TPRS year 3 - Agentes Secretos (teaching book)

So before Christmas, another Spanish teacher (at another small school) and I had planned out a unit of sorts for the first semester.  The goal was to teach the kids enough of the structures in the novel Agentes Secretos y el mural de Picasso.

The following is a reflection of the reading of the actual book as well as other activities that we did during the unit...

Went well:

• many students enjoyed reading a book and commented on that in their reflections on the unit
• students did well (minus a few outliers) on the test that was IN Spanish about the book and things that happened
• utilized different learning styles to help the kids understand the novel
• powerpoints with animations of characters 
• actors
• drawing
• reviewing
• the Native / Heritage speakers read the chapters for us as narrators

Improve on:

• doing more activities to vary review of chapters
• it seemed like we were rushing through the book near the end which made some kids uncomfortable
• start doing book a little earlier
• realize that not everyone likes reading
• talking about the students and linking language to them and their lives
• having students guess details in story...
• teaching the novel using reading strategies 

TPRS year 3 - Agentes Secretos - week 1

So this week we finally started reading Agentes Secretos y el mural de Picasso by Mira Canion in my Spanish 1 and Spanish 2 classes.  I thought it would be great for both levels and we could just do more in Spanish 2 with culture and embedded readings about history and culture to enhance the story.

This week for our TPRS structures and embedded reading, Josef Sallen (the teacher I'm planning this year with) had a great idea.  He decided to write an embedded reading about Francisco Franco (a dictator from Spain's history that also is mentioned in Agentes Secretos y el mural de Picasso).  It talked about how Francisco Franco is a boy and his dad is a soldier and Francisco later wants to be a soldier.  Then it gives some background about the Spanish Civil War and the two opposing sides in the war.

So it occurred to me that since we're going to be reading the novel and Joe had written the embedded reading about Franco, maybe we could find some other things from the era to help us go back in time and to understand the perspectives (that's national standards talk!).  So I found some propaganda posters that I showed for warm ups and had the students figure out which side they probably went with (the day after the embedded reading).  And on Thursday (on song day), we listened to Ay Carmela.  I saved a lesson plan about it.  It's a hymn for the Republican side of the Spanish Civil War.  It talks about the Battle of the Ebro (arguably a somewhat important battle in the Spanish Civil War).

I did a history lesson about parts of the Spanish Civil War with a PowerPoint in Spanish halfway through class.  My kids actually seemed to enjoy it!  Who knew that they could enjoy history in Spanish class.  The best part is that it only helps us to further understand the backdrop for the novel Agentes Secretos y el mural de Picasso.

Then today (Friday) we read the first chapter of the novel.  I haven't done a novel reading before.  I asked my kids to be patient with me since I was trying something new this year in teaching them.  Then we read.  One of the neat things was we have many Spanish speakers in class and I asked if they wouldn't mind helping me read the Spanish since they're so much better at the language than me!  It went over wonderfully. The kids were able to follow along and read while someone spoke in Spanish with a native accent.

Some problems of course did occur:

1. some students no matter how easy you might try to make it just don't like reading
2. the readings are way too easy for Native / Heritage speakers
3. only a few kids really bought into helping translate the novel as we went through
• I would really love for all the students to get excited about understanding and helping out
• How can I create a classroom atmosphere that will be more comfortable for all students?

Some things that went well:

1. For most students, the structures in the book were way easy to translate and it helped with confidence (still confusion between quiere and tiene among some Spanish 1 students)
2. Native / Heritage speakers read out loud as we followed.  I asked them if they wouldn't mind helping me read since they spoke Spanish way better than me while we followed.  Most jumped to the task since I asked them to hold back on helping us translate today. 

Ideas for future:

A teacher had an idea to get my kids to participate more when reading, I could have assign the students into groups with a color or animal and then periodically only allow that group to answer the questions.  This could be a much better idea for those big classes where some kids monopolize the answering.

TPRS year 3 - going back to the book!

This is my third year implementing TPRS in my classroom.  Previously I taught for about 4 years with traditional isntruction slowly moving farther and farther away from the textbook.  I find that even with teaching Spanish "traditionally", the textbook is horrible.

When I found TPRS, I had this moment of "this is it" ("This is what I have wanted to do with my students but didn't know I was allowed!").  So I tried it for two years and noticed quite a few things about my students.  To name a few, they:

1. spoke more Spanish outside of class
2. spoke more Spanish in class
3. enjoyed class (more than before)
4. could write more in Spanish
5. could create more novel (original) sentences in Spanish to express themselves

But the other day one of my Spanish one classes, the students simply weren't doing their job. Since the first week or so I've explained my expectations to them.  I borrowed them from Ben Slavic's site basically and will probably slowly hone them as time goes on.   Basically they are required to sit up straight, offer ideas in class, allow others to talk without having to raise their hands and listen to others' ideas all the while avoiding English. 

My job is to go slow, point, make gestures, use the students' ideas to make class interesting and anything else that can make what I am saying comprehensible.  

I can honestly say in one class I was doing my job.  I was going slow, pointing, even jumping up and down with a smile on my face.  The class was completely quiet.  There was no laughter, there was no one enjoying himself or herself.  They weren't making class more enjoyable.

Now you might be thinking (as my wife said to me):  Wait a minute!  You are complaining because your students were all sitting down, doing nothing to distract one another and were quiet.  That sounds like the dream class!  

If you're thinking that you're missing something vital (like my students).  They weren't engaged.  They weren't making the lesson interesting to themselves.  I (left to my own devices) will bore the class.  I need them to add things that are interesting to them.  I need them to interact with me during class so we can create something meaningful.  

I reminded them of my expectations and told them that I was very disappointed.  I need them to help me make class fun.  I do recognize retrospectively that we all have bad days, even classes.  But I wanted this class to understand how much of it was their job to make sure class was enjoyable.

The following day, I decided to have the Spanish 1 textbooks underneath every desk.  At the beginning of that class, I explained that every day with me is a new day.  If they have a bad day, I understand we all do and I can forgive them of that.  However, the previous day I was very disappointed by what happened (or didn't happen) in class and I wanted to let them know that if they didn't like how I taught, then they did have another option.  I told them to get the books from underneath their desks because we would be doing a lesson out of the book.  I then proceeded to give them a lesson about the Spanish language through the textbook  We talked about standard greetings, tú and usted with some practice pages.  I thought they might stop me but they were very well behaved during this time actually.  After about 30 minutes of lecture-style instruction, I was getting ready to give them their pages of homework practice.  As I was doing that, one student asked me if we could go back to how things were.

This prompted a discussion that the class pretty much lead about what we should do.  I explained they had both options and I would be fine with either because I used to teach via the textbook.  They unanimously chose storytelling.  They explained why they chose it with arguments like, "Class is more fun.", "We learn more in class!", "Class before was more engaging!", etc.  I explained then to them that if we were to go back to storytelling, they must remember my expectations of them.  

They listed those off for me and came to the conclusion that they would do it.  I think this was an important class period for that class because they were able to choose their learning style as a class and determine which was better for their brains and learning.