As a teacher in training at Calvin College in 2004, I had the opportunity to work as a tutor for the French department. I spent time working for Professor Irene Konyndyk, tutoring students for a new class she was developing called “Multisensory French.” The idea is intriguing: find students who traditionally struggle with learning a language, who have previously failed, or who would normally be exempt from a foreign language requirement, put them all in the same class, and design a course to meet their specific and diverse needs. Konyndyk has spent the latter years of her career designing this program, and has now published her ideas, methods, and recommendations in Foreign Languages for Everyone.
Konyndyk sets a positive tone in her book. She begins with the wonderful assumption that teachers want to see their students succeed and that students also want to be successful. She believes that struggling students will succeed when given the right tools and attention, and frustrated teachers will have energy and enthusiasm to motivate and guide these students. She argues that the problems teachers face with struggling learners occur because students “face special challenges that very few educators have been trained to identify and address” (2).
The positive tone for learners and teachers (yes you can!) is also met with high expectations (yes you will!). Students are expected to sign a contract indicating their commitment to showing up, doing the work, and putting in maximum effort. Organization is paramount—all students organize their binders in the same way, and all handouts are color-coded. Students are given regular, consistent feedback, which is designed to keep them trying and continually revising their work. In order for the students to give maximum effort, the teacher is required to give timely feedback. Konyndyk suggests it is essential to return corrected daily homework and tests to students the next day. She also insists that teachers write scripted, detailed lesson plans so that students can follow carefully: “When it comes to teaching a foreign language to at-risk learners, however, overly vague planning is a recipe for disaster. If a teacher doesn’t plan details, students will have to fill in the details for themselves. This is simply too much to ask of most at-risk learners” (49).
I enjoyed reading this book throughout the fall of the 2013–14 school year, when I was teaching a grade 10 French class with thirty students of varying needs, goals, and talents. My students were not all struggling with a learning disability, and because grade 10 French is an elective, many were there because they had achieved success in grade 9 French the previous year. I found myself both convicted and overwhelmed by Konyndyk’s constant drive to see her students succeed. I wondered, given a typical teaching load of a high school teacher, how much of this method was possible. I wondered also, if I would ever convince the administration of my school to cap a foreign language course at fifteen students!
All excuses aside, her method offers many strategies and practices that can be implemented regardless of one’s classroom setting. It is up to the reader to decide what she can take away from this book to use in a more typical setting where students with learning disabilities are integrated in the classroom with other learners. It was disappointing that the book didn’t offer more suggestions for this area.
Of the many “convicting” methods that caught my eye while reading, I was drawn most to the use of student journals and an introductory survey. Konyndyk puts a heavy emphasis on the use of student journals, written in the first language, to have students explore how they learn, and why they do the things they do. Especially in a high school setting, we often take for granted that students reflect on learning on their own. By having students write weekly journals, Konyndyk gains valuable insight into their minds. Assuming they are being honest (and from the sampling she gives, it is clear they are!), the course instructor can adjust lessons and materials to fit student needs. Journal writing is a simple, often overlooked tool that foreign language teachers can employ to learn about their students and have students learn about themselves. In my current setting, with students who have studied French for several years by the time they arrive in high school, it can be a useful tool to learn about their previous experiences with the language, what strategies they have found successful, or not, and why. As I think about my grade 10 French class with thirty students, I realize that having students submit journals would have given me insight into the minds of some of the quieter students in the classroom, giving them voice when they may sometimes feel they don’t have one.
In the same way, Konyndyk gives an extensive survey in the first days of her course. She takes the time to get to know her students; her questions move well beyond typical information about hobbies, favorite subjects, and summer vacations. She carefully outlines her rationale for the questions she asks, and gives us responses that are typical of students with learning disabilities. Asking students these questions gives the teacher insight, and it also begins the process of metacognition—teaching students to think about how they learn and why they do the things they do in an educational setting.
Another highly transferable practice from Konyndyk’s method is the way she organizes and paces her course. She color-codes handouts, and always formats them the same way. She expects students to organize their binders according to these color-coded papers. When pacing the course, Konyndyk is aware of student attention span and works to provide repetition of previously covered topics and inserts new material in the middle of the lesson. Adding new information at the end, when students are not able to pay attention well, is a recipe for disaster. All of these things require a teacher who is organized and planning ahead of her class period.
In the introduction to her book, Konyndyk discusses the idea that students with learning disabilities have the right to learn a foreign language, and that if taught the correct way, they can know the joy of exploring another culture, and its direct connection to the language spoken by its people. Unfortunately, this assumption occasionally gets lost in the details of the book. When I had finished reading her detailed plans for student success, I was left with the nagging feeling that the book is more about students meeting the criteria for a mandatory language requirement than it is about students learning a language. The tension is that these two things overlap, and can be the same thing. Students do need to pass a foreign language requirement, and students should be given every opportunity to learn and understand a new language and culture.
While explaining her grading scale (which is heavy on participation-based scoring), Konyndyk offers her understanding of the conundrum between meeting a requirement for a diploma and learning a language. Her course breakdown, she says, “means that all students who are willing to work hard every day are able to complete their foreign-language requirement. Those who don’t do well on tests can correct them, thereby improving their grade. I assume pedagogically that if students are doing and correcting their daily homework, attending and participating in class and tutoring sessions, and correcting their tests, they will, by the constant repetition and exposure, master a foreign language to an appropriate level of proficiency.”
As I read, I found myself questioning the content of the course. What is covered in the three-semester sequence? I stopped to check the accompanying Web site, and could not find a scope and sequence for the course. Is it possible, using the multisensory method, to cover what would be covered in a typical three-semester university French course? Moreover, how do we know that students are retaining what they learn? I realize, in posing this question, that the same information is not easy to find for “regular” university foreign language tracks either.
Konyndyk does briefly explain that pace and content need to be adjusted. She places the emphasis on frequency of use and does consider overall difficulty. She considers her students, even at the end of the three semesters, to be “beginning learners.” Mastery of high-frequency concepts is more important than having an overview of many different structures that have traditionally confused students.
It is clear that Konyndyk is passionate about this often overlooked group of learners. She wants all students to have the opportunity to learn and grow as language learners, whatever their disability (or ability) may be. She not only encourages teachers to see each student as a valued gift from God who has the right and ability to learn a language, she gives the teachers many methods and easy to implement ideas for how to do this well.