How do I teach my classes these days?

If you're in the Spanish Teachers in the U.S. Facebook group, you might have seen this question to me by a talented teacher: Chris Cashman:

Señor Jeremy Jordan​​, el grande, el honorable y majestuoso:

I read the great article about your recognition posted by an admin. I noticed that the day the reporter was present, you were doing a TPRS style lesson. However, you are well-known for your videos of verb conjugations and explicit grammar (albeit presented in a super fun and attention grabbing way).

These two camps of people -- TPRS folks and learn-the-verb-chart folks -- tend to belong in different camps. One group believes that students will learn things gradually over time with repeated exposure, so don't worry about the verb charts and certainly don't assess knowledge of them. The other believes that language learning can indeed be aided by explicit grammar teaching.

I know I'm hugely overgeneralizing an issue here, but you're showing some evidence of perhaps having found a middle ground, or a way to merge the two worlds. Would you mind sharing either in a blog entry, or a response here in this group, of the method to your madness, the thinking/theory behind it? I have my own answer, but I'm *mega*interested in seeing/hearing yours!

Don't mean to put you on the spot, but this really caught my attention.

Of course the article he is referring to is this one where I was interviewed at my school after winning Missouri Foreign Language Teacher of the year.

Here is my lengthy response to Chris. I appreciate his question. I hope that it is understood that I am not telling anyone how they should teach. I am only expressing what informs instruction in MY classroom.
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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!

Día 86 - surveys

My mom taught me about a nice assessment tool for the students to use on the class.  It's very simple.  I try to do it with each class at least once a semester now.

It is START / STOP / CONTINUE.  I have the students write on a piece of paper these three words and then they have to give feedback for each.  I always encourage them to write as much as they would like because it helps me understand what they are thinking about class.

Under START, they write the things that we do not do in class that they would like for us to start doing.

Under STOP, they write the things that we do in class that they want us to stop doing.

Under CONTINUE, they write the things in class that they would like to continue doing.

I was surprised to find that some of the students do not like the storytelling method of teaching.  I think this relates to the idea that some people will always be bored no matter what you do with them in class.  I try to make the class as fun and dynamic and silly as I can.  But of course, I need the help of the students.  Sometimes students do not offer suggestions to a story and it of course doesn't hold their interest because they have decided not to participate in the group.  Unlike other classes, when we participate, we are usually having a wonderful time, and laughing and really enjoying ourselves.  The students who are not participating are in essence like wallflowers at a social function.  It's a tad confusing because I really thought that everyone would enjoy this, but there will still be students who get bored.  Even though I try to bring them in, they might still choose to tune me out.

There are times I think maybe they are not understanding.  But on the quizzes they will do fine.  So I guess they would rather be bored in class.  I'll still work on reaching them so they won't dislike this teaching method.

Many students wrote that they would like for us to do song-day more often.  Currently I have it scheduled for Thursdays.  Maybe I should consider that I could reward them with an extra song day one week if they are really on fire for the class.

Otherwise, most of the comments were that I should continue to do my different warm-ups (see them here).

Día 7 - Three-Ring Circus

Today in class I wanted to spice things up a little bit.

In the book TPR Stories for Paso a Paso by Karen Rowan, she mentions an activity called: Three Ring Circus.

The idea is that you have three students doing completely different things while you try to talk to the class about it.

So in my classes today for the last 10 minutes, we tried this.  I had three volunteers.  I told the volunteers the following directions and made sure they continued performing them until we finished talking about them.

Volunteer 1: Walk to the wall. Hit the wall with your foot.  Walk to the desk.  Hug the desk.  (don't stop!)
Volunteer 2: Dance to the board.  Kiss the board.  Dance to the table.  Eat the table. (don't stop!)
Volunteer 3: Sit on the book.  Stand up.  Play guitar.  Yell. (don't stop!)

Then you ask the rest of the class questions about the students performing the actions.  You can start out with yes/no questions about them like:

• Does V1 walk?  (yes)
• Does V2 yell? (no)
• Does V1 play guitar (no)
• Does V3 yell? (yes)

Then you can ask different questions with one-word answers like:

• Who yells?
• Who plays the guitar?
• Who kisses the board?
• Does V1 hit the wall with his/her hand or his/her foot?
• Does V2 hug or kiss?
• What does V2 hug?

My class really enjoyed the fact that three people were constantly performing these things simultaneously.  It spiced up class and helped to narrate a little.