Unstructured language time and pushing i + 1

While you might feel inclined to judge me for the following and think: "gasp, what a waste of time, he's such a horrible teacher!" please bear with me.

Something that I generally do after my kids learn how to talk about basic feelings and emotions through storytelling is to ask them as a class or as individuals (and to pop-up why I used "están" instead of "estás" for the group or why I used "estás" for one person, and they why I need "estoy")

At first it's really basic. The students would just say how they were doing and I might recast it for the class. If they weren't good or bad, I might ask a follow-up question or two.  If they were happy, I would ask why and I always give the options: "Por qué" (why?) or "no importa" (it doesn't matter).  It was a way for kids to talk about themselves a little bit. I rarely correct their language because communication is key.

I have noticed sometimes they help one another out (if someone says "you are" another might help and say "I am"). I don't ever squash this because I can tell it is in the spirit of kindness.

If they don't cooperate (but there is still a warmth in class), I might occasionally have someone's job be to draw names randomly with sticks (or I do it).

As the activity grows, my students might get a bonus for asking me, "What about you?" (¿y tú / usted?). Then I can throw in some i + 1.

But lately in the year, my "lesson plans" seems to get put on the back-burner as the students become more of a family. My asking them how they are doing might end there, but I don't try to let myself. If they tell me that they tired or sick, I might ask them why. Were they on their phone? Does their throat hurt? Did they not sleep enough last night? (Can we have a class competition to see who slept the least?).

I have noticed that this can take a lot longer than I ever have planned. Sometimes my kids can do this for a long time. I might have them get up and brain break, but it just feels like we're hanging out in the language.

I've noticed that the problem here is I can't model very well the form for them to use. It's all conversational. So maybe I should try to assist by asking the class more often, "They want to say ___. How can we say that?" And if the class knows, write it on the board and applaud them for their cleverness. If they don't, let them know by writing it on the board.

Regardless of how poorly I might do this activity, this is single-handedly one of the things that I think many of my former students really appreciate about my class. We find our personality as a class through the inside jokes we learn about during those informal chats. While they might never turn into stories, it's just that hanging out in the language and completely wanting to know about my kids. It's also a great way to learn about brother, sister, mother, father, grandfather, cousins in context when it matters to them.

I hear from former students (and others who have only heard from friends who had me) that one of the best parts of my class is how much I interact with the kids in the language instead of just giving them work to do.

While we might not "accomplish" as much in some of my formal lesson plans, what's really better for the kids than hanging out in the language with them and pushing their understanding by i + 1?

Next year, I am going to be at a new school and I am excited to be able to try out Bryce Hedstrom's Persona Especial activity.  I think it will help establish a similar expectation in my class that the students are most important and that we learn about each other because we matter.

Another spontaneous output experience #2

Something for us foreign language teachers to consider.

If you polled your students on the first day, "Why are you taking Spanish*?

*Or insert whatever language you teach.

While some of them might say things like:

• "I need it to graduate"
• "I need it for a credit"
• "It looks good for college applications to have 2 years of a foreign language"
• "I want to know what 'those people' are saying about me at Walmart'**

The other thing they would say is, "I want to speak Spanish!"

So my followup question naturally is: how many of them would say, "I want to learn all about Spanish through its grammar as if I am taking a linguistics class"?

In my experience, the best way I've found to accomplish the goal of helping them speak is through Comprehensible Input and stories!

And while I am only in Spanish 1 this year, my classes at this point in the year are just going crazy with output.

Sure they don't speak perfectly, but what Spanish 1 student does? Comparably, what 2-3 year old speaks perfectly? Heck, what adult speaks perfectly?

Reflection - Former students

So this is my third year in school (year 10 teaching) and I have definitely come a long way since I started teaching Spanish.  I used to use textbooks that were slightly older than me. Then I tried a year with a newer textbook.  Then I tried a year or two without a textbook.  Then, I found storytelling and haven't looked back!

But in my third year, I have had a lot of students now and many of them have had exposure to my teaching and another Spanish teacher as well.  I taught Spanish 1-2 the past two years and I'm only teaching Spanish 1 this year.

I know that what I do in my classes can be slightly unorthodox for other teachers, even teachers in my department. And they teach their classes differently from me (I'm not saying people have to teach like me).  But there are times I tell my wife that I feel like I am crazy.  Here's what I believe:

1. I believe that TPRS is a really awesome way to deliver instruction
2. I believe that TPRS is great for my classroom management
3. I believe that TPR is a great tool to get the kids up and moving in class
4. I believe that incorporating music whenever possible (in a comprehensible way) is huge for my students
5. I believe that talking about my students in Spanish through stories, PQA, etc sets the tone for my classes that they will be about my students
6. I believe that going slow and looking for my students' eyes to check for their understanding is crucial to their learning
7. I believe that shaking my students' hands as they walk in and saying "buenos días", "hola" or whatever else, and slowly adding more conversational vocab as they walk in establishes the tone that you're entering the Spanish zone!
8. I believe that other activities under the umbrella of Comprehensible Input (CI) are also wonderful additions to the classroom.
9. I believe that I should do my best to speak 90% of class in Spanish in a repetitive, comprehensible and interesting way to ensure my students will acquire the language 
10. I believe that explicit grammar instruction has a smaller place in my classroom than it used to so I can teach them through using the language correctly
11. I believe that what I do is making a difference in their lives

These aren't all popular opinions in a foreign language classroom.  I've been called a maverick by an administrator at one point.  I've gotten myself into trouble with my fellow department members because I strongly believe the aforementioned items are crucial to my class for students' success (regardless of level).

