Spanish 1 or 2 - story idea - didn't know how to dance!

*Disclaimer* The beauty of storytelling is that you really could use a story in any level. The complexity of your backstory or how you go about solving the problem is really defined by each level.  For example, you might be able to have way more complex dialogue in upper levels and ask the class things like, "what would you do if he/she said that to you!?"

Here's a story idea that I used in Spanish 2 a week or two ago:

Structures:

• No sabía bailar (S/he didn't know how to dance)

• Le dijo, “Voy a regresar pronto” (S/he said to him/her, "I am going to return soon")

• Le dio lecciones (s/he gave him/her lessons)

Some previous words I wanted to review:

• s/he saw
• s/he went towards
• s/he wanted to dance
• s/he was
• s/he left (came out of)
• s/he said to him/her

It's a pretty simple one.  Someone was at a party or in a club. They wanted to dance. They saw someone, went towards them, they told them, "I want to dance with you." Or asked, "Do you want to dance with me?"

NTPRS - my own private conference with Bryce Hedstrom!

So I lucked out in leaving the hotel super early that morning.  Some strange antics ensued at the airport as my socially awkward self tried to get through security:

So this just happened around 5:00 this morning. pic.twitter.com/jgFsvtyldR

— Señor Jordan (@senorjordan) 30 de julio de 2016

And it turned out Bryce Hedstrom and I were on the same flight!  

I had missed all of his sessions unfortunately, since I was on the beginner’s track. 

But I’ve been implementing some of his stuff for years and really had wanted a chance to talk to him and pick his brain. We had already met earlier in the week when we ate BBQ with Señor Wooly and Mike Coxon.  And we had also corresponded via email once in awhile over the years.  But while emailing back and forth can be great, I find that I also prefer face-to-face interaction and to hear something.

So here’s my conclusion about Bryce: he is an awesome listener and I can see how he is so successful in his teaching. He radiates positivity, thoughtfulness, compassion, empathy, & of course Spanish.

Who's reading?!

Evidently, people read my blog posts?

So if you're reading, please tell me "hi" and is my blog has been helpful or not below!

And for bonus points let me know what you would do in the classroom if you didn't have to worry about other teachers different pedagogical opinions, parents'/students'/others' misperceptions etc.


I'll start:

I find this blog a nice place to reflect on my teaching. It is nice to go back and see what I've said in the past about a unit.

For bonus points:
If I didn't have any constraints and could teach exactly how I would like:

I would do a lot of the things that I am doing, but make sure to emphasize stories, free voluntary reading more and be overall more relaxed in my classroom and less constantly having to "accomplish" so we could acquire the language more freely. ;-)

Ok, your turn! GO!

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!

El muñeco viviente - the living doll (revised)

Last year I briefly mentioned a mini-unit that dealt with muñecas.

In the mini-unit, I wanted to spice things up and tell a story based on real life about a guy named Justin who has gone through body modification.

This is the second year I've used this presentation. I think it could work out great in a unit on body image and talking about how if kids are comfortable with their body. I don't really organize things that way quite yet, but I could see it being something to talk to kids about depending on your relationship with them and/or maturity/class level.

I like it because most of the kids don't know who he is and they really find the presentation fascinating and want to know what's going on.  So it makes for compelling and comprehensible (if we did our jobs right) input.

I want to share last year's presentation and this year's.  You might notice I revised the presentation and added a few different words. I made some language slightly more compex using various forms of dar (to give) to expose my kids more to the indirect objects (to me, to you, to him/her). Thus far they get that "le means to him or to her" (said in a southern accent).

But what I want is to make it so next year in Spanish 2, when the emphasis is more on grammar, these things will make more sense because of all the front-loaded contextualized and comprehensible language.

Here's the original presentation. you'll notice there was one version and it was a day long presentation + quiz. I also had some TPR to get them moving and scaffold some words (mixed new with old).



Here is the new one. You'll notice I made it into an embedded reading (to keep pushing my kids to read). Version 1 was the first day after some TPR* (and other class activities).  Version 2 will be with a partner (on day 1 or day 2 depending on time). And version 3 will be as a class. There is also a part in version three where we can get up and move around to vote on our opinions (movement is crucial in my class as a brain break and just something different).



