Story Script - the fake id (Spanish 2)

So as you might know if you've been doing storytelling for any length of time, ANYthing can be fodder for a story provided you can find ways to get reps in there and have your class help make it compelling.

When I was in high school, I remember making a movie for Spanish 3 in a group project where a guy (me) tried to get into a club/rave and had to eventually buy a fake id. If I remember, it was a commercial for fake ids.

With the Broccoli story I had made for reflexive verb practice, I thought it would be fun to have a story script beforehand to preteach some other words that might come up in a unit on Food or just have fun with.

I needed to introduce: "le pide" (s/he asks for / s/he orders). This works in Spanish for ordering food as well as asking for something. So I had my main structure for the storyline. Now all I needed was a few other structures.

What I came up with was:

Structures:

• era más bonita que (she was prettier than)
• le pide su identificación (s/he asks him/her for his/her identification)
• odiaba (s/he hated)

*Could have used "se enamoró de ella inmediatamente" (s/he fell in love immediately)


General story skeleton:

There was a [girl] who was prettier than [someone].  She wanted to dance in [name], a club in/on [place].  There was a [person/animal] that was working in front of the door of the club.  His/her name was [name].   The girl went towards [bouncer] and he asked her for her ID. She showed/gave him her id and he didn't hate pretty girls. He loved them. He told her, "You are prettier than ___.  I love pretty girls. You can go on in." He returned/gave her her id.  And she went in. 

Someone saw her enter. It was a wet waffle. He thought she was prettier than [same person or different person/thing from earlier]. He was in love.  He immediately fell in love with her.  He wanted to dance with her. He went towards the bouncer. The bouncer asked him for his id. He gave him his id. The bouncer looked at the id but there was a problem. The bouncer hated wet waffles. He told the wet waffle, "Sorry, you can't go in. You are a wet waffle and I HATE wet waffles." (Optional: Maybe add backstory as to why he hated wet waffles). He gave the wet waffle back his id and the wet waffle needed a fake id.  

He left [place[ and went to [store]. In the store, he looked for a fake id and found one. The fake id cost [quantity] and it was for a Fat Pancake. The wet waffle hated fat pancakes so he went to another store. 

In another store, he looked for a fake id and found one. It cost [quantity] and it was for a strong chicken named Bruce.  The wet waffle thought it was a deal and bought it. He went back to the club and walked towards the bouncer. The bouncer asked him for his id.  But he didn't give him his id. He gave him his fake id.  The bouncer looked at the id and told him, "You look like a wet waffle but it says here you are a strong chicken. I don't hate strong chickens. I LOVE strong chickens. You can go in." He didn't hate strong chickens and the wet waffle could enter the club! 

The wet waffle went in and looked for the girl who was prettier than [person].  He found her and walked towards her. He asked her, "Want to dance?" She asked for his identification.  He gave her his id. She looked at it and said, "Sorry, I hate strong chickens. I prefer wet waffles. I wish you were a wet waffle." 

That's terrible!  She thought he was a strong chicken and she hated strong chickens!

*In one class, the bouncer liked what the id was of (pancake or something) and ate the character instead of letting him in. The ending doesn't matter if you have delivered enough repetitive, compelling, comprehensible input.

**Some structures used in the story were from previous stories in our class stories. I always try to recycle things from previous stories.

And here's a worksheet with the present tense reading that I was quite proud of with some routine reflexives and additional activities if you need them!

Let me know if you end up using it or tweaking it!

"Secret Password" happenings

Last school year, I started out incorporating a secret password to get into class.  This year, I no longer teach on the block, so I am doing new passwords that I never had the time to get to last year!

So it's been neat. In conjunction, I have really been having fun to break away from the monotony.  While sometimes, I just wait for the password, I played around with these two recently.

Last week's was:

Ojalá = I wish (let's hope)

Each day I would ask students different questions in TL that were accesible to their level(s):
   Do you want a million dollars?!
   Do you have 5 bellybuttons?
   Is it Friday yet?!
   Is it June yet?
   Is it hot outside?
   Is it July?

