I like circling. And not only do my students also like it when I circle (or in any other way build in repetitions of sentences and structures), but I feel it is beneficial for them - if not for everyone, then at least for this specific group of students in this specific type of language class.
My students are adults and teens who come to my Spanish classes once a week. They like to be active in class and they love to build stories and to have conversations about their lives and interests. The beginners usually have a history of either having failed in other language classes or, at the other end of the spectrum, having excelled in other languages at school. The former NEED to understand everything I say in order to feel safe and avoid having their affective filter go up. The latter WANT to understand everything I say because, as 'good' language students, they are so focused on the language. Also, they all WANT to speak Spanish - I'll come back to that later. This article focuses on what I do in my beginners' classes, although some of it may apply to more advanced classes as well.
Here's why.
Repetitions enhance comprehension. They make it possible for every student in my class to understand what I'm saying in their own time. In my beginners' classes, I translate every new structure or word on the board. When I say a whole sentence (slowly, gesturing and acting, and pointing at the relevant words or pictures on the board), at first, the students will be able to process the most important words and thus in fact only comprehend part of what I say, EVEN if it is completely translated on the board. It is simply too much to process in real time. But as I repeat the sentence in a creative manner, the building blocks start to fall into place. The more I repeat, the more they understand. Circling provides me as a teacher with a flexible, dynamic and interactive way of including lots of repetitions in the input whenever I detect a need for it.
Circling shortens processing time. The first time I say a new word, for example "rijbewijs" (driver's license) it may take up to five seconds to connect the sound of that word to the meaning. Every time I repeat the word, the processing time shortens, until we reach the point where the students hear the word and immediately see a driver's license in their heads. Thus, circling helps develop fluent listening in a situation where there is a severe time limit and no language input outside of class.
Circling enhances participation when we’re building a story. My students want to participate, they want to contribute to the story. So I need to prepare them, to help them be ready for participation by giving lots of repetitions. I have noticed many times that new information needs to sink in before students can come up with ideas for the story. When I tell them "he goes to the store", and then ask "with whom?" or "why?", there is no response. Not because they don't understand what I'm saying, because I have made sure they do. No, it is because the sentence has not yet produced a picture in their heads. But after a bit of creative circling, adding a little detail here and there, the picture in their heads comes to life. They start to FEEL the meaning of the sentence rather than cognitively understand it. That is when I can ask "with whom?" or "why?" and get a response from the students.
Circling helps them produce output. My students WANT to speak. And no, speaking may not be the natural road to language acquisition. But driving a car is not natural either. Our bodies were not built to drive cars, but to walk. However, we drive cars because they help us get to places faster than a natural way of transport would. My students want to 'practice' speaking Spanish at their own level, because it helps them get around in shops, restaurants and hotels when they are on holiday in Spain. They also simply want to say things in Spanish because it makes them feel good. They love it when they get a real reply from someone else to what they have said in Spanish. They love to be able to communicate. Here and now.
So this is why I like circling, and why my students like it too. It is not torture. It is fun and it allows everyone to pick up the language, to be creative and express themselves in class, to interact dynamically with the teacher and with each other, and to feel confident and energised. I realise that this may or may not be 'pure' acquisition. But my students and I also have other goals in our class: enhancing comprehension, shortening processing time, fluent listening, increasing participation, and producing output that can be applied in real world communication, which circling, in the context of building stories and having conversations, addresses effectively and engagingly in the classroom.
With love and respect,
Kirstin Plante
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