Click here to see version 2 if you wanted to see the progression.

Let me know what you think!  It's one of my favorite stories in the year because one year a student was adamant about how much they hated silly stories. It made me realize that we have to mix things up with real stuff too!

*the first 3 TPR terms are from our last spoken story. "le da" is a review and for some reason this year, I never got to "el cuerpo" (the body) so I added it in and "piensa" (s/he thinks) will be great as we start expressing our opinions more with it instead of "en mi/tu/su opinión" (in my/your/his/her opinion).

Volleyball reading explanation

So I like to do volleyball reading every once in awhile to get the kids up out of their seats and to interact with one another but still practicing what we're doing.

A nice way to do this is volleyball translation. I tweak it slightly to make it seem new. but the idea is the same.

Person A reads a sentence in Spanish.
Person B translates the sentence into English.
Person B reads the next sentence in Spanish.
Person A translates the sentence into English.
Etc...

In my class I often do it as an additional pass of a reading we've already done (or that will be relatively simple for them).

But I like to give instructions to my students in Spanish whenever possible, because life's too short!

Here's something I came up with that might help.



*feel free to use it in your class if you would like. I drew the objects so you have my permission to use it to explain volleyball reading.   Obviously, I noticed there were fewer problems when I did this than usual (for understanding expectations).

If you would like to change the language for your own classes / download a copy, click on the "google slides" part near the bottom and it should take you to the google doc, where you can download it through the "file" menu.'

Responses to Comment - Pacing and Lessons

The following is part two of a response to a comment.

Someone recently asked on a comment:

Hola Jeremy - this is really funny and I've very impressed. I teach Spanish I and I'm in awe at the complexity and level you're introducing to students. I'm really interested in knowing more about how you pace your content and your lessons (in 90 min classes and shorter periods). Just a suggestion for a future blog post. Gracias!

Part #2: " I'm really interested in knowing more about how you pace your content and your lessons"

So what I worked on doing (as you can probably see in my blog) is that I worked at Backwards planning through TPRS novels last year and the previous years to help my kids be successful.  The idea was to load the kids up with Comprehensible Input (via PQA, TPRS, etc) all semester so when they got to the novels, they could read most of it with ease.

Choose the story ending (Writing and Reading Idea)

If you've been doing storytelling, you've probably already thought of this activity before. I came up with it because for the life of me, I couldn't finish the last story and it was losing steam, and I wanted to do a timed write, but in a new way.

What I wanted was a conscious extra pass over the structures from our story. So I did an embedded reading of their story so far.

Here are the structures we were working on in their story.

TPRS year 5 - Agentes Assessment

So I was looking at one of the assessments for the Spanish 1 book Agentes Secretos y el mural de Picasso.  Let me be clear in that I felt quite rushed in the book this semester with block scheduling.  And I personally got tired of having an entire quarter revolve around the book and not have as much fun with storytelling.  But I think I know what to do to improve that next semester when we do the Piratas book.

The way that we assessed was in four areas: Reading, Writing, Listening, & Speaking*

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 4 - assessments last year

In a previous post on my reflection over Year 3 with TPRS, Jennifer basically wanted to know what I did in terms of assessments for my kids.

I would guess this is as a result of trends in challenging our traditional grading model of percentages. 

At my new school, we will be using Standards-Based grading, which I think has the potential for being a much better snapshot of gauging where the students is at as far as our proficiency goals for the year.  We will be giving grades for their knowledge the of the subject matter instead of participation points and points for "compliance". 

I like this idea because if we can get kids to love learning just because learning is so wonderful, then that's a wonderful paradigm shift for schools.

However, it takes a lot of "buy in" from administrators, teachers, students and parents.

I'm excited about this shift in my assessment of my students and have been reading up on it through Ben Slavic's PLC blog and some other TPRS teacher blogs.

But I digress.

However, last year, I was working heavily on going through the readers.  We had a lot of daily quizzes (to check understanding of material each day because every day is important).  Really though, I can tell a student's progress because all the quizzes were in Spanish so they had to be able to understand what their peers wrote on the quiz to be able to get even half of the points.

At some point, there might not have been a language problem, but they missed a slight detail because they zoned out.  I gave enough quizzes though that this was easily noticed if they normally missed a detail, that was most likely from a slightly lower level of understanding than others.

I also constantly assess them in the TPRS part of class and the CI part of class.  Their eye contact is a big deal.  Also, their answering questions.  I would also choose to circle with students sometimes who didn't seem to be getting it, just to bring them into the attention in case I was losing them.  This was more of a formative assessment though.

In Spanish 1, I gave two pretty big assessments; one after each leveled reader.  

A friend and I wrote the tests and had multiple sections to the tests.

In the Pirates test, I even opted for a section where they saw animated powerpoint slides of things that happened in the book, and they wrote as much as they could about them in Spanish.  Those were actually awesome and I was proud of my kids.

Now. With that said, I would be more than happy to send anyone my tests and things I have created.

What I should have done though was a few speaking assessments where they tell me a story (based on a 4 frame storyline, or a retell of a story).  I should have done more timed writes.  I really should have done a lot of things to give the kids more opportunities to show me their level.

But hey, I can work on those things this next year because I will need to prove what I am doing is really awesome for the students and they absorb the language like sponges when it's taught a certain way!

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).

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.

TPRS year 2 - Working with novels

So this next year, another teacher and I decided that we should really work a lot more with the readings in teaching through TPRS since increasing the students' literacy is what will really help them acquire the language much better than anything else.

There are all sorts of TPRS novels that use 200 or so high frequency words or less.

We decided to choose a few novels for each level and then teach backwards and determine the structures in each novel that we should then teach to the students so by the time we read the novels, the students will feel more like it's easy to read.  I think this will also help me not feel like I am just taking random structures and teaching them just because.  It will help me have more of a sense of purpose to my teaching with TPRS.

The first two years I worked with TPRS, I really was working more on the form such as: circling, PQA, going slow, teaching to the eyes, and other things mentioned in TPRS workshops as well as Ben Slavic's books.

But this last year I really felt as though I hadn't done an adequate enough job of getting my students about to read a novel.  So this year we'll work harder on getting to that goal.

This also coincides nicely with something my school wanted to encourage with the Native / Heritage Spanish speakers.  There are some who know Spanish and had to learn English after immigrating to the US that never were able to learn how to understand what they read in grade school.  By the time they get to high school, this skill has become more and more necessary in classes.  So if I can help the Native / Heritage speakers to read in Spanish and work on things like talking about the main character and plot points, etc, then this will also help them in their English (Literature) classes as well as other classes where synthesizing information that has been read is an integral part of the class.

I'll be slowly charting out my plan(s) for the year as I figure them out.  I recently ordered about $90 worth of TPRS novels from tprspublishing... hopefully I can find some to plan with.

TPRS year 2 - Kindergarten day (revisited)

I wrote an entry here about my first attempts at Kindergarten Day (or what I thought it was) last school year.

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So last year I probably misunderstood what exactly “Kindergarten day” is.  I thought having a children’s book up on the board and having the kids translate the pages was what I was supposed to do.  I discovered through reading about other TPRS teachers’ experiences, I instead discovered that the purpose of Kindergarten Day is to read to the kids in ONLY Spanish and allow them to soak in the language (no translation). 

A few weeks ago I tried this out on a Friday after a reading we had.  I tend to rush through the readings a little bit because it’s not my strongest point as a TPRS teacher and I can tell since I am not as passionate about them, my students aren’t as passionate either.  I prefer speaking the language (Tangent: On the other hand, a teacher that just started using TPRS this year LOVES the readings and feels less confident on his spoken TPRS and the students love doing the readings in his class).  But we can simulate a little bit of the Kindergarten experience through finding a children’s book and reading it to them in comprehensible language.  It could be a book in English that we describe in Spanish or it could be a book in Spanish that we read when level appropriate. 

Long story short, it went great a few weeks ago and my kids really liked acting like Kindergarten students.  A few were asking me when I would read to them again and I decided this week.  I chose: El Oso Verde de Alan Rogers.  (“The Green Bear” by Alan Rogers).  It’s great in that it’s very colorful and you can describe what’s in the pictures as well as it not being too complicated to follow. 