And they would respond with: "Ojalá" (I wish).

It was a lot of fun and later gave me the opportunity to throw Ojalá + past subjunctive in a reading for Spanish 1 that some kids were able to figure out (once they knew "ojalá" was like "I wish"). Cool!!

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:

Bathroom story (revised)

What's a storytelling Spanish class without a good bathroom story!

I'm sure you've all heard of Señor Wooly. He's fantastic. I admit that I'm incredibly envious of his talent and creativity and wish I had an ounce of all of his amazing abilities! If you haven't heard of him, he makes silly songs in Spanish with story lines that really resonate with students.

I don't personally have an account this year for his site, but he has the song: "Puedo ir al baño" on youtube.

Every year I have a bathroom story of some sort. In conjunction with the story, our warm up involves listening to the song by Señor Wooly and accomplishing various tasks (cloze, re-order lyrics, translate phrases from song, etc).  They always listen to it at least twice when class begins while completing the task, while I do necessary teacher duties (attendance, last minute prep, etc). I enjoy starting class with music whenever possible because it generally relaxes students to ease into class.

Click here to see post from last year.

In previous years, it was more like a traditional story from TPRS classes where a person goes to different people and asks them for information. Last year's structures weren't going to cut it.

Probably due to the nature of my class, it's always a fun time and I had no real reasons to change the story except the Spanish 2 teachers expect the kids to know some more information by next year that I haven't been able to really hit yet.

I need to use "to have to [do something]" and I thought that would go great with a bathroom story based more around the song: Puedo ir al baño by Señor Wooly.  And I could actually borrow the genius idea from Señor Wooly from the story within the song.

So here's what I came up with:

Some of the structures match the song more easily and/or I can use the song itself to create an embedded reading for the present tense while we tell a relatively simple story in the past. The part that I think is nice is how relate-able it can be (for some classes) or how farcical it could be for others. Also, we tell the story once we have TPR'd the phrases.

Remember that in anything it's always good to try new things and genre is always something you can play around with.  The best part about storytelling is that there are so many types of stories we can use. It's best not to limit ourselves to "character doesn't have ___. Character is sad. Character goes to so and so, etc.".

TPR (Total Physical Response):

Here's the TPR part where I have students get up and move a little bit for a brain break:

• Necesita ir al baño (hold tummy / cross legs)
• “Tienes que esperar” (point finger down at palm for have) / (hold out hand like picture for “wait”)
• Lo / la deja ir - let butterfly go free

And I always add more to it, "necesita ir al baño y se da la vuelta y sonríe" (s/he needs to use the bathroom and turns around and smiles). "Lo deja ir lentamente y grita en silencio" (S/he lets it go slowly and yells silently).

TPRS (Storytelling):

Here's my basic story skeleton. Let me know what you think!

New Interactive Youtube Storytelling

A few years back I did an experiment called Cuentas Conmigo where I basically did a TPRS story but on Youtube. At the end of each video, people would write in the comments section the next detail, which I would add in the next video.

It was really fun!

Here's my new attempt.

I am going to do the same story in the present and past tense.

And I have some ideas on how to get more first person / second person forms of the verbs in there (interviewing the character).

I think it's going to be fun! Please join in by adding your details and if you're a teacher why not get your class involved to?

Present Tense:

Past Tense:

And you might subscribe to the channel where I wanted to do a new storyline each semester (maybe even one in the summer depending on how this one turns out!)


Check out my Cuentas Conmigo channel or playlists of old Cuentas Conmigo attempts.

Last minute gem - Una papa - simple song

I always find myself planning late at night before bed (for some odd reason) and stumbling across something that I really want to use with my students (because I LOVE to mix things up each year with new activities).

I stumbled across this really cute little song about potatoes that like to dance!

It could be great for elementary teachers or middle school/high-school students to get those wiggles out for a brain break. (Of course you know your classes better than I do. As a wacky teacher, I can often encourage them to do things like this or the mascota activity.)

video:

But I digress. I found this song a few minutes ago and HAD to use it tomorrow for the following reasons: