negative and positive reinforcement in French immersion
James Owens
reinforce the use of French in the classroom. This is mostly applied in
later elementary grades, when the students apparently tend to start using
English despite class rules.
The system involves giving each student a supply of tokens -- pennies or
popsicle sticks. During a certain period (say a week), if the student
speaks English, he or she loses a token. At the end of the period, those
with enough tokens get a reward, such as extra play time, while those with
too few receive a punishment, such as extra work.
Is this positive reinforcement, or negative reinforcement?
In one variation, the students monitor one another, and if one catches
another speaking English, he or she can claim the offender's token.
Is this a useful variation?
--
Everybody does something about the weather,
but nobody talks about it. -- Anonymous
James Owens Ottawa, Canada
Bowgus
never a reward/punishment aspect ... it was done as a game as in ... today I
may get one of yours ... but tomorrow you may get one of mine.
Off Topic: I personally dropped the reward/punishment paradigm long ago ...
I believe it was around the time I had my own kids. I replaced it with the
consequences concept ... which I think is more like the day-to-day world
that kids will encounter later on.
"James Owens" <ad...@FreeNet.Carleton.CA> wrote in message
news:a270m2$kra$1...@freenet9.carleton.ca...
Gwen II
>Is this positive reinforcement, or negative reinforcement?
>
>In one variation, the students monitor one another, and if one
catches
>another speaking English, he or she can claim the offender's token.
>
>Is this a useful variation?
I think I might be able to provide some insight into this practice.
Some background:
I'm a teenager who was in a French Imersion school from JK to grade 8
and continued French in grade 9 although I got sick of verbs and by
grade 10 I ditched it. Here I am grade 11 and I can still understand
french TV just as well if not better then I could before. Noting that
this message will be broadcast accross several newsgroup from
different localities, I'll also mention that I'm from Ottawa, which of
course is right next to Quebec which alows out french schools to have
authentic Quebecois as teachers. :)
The meat:
I had been exposed to this technique many times in Elementry school.
In grade 1 we started with little glass beads ("bijoux"). If you
heard someone speak a word of english without prefacing it with the
fact that they didn't know how to say said word in French you said
"Donne moi un bijoux!" and they would be forced to give you one of the
beads we kept in our desks. All disputes were of course settled by
the teacher.
A problem emerged for me at that time which continued until I left the
system behind: More times then not, more then one person would hear
someone utter a forbiden word of English and they would all cheerily
demand a bijoux from the child. Of course she couldn't be expected to
give them to everyone, so if there was a clear winner in the race to
ask for a bijoux that person would get it. Failing that, she would
select someone from the crowd of ties and give one to them. Therein
lies my problem. Even at six I was something of a social outcast and
was seldom selected as the person to whom the bojoux went. That meant
that while I would lose bijoux at the same approximate rate as
everyone else, I would not gain them back as quickly and always ended
up with a very bad mark as a result.
Later on, this turned into the acknowledged fact that you wouldn't ask
a "jeton" (the term used for the photocopied tickets from grade two
onwards) from someone who was your friend, unless you were very mean.
We would actually discuss and form alignences with each other.
Implications: More socially successful children end up with better
grades.
Also tried were instating rules that jetons could be taken not only in
the classroom and halls but also in changing rooms, recess, lunchtime
&c. These were overwhelmingly unsuccessful and taught us that
together we're more powerful then the teachers. :-)
By 7th grade, nothing was working. No one cared about jetons. I lost
mine by leaving them places all the time. Oops. As much as our
teachers would try to convince us otherwise, marks from grade seven
don't matter much. I knew all I needed to do was pass.
So there was a new twist on this game: Everyone who had an average of
>80% of their jetons on the day they were counted over a few weeks got
a candy or something. Then it was upped. A field trip was planned.
Only those with the right jeton average could go. You know where the
trip was? The mall. We spent an entire day at a mall. It was a
french mall, natch, but a mall nonetheless. I'm not even going to go
in to the blatent consumer culture in my town and how boring you have
to be to enjoy a whoel day at a mall. Bah. Anyways, as I was saying,
we did this mall thing. Almost everyone got to go, and the people who
didn't were the people that no one liked and no confidnace, because
they would never ask anyone for a jetons and if they did, they would
seldom get it.
Then the teachers introduced a system where in order to go to the
school dance you had to have the requisite average. Dances at this
point were of course during the day as they were for grade six, seven
and eight, so you would sit in the library and do french work for the
first hour of the dance, then you would be allowed to go if you felt
like it.
Still with this system, the same old problems. No one really cared,
and within social cliques participation was frowned upon.
IMHO a far better technique would be to try and instill a desire to
learn french. By that I don't mean telling them how many jobs they'll
get when they're older becuse they know french. Not many people who
came out of that system really cared much for the language. It's
something we were forced to do. French was just verbs and sentance
parsing and stupid stories written for third graders about
catterpillars and beetles that talk. When you're in grade eight, you
are WAY too cool for things like that to interest you. ;)
And there you have it, the social and educational implications of
using the token system in an upper middle class Canadian suburb.
HTH
--
Gwen
Question authority while you're young enough not to be it.
ICQ: 78980902
James Owens
> I think I might be able to provide some insight into this practice.
Thanks for your insights into the social aspects of the baton system.