Here were the ground rules:

My job(s)

• I will read in Spanish to you and point in the book
• I might also ask related questions while reading the book
• I will stay in Spanish the entire time

Their job(s)

• bring in cookies, juice, milk, a blankey, a stuffed animal, etc (optional)
• give me their eye contact
• pretend like they are children (sitting/laying on floor)
• answer questions in Spanish (no English)
• enjoy listening to the story and to the language

      Today my classes were REALLY excited about it.  As soon as they walked in they were ready.  I had to explain that we had another activity beforehand but I wanted to give them 20-25 minutes of Kindergarten so if they would just let me know when it was time by saying, “¡Ya no puedo más!” (I can’t do it anymore!) – a structure we had used in a previous story.

A few students probably behaved in my class much like they behaved for their kindergarten teacher and were fidgety and didn’t appear to be paying attention.  But for the most part, they did a great job.  I joked with them (since it was a half day today) that they had done such a good job in class that I was giving them the second half of the day off.

Successes:

·     I think this activity works because high school students are nostalgic for their elementary school days

·     Students seemed to enjoy the activity

Needs improvement:

• My push over nature allowed some kids to go to the cafeteria at the beginning of class to get milk.  I told them next time to come prepared.  Maybe I should have let them learn their lesson this time by not letting them go so they knew the consequence was real first
• Some students didn’t really play the game
• One student commented that the book had no plot (afterwards). Someone else responded: "Hey, we were in kindergarten.  It doesn’t matter."  So maybe I can also choose some more engaging books every once in awhile.

Día 100 - Children's books

Ever since I was first studying Spanish in college, I remember that my favorite section in Border's was the little kid's section of books because they had Spanish books for kids!  It was there I bought the book: Un dinosaurio en peligro ("A dinosaur in danger") that I talked about a little bit in this entry.  It's a great little book.

So I slowly started acquiring children's books in Spanish as I went throughout college and the farther I have gotten, the larger my collection has gotten.  I currently have over 50 (easily) and a student gave me a small bookshelf that she didn't need anymore because I didn't have a place for my children's books!

Sufficed to say I get pretty excited about them.  I actually modeled an activity with my classes one day because I really want to have a great time with them in Spanish, but I would like to help build their enjoyment of reading in Spanish through children's books for now and slowly we can move into chapter books.

One day last semester (before I was going to be absent), I had the kids pick out a book from the many that I had from a series.  On amazon.com I found a series of books that I really like and they're somewhat cheap and they have differing levels from Lightning Readers.  Some of the ones I really like are Manchita la vaquita torpe, La tortuga tonta, and El planeta de dinosaurios.  But there are so many.

So I took all the different levels of those Lightning Readers that I had (20 or so) and I put them on a desk and had directions on the transparency for the students to get a book and on a piece of paper:
1) write their name
2) write the title of the book
3) write a short (2-3+ sentence) summary of the book
4) write down 5 words they recognized with the meaning and 5 new words they had to look up with the meaning.

The books range in level of difficulty.  But I just thought it would be neat for them and the pictures would help them figure out the meaning as well.  So that day we read a book and I gave them 20 minutes to complete the activity and then we did something else.


Then on sub days, I have this assigned to them and they have to complete 2 books and turn their paper in before they leave.  It has worked well for the high school students.  It's also good because they know what to expect and they have something they can accomplish without me in class.

Some teachers have them perform previous TPRS stories for the sub.  I like this idea but haven't tried it yet.  For now, I am ok with the readings since I have smaller class sizes and my students (although more comfortable than any years before) aren't as comfortable yet with the language.

If you are a foreign language teacher and have the resources, I recommend trying to buy even 1-2 children's books a month to slowly up your arsenal.  They can be a great activity by themselves.  Sometimes if not a lot of kids show up or my plan has flopped, I'll read them one of my favorite children's books from my collection and they gather in a circle and we can talk about the pictures and different things.  We might shift the conversation onto the students and talk about them.  But it's a lesson plan by itself.