Fear of speaking: Too much L2?
Gale Mackey wrote: “…student rapport comes first.” I agree; and this can come from students feeling successful in that class — feeling that they *can* understand this language and that the teacher is on their side, setting them up for success and not for failure. I give directions in English ( in Spanish one and two.) and other housekeeping details are in L1. Actually, I have learned from my mentors that is better to try to do this in the target language. First of all, instructions that are frequently repeated lend themselves to being demonstrated and reinforced in the target language. Secondly, if this part is not done in the TL, then students will learn that the L2 is simply the subject to be talked *about* and it is not really a mode of communication. We also translate every word that is >being inputted before assuming that the students “have it”….I know that >before we tell a story, the kids are going to know every word in the story. I try to keep such pre-reading vocab lists
