Weekend Chat idea

I was talking to THE Bill VanPatten a lot this week about Second Language Acquisition and the possibility of working on some projects together soon.

In one of our convos, he brought up a way he had done Weekend Chat in the past. Now, the way I typically do weekend chat in levels 1 and 2 (where I normally end up teaching for whatever reason), has varied a little bit and evolved since I was doing more textbook teaching.

In level 2, I would use it to practice the preterit and have each student look through the textbook and write 3 things that they did over the weekend. I would check their conjugations and would ask them to share them with the class in Spanish. Then we would move on to something else after we finished.

Simple story - Plays

Someone asked on the facebook group recently about a story involving plays and sports or activities due to constraints they are in. Here were some ideas I gave:

Idea 1: (3 problems model)

Guide words:

1. wants to play (with)
2. goes to talk to
3. says, "I don't want to play that."

modify guide words as needed

Script:
[Student] wants to play something. They play it really well. They play it [embellish]. There is a problem. They don't want to play alone. They go to talk to [character]. The character isn't playing [sport]. They character is playing [sport 2].

Cuentas Conmigo (Story 5) - Carlos Prickly

Hey everyone.

I had a yearning to do something fun that can be released to the masses since my other creative project (Súper Lápiz) is only for Voces Digital consumers..., and was inspired to do another Cuentas Conmigo story on Youtube on my storytelling channel.

The idea of Cuentas Conmigo (if you're new around here), is that it's basically a TPRS® story that is done completely through feedback via the comments section on Youtube.

There is a new episode each Monday and this requires voting on the question at the end to be done by Wednesday. I foresee this being used by classes, or learners of any kind who want to practice Spanish in context.

This is the 5th story like it so far. The most popular was probably with Juan Cena. Nevertheless, I have been proud of each and every one of them.


Here are some ways this one is new though!

• Narrator is voiced by a Native Speaker
• I wrote a theme-song
• I think my style is getting more established as I do these

Check out my Teachers Pay Teachers store for free Teacher notes on the first episode which includes some ideas on how to use the series, episode and even has a short quiz or guided notes page for students.*

And I hope you and your classes will tell the story along with me!

Check out episode 1 in the present or past tenses!

*I'm selling the other ones to hopefully eventually offset the cost of paying a native speaker narrator for each episode.

See previous Cuentas Conmigo stories on these playlists.

Teaching interrogatives with TPRS

(someone asked on the Spanish for Teachers in the U.S. group on Facebook about how one might go about doing a model lesson with interrogatives and I replied with, “Any TPRS story EVER”. Here is my explanation on how one might set that up)

Setup the question words displayed somewhere in class like so. Notice the translations are there.

Have a prop like a stuffed animal or maybe something from target country like a Carlos Quinto chocolate bar.

(You might consider downloading the FREE interrogative posters I recently designed for TPRS books here.)

In all honesty, I never was incredibly good at using language with my students before TPRS (relating to students in the target language). So beforehand I might do a lesson on all of the question words, give some ways to remember them and examples and then give a quick quiz or test and assume they would remember them. But I didn’t manipulate the language to help them acquire them. 

Now that I use TPRS, the students not only learn the interrogatives, but learn to use them in context and to make novel questions. So let’s move on to TPRS. 

FLAM encore presentation - Stay on Target

Here are my presentation slides for my encore presentation from FLAM with links to what I mentioned!

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B_jfUujjoeDHUEx1ZnVwNE1QaTg

All my Spanish 2016-17 resources

Ok, so I like to be transparent with my teaching.

I am not perfect and don't claim to be. For me it's about the journey and wonder of learning the language in pieces with my students.

This year went well considering the following challenges:

• Spanish 2 students were all over the place in ability when they got to my class
• Spanish 1 students were those who
• transferred into school system
• didn't get good enough grades to take Spanish 1 in middle school
• students who had previously failed Spanish 1
• my going back to 50 minute periods after 3 years of 90 minute every other day block
• being at a new school (zero street cred)
• new district mandated curriculum ("cough textbook chapters cough")

Don't get me wrong, there were also SO many positives.

