Pushing the Pop-Up grammar explanations

Something I have been experimenting with a lot this year is Pop-up grammar.

I first heard about Pop-up grammar via a Blaine Ray workshop and read about it (if I am not mistaken) in the Blaine Ray book, "Fluency Through TPR Storytelling".

The basic idea is that instead of giving a long grammar lecture and then practice the skill, you point out grammatical features as necessary to the students.  I think of it as calling attention to something so that they can better monitor that feature of the language. A pop-up should not last longer than 5 seconds or so. Some people might go longer. I find the longer I go, the quicker I lose the students.

But something I have been experimenting with this year (since I have 90 minute classes) is the way to do a Pop-up. And maybe some of these aren't grammar pop-ups, but since I am focusing on the grammar a little bit to prepare them for other teachers, it's important for them to have a little bit of explicit knowledge if anything to be more successful in a less-input-driven classroom.