TPRS year 3 - review

Well the school year ended a week or two ago and it was my third year of using TPRS and CI.

As far as the year, I would say it was a success.  It was probably the most intense year I have ever gone through with ups and downs and the variety of activities.

I worked hard in making sure things stayed fresh while at the same time maintaining the general consistency of class.

In first quarter in my Spanish 1 classes, we did PQA about the students, their loves, their interests.  They picked up some basic conversational words and a lot of the third person forms of verbs that interested them.  Then we finished up with TPR of the body parts and some other concrete action words that we could act out.

By the time we got to second quarter, I introduced the routine of class:

Monday - Trending Tweets and Weekend chat

Tuesday - Joke and Oral Story (past tense)

Wednesday - Miáucoles and finishing Oral story

Thursday - song 

Friday - Fail and written story

We continued to prep the Spanish students' understanding of words that would appear in the first book Agentes Secretos y el mural de Picasso.  

Then by the time we read the book, we still did a little storytelling and the usual warm up activities and by the time second quarter had ended, my Spanish 1 students felt a sense of success.  A couple of the kids weren't doing as well as the rest for various reasons, but they were still learning.  Some did hate the book.

Third quarter, we started off with a PQA activity because of a structure common to Spanish 1 students and in the next book to be read, ir + a + infinitive.  So I had the students talk about a goal they had for the new year.  We talked about those for a few weeks and I tried something new out….

I wanted to try to get some of the first and second forms into the verb paradigm.  In my first two years of TPRS, I noticed students didn't do much more than the 3rd person singular of the verbs.  This is the most easily acquired form in language, which is why children speak in 3rd person at first.  

But I still figured we should try to introduce those other forms little by little in the year.  So I had the question written on the board, "¿Qué vas a hacer?" (What are you going to do?) and then underneath I wrote "Voy a ____r" (I'm going to…) and "va a ____r" (s/he is going to __).  

Then I asked kids to own their phrase so that when I asked them, they could respond, "Voy a _____."  It was a great attempt.  Some kids didn't seem to get it as well.  Perhaps to have butcher paper on the wall for different classes so that the words stayed on the wall until the unit was over might be nice.  Maybe next year we can do that.  Otherwise, I thought it went well.  The complete conjugation of verbs is something that not even traditional Spanish students completely get the hang of.  So I figured I was doing a better job.  They had a pretty good understanding of the "n" at the end meaning "They" from second quarter.

So long story short, I think we managed to get the other forms hit during the year.  

After the PQA activity, we started storytelling and further prepping the kids to be able to read the second book Piratas del Caribe y el maps secreto.   While reading, we continued doing the other activities (storytelling, jokes, songs, etc).  

By the final test on Pirates, I was able to see that my students were learning this year and were learning to write sentences to express their understanding of the book. 

All in all, I would say the year was a success.  Many of the kids retrospectively appreciated the books because they realized how much Spanish they had learned this year.

I would say that this year has further reinforced my love for TPRS and CI teaching.  Throughout the year, I was able to converse with my Spanish 1 students daily.  I was never able to converse with my Spanish 1, 2 or 3 students as well before when we "covered" grammar and vocabulary.

I look forward to the coming years!

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).