• supportive school department (TPRS lovers)
• lots of collaboration
• administrative support and faith in my abilities
• students slowly being won over
• trying a lot of new things
• not HAVING to teach curriculum based on a weekly map
• teach towards final

Sufficed to say, I think I got my students to buy into the method and to learn about one another and Spanish at the same time. There were ups and downs (like every year). But in general I thought my students rose to the occasion and many of them couldn't believe how much they were speaking in Spanish by the end of the year in both levels! 

• Here's what I did in Spanish 1 + hyperlinks galore.
• NOW available in FRENCH (translated by Bess Hayles for her classes).
• And here's what I did for Spanish 2 + hyperlinks galore.

Feel free to look, copy things into your own google drive to use,  let me know if you have further questions. My finals were district mandated so I have not included those.

Selena - el chico del apto 512 - revised

So this is a mini-unit I like to use each year in Spanish 1. I originally got it from Martina Bex years ago as I mention here (from 5 years ago!) and it has evolved over the years to use whatever words I have needed at the moment.

I love how I can incorporate music and also tell a story. This story by Martina actually has inspired me to use other songs to make into storylines. Of course one of my all time favorites each year in Spanish 1 is: Fanny Lu - Celos.  I've also done the same with Sr. Wooly's awesome song: Puedo ir al baño (this year's version).

See this year's activities here for Spanish 1 for "Celos".

So back to "el chico del apartamento 512". It's a song by Selena that has a cute little story about a girl who keeps having guys want to talk to her and she isn't interested. Finally she sees a guy come out of the elevator and he's the man of her dreams!

We listen to the song for a few days as a warm up with different activities to interact with the song in different ways, which preps them for the second week and the actual story that is adapted from the song, thanks to Martina.  I made a powerpoint of it and this year pushed way more language.

I made an embedded reading of about 3 versions or so. If you see phrases in there that aren't in my structures, it's because I had previously used those at some point and was recycling them back in to remind my students of them for additional help binding them to long-term memory.

Here's my basic plan that took about 2 weeks!  Of course remember I also a few other activities in class so we might do the TPR / storytelling part for 25-30 minutes a period. Best of luck if you use it!

It's usually a pretty big hit with my students since there is the music component as well as the compelling story of love and mystery. I am excited that this will build up nicely towards the last story of the year. I am going to adapt Kara Jacob's AWESOME song choice from first semester this year: "Soy Yo" by Bomba Estéreo.

And here's the Selena song if you've somehow never heard it!

TPRS Presentation in nearby District

So my francophone* colleague Bess Hayles and I were invited to give demo TPRS lessons in a nearby school district.

After that we gave a talk about Comprehensible Input to those interested. There were about 24 teachers that attended and they were a very fun and kind group of teachers.

We taught 90 minute blocks and my Spanish 1 students were great kids. They were very respectful but quite unsure of me since I am so weird.  By the end of the class though, I was able to win quite a few of them over.


While I was incredibly nervous, the teachers and students were gracious to us and I couldn't have asked for a nicer group to do my first TPRS model lesson and co-lead a professional development session.


Here's what I did in my lesson plan, not knowing what to do for a Spanish 1 class, and I didn't get through it all.

My brief NTPRS story + a commercial!

So I went to a few different TPRS training workshops and was hooked. Then I found out there was this national week-long TPRS extravaganza for teachers called NTPRS.

Ever since I had wanted to go. One year it was in Kansas City, MO. This was before I decided to try TPRS.

Later it was in Chicago (8 hour drive but do-able). I had to go to my brother's wedding and wouldn't make it back in time.

Since then it wasn't a priority. Not going was easier than trying to go. Especially because it can be expensive after hotel rooms, food, and the registration (not to mention travel costs).

But I was heavily encouraged to go last summer and various kind souls helped make that happen and I was glad to go!  I got to meet so many teachers I have looked up to over the years and pick their brains about activities. I got to finally be in an environment that was friendly towards my teaching style. I have been in situations where it has gotten hostile due to closely held beliefs one what is "best" for students in the classrooms. At NTPRS, I didn't feel like I was crazy anymore.  There were others out there who were passionate about using any method possible other than the textbook who also found results.