Your comments are very timely, as I have a meeting with the teacher and
the principal this morning. I expect them to listen politely and then
ignore me completely. If this happens I plan to stir up trouble. Here's a
summary of my thoughts so far:
Problems with the baton system:
1. It contains a design flaw. The class can "strike" so that no one says
"baton" and everyone receives the reward. This shows that the system is
poorly thought out. If this occurs to the students and they discuss it,
and yet some students refuse to strike, it proves that their motive for
collecting batons is not the nominal reward, but something else, such as
social status or malevolence.
2. It reinforces other types of behaviour besides speaking French in
class, such as:
- betraying members of one's peer group
- exploiting the failures of others to achieve success
- using threats or favours to gain an advantage
- stealing
In short, it teaches selfish and antagonistic behaviour instead of
cooperative behaviour.
3. It overlooks considerations of social relationships and status. Those
who are well-liked are less vulnerable than those who are unpopular.
4. It encourages alliances and vendettas among the students, turning them
against one another and the teacher.
Gwen
>Your comments are very timely, as I have a meeting with the teacher and
>the principal this morning. I expect them to listen politely and then
>ignore me completely. If this happens I plan to stir up trouble. Here's a
>summary of my thoughts so far:
Out of curiosity, why are you so opposed to the system? I mean, I see your
reasoning below and of course understand it pretty well, but why bother
fighting it? Bad personal experiences?
>Problems with the baton system:
Sound arguments.
The problem remains, then: How *do* you get kids to speak french?
How did your meeting go?
James Owens
> Out of curiosity, why are you so opposed to the system? I mean, I see your
> reasoning below and of course understand it pretty well, but why bother
> fighting it? Bad personal experiences?
My nine-year old is subjected to it. The teacher says that she's the best
participant in the class, always there with her hand up. UNfortunately
that means she has her mouth open a lot, and she doesn't always consider
her words before speaking, so she will make mistakes (like "Je suis finis"
or using franglais). It's a split class, grade 4 and 5, and the grade 5's (and
those with one or more French-speaking parents) can always manage to ding
her for popsicle sticks she can't get back. It's at the point where she
wants to skip school on the morning when she has to work while others get
to play on the computers.
My wife and I are having to tell her to watch other people for mistakes so
she can get some batons back, and for reasons stated, we don't like
doing that.
Besides, it's a rotten system. We didn't even know about it until we
heard from another kid's mom how it works (the kid actually reports fully
on what goes on in school.) We checked with another set of parents and they
didn't know about it either.
The meeting went slightly better than expected. The principal will do some
fact-finding, talk to the kids about their impressions, and get back to us.
As an alternative we proposed that one day a week, unknown to the
students, the teacher monitors the entire class for English or grammatical
errors, and based on their collective score they all get computer time or
not. Of course she says she hasn't time for that.
>
>>Problems with the baton system:
>
> Sound arguments.
>
> The problem remains, then: How *do* you get kids to speak french?
>
> How did your meeting go?
>
> --
> Gwen
> Question authority while you're young enough not to be it.
> ICQ: 78980902
Gwen II
>[snip]
>Besides, it's a rotten system. We didn't even know about it until we
>heard from another kid's mom how it works (the kid actually reports
>fully on what goes on in school.) We checked with another set of
parents
>and they didn't know about it either.
Ah, I understand. I wish some industrious parent had gone to the
trouble of getting rid of that system when I was in school. Would
have saved me certain amount of stress.
>The meeting went slightly better than expected. The principal will do
>some fact-finding, talk to the kids about their impressions, and get
>back to us.
Fact to be found: Many children won't speak honestly to the
principal, especially in a large group setting.
Maybe it's the geek in me but by grade 4 or 5 you should be starting
in on some actual computer work and not jsut have it be a game
>As an alternative we proposed that one day a week, unknown to the
>students, the teacher monitors the entire class for English or
>grammatical errors, and based on their collective score they all get
>computer time or not. Of course she says she hasn't time for that.
Don't say it like it isn't true. How well do you think YOU'd do at
controlling 30 9 and 10 year olds all day everyday, trying to get them
to do things they don't want to? ;p
James Owens
> James Owens didn't say this, but their cat did:
>>As an alternative we proposed that one day a week, unknown to the
>>students, the teacher monitors the entire class for English or
>>grammatical errors, and based on their collective score they all get
>>computer time or not. Of course she says she hasn't time for that.
>
> Don't say it like it isn't true. How well do you think YOU'd do at
> controlling 30 9 and 10 year olds all day everyday, trying to get them
> to do things they don't want to? ;p
Point taken, sort of. I know teachers have their hands full and they
should have smaller classes. (I didn't vote Conservative.)
On the other hand, she doesn't have to act like correcting the students'
French is not her job.
James Owens
> James Owens didn't say this, but their cat did:
>>As an alternative we proposed that one day a week, unknown to the
>>students, the teacher monitors the entire class for English or
>>grammatical errors, and based on their collective score they all get
>>computer time or not. Of course she says she hasn't time for that.
>
> Don't say it like it isn't true. How well do you think YOU'd do at
> controlling 30 9 and 10 year olds all day everyday, trying to get them
> to do things they don't want to? ;p
Point taken, sort of. I know teachers have their hands full and they
should have smaller classes. (I didn't vote Conservative.)
On the other hand, she doesn't have to act like correcting the students'
French is not her job.
--