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So I was listening to Tea with BVP, episode 2 I think, and a teacher was saying how she was having great success with a pure Comprehensible Input classroom with students she saw everyday but with the young children she only saw once a week it wasn't working. She felt like she had to do too much reteaching in order to be able to move forward.
Now, I haven't shifted to a Comprehensible Input classroom myself. I am still learning. I do give a fair number of instructions in Latin, we read aloud a lot in Latin, and other activities. Admittedly I am still pretty tied to my textbook, the Cambridge Latin Course, but I do try to work in a number of oral/aural activities. One that I like is "musical pairs." You need something students can read in pairs--like a dialogue between two people--and music. You play the music while students mill about. When the music stops they have to pair up and read the Latin dialogue. If they get to the end before others do, they start over. When the music starts again, students stop reading and mill about again. Repeat a few times.
I have used this with embedded (simplified) readings of dialogues coming up in the day's story to preview it. I make sure the Latin is simple enough with only a couple of glossed words at most. My best students (admittedly, this year's 1st period class) would become quite dramatic at reading these and even my lowest functioning class would get something out of this activity.
Doing these reminded me of a box stuffed in my storage cabinet from when I taught middle school students a decade ago. The box contains class sets of little mini-dialogues. One was on introducing yourself, another on asking to go to the bathroom, another on answering questions starting with ubi or quis. I was looking at these last week, and thinking that they would be good to use as a mini-warm-up. And in thinking about this teacher's question on BVP, it might have been a good solution for reviewing from the previous week before jumping into something new.
No question that if you only teach once a week you will HAVE to spiral and review. And you will have to develop a VARIETY of ways to do this. I'm not saying I would use these little dialogues for every class. There would have to be other little things. Or other motivational tasks with a purpose for reviewing something learned for that one day, like "How many people can you introduce yourself to in Latin between now and next week?" It could be a competition for a prize. Then, the next week, meet students at the door and they cannot enter until going through greetings. In that moment, before even seeing whether students took part in the little competition or not, you will be able to tell how much reviewing you will need to do. But don't make it blatant reviewing.
If numbers are learned, then find things to count. Do surveys the following class of how many people have dogs for pets or cats. Each time everyone is counting the hands raised (thus reviewing from the previous class lesson on numbers), but maybe you are also adding, "Aemilia canem habet. tu canem habes? ego canem non habeo. ego felem habeo. feli nomen est Julia." That is, you might begin working in 1st, 2nd, 3rd person with a useful verb (without all the grammatical nonsense) plus a direct object/accusative. Then add to that a little review on "mihi nomen est___" with a bit of a twist by providing the dative for dog or cat. (Remember, shelter vocabulary, not grammar!) Maybe by the 4th week you can tell a story TPRS style. A little one. But maybe a full story will be a few more weeks away. Are you teaching something that interests the students, keeping it personal? (Yes, their pets, their names, how many.) Maybe it won't be story time until Halloween--and what a treat it could be by that time!
So, I guess what I would have liked to have heard on Tea with BVP would have been something more along the lines of learning how to spiral and how to tie in more closely whatever was learned in the previous lessons. It might seem like you would cover less material over time but in all likelihood it will be of a much better quality and better retained the more you spiral--and most importantly, students will have more joy in the class and stay excited about language learning.
I had a ballroom dance instructor, Richard, who reassured students in the class (all older adults) that we would likely retain only 10% of what he had taught that night over the length of the week, but that it was ok because he would thoroughly review before moving on. Which was true--and he was the best ballroom dance instructor I had. Sadly, he no longer teaches and the other instructors are just not equal to the task at all. The key is that Richard KNEW most people would forget and he taught NOT to the exceptionally talented individuals who would go home and practice but the whole class. He knew the importance of spiraling and building a solid foundation. He believed there was great joy in social dancing (as opposed to ballroom competitions) and that he could teach anyone how to lead and follow and enjoy the music. Other instructors which we have had since have expressed frustration at the amount people would forget... and yet even with their trying to push us farther, they taught us less. (They are not true teachers.)
So I guess the real question is, how realistic are your goals for what you want to accomplish with young children? We should always be focused on not how much we "cover" but how much they can retain, not to mention how and why they do retain it.