And so when the guys at TPRS Books asked me to help them do a commercial a few weeks ago to help get people to go, I jumped at the opportunity.

I wanted others to be able to experience it as well and maybe to be prodded in that direction. I mean, if you share a hotel room with someone, carpool and are frugal with meals, it's completely do-able!

So here's what I made for them.

I hope you enjoy it and consider coming to NTPRS. Even if you aren't sure about TPRS, come!

It's a great way to get a week's worth of "input" about the method and to figure out how you could experiment with it in your classes. It's better than any video, blog post or book about the topic.

Read about my experiences at NTPRS last summer:

• Day 0 - the arrival
• Day 1
• Day 2
• Day 3
• Day 4
• Day 5
• On the way home

Comprehensible Input with the MONO

Hay un mono. (from first episode)

So I have met various educators over the last year or two who have told me how much their classes have enjoyed a little story I made about a "mono" (monkey).

Backstory:
I thought it would be fun to make a super simple TPRS like story about a character that wanted something and didn't have it and so they went to the 3 locations. And as I drew one day on my iPad, suddenly I had a monkey, an island, and Antarctica. From there the first "mono" story was born!

Since then, I have had teachers who have met me at conferences (or have told me via email) how much their classes have enjoyed the story.

Response to Chris Cashman - part 3 - Assessment

Quick history lesson:
Chris Cashman asked me about TPRS and why I use it. I responded here.
Chris proposed a response asking about assessment here.
I responded in part 1 about why the grammar vids here.
Part 2 of my response dealt with learning vs acquisition as I understand it here. I have put Chris' text in blue so you know whose words belong to whom.

And here is part three on: Assessment

You’ll notice that I have taken a LONG time to write this response. I have tried so many times in my head to respond and also tried so many times to write a coherent response. And I keep coming up dry. But I know that you’re patiently waiting to have a dialogue about this. So here is my best effort. I admit you’ll probably see facets that you don’t agree with me and that is completely fine. You’re the master of your own classroom and I wouldn’t want to tell you what you HAVE to do. You have to come to that on your own.

I thought it was so important to address my issues with teaching before coming to TPRS and after implementing TPRS in this first post because until you understand my journey, you’ll have a hard time seeing how I have such a hard time with assessment.

Response to Chris Cashman - part 1 - Why the grammar videos?

Background info: Chris asked me a question and I responded here. He then asked me a question about how I assess on this post. Here is my response broken up into more manageable chunks. Chris' portion is in blue.

Chris,

Thank you for your kind words both about my blog entry and my videos. It means a lot that we are still able to dialogue about this considering that for some, a wall is quickly built that can never be crossed by either side when someone teaches differently.

I appreciate your taking the time to write such a well thought out response. It shows me how much you really care about what you are doing and I bet your students are incredibly thankful for you!

I’m going to be very honest from the get-go in this response that I don’t have many of the answers that you might seek. I appreciate your challenging me in those so that I might be able to further grow in those areas.

Chris Cashman's response #2 (posted with permission)

The other day, I responded to Chris Cashman's question posited to me on the Spanish Teachers in the U.S Facebook Group.  

A little bit of background, Chris and I have communicated over the years through Youtube about my video lessons, which are relatively grammar heavy.

After some reflection, Chris graciously responded but said it wouldn't fit in a comment on my blog due to length constraints. 

So with his permission I have posted it here for you to see. I will respond once I have organized my thoughts.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Señor Jordan – Amazing blog entry that you posted the other day. I really appreciate the time you took to flesh out what you do. I specifically appreciated how you respond to the criticisms of TPRS head-on.

How do I teach my classes these days?

If you're in the Spanish Teachers in the U.S. Facebook group, you might have seen this question to me by a talented teacher: Chris Cashman:

Señor Jeremy Jordan​​, el grande, el honorable y majestuoso:

I read the great article about your recognition posted by an admin. I noticed that the day the reporter was present, you were doing a TPRS style lesson. However, you are well-known for your videos of verb conjugations and explicit grammar (albeit presented in a super fun and attention grabbing way).

These two camps of people -- TPRS folks and learn-the-verb-chart folks -- tend to belong in different camps. One group believes that students will learn things gradually over time with repeated exposure, so don't worry about the verb charts and certainly don't assess knowledge of them. The other believes that language learning can indeed be aided by explicit grammar teaching.

I know I'm hugely overgeneralizing an issue here, but you're showing some evidence of perhaps having found a middle ground, or a way to merge the two worlds. Would you mind sharing either in a blog entry, or a response here in this group, of the method to your madness, the thinking/theory behind it? I have my own answer, but I'm *mega*interested in seeing/hearing yours!

Don't mean to put you on the spot, but this really caught my attention.

Of course the article he is referring to is this one where I was interviewed at my school after winning Missouri Foreign Language Teacher of the year.

Here is my lengthy response to Chris. I appreciate his question. I hope that it is understood that I am not telling anyone how they should teach. I am only expressing what informs instruction in MY classroom.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Spanish 1 or 2 - story idea - didn't know how to dance!

*Disclaimer* The beauty of storytelling is that you really could use a story in any level. The complexity of your backstory or how you go about solving the problem is really defined by each level.  For example, you might be able to have way more complex dialogue in upper levels and ask the class things like, "what would you do if he/she said that to you!?"

Here's a story idea that I used in Spanish 2 a week or two ago:

Structures:

• No sabía bailar (S/he didn't know how to dance)

• Le dijo, “Voy a regresar pronto” (S/he said to him/her, "I am going to return soon")

• Le dio lecciones (s/he gave him/her lessons)

Some previous words I wanted to review:

• s/he saw
• s/he went towards
• s/he wanted to dance
• s/he was
• s/he left (came out of)
• s/he said to him/her

It's a pretty simple one.  Someone was at a party or in a club. They wanted to dance. They saw someone, went towards them, they told them, "I want to dance with you." Or asked, "Do you want to dance with me?"

Comercial - Me voy de casa

So this year in Spanish two, I have certain vocabulary points I need to hit for a unit and I have wanted to use this commercial for years.

I decided to do a lot of TPR first with my classes to build up their understanding of some words for sure.

So this folder gives you all of the things that I used with the Argentine commercial: Personal - Me voy de casa. (Folder Contains: screenshots from movie, TPR, warm ups, readings, Movietalk slides, instructions & reflection)

Commercial:

Here is more or less what I did.

Persona especial - happenings

I've been at the "la persona especial" activity for the last 4 weeks in my classes. I have been using it in Spanish 2 (more on that later) and Spanish 1.

I figured I would blog on it in a few days, once the weekend hits and I can reflect.

So far it's going ok. It's definitely a change of pace for me from just the Circling with Balls activity that I used to use in Spanish 1 for the first 5+ weeks to get to know the kids and teach some basic concepts.

Nevertheless, if you saw my previous entry, you probably saw the Powerpoint I adapted from Bryce's script of questions.  I haven't decided to go ALL in and teach all of the questions he has been doing. I'm just baby stepping. But it has still been an interesting experiment.

It is similar to something I started last year when I used stories even from the first day (in conjunction with TPR and the Circling with Balls activity). That was thanks to 90 minute classes.

This year at my new school I am back to 50'ish minute classes and so I am sticking to one activity + warm up + quiz (and song/brain break if needed).

Back to what is similar. Last year when I used the stories first thing, I noticed the kids were exposed to the I, you, and he/she forms more than ever because I was really doing my best to interview my actors and coach them through answering questions and helping them out.

So I am now trying this out with the personal interviews. If a person doesn't know how to answer the question, I'll just ask the class if they know how that person could say "I ___". And usually at least one person knows and I have the class applaud them and praise their awesome Spanish and ask my actor (interviewee) if they want to try to answer the question again to which they pretty much always say, "yes". Then when they get it right, we applaud them too.

Anyways, so I have done pop-ups here and there and point out that the "o" on the end of the action means "I".  So I also talk about myself pretty much with that form instead of the 3rd person stuff I used to do about me.

What has this done?  It seems to have really helped them grasp the ending of the "o" on the end a lot better to use it with more accuracy when we are talking. Writing is another issue entirely. ;-)

Baby steps.

I'm bringing this up today because in a Spanish 1 class, I noticed the class didn't seem to want to talk and so I asked (gesturing), "¿No quieren hablar?" ("Do you all not want to talk?") and they gestured that they didn't understand so I went to write it on their butcher paper and then a student said, "Oh.  So is "I want" "quiero"?"

I praised his awesome Spanish and had the class applaud him and it was just magical.

I love when their brains make those connections because they've been exposed to the rich language so much.

It reminds me of what Dr Farley who taught my methods course in college told us. He said that when we teach, we should explore the language with the students and allow them to slowly peel away the wrapping paper of the present (that is the language).  If we just teach them via grammar and as if they were getting a minor in linguistics, we spoil those fun surprises for the kids to enjoy.

Today was one of those days that really rang true for me and my students!

But anyways, more on how I've been doing La persona especial later!

How to start the year with TPRS (part 2) - PQA - day 1

*I meant to post this a long time ago. It is part two of this post*

So if you saw my part one post with TPR, then you should have an idea of what TPRS originally suggested teachers do to get the students familiar with action verbs and commands that could later be worked seamlessly into stories and help students to express themselves a little bit more in the storytelling phase.

Something I had the opportunity to play around with in my 8th grade exploratory classes the past two years was the idea of PQA.

PQA stands for Personalized Questions and Answers.  If you get a chance, I think Ben Slavic explains this the best in his blog or in any of his books!

This is how I do it:

The first day of class, I have my students draw a picture of what they like to do and then write their name in the top corner. They can write what it is in English underneath if they think I won't know what it is.

After I get attendance figured out, I start walking around and looking around.  I am developing ideas of where I can go that day in Spanish.  If I have two basketball players, I could talk about them on the same day and compare and contrast them.  Or I could talk about one on one day and the other on a different day to review the structures: "s/he plays" and "basketball".

Once I'm ready to start, I go over to the board and I write (Spanish in black and English in blue):
    el profesor toca la guitarra.
      the teacher plays the guitar.

Then I say this slowly while pointing to each word.  I move my arms down from above my head to down to my sides (this is my signal for new information).

Once my students look at me like I am crazy I tell them in English:
Me: Oh, right.  This is your first day.  Whenever I say something like this new in Spanish, you are going to pretend like it's the most interesting thing in your whole life.  To do that you'll say, "Ooooooh."
Let's try that again.  El profesor toca la guitarra.  
Class: OOOOOOH.


Then I keep talking about myself by circling the information until students get it easily and we can add more information.  Usually at that point I start talking about another student.  Maybe another student plays an instrument.  Maybe they play a sport.  I will write on the board what they do in black and the English translation underneath in blue/green.

Then I compare/contrast myself with someone else. The first day I stick to a lot of yes/no questions and occasionally a who/what question.

The first day or two I don't do a whole lot with multiple verb forms. As I go with the PQA, I might slowly let it trickle in that if a person wants to say "I [..]", that the action will end in an "o" instead.

It has only gotten better and sweeter each year. I have found more ways to get the kids exposed to the "you" and "i" forms. I should still try to add in the "they" forms a little when more than one does something. But it's really about the kids and not about the grammar, or else it wouldn't be successful.  Sometimes though, it can be hard when the kids almost have to be trained to be interested in each other's lives.

My first official TPRS presentation to colleagues

Today I was given the wonderful opportunity to share a little bit about TPRS with some of my new colleagues (at my new school). I think that it was an overall positive experience.  Just like in my classes, I over-planned and some things under-planned.

Here's a PDF and here's a PowerPoint file if you would like to see them.

But here's a rundown on the good and bad for me in case I ever do something similar again:

When dinosaurs attack - movietalk

Here's something I decided to do to help review some things for later as well as add in some additionally useful words.

And I think it's funny.

I realized since this week was a shorter week, it might be fun to spice things up with a MovieTalk and do it as a mini lesson and then build to another MovieTalk with similar structures.

So here is MovieTalk one about dinosaurs: