New TPRS Novel - Bart quiere un gato

I am excited to announce that I have written a novel for Spanish 1+ classes.

It debuted at ACTFL back in November and have been selling really well (or at least that's what TPRS Books has been telling me.) I also have MANY planned on the back-burner to write whenever I get free time. Wait, what's that?

It's called "Bart quiere un gato" to pay homage to an incredibly old story from Look I Can Talk about a boy named Bart who wants a cat. Mike Coxon and I worked it out and made it a Choose Your Own Adventure style type reader. While Mike was great to work with, I hope you can see my sense of humor really shine in the majority of the book as I had a very active role in the writing itself. It was great to work with Mike on it and I am excited to write some more books like it with multiple endings, twists and turns, and that are hopefully, fun for readers!

TPRS year 5 - speed dating and Agentes Secretos

Something I was trying to do with my Spanish 1's to help them read Agentes Secretos y el mural de Picasso was an activity I got from a presentation at FLAM a few weeks ago.

The presenter mentioned "speed-dating".  And instead of talking about themselves, the characters talk about the topic for 1-2 minutes and then switch.  This way they can get another pass of the information from a chapter or a concept and when we change to another person, we can change the information we ask of them.

It also brings movement and interaction into the classroom, which are so necessary in a block class or for a rainy day (or chilly cloudy day in October).

I numbered my students off (1-15 twice), told them to form two lines in order.  I explained they were going to talk about Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Paula, Luis, Los agentes secretos, etc and they had two minutes.

I didn't want to hear English.  I only wanted to hear Spanish.  Their pronunciation wasn't the most important part (gasp) because they were interacting with the text, and I think for some this made them aware of their shortcomings in pronunciation of a word so maybe they will listen more for that word later.

They were allowed to have their books as a security blanket.  Some kids read the information from the chapter (but they had to find the important information about the characters or plot).

Not a bad activity!  I might have to bring it in every once in awhile.  Definitely not bad for a 10 minute chunk in the middle of class or for another pass of the chapter in a completely different way.

For some 2:00 was an eternity.  But for others, it was about right.  They usually opted after the first round to do 1:30.

My mind is thinking about the other possibilities for this type of activity...

Reading Strategy - Reading Volleyball

See newer explanation

Now I could be wrong on the title of this activity, but I got it from another teacher in my department.

So I am an advocate of input.  But there are times in the year when you need to get your students to read.  And I am "pushed" in my district to do group work and things that to me aren't necessarily providing input.

But with a block schedule, we have to do something to break it up every now and again (aside from just brain breaks).

So here's what I tried today.

Students stood in two lines, facing the person opposite them (their current partner).  They all had their novels.  They had one minute to translate sentence by sentence, taking turns.  They were encouraged to look up words they didn't know and I didn't want just one person translating it all. Once the minute timer went off, they were to mark their place in the book and one line moved one person to the right (with the last person going to the beginning of their line).

Students were to start with their new partner where the person farthest behind was.  This way, no information is skipped and at times, multiple passes of parts of the chapter can occur.

Once students finished (and their partner(s) had too), they were to summarize what they had read in English or Spanish.

Once everyone had been able to summarize once, we sat down.

Definitely not something to do every day.  But students seemed to enjoy the novelty.  I could probably do it once/twice per novel.

I could also do it on blah days with embedded readings maybe.  It definitely helped the students get into the reading more, but of course, it always helps that the reading is super simple and the glossary in the back has the words they don't know.

Know of any other reading activities for classes?

Agentes Secretos - Caramba (Game)

Today is a reflection of a game called "Caramba" (see rules here at the top)

So something that I love about teaching is how my activities continue to evolve each year.

My few years, I had NO technology at my school.  Therefore, no powerpoints, etc.

I originally had some notecards with vocabulary words and then a few Caramba cards.  We would play the game as the rules describe.  Then, I started making Caramba's into powerpoints.  That was more fun and of course was more polished.

I slowly transitioned into making "Caramba" more of an immersive experience with TPRS/CI.  I no longer wanted students to just translate something from one language to another (not that that might not have merit in reviewing structures we're going over), but I wanted to keep the game in the language and reinforce the words in context.

