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

All my Spanish 2016-17 resources

Ok, so I like to be transparent with my teaching.

I am not perfect and don't claim to be. For me it's about the journey and wonder of learning the language in pieces with my students.

This year went well considering the following challenges:

• Spanish 2 students were all over the place in ability when they got to my class
• Spanish 1 students were those who
• transferred into school system
• didn't get good enough grades to take Spanish 1 in middle school
• students who had previously failed Spanish 1
• my going back to 50 minute periods after 3 years of 90 minute every other day block
• being at a new school (zero street cred)
• new district mandated curriculum ("cough textbook chapters cough")

Don't get me wrong, there were also SO many positives.

• supportive school department (TPRS lovers)
• lots of collaboration
• administrative support and faith in my abilities
• students slowly being won over
• trying a lot of new things
• not HAVING to teach curriculum based on a weekly map
• teach towards final

Sufficed to say, I think I got my students to buy into the method and to learn about one another and Spanish at the same time. There were ups and downs (like every year). But in general I thought my students rose to the occasion and many of them couldn't believe how much they were speaking in Spanish by the end of the year in both levels! 

• Here's what I did in Spanish 1 + hyperlinks galore.
• NOW available in FRENCH (translated by Bess Hayles for her classes).
• And here's what I did for Spanish 2 + hyperlinks galore.

Feel free to look, copy things into your own google drive to use,  let me know if you have further questions. My finals were district mandated so I have not included those.

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!

Me cortaron me el pelo - Simple Story + authentic text (past + present)

Past tense for spoken class story.

I found this years ago and experimented with it my 3rd year of using TPRS. See how I used it back then.

This year for Spanish 1, I thought it would be a fun little story to experiment with to further reinforce "can" or "can't".  Some of my students still seemed to be having difficulty with those.

Now I am not saying these are the best structures in the world. Maybe my original ones were better. But I am always experimenting and pushing the language of my students each year to achieve greater acquisition (if that is possible).

still from music video (31 Minutos)

My first years I probably babied them way too much and now I want to see how far we can really get.

And there is this song I fell in love with years ago called: Me cortaron mal el pelo.  It's from a TV show in Chile called 31 Minutos.  And the song sort of has a Sponge-Bob musical quality to it.

The show is pretty crazy. Definitely not comprehensible for my Spanish 1 or 2 students most of the time. But every once in awhile, there is a gem I can use. This is one of those times. So I revised an old story I made years ago and tried it out with my Spanish 1 or 2 students.

So my structures were:

• antes de ir a ___
• before going to... (past)
• debía ir a...
• s/he should go to (past)
• le cortó mal el pelo
• s/he cut his hair badly (past)

And from there we listened to the song as a warm up each day.

And here's the plan if you wanted to see it!

Let me know if you end up using it in your classes and how it goes or what you would recommend!

Selena - el chico del apto 512 - revised

So this is a mini-unit I like to use each year in Spanish 1. I originally got it from Martina Bex years ago as I mention here (from 5 years ago!) and it has evolved over the years to use whatever words I have needed at the moment.

I love how I can incorporate music and also tell a story. This story by Martina actually has inspired me to use other songs to make into storylines. Of course one of my all time favorites each year in Spanish 1 is: Fanny Lu - Celos.  I've also done the same with Sr. Wooly's awesome song: Puedo ir al baño (this year's version).

See this year's activities here for Spanish 1 for "Celos".

So back to "el chico del apartamento 512". It's a song by Selena that has a cute little story about a girl who keeps having guys want to talk to her and she isn't interested. Finally she sees a guy come out of the elevator and he's the man of her dreams!

We listen to the song for a few days as a warm up with different activities to interact with the song in different ways, which preps them for the second week and the actual story that is adapted from the song, thanks to Martina.  I made a powerpoint of it and this year pushed way more language.

I made an embedded reading of about 3 versions or so. If you see phrases in there that aren't in my structures, it's because I had previously used those at some point and was recycling them back in to remind my students of them for additional help binding them to long-term memory.

Here's my basic plan that took about 2 weeks!  Of course remember I also a few other activities in class so we might do the TPR / storytelling part for 25-30 minutes a period. Best of luck if you use it!

It's usually a pretty big hit with my students since there is the music component as well as the compelling story of love and mystery. I am excited that this will build up nicely towards the last story of the year. I am going to adapt Kara Jacob's AWESOME song choice from first semester this year: "Soy Yo" by Bomba Estéreo.

And here's the Selena song if you've somehow never heard it!

Teachable Moment - don't be a jerk

So if you follow me on Twitter you probably came across this tweet yesterday:

Do not overcome hate with more hate.

My heart breaks for those that must live with this daily on social media and in real life.#LoSiento pic.twitter.com/TtNVsQXjGj

— Señor Jordan (@senorjordan) 13 de noviembre de 2016

If you can't read the message someone wrote on my Youtube account:

F__king Kill urself no one likes you ur immigrant trump won and your getting deported taco n_____r

TPRS year 7 - writing logs

So as a TPRS teacher, I admit that I've never been that great at addressing "timed writes" over the years. I would have students do them. I only ever really had them do a timed write over retelling a class story.

Of course, last year I did add an extra element where they wrote the ending to a story about a person in Spanish 1. Then I had the students read the different endings and vote on them. It was really fun and some of the creativity had me busting up in stitches while we read them out loud. You can see those here.

I cleaned up a little of the grammar, but most of those were as written by the students!  My favorites were in 4a.  If you read the first two versions of the reading, after doing the reading, I think we then read the different endings on paper.  The idea was the trick them into reading in a different context: to find their favorite ending.

This year though, I decided that my Spanish 2 students are really all over the place in their understanding of Spanish due to many different teachers for Spanish 1 and many different experiences in addition to them all being different people.

I used to give an arbitrary number of words that was easily attainable for most to all of them in the 10 minutes. That way they would feel successful. But I would see that one student still might not achieve that for whatever reason and I would feel bad for saying the number in the first place.

Even after the first story, one student might do a 100 word rewrite while one might do a 50 word rewrite while someone else might do a 20 word rewrite. And for all of those students, that is what they can do!

So I thought this year, I could encourage students in their individual differences to improve on THEIR writing.  I want them to record the date of their timed write, the topic, the word count, and then a reflection on where they saw growth in this new writing.

I made a super simple worksheet for this that will go in their folders. I put a picture of a plant growth cycle on their to encourage them in their growth and to focus on that. This way, I can be more fair in the area of writing. If we see growth in their writing, then student with lower ability can still achieve an A or a B because they are also showing growth (in quantity) while a high flyer can easily get that A or B because they will be working on the quality of their writing (and some quantity). It's one of my ideas for differentiation.

We'll see how it goes!

If you wanted to download the template for use, take ideas from to make your own, etc here's what I came up with!

Wish me luck!

Lots of Spanish 1 TPRS resources

So after the relative success of my last post about what I did with the commercial: "Me voy de casa", I decided to go ahead and share a majority of things that I did last year in my Spanish 1 classes.

Feel free to open the folder, download things to your Google Drive or to your computer and enjoy!

My hope is that you can find a new activity or a new spin on an old activity you have used. Or maybe something to inspire you as you try out more communicative-based teaching via TPRS or Comprehensible Input methods!

I tried to include a plethora of things to give you an idea of what you could do in your classes as well to push kids towards proficiency by de-emphasizing grammar in actual grammar lessons each day (Don't worry, I, Señor Jordan, still teach grammar to my kids. But it's more of a back-door approach!)

Let me know what you think and happy perusing!

So click here to see my google drive folder (minus Agentes Secretos stuff since some of that has images from the teacher's guide by the very talented Mira Canion).

*Disclaimer* Please don't judge me too much for how I might have done an activity. I am far from an expert on teaching via TPRS. But I figure the best way to get better is to share with others who might be farther back on the path to encourage them and maybe the more experienced people can offer a suggestion or two!

Persona especial - happenings

I've been at the "la persona especial" activity for the last 4 weeks in my classes. I have been using it in Spanish 2 (more on that later) and Spanish 1.

I figured I would blog on it in a few days, once the weekend hits and I can reflect.

So far it's going ok. It's definitely a change of pace for me from just the Circling with Balls activity that I used to use in Spanish 1 for the first 5+ weeks to get to know the kids and teach some basic concepts.

Nevertheless, if you saw my previous entry, you probably saw the Powerpoint I adapted from Bryce's script of questions.  I haven't decided to go ALL in and teach all of the questions he has been doing. I'm just baby stepping. But it has still been an interesting experiment.

It is similar to something I started last year when I used stories even from the first day (in conjunction with TPR and the Circling with Balls activity). That was thanks to 90 minute classes.

This year at my new school I am back to 50'ish minute classes and so I am sticking to one activity + warm up + quiz (and song/brain break if needed).

Back to what is similar. Last year when I used the stories first thing, I noticed the kids were exposed to the I, you, and he/she forms more than ever because I was really doing my best to interview my actors and coach them through answering questions and helping them out.

So I am now trying this out with the personal interviews. If a person doesn't know how to answer the question, I'll just ask the class if they know how that person could say "I ___". And usually at least one person knows and I have the class applaud them and praise their awesome Spanish and ask my actor (interviewee) if they want to try to answer the question again to which they pretty much always say, "yes". Then when they get it right, we applaud them too.

Anyways, so I have done pop-ups here and there and point out that the "o" on the end of the action means "I".  So I also talk about myself pretty much with that form instead of the 3rd person stuff I used to do about me.

What has this done?  It seems to have really helped them grasp the ending of the "o" on the end a lot better to use it with more accuracy when we are talking. Writing is another issue entirely. ;-)

Baby steps.

I'm bringing this up today because in a Spanish 1 class, I noticed the class didn't seem to want to talk and so I asked (gesturing), "¿No quieren hablar?" ("Do you all not want to talk?") and they gestured that they didn't understand so I went to write it on their butcher paper and then a student said, "Oh.  So is "I want" "quiero"?"

I praised his awesome Spanish and had the class applaud him and it was just magical.

I love when their brains make those connections because they've been exposed to the rich language so much.

It reminds me of what Dr Farley who taught my methods course in college told us. He said that when we teach, we should explore the language with the students and allow them to slowly peel away the wrapping paper of the present (that is the language).  If we just teach them via grammar and as if they