their, their individual word knowledge to try to figure out how to say what they want to say a way, a simple way to make them perhaps feel more fluent and then again to look more fluent is just to teach them the little, you know, or the, you
bill:Mm-hmm.
FishRod:I've been thinking about or I wonder if, those sorts of phrases that we use when we're buying ourselves time and our thinking even in our L one to them time, but also it's something that they can access as a phrase quickly when they maybe do need to think a little bit more thoroughly about what's trying to
bill:Yep.
FishRod:and what's coming next.
bill:Mm-hmm.
FishRod:so
bill:In Spanish four, we're in Spanish four. We're really trying to get place,
FishRod:Yeah. Mm-hmm.
bill:place, place. What else? And, and anything else?
FishRod:do I tell, I tell my students also too, like we, I do rejoinder in class, which are
bill:Mm-hmm.
FishRod:useful phrases that you know, pop people pop into conversations as a way to show agreement or disagreement or express frustration or concern or doubt or all sorts of things. And again, there are, you know something, it's something like, like, don't, you don't say,
bill:Yes.
FishRod:how nice. These are the sorts of things that if you're popping into conversation, I tell my students, you sound so German, you sound so Austrian. That can be a way, you know, increased perceived fluency, but also give students some, some, a way to contribute to conversations
bill:Mm-hmm.
FishRod:not ready to contribute full sentences right away, or if they, you know, the conversations as they do go by so fast, like they can still. Be a part of them and be understanding and maybe, you know, when they have time to speak for themselves can do that, but they can just interject with these short memorized phrases. And I use them in the classroom as like they're posted on my wall. I teach them explicitly. We review them over and over again, but I've also used them as classroom passwords.
bill:Mm-hmm.
FishRod:the phrase in my opinion in German is so silly. It's, which literally means my opinion after. like, it is just like, oh God, like it's so terrible to try to teach individually. But if you can just get the kids saying that phrase over and over again, then they're whipping that phrase out in speaking in writing because it just came as a group. And you don't have to
bill:Yeah.
FishRod:'cause, because I've also had students try to go the other way around and try to do in my mine, which is like not quite as I,
bill:Yeah.
FishRod:not idiomatic. So you know, getting, getting those phrases and teaching them it just as memorized phrases as groups. However you have to. I use, I the ones that when I have memorized phrases that I have a hard time teaching in the classroom. I just make it into a password for the class so that the students have to say it to me before they come in. So that
bill:Mm-hmm.
FishRod:have to retrieve it frequently, every day for at least a week. And when we review them, I can say like, Hey, look at all these passwords are, are helpful things to throw into any conversation. So that can
bill:Yeah.
FishRod:teach those sort of phrases that are fillers or repair or easy to throw into sentences.
bill:And then one thing that I was reminded of as you were talking about rejoins, is something that I've done recently to a girl boss, some of these s's, is I actually, I went onto Canva without the s, not the learning management system, but the design software. And I just created like, these like two by three, maybe not, maybe not even that. Little cards that, have. I made three different cards. So in, in my classroom I've got, things of chairs and threes. So three different rejoinder cards, or I made three different cards with a different list of rejoins on each of the three. So in each set of three, there's say like 18 different rejoinder, and I just took some packing tape and taped them down onto the desk. So, students have those rejoinders and a variety of rejoinders just ready to go at any given point, but they only have like six in front of'em. But I do change seats enough that students get at least, get at least exposure to the different sets of rejoinders. And then. I, because I started this at the end of the year. I haven't done this yet, but my hope is to maybe every quarter or at the semester, change out the rejoinder on, on the desktops. So that when they just look down, like, and I tell them, I'm like, like, use these phrases like one, you're gonna sound real cool because like, my, my favorite one that I've got on on there is, like from from Puerto Rico WIPA
FishRod:Mm-hmm.
