TPRS 2.0 - week 1 (back in August)

Wowzas. What a week!

Back in the classroom

After numerous years out of the classroom to write novels, work on curriculum, and anything else that came my way, it feels really good to be back. I missed the energy. I missed the interaction. I missed getting to play in the language with students. 

I was hired only a few weeks before school started… Long story short, they were looking for a dynamic, creative teacher who would help the students learn to be successful in Spanish. When I read the job description, I felt like I HAD to try for it! In retrospect, getting hired a few weeks before school reminded me of my very first teaching job. But even with the quick turnaround, this has already been a really unique and energizing experience. I’m grateful to be working with these students again and to be implementing what I think works best: TPRS 2.0. Which I am more convinced of day after day!

my new classroom.- picture 1

This first week was mostly about figuring out how to blend the newer pieces of TPRS 2.0 with some of the things that worked well for me in the past.

Let’s start with the practical stuff.

I was very glad I didn’t throw away my old decorations. I was able to reuse most of them and then upgrade a bit by adding the question word posters and rejoinder posters from the TPRS Books free resources. I printed and laminated them at school and got them up on the walls. I’m sure I’ll tweak things as the year goes on, but for now the room is functional, and honestly, that’s what matters most in week one.

Seating charts are still a must for me. I set the room so there’s an invisible line down the middle, with two rows on each side facing toward each other. I’ve always liked this setup because it naturally increases interaction. It also gives me multiple “front row” spaces, which makes it easier to check in with students who need a little more support.

I’m also back to doing daily quizzes. I really like what they tell me. Not just about student understanding, but about my own pacing and clarity. The first day, some scores were lower than I wanted, but as routines became clearer and I slowed things down, the scores improved. That’s exactly the feedback loop I’m looking for.

Classroom jobs are slowly coming back online too. Nothing fancy yet. In one class, a student passes out and collects nametags. In another, someone is in charge of opening and closing the door. Small things, but they help the room run more smoothly.

My teaching situation this year is actually pretty interesting. I see the 7th graders every other day and the 8th graders every day. Together, it equals one high school Spanish 1 credit. What that really means is I have about a year and a half to just live in the language with these kids.

Not going to lie, but I feel a little like a mad scientist. And I mean that in the best way.

On the instructional side, when I was teaching before, I was already establishing meaning and circling, and I had started experimenting with triangling. But I can see now that I wasn’t doing those things nearly to the depth that TPRS 2.0 pushes.

my new classroom.- picture 2

The piece I’m most excited (and curious) about this year is Describe the Situation (DTS). In some of my private tutoring, I’ve already seen how powerful it can be for unlocking student confidence when speaking. There’s global DTS and individual DTS, and my goal is to build in opportunities every lesson for students to practice. Ideally everyone gets at least one shot, with about five or six individual DTS moments per class.

Still very much experimenting here.

I’ve also added a short daily read at the beginning of class, right after the warm-up. I read it first, then a student volunteers to translate. So far it’s been a nice routine and gives me another window into who is really tracking with the language.

So in short each day from Day 2 onward:

1. Step one: Warm up (matching, translate, etc.)

2. Step two: Daily Reading of previous information. 

• see two readings at bottom of post

3. step three: following the TPRS 2.0 recipe of circling, triangling, and Describing the Situation to build confidence

Days 1-3

As for how the week actually went…

Slide 1 of the George story.
Available at TPRSbooks.com

Day one was mostly about establishing routines and setting expectations for how storytelling will work. I only had the 8th graders that day because the 7th graders were still in orientation, and the classes were only 25 minutes long, so we didn’t get very far. But the energy was good, and students seemed engaged. Two of the three classes performed better on the quizzes, and across the week those scores improved as I slowed down. Here's the slide that I used.