But I digress.  Recently, I have had a lot of former students visit me and tell me how much my class meant to them and how much they miss it.  It's meant a lot because I give so much of myself in the school year to ensure class is a positive place where we can laugh and learn in a low stress way.  And it further affirms that all of the hard work I (and the students) put into class is worthwhile.

TPRS Year 3 - Song - Las cosas pequeñas

I wanted to share something I did in my classes yesterday.

Usually on Thursdays, we listen to a song in Spanish.  They can be a kids' song, a pop song, a traditional song, an old song, etc.  Sometimes they'll have gestures that we can teach with certain lines.  But once in awhile, the song is a song that I want the kids to hear.

With my Spanish 2 kids, I found a song called Las cosas pequeñas by Prince Royce.

We hadn't really done much with the word cosas (things) in Spanish 1 or in the Spanish 2 class up to this point.  This is quite crazy since that is an incredibly high frequency and important word.

But I wanted my kids to follow the song a little better and have a good conversation with them.  So I tested the waters by starting class after the warm up by writing on the board:

¿Cuáles son las cosas más importantes?  (Which are the most important things?)

Then we proceed to talk about the most important things in their lives.  Some kids already got the cue and started mentioning things like "familia" (family).  Others joked around and I noticed that

I proceeded to ask them, "¿Las puedes comprar? (Can you buy them?)

The idea was to talk for about 20 minutes and then to listen to the song a few times with a cloze activity.

In one class I could tell that the students got very serious after a few minutes of my talking to them and explaining things that might be important.  We came to the conclusion that things like my saying "hello" to them every day at my door were very important and yet small.  I explained to them as well that every day I go home and I open the door, I see my one-year-old daughter smile and dance around because she's happy to see me.

In that class we actually talked the rest of that class about this topic of "small things."  The neatest part was that so often in class we are silly and talk about random things in Spanish.  During this activity, my students actually paid attention because I was being real with them and telling them about something that we don't normally talk about in class.

Note to self, talk about serious issues more often in class throughout the year.

Día 51 - spontaneous production

Last week I had a bit of a bad week.  There are times that this teaching thing just seems as though we are constantly giving all that we can of ourselves to the students and it can appear so thankless.

This week I've been trying to come to work with a better attitude.  I've been posting things in my classroom to remind me of this and whatever I can do to stay positive.  My students need that positivity.  When I start out positive, class tends to go better.

Yesterday, we did another weekend activity.  Strangely, for a Monday it was incredibly fun to talk to the kids about their weekend.  They really were doing a great job of playing the game and we had a lot of fun together.

My phrases were:

Fui a Des Moines.
  I went to Des Moines.  
Comí plátanos fritos de Cuba.
  I ate Cuban fried bananas.
Besé a mi esposa.
  I kissed my wife.

Strangely enough, in my 8th hour class, one of the many bright students that I have told us that another student who said he had gone to Asia told us that "corre del gobierno" (He runs from the government).  I changed this to "Corrió del gobierno" (He ran from the government.)

Upon us asking how he ran from the government to Asia, the same student said (using my preposition poster), "fue dentro de una chica" (He went inside of a girl).  To this I simply laughed and laughed while the rest of the class looked at me and wanted to know what incredibly hilariously unexpected thing that their classmate had said.  It was magical.  The boy turned out to ride in the mouth of the girl alone to Asia in order to run from the government.

In another class, we were talking about one of the characters that the class had created in their story, Dougie the pig.  It turned out that Dougie went to a pig-processing plant this weekend and he is no more.  While talking about Dougie the fictional pig who is now dead, a student said "Brett Farv jugar fútbol con Dougie" (Brett Farv to play soccer with Dougie).  I helped him after congratulating him on his intelligence that Brett Farv played american football with Dougie (Dougie's skin that is).  It turned into a storyline after that.  It doesn't matter to me on Mondays because we're talking about the weekend and the spontaneous language is the best kind.  Later the same boy told us that he was in the same discoteque that a student and Brett Farv were playing football in with Dougie the deceased pig's skin.  It turned out he was dancing on top of a desk like Michael Jackson.  He got the phrase "on top of" from the preposition list next to his chair.

These past few days, students have been taking more risks with the language and it is really neat!  In fact, while we had a student from a local university observing TPRS, one of my students created a little story spontaneously without me even needing to ask any questions.  He told us that he had a small island near Antarctica.  The island has pirates and piñatas.  Pepe the class piñata is the president.  It was ALL Spanish.  I was floored.

In previous years, it was so hard to get kids to produce the language.  But now they are with TPRS.  Today I told my kids to show off a little bit for the observer and they did.  We used so much Spanish it was amazing.  I'm not as worried now for when my principal comes to observe me.  My kids do awesome under pressure.