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].

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. 

Simple story - Black Friday

I was thinking a lot of a Tripp Script that I saw recently on his blog. It is basically for telling after Thanksgiving.

Here are the structures:

• pounds (lbs)
• after eating
• takes a nap

And it lends itself to talking about overeating.  I thought it was nice and clever.  And it lends itself to Spanish 1 and also just a rainy day story to talk about things on these sometimes monotonous days.

But then I had an epiphany for my own storyline.

I thought about Black Friday and how much people tend to spend on that day. Since we're working on compra and some different clothing items (in stores) for vocab, this lends itself to that very easily.

• arrived / got there
• saw the perfect __.*
• bought it for only __.
• it was a bargain!

*this wouldn't be a goal for me, but might work better in your story or replace "found" for "saw"

Super simple version:

John arrived at Target Friday morning. He saw the perfect shirt. He bought it for only two pennies.

It was a bargain!

Simple version:

John went to Target for Black Friday.  John arrived at Target Friday morning at three in the morning. He saw the perfect brown shirt. He bought it for only two pennies.

It was a bargain!

Somewhat simple version:

John went to Target for Black Friday. John was at Target Friday morning at . He saw the perfect brown shirt for his little dog named Fluffinator. He bought it for only two pennies and a kiss.

It was a bargain!

Etc, etc, etc.

*Then you could do a similar reading (but with culture) involving el regateo (bargaining).  And throw that into the mix. Since it's a vocab/cultural idea I am supposed to hit this "unit".

structures:

• arrived / got there
• saw the perfect __.*
• bought it for only __.
• it was a bargain!
• it normally costs
• he haggled with the store clerk

Slightly simple version:

John went to Target for Black Friday. John was at Target Friday morning at . He saw the perfect brown shirt for his little dog named Fluffinator. It normally costs 100 dollars.  He haggled with the store clerk for one hour. He bought it for only two pennies, a kiss and his jeep.

It was a bargain!


And of course, if you're a Spanish teacher and have a Señor Wooly account, you could do a Movietalk and show the "es una ganga" music video as an extension activity in the week!