NTPRS - day 2 - Breakfast, reading Russian, & Mafia

*this is my attempt to keep track of what happened while I was at my very first NTPRS in Reno, Nevada 

So I get up Tuesday morning and Mike had told me the night before that we were going to eat breakfast with Blaine Ray and Von Ray! I was really excited. Unfortunately I woke up incredibly late and probably made a terrible first impression on Blaine because I was still groggy from the lack of sleep and wasn’t very good about making much conversation.

Regardless I think I held my own ok. We talked about TPRS, my new school and I thanked him for helping bring the method to the light so so many of us could use it and find such amazing results in our classrooms too.  He is an incredibly nice guy. I am surprised just how fun he is and how he is not afraid to be goofy.

We also talked about some ways for me to get more involved in the TPRS community (and more specifically NTPRS) in the future, which is exciting. I haven’t seen much value in what I do over the past few years. I know there is still so much I can learn. But I am glad that they see potential in me and we might be able to work together in the future!

After breakfast, I went back to the beginner’s TPRS class and learned more Russian! I also brought attention to myself and ended up having to act as Lady Gaga.  There are probably pictures and videos out there somewhere.  Again, I was amazed at Katya’s seemingly effortless way to tell a story to us and review prior information as well as introduce new information.

Mafia game - Presentation

This year I use PAT with classes to help with buy-in for being on task during class.

So this week we have a lot of accumulated PAT and since it's the end of the year, I thought we could play a simplified version of Mafia.

I got the idea from Martina Bex last year.

Changes I made:

• I decided for my Spanish 1 class to remove the doctor, because we never finish a game anyway.
• I added a point system because we never finish a game so that way it gives some more semblance of purpose

And here's the presentation I came up with for today to facilitate the game. The language for "se hace de noche" comes from an activity we do earlier in the year so it's familiar.

You could easily take away the language like "killing" to something else. I talk about how the mafia eliminates people, but might use the term "kill" if the classes are familiar with it. The people they accuse go to prison.


If you can use it in your classes, great!  The kids enjoyed the picture of their town in the presentation.