Evolution of my TPRS teaching: example Alma

Someone recently asked me about how I plan out for the years. I generally do the following:

My first year with a curriculum:

• fly by the seat of my pants
• take notes on what works/doesn't (mental or written/typed out)
• survive

Subsequent years:

• hone different areas (not all at once)
• assessments
• activities 
• stories
• movietalks
• guided discussion prompts
• extras
• games
• classroom management
• usage of novels
• usage of SSR / FVR
• continue to gather more resources to throw in
• adapt resources to level of students that year (readings)
• have more fun because it's way less stressful

For example, you can tell my 2nd or 3rd year of using TPRS, I saw Cynthia Hitz had used something called a MovieTalk about Alma. I was relatively new at this. 

So my first year with Alma (maybe fall 2012), I did the following:

• Spoken story
  
• MovieTalk (talked to kids, paused movie at key points to build interest)
  
• Simple version of a reading 
• I lost this over the years

Then the next year at a new school (spring 2014), I thought it would be fun to make an Embedded Reading. So I was comfortable with the movie and added different versions.

• Spoken story
  
• MovieTalk
  
• Embedded Readings
• versions 1 & 2
• version 3

Story + Movietalk + Song - "Soy yo" by Bomba Estéreo (Spanish 1)

Still from "Soy yo" (Bomba Estéreo)

After the fun with the previous mini-unit on el chico del apartamento 512, I thought this would be a logical progression and I've wanted to use this song all year ever since seeing that Kara Jacobs did something with it.

So Bomba Estéreo came out with this great song called "Soy yo" (I am me) that is a really positive song about just being yourself. While Kara used it in the beginning of the year for repetitions of "SOY", I preferred to use it later on when my kids would have more language and I could relate it to deeper discussion in class about being who you are.  I know my stuff doesn't hold a candle to hers, but I think my students enjoyed it for the most part, which was nice since it's the end of the year.

Still from "Soy yo" (Bomba Estéreo)

Before showing them the reading, I brought up the first one of the year and told them we could warm up real quick. They read it without any problems. One student said in English, "Wait, that was so easy!" And I responded to him, "It is now. But when we first went over it, it was a little bit hard for you!" I wanted them to realize HOW much they have been exposed to this year in the Target Language and how far they have come in one year.

I really wanted to review some of the physical descriptions vocab, family vocab, places vocab, activities vocab, etc. The thing I love about storytelling (TPRS) is that you can really revisit things all the time because they can come up naturally in stories unlike with a textbook.


My structures were:

• viaja a - s/he travels to  (NEW)
• se ríen de - they laugh at / make fun of (NEW)
• sigue viajando - s/he keeps traveling (revisited)
• se va - s/he leaves (revisited)
• llegan a - they arrive at (revisited)

You might notice how I was reusing some phrases. But I made sure to use a different form of them in this story or added a different "ing" because just going over something once is NEVER enough for acquisition in my experience for lower levels. They need to constantly be exposed and re-exposed to vocabulary/structures throughout the year for long term retention.  The stuff they only hear once (for most kids) will most likely be forgotten to make space for more frequently used language.

Anyways,  here's the rough plan I used with links to the activities mentioned. It's bare bones, but hopefully it will inspire you!

Movietalk - Peanut Butter Lips

*Used after movie talk from previous post*

Continuing with the food unit for the chapter with my school's curriculum, my goal is to hit many of the important functional food words. And then students are given the rest of the vocabulary and they can choose to work on their own via Quizlet flashcards.

There is this cute short movie called Peanut Butter Lips that is on Vimeo that I found through someone's resources (can't remember who. Sorry!).

When I saw it I thought it would be great because it deals with that normal day to day teen angst and romance. Things that all people can generally relate to. We can tap into that idea of romance existing. There's another movie I found from Costa Rica recently that would also be fun to do a movie talk about with a similar idea but a surprise ending. (See Amor de Temporada.)

Peanut Butter Lips is somewhat predictable, but I think it's ok sometimes to have predictable when speaking in a foreign language because it can be what grounds the students. And if you're always using unpredictable details in your classes, using something predictable could actually become unpredictable.

A boy wants a kiss from a girl. Some storytelling ideas, add a backstory to the characters. Why does he want a kiss from her? Sure there is the obvious reason why: he likes her. But how long has he had a crush on her. When was the first time he realized he liked her? Was it in the cafeteria when she didn't laugh at him when his tray fell. Or was it when they were in math class together and she knew all the answers and that impressed him? Or what else?