bill:which I translate, because of Justin Silke Bailey as wow, we z. And so like, that's like a really fun, fun thing to use and to like embed that with like TPR, like instead of a total physical response, it's like a total verbal response. So like the other day in, in Spanish one, we learned the phrase to have fun. So I told students like, every single time that I say the phrase to have fun, you need to say and like, sound like you're having fun. And that showed me that one, they're hearing the word and hopefully like connecting the meaning with, with something like energetic. And then just randomly I said the phrase to have fun. And a student with a zero prompting just shouted wipa. It's been a couple days since, since we, since we did that. Like, it just like automatic, it was a lot of fun. So
FishRod:I've been thinking, I went to a session with Paul Les, the Montana language Teacher of the year a couple years ago. And he, one of his phrases that I was like, oh my gosh, why haven't I been teaching this was sh Vita in German, which is like, it literally means already again. So it can either be like yet again or kinda like, not this again, sort of, and that is another one that my students have weaponized and use all the time. If like, something weird happens in my classroom, which it often does, they're just like, not this again. And I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, that's fair. Drag me. But I think, I, I think my final, my, my final like girl bossy thought is, is how we plan and teach. Like we need to be looking ahead to the sort of communicative demands that we wanna make of our students. We need to think about what we want them to express or interpret in terms of meaning, and then provide vocabulary that's presented in such a way that it's immediately useful for them for the purposes of those communicative goals. Like again, if we want to be able to describe people, we need to have words in describing language, in useful forms for that sort of thing. If we want to express opinions, we need to have expressive opinion language that is in the form that you're gonna say it in or that you're gonna write it in. And so having those phrases, you know, instead of, you know, listing the infinitive or listing, you know, single words, just having a set phrase already conjugated whatever. And then if, you know, should a word come up in a different context with a slightly different conjugation, different subject, whatever it might be, you can sometimes just, you know, activate that in the student's brain just by saying. original phrase that they learned and like the context that they learned it, and then just kind of changing, you know, transferring the context. And so I think that we need to think ahead of like what we're gonna ask our students to do and then make our, you know, vocabulary presentations. However, if it's through stories, if it's through PQA, if it's through, you know, pictures and sorts of things we need to make those, thinking of how we're going to be asking the students to process the language, but then also how we in this unit, in this instructional sequence want them to then use it. And so we need to be able to present it in that way. So it takes a little bit of forethought of, you know, like, know, I, I need them to be able to make medical recommendations, like you said. So I need to have my opinion phrases conjugated probably to the yo form, to the I form because it's you giving the opinion. So you don't wanna give them, you give, okay. I am of the opinion that, you know, those sorts of things. So using that as a planning consideration to get these useful word phrases, multi word sequences, just ease. So easy to access because they have been presented in the way that we're going to use them. We've used them then in that way. And to build that fluency and build that sense of accomplishment for our students because that's what we want.
bill:Slay.
FishRod:left? Diva Diva girl.
bill:Not for me. I will say that. It has been sad to not have Brian with us these past couple episodes, but I'm glad to talk with you and hopefully our next episode, which, I mean, what is this episode? 18?
FishRod:It will be episode 18.
bill:Yeah, we've got two more left and then we're gonna take a break for the summer. Right. It seems like the plan seems like the plan. So, we look forward to connecting you all back with Brian in, in the coming weeks. And until then, get out there and slate. Bye. Oh, one more thing. Over the past year, I have been doing the full parent share, which is a program that they do to connect, mentors and mentees. And I have really dropped the ball these past couple episodes because, my parent share partner, Elizabeth has been asking me to give her a little shout out. So I, and I have not, she said she listened to us every single time an episode drops. So, shout out to Elizabeth. And the word that she's been wanting me to say was Cat. So she wanted me to send a little signal to her. So I think, I think this explicit mention of her name probably is a little bit better than saying the word cat. But, hi Elizabeth
FishRod:Hi,
bill:and Slay.
FishRod:too. Okay, go forth and slate.
bill:Bye bye.