Day two felt more normal. I had two classes of 7th graders for their first day and three classes of 8th graders, all around 45 minutes. That extra time made a big difference. With the 7th graders, I was able to get into triangling and made a point to try to ask every single student at least one question so they were producing language. I could feel moments where attention drifted a bit, but gestures and pacing helped bring them back.

In a couple classes I introduced DTS to the hand and then took a few volunteers. I definitely need to refine the system so more students can do it efficiently, but it was a solid start. The 8th graders in particular seem to notice the difference in this style compared to what they experienced last year.

By day three, I was still working heavily with just the first two sentences. It’s honestly amazing how slow I need to go to really build confidence — but the payoff is there. I backed off some circling, leaned more into triangling, and brought in more DTS volunteers. One thing I need to remember: let them practice to their hands first before asking for volunteers. They clearly need that low-stress rep to get the wiggles out.

One thing I started that I want to keep up: positive parent emails. I managed to contact about half of my 8th grade families with something good their student was doing. My goal is to keep looking for ways every student can have a moment to shine.

Behind the scenes, I’m also running a pretty nerdy tracking system. I keep seating charts in a binder and mark each time a student answers a triangling question, translates during the daily read (TR), or does DTS. Later I transfer that into a Google Sheet. The whole purpose is to make sure I’m truly spreading opportunities around and not just hearing from the same few voices.

So... week one is officially in the books.

Overall, I’m encouraged. Next week my focus is tightening up my triangling flow and continuing to experiment with Describe the Situation so it becomes smoother and more routine.

But truly… It's good to be back.

Readings to show you how it started off so simple to build in repetition and perspective.

Reading 1: (day 2)

¿Hay un elefante o hay un chico? Hay un chico. No hay un elefante. Hay un chico. 

¿Cuántos chicos hay? ¿Hay diez chicos? No, no hay diez chicos. ¿Hay ochocientos chicos? No, no hay ochocientos chicos. Hay un chico.

¿Quién es el chico? ¿El chico es Bob? No, no es Bob. ¿El chico es el Señor Jordan? ¡No, es absurdo! Entonces, ¿quién es el chico? ¡Es obvio! El chico es George.

¿Yo soy el chico? ¡No, yo no soy el chico! Es absurdo. George es el chico. Yo no soy el chico. ¿Qué soy?

Reading 2: (day 3)

Yo soy George. Yo soy un chico. Yo no soy un pingüino. Soy un chico. ¿Soy una chica? No, no soy una chica. Soy un chico. 

¿Quién soy? ¡Es obvio! Soy George.

Entonces, ¿qué soy? ¿No es obvio? ¡Soy Shakira! ¡Espera! Incorrecto. Yo no soy Shakira. ¡Es absurdo! ¡Soy George! ¡Es obvio!

¿Y tú? ¿Quién eres? ¿Eres el Señor Jordan? Es posible.

TPRS 2.0 - more coming

Holy moly. I have been teaching this year after a few years off and all I can say is: TPRS 2.0 is a game-changer for getting my students to speak! 

I'll need to post more later! 

TPRS / CI and Block Scheduling

*Note: Someone recently emailed me a question about using Block Scheduling. I am no expert, but I found out how to make it work for me during the 3 years that I taught on the block. Here are some ideas that hopefully are helpful below.*

A few years ago I was forced (against my will) to teach on A/B block scheduling when I was hired at a new school. I was forced because it was a bomb dropped on me after I accepted the job (if I remember things correctly). I didn't even know to ask that question in the interview! Oops!

The way that block scheduling worked at that school was 90 minute periods, 4 a day. One day was A, then next day B. Early dismissal Wednesdays A or B alternated each week. So if there were no interruptions whatsoever, then in a two week cycle, I would see each class 5 times total. (One week Monday, Wednesday, Friday and then the next week Tuesday and Thursday).

When I first started it, I hated it. Then after I left it, I sort of missed it because I could more easily see the benefits (that I was able to get out of it). Although I still believe that every day instruction is better for acquiring language (shorter more often) than a big chunk every two days.

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.