Obviously my ideas are terrible. But maybe the students would have better ideas than mine!  And why does she love peanut butter so much? What is the book about? Who recommended it to her? Why does she keep reading it?

I didn't get too much into this, but I probably should have! Oh well. I just played to my strengths: tell a story, ask a lot of questions, relate it to my students lives and then read about it the following day.  They did fine and seemed interested enough in the story (maybe because they are polite).

Regardless, I thought it fit well into my mini food unit that I have been working on due to curriculum (*cough* textbook *cough cough*) constraints.  

Here is the Google document with links to all I used!

Oh! And I made my first kahoot in the history of the world for a review game.

 Feel free to use it or adapt it for your classes and let me know if you end up using it!

Movietalk - worst date ever

*Last year, I used this movietalk in Spanish 1 at my previous school. Another great example how you can use things at any level; just vary the complexity of your language/vocabulary.*

This year, here is a movietalk that I did with Spanish 2 because while I am supposed to do a food unit, I find that verbs and meaning are what drive any good story, not senseless lists of words!

So I did add a food word or two: jamón. You could easily add in other words and discuss the banquet that he has prepared for his date.

But you might notice in the embedded reading, I am reminding students of clothing words and other verbs that appear are things from previous units in the year. I always try to bring those words back in in new contexts whenever possible to remind students to help with long-term retention.

I wanted to reuse some of the words from the previous "keeps eating" story (see previous post) in a new context as well with s/he brings,  s/he keeps [doing something], & while... s/he learns that.

I also broke it up into a few days. And I really didn't do much with it. Just told the story, had a few readings, did some exit ticket quizzes, etc.  You could expand it to do more with technology if you so desire and review games. But this is the basic stuff!

So without further adieu, enjoy!

https://docs.google.com/document/d/12_NNN22Vns-aoaYWd08B3cyU6es2RBU7NB-oR4vhRR8/edit?usp=sharing

And here is a link for quizlet flash cards you could use for Quizlet live: https://quizlet.com/_3ddczg

Comercial - Me voy de casa

So this year in Spanish two, I have certain vocabulary points I need to hit for a unit and I have wanted to use this commercial for years.

I decided to do a lot of TPR first with my classes to build up their understanding of some words for sure.

So this folder gives you all of the things that I used with the Argentine commercial: Personal - Me voy de casa. (Folder Contains: screenshots from movie, TPR, warm ups, readings, Movietalk slides, instructions & reflection)

Commercial:

Here is more or less what I did.

NTPRS - Day 4 - Movietalk in Russian, culture in reading, Open mic

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

I think I woke up kind of late. As I mentioned in the previous post, I was starting to drag as my lack of sleep caught up to me!

Movietalk in Russian:
I missed the first part of the Russian class and either we did the embedded reading during this day or we did it the previous day as mentioned.  I went to the part where Katya did a Movietalk in Russian and I think the best part about Katya, that I want to start paying attention to, is her intentional inflection to sound really interested in what she is saying.

That is something that so many of us, as we start out in TPRS (or get bogged down in what we have to accomplish in class), forget to be intentional with.  But when she would sound really interested in what she was saying, it just drew us more into the fantasy of the class.  She just described a video about a little puppy that got lost from his owner and eventually found him.

Something that I forgot to blog about that I really enjoyed seeing was how quickly she introduced the phrase "s/he thinks" into the class so that she could ask higher level thinking questions while we read in Russian such as "what is the character thinking here?"

NTPRS day 3 - More Russian, Acting, Being quiet, Reading, Making a Movietalk & Russian Mafia

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

Russian - day 3
So day 3 of the conference and Russian. I think by this point, I was going in whenever possible for the Russian, but was trying to discreetly leave when it was time for coaching practice. This is nothing against the coaches or groups. I just realized that I could be doing other things (talking to other educators, just taking a break to think about my coming year and the vocab lists, etc).

So anyway, I was starting to drag by this time in the week. My roomie and I weren't averaging much of sleep a night. I was probably getting 4-5 hours a night and it was wearing on me. On breaks I was calling my family because I missed them dearly so I wasn't really getting a lot of sleep and I could slowly feel it more and more each day.

I walk into the class and Katya had chosen me the day before for acting, and I had really wanted to act on previous days because I have never been the main character in a story during a TPRS training workshop thus far.  But I figured that I had been chosen to be Lady Gaga the day before and I could just relax in the back.  For whatever reason, Katya just asks me to go up immediately and act out a story.

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:

Alma - revisited

Something really neat about teaching from year to year is to see how things evolve. Also, how I can use the same resource to suit different needs depending on when I can throw it in, because we're always using the language.

