repeating old material

What subject are you teaching? That’s very important to know. If you’re teaching math, they can’t move on until they understand the present material. If you’re teaching a social studies unit on Japan and the next unit is on states and their capitols, you can certainly move on if they didn’t get the unit on Japan and hope for better understanding in the new unit.

If you’re teaching any of the subjects like math and foreign language which it is crucial NOT to move on unless students have a full grasp of the present material. Many other subjects though are not linear in nature and you can move on.

I agree with you that simply repeating the material does nothing. You have to figure out why they’re not understanding - what’s going wrong - where exactly did you lose them and how far do you have to backtrack to get them back on track.

If you post again with some more info, the answers to your good questions would be better ones.

Sara’s right — what the content is has a lot to do with whether you move on.
It’s great that you aren’t comfortable with plowing through and exposing students — don’t be. It’s a stupid myth/ rationalization/ excuse for not doing something different to think that well, maybe, somewhere in the students’ brains, they are assimilating all this and will put it all together in their own special way. I’m sure it happens on occasion — but far more students simply learn that they are too stupid to learn the stuff, or that school is a stupid idea anyway, and that it’s a sentence to be served. They may figure out rituals to come up with a passing grade, especially if the teacher helps by dumbing things down enough, but it’s not anything to be confused for learning.
When I was first teaching, I spent a lot of time talking and having students read, without much feedback until a quiz that they all failed. I had to learn to design teaching so that they were actively engaged — which meant using pictures (tho’ in some cases vivid words were enough — reading the diary of a kid on a ship in the 1800’s and the conditions and the food was enough to give them some real images of life at sea and why a person might just want to get on some other boat) and drama (so once they knew that the slimy food and lashings might get someone to leave, they could understand that the navy might take drastic action to get them back on board, known as “impressment” — and I showed them what it would look like and they acted it out with each other).
I learned they could remember what a “blockade” was if they drew them (or acted it out — but no, we did not play “Red Rover, Red Rover” in the classroom :) ) — but if I just did the fun stuff, they didn’t keep the connection with the terms. We had to do a little writing every day about it — so the day started with a quick question (“Why was it dangerous to try to sneak past a blockade?” )
They liked hearing a song about “Mad Jack, the cantankerous cuss from Cape Cod” who ran off to sea after nine months of school, jumped overboard when impressed by the English to service the King, used a ship with goats to run a blockade… and we drew pictures of different scenes and used as many of their history terms to label the pictures as we could.
We also played vocabulary charades with the terms — again, though, making sure we used the words after we did the wordless parts.
It did take a little longer to go through stuff — but in May my students still knew what blockades and impressment were, and we learned that in September. They knew what the Industrial Revolution was; they could take cards with the 10 different eras/events and get them in chronological order; if you show them a picture of a flapper today they’ll tell you that’s from the Roaring 20’s.
So… it can be done. You don’t have to be stuck with the grueling exposure rituals that drain the soul and perpetuate frustrated ignorance.

Thank you for replying. I am teaching English as a foreign language. I know that it makes it even more difficult , because it’s not their native language. There are some things that they remember, simply because we have used the words over and over. When I simplify things by translating everything all is well, but if I don’t they’re lost. Today, we read a story, they knew the story in their own language, we covered all the new words; but when they had to answer a few questions about the story, they couldn’t understand. For example, they were supposed to find 3 pieces of furniture. I told them the words, also where to find them, but still they couldn’t do it. I don’t have any problem with slowing down or repeating as often as necessary, but in their classes, the teacher has a timetable to follow and other students to think about. ( I tutor them, outside the class.) So far, according to their report cards in school, they are just barely passing. Things get harder as time goes by, I have to do something before its too late. They’re in 7th grade. [i][/i]

Sounds like you have a balancing act to do, andthat’s how I’d approach it. I’d allot X minutes of the day (or days of the week) to helping them with things they need to know to help them survive their other classes, and hopefully even learn something from them. I’d also spend X amount of time working *where they are* at their speed so that if all else fails, they’ll have learned *something* this year.

In the example you’re giving, I wouldn’t see any problem with moving on. A single lesson does not learning make. Not every task is the right task for every class either and their inability to find three pieces of furniture in a story doesn’t mean they’re not learning to speak, read and write English.