My son is asleep and I am finishing my prep for tomorrow. Got as far as laying out what needs to happen tomorrow.

1. Tangible experience of success with the first listening activity (“Dish Soap for Dinner.”)  
2. Some kind of engagement with with topic for the day.
3. Ideally SOMETHING that feels like a step in the direction of this bing a debate class. Probably some sort of opinion-formulation/opinion-evaluation activity.  (There is a debate textbook that I have used in the past with some success that I think will help me to gain clarity on that point.)

There is no way that I can move forward with anything until I satisfy that first criterion. First thing’s first … and that’s not just me being a granny. As a teacher “moving on,” is pretty-much always a bad idea. This is a mistake I see countless teachers make. Fully exploit whatever you are doing with the kids; OR, if it’s not working, abort. Never just move on. In the case of Lesson 1, the boys, on the second read-through actually did understand he Dish Soap story, and it had been a heavy lift for them, but we were running out of time, and I didn’t have the chance to get them all to really go “ah …" There is another more pedagogically fundamental reason why first thing needs to be first. When I assess a group of learners, I always ask myself “where are they relative to the four doors.” I am sure that this is something that I have stolen from someone, but my four-doors paradigm goes like this.

• DOOR 1 — LISTENING CONFIDENCE.
• DOOR 2 — SPEAKING CONFIDENCE.
• DOOR 3 — FUNDAMENTALS.
• DOOR 4 — PRAGMATICS.

Everybody's goal is to get through door number four.  We want to be able to talk on the phone. We want to be able to make friends. We want to be able to negotiate deals. It's not a question of grammar and pronunciation and vocabulary (door three) being a higher or lower priority. There are just things you simply can't do on the pragmatics level until door three is open. Similarly, it doesn't matter how strong your grasp of different grammar rules might be, if doors one or two are closed, you can't progress any further. Without a doubt, everyone in this class is stuck behind doors 1 and 2. Focusing on debate strategies — a pragmatic (door 4) concern — would be laughably unproductive. They are they a very solid when it comes to fundamentals (door 3). I know that I am going to need to do some work on Authentic Rhythm, Melody, and Pronunciation (ARMP) in order to unlock the sophisticated grammar knowledge that they have at this point. But first they need faith in themselves. Yes, I know that this is supposed to be a "debate class," but I know for certain that I had them right in their Zone of Proximal Development while they were pulling them through the challenge of hearing what is actually a very simple story and saying it back to me. Until they actually believe that they can use their mouths and ears to receive and convey information — ANY information — in English, so sophisticated mastery of verbs or conditional or relative clauses is going to be of any use to them. I’ve got the general road map for this lesson ...

• #Action Review "Dish Soap for Dinner” #Completewhen Everyone in the class is able to communicate back to me some kind of explicit understanding of key elements of the story.
• #Action Gauge the student’s level of engagement with “Theft in Italy.”  #Completewhen I have enough information to make a good decision concerning how to treat the topic for next week.  Also, make sure that I am reciprocating effort that students have put in to understanding the article.  #Consider a heavily structured comprehension activity that gets everyone of the same page — perhaps a jigsaw or sentence scramble activity — but before launching into that, give students some kind of opportunity to show you that they have done their homework.
• #Action work in teams of 3 to compose 4-sentence opinion statements relating to the article.  PROPOSITION:  “People that steal food should not be punished as criminals.”  #Consider assigning teams the affirmative and negative positions and then reversing.  Time might be a serious consideration.  #Consider modeling an affirmative and a negative opinion statement for a different proposition.  Again, time will be a serious consideration.

And now I need to put my son to bed.