Back in my 3rd year of TPRS, I showed my classes the Alma video, and Movietalk it.  I might have had a reading or so. And then I started experimenting with embedded readings (multiple scaffolded versions).

Last year, I used Alma as a sort of mini-unit, which continues to evolve.

This year, my kids had different language needs. And I even continue to re-conceptualize the movie's utility in my class.

For example, this year, I added in some additional words to the TPR phase so we could describe a few minor details about climbing, the window, and turning around. It just clicked this year that that would be good since we've already hit "looks exactly like", "can't" and "I need help" a lot!

Movietalk - Carwash

This year, we are reading Piratas in Spanish 1 this semester (last year, we only got through Agentes secretos by the end of the year due to department paradigm shift).

And so I am revisiting some of my activities from the book, but I have realized something since I have been doing the books for a few years now, and this year, I feel like my Spanish 1 students are truly more capable than any previous year with Comprehensible Input.

Something I didn't do in my previous school was a movietalk or two in conjunction with the book to teach a few additional TPR words and a silly story to offset the book.

Here's something I came up with (and am still working on).  I think this will fit in nicely with one of our final stories for the year about el chico del apartamento 512 storyline from the very talented Martina Bex.

Here's the activity.

Spanish 1 or 2 story idea - I have an app for that!

I am preparing my Spanish 2 students for a Movietalk based on this commercial because it's so silly and I don't feel as though my students are confident with "le da" or "le dio" or other forms of that verb yet.

TPRS year 5 - Spanish 1 mini-unit - Alma

For a few weeks this quarter, I wanted to work on a unit in Spanish 1.  I thought we could review the super seven (hay, quiere, tiene, está, es, le gusta, va a) and add more.

Last year around this time, I did the Movietalk with Alma.  It's a neat little video about a little girl who finds a surprise in a store in Barcelona.  My classes are always sufficiently creeped out by it, which is wonderful!

This year language-wise has been a little bit different so I thought I would do the following to lead up to Alma.

TPRS year 5 - Movietalk/Song - Celos

There is a song I discovered years ago and always found a way to tie it into storytelling because of the themes in it of romance and betrayal.  It also has a lot of good solid TPR words like body parts and concrete actions (kiss, look, walk, dance).  It is seriously the best song.

I just found out it's a remake, but either way, it's the only version I ever knew and it's called Celos.  Fanny Lu (Colombian singer) sings the remake and the video is even fun.

In previous years we did a cloze activity and watched the video.  This year, I have some targets I want to hit on structures (busca, encuentra, quiere hablar con, se cae, camina, sobre/hacia) and thought this would be the perfect way to introduce those before we read Agentes Secretos y el mural de Picasso.

So here's the activity I came up with.  Let me know what you think!

TPRS year 5 - Movietalk - Simon's cat - Scary Legs

I am trying to do storytelling this year, but also to add in another component after every story or two: an extension (commercial, song, video, movietalk, cultural connection, etc).  This way I can further recycle the structures from our stories, but bind them in a new way for better acquisition.

Our Spanish 2 students will be reading Noches misteriosas en Granada 2nd quarter this year and we are pre-teaching them structures from the book to be successful.

One of our first stories was:

• sigue ___ndo (s/he keeps __ing)
• se va para (s/he leaves for [place])
• "tienes que ayudarme" (you have to help me)

Then I had done Total Physical Response (TPR) during brain breaks for some other words:

• aplasta (s/he squishes)
• [se] sube (s/he climbs/goes up)
• muere (s/he dies)

And for fun, I also went over the song: la araña pequeñita

TPRS year 4 - Spanish commercial - "Helios es vida"

I stumbled upon this commercial today and thought it was nice and simple for Spanish 1 students and could be used as a Movietalk for upper levels even and discussing your own situation or what all is going on (with more vocabulary and difficulty).

The campaign is for Helios, a brand in Spain:  http://grupohelios.com/

Basically the video is referring to "[something] es vida" ("---- is life").

In the video, they use a lot of infinitive verbs.  I'll need to slowly explain infinitive verbs (but not by calling them that) in my Spanish 1 classes.  And it would be neat to have an extension idea...

So I would probably start off the discussion after watching...
¿Qué es "vida" en tu opinión? (What is "life" in your opinion?)

And we could discuss it as a class in Spanish 1/2 and then I could ask them to write their own idea down and draw a picture to accompany it as a sort of brain-break for class.  The following class I could show them on the document camera and discuss them.  Or we could post them around the class and have the class vote on which one is the most likely.