This works great with novels.  So in Spanish 1, we're going through Agentes Secretos (and thankfully it's pretty easy for my students due to the groundwork laid).

Today for their PAT (Preferred Activity Time), they needed something fresh.  So we played Caramba (see rules).

However, today I was able to add an element to the rules.  Since they already have predetermined groups for PAT, they sat in those.  They have team names and a chant already.  Before in Caramba, teams would take turns and of course, engagement would be ok.  If a team missed one, they missed it and we moved on.

Today, I allowed groups to steal the question for a point, but of course, they had to do their group chant that we do for review basketball normally.  It added so much more and just creates a more intense, competitive, yet fun atmosphere.  The chants have really enhanced my class this year to get more students involved.

I told my students Caramba is usually the favorite of many of my students (usually they either really love it or really hate it).

Here's the PowerPoint I made for today.  Feel free to use it in your class and change any answers.
Also, you might download it, since Google Docs tends to change formatting.

TPRS year 3 - Piratas(book) - assessment and reflection

My Spanish 1 classes and I read through Piratas del Caribe y el mapa secreto by Mira Canion this last quarter for our final book of the year.

Each week we would read a chapter (or two).  As needed we would do a spoken story that might practice some of the structures that we would later find in the chapter.  The driving force behind reading the books this year in class was to make sure that the students could find success.  While I could have chosen books that would have been much more challenging to them, I think it was crucial to make sure that the books were mostly comprehensible by the time we read them with maybe a few words or things that weren't.  I find this important because when I first started reading in Spanish, it was way too difficult in classes because my teachers had an inflated sense of "the students should know this by this point."  I was one of the better students and found reading way too difficult in Spanish 4.  As teachers we should be helping our kids to find success so they might find more fulfillment in the future.

In addition to pre-teaching the necessary structures and vocabulary, I also would create animated PowerPoints of certain scenes in the book while we were reading it.  I also created backgrounds and we would act out the chapters a day or so after reading them.  This was also to create an additional pass of the material, and to make sure students would be able to visualize some of the action in the book.

By the time we finished the book, I wanted to assess my kids.  The test that Joe and I came up with was a bit of a beast.  I think we jokingly referred to it as the "Kraken" at some point while writing it.  When my kids took it, although they told me it was reasonable and not necessarily difficult, it was simply longer than many could do within one class.

What I liked about it was we tried to incorporate many different types of questions on the test to make sure our students understood it.

In my favorite section, I made animated slides of scenes from the book and the students had to write a sentence or more explaining the scene in Spanish.  It was neat.  It also helped me see deficiencies in their acquisition of certain structures.

Another section was multiple choice of the basic plot points of the book (all in Spanish).  There was a section of quotes from the book from the main characters, true / false, and some short answer questions.

The neatest part about the whole test (and the previous test about the book Agentes Secretos y el mural de Picasso) was that the questions were in Spanish.  My students had to understand enough Spanish to be able to perform on the test and answer the questions.  Most kids did quite well!  Maybe two of all of my students did very poorly (60%).  There were many interruptions during this book though due to track, baseball, field trips, etc.

Reflection 
    The Good (went well)

• I thought the book was a success for the first year trying it
• I was able to do things in this book that I didn't do with the first one; my students responded more favorably to this one
• I was very proud of the test
• the fact that many of my students came to class and were ok with reading once/twice a week IN SPANISH was great
• the Hollywood days were some of the kids favorite days (they told me later)
• my kids were learning Spanish this year to be successful enough to be able to read most of the book
• I felt like I was more creative with this unit than I have been in awhile in my teaching; I was able to use many of my talents to make the book/characters more accessible to my students
• I had the Native Speakers and Heritage Speakers read the chapters while the class translated.  This was great since sometimes I have to ask my Native Speakers and Heritage speakers to not answer questions or count to 5 before answering in Spanish.  I think it helped them feel more useful and special!