It would be an interesting first opportunity to get them to express something more worthwhile in my class and more real (or silly if they desire) and also simple enough.

We learned the word "vida" in the phrase to get their attention, "¡Pura vida!", a common phrase used in Costa Rica for pretty much everything positive.

Then this word was further reinforced in our tweets today.

TPRS year 4 - Commercial ("¿Me lo compras?")

Going along with indirect objects, I just loved this commercial that caught me off guard.  Pretty simple language.  Could use it later in the year for Spanish 1 or sometime soon for Spanish 2.  

Could be fun to have kids peruse the COMER website as well (link below).

“Me lo compras”

TPRS year 4 - Commercial ("Leche fresca")

I was thinking I could use this in Spanish 1 or Spanish 2.

Spanish 2 would go nicely with the next unit we are doing where I will need to "cover" indirect object pronouns.  This might even work as a story script if I could isolate some of the structures that we could recycle all year.  Then my students could watch the video and be amazed at their understanding!


While there aren't many indirect objects used in the language in the video, if we had an embedded reading about the video or a similar storyline using, "le pide", "le da" &/or "le dice", we can get further repetitions of them.

“Leche Fresca”

TPRS year 4 - Spanish 2 story + Indirect Objects

So if you're teaching in a Department, you might find that you need to throw in those Indirect Object pronouns as soon as possible to get your kids hearing them as much as possible in context so by the time your department "covers" them, your kids are more comfortable with them and can use them without realizing them.

The following is a story idea I had after seeing a video.  I think it would work well in Spanish 1 or Spanish 2.

TPRS year 4 - Spanish 1 simple story

With the 90 minute block schedule, my students and I have been doing some PQA and some TPR in the same days.  This has really been kind of neat because it's almost like two different classes.  Sure they're worn out by the end of it.  But I told them at the beginning of the year that my class would be more like Spanish boot camp and if they didn't like that idea, they could transfer out of my class.

So I found this silly video clip and I was going to try it out next week with them to introduce a simple story to them to break up the monotony of PQA and show them that they have been learning for a purpose!

TPRS Year 3 - Story Idea - Hair in the nose

So I have been inspired some other teachers who have been using videos to do a Movie-talk in class.  This is the idea of describing what's going on in a scene with your kids.

Having not ever seen someone do this, I decided to try it today.  To give a little bit of history though, I had planned this out for this week.

So Tuesday (spoken storytelling day) I told in my Spanish two classes a story using the following structures:

• Se miraba en el espejo (he looked at himself in the mirror)
• De repente un grano salió de su nariz. (suddenly a zit came out of his nose)
• Lo trató de sacar pero no pudo (he tried to pull it out but he couldn't)

We acted it out and it was entertaining.  In one class a rat came out of the bellybutton and a cow came out of  the mouth of the girl on a date.  We used my puppets for that.  Then in another class a pink beard had a pink zit come out which he later realized wasn't a problem when he remembered he was pink.

So today, we first tried the MovieTalk with the video: Blind Date.  It's my favorite kind of animated movie: short, silly and it has no no spoken language in it.  This way, we can hear the music and talk about the movie and pause as needed and the kids can comprehend what we're talking about.  After watching/talking about the movie for 10 minutes or so, I had a reading that I had tried to write around their level (plus a few words that they didn't know but we could be exposed to over the course of the rest of the year).  I admit it's not the most advanced story, but please keep in mind I want my kids to acquire the language slowly over time instead of "teaching them" way too much that they'll never possibly remember.

The second hour class is a hard sell.  They are quieter and slightly over half Spanish-speaking.  So the Spanish speaking kids are patient with the kids who are learning, but when it comes to reading, only one person ever really translates.  This is frustrating because I know how important the reading is.  It's like the idea, "You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink."  But I so want to make him drink.  I want my kids to always enjoy the readings.  Especially when I work on them!  

The third hour class seemed to go better.  There are only four students but there was more eye-contact with the reading.  

I pulled a girl aside from 2nd hour and asked if there was something I could do or if my reading was horrible.  She said she enjoyed it, but the other girl monopolizes the translation and she wasn't able to get anything out so she stopped.  I asked her if maybe I tried to create groups where only a group could answer however many questions before I changed groups.  She said that might help her.  Food for thought.  

Oh and here's the movie clip:

I made an extended embedded reading in the yo form that was loosely based off of a different Youtube video but went along nicely with these structures above.  My students in the morning did an awesome job on it.  It's a lengthy read as well, but I want to build their confidence with the reading.  I thought it turned out well.  Here's the link.