    The Bad (needs improvement)

• the 10 week unit seemed a bit daunting at times.  I am not sure how some TPRS teachers can squeeze in 3-4 books a year.
• some kids didn't like how long the book took as a result of the 10 week unit
• I would like to do some pirate-based stuff in addition like I saw from a FLAM presentation this last fall (examples were in German though)
• didn't create a lot of opportunities for higher thinking questions
• I do a lot of comprehension checks/questions.  I don't do a lot of "what would you do"
• some kids hated the first pass (translation);
• could we break up in reading groups sometimes too

If you would like to see any of the activities I used for this unit, please let me know (jeremy(at)senorjordan.com)!

TPRS Year 3 - Piratas - Chapters 5-6

So we're still working on reading a chapter or two of Piratas del Caribe y el mapa secreto.  This week we needed to read two chapters because my seniors are leaving in the second week of May!  And we are only in Chapter 5 this week.  So Wednesday, my afternoon classes read through chapters 5-6 (which are not too long and can be lumped together).

Since it was a half day and the afternoon classes aren't always incredibly excited about reading, I noticed that the phrase, "Preparen los cañones." (Prepare the cannons!) was used various times throughout chapter 5 and once or twice in chapter 6.  On a whim, I decided to let them know that every time it came up we had to run to the window and prepare our cannons and fire them at different targets.  I teach high school students ranging from freshman through seniors and I saw most of them thought this was awesome for the first few times.  By the last few, not as many were as enthused, but I was still frantically yelling to them, "Preparen los cañones." and trying to prepare my cannon.  I figured it would add to the intensity of the action in the chapters as well as help us connect to the story.  Oh, and it would keep my students awake.

Maybe it was more of a distraction for some, but I thought it was great.  I even saw a student I haven't been able to connect with much this year grin each time we ran to the window to prepare our cannons.

That definitely made it worth it!

TPRS Year 3 - Piratas - Chapter 2

For my Spanish 1 & 2 classes this year, we're easing into the novels.  I didn't even bother with novels last year as my second year after my paradigm shift from grammar to TPRS, but this year, I thought it would be worth a shot.

So we're in the second novel of the year for Spanish 1:  Piratas del Caribe y el mapa secreto by Mira Canion.  Next year, my Spanish 2 and Spanish 3 classes will read some other (increasingly difficult books).  It's definitely exciting.

my props for the acting today (woman's scarf, cashier apron,
two pistols, cardboard pirate hats, cell-phone, "silver" and fake map.)

I noticed that Chapter two of Piratas was incredibly long though.  It is around 900 words.  Granted, some of my embedded readings this year in Spanish have gotten up to around 700 words or so (which is a lot to read in a class period!), but 900 is even more so.  We read the chapter on Friday and went over what it was talking about.  I showed some pictures of the map and explained the separation plan.  But I didn't come away from the classes feeling like my students were able to digest the chapter very well.  So today, I wanted to revisit chapter two so that we could move onto chapter three.  I also wanted to try a different technique.  The worst that could happen is they still wouldn't understand every little part of the chapter.  The best is that they could understand the chapter better.

So here's what I did:
1. I prepared some backgrounds on a PowerPoint (pirate ship, captain's cabin, open sea, Cuban beach, countryside, market)

2.  Then I took the mp3 chapters from audio book and cut them up into more digestible chunks of text to work with.

3.  I got the actors up in the front and we acted out the chunks and they would move their mouth with the mp3 of the characters saying the lines.  Then we might have to do the scene over and I'd have someone jump in and say, "Toma #, ¡Acción!" ("Take __, Action!")

4. The props helped make it as well to add more to the illusion and the backgrounds

5.  My actors also were willing to do all that I asked, including pretending to be in a canoe all rowing together and then getting out of the canoe at the beach.

6. during the chapter I was able to ask some comprehension level questions because there was much higher energy with the actors than other reading days

7. Some students even told me we should do other chapters like that.  As long as they have action, I am ok with it.

Conclusion:
Not too bad.  I think we will do it for the future chapters when necessary.  It saves me the time of making animations.  And this gets the kids into it more and is simply more fun.

I also think that so far for the book, this is a good start.  I'll keep beefing up the unit each year though (with more activities to choose from and props to get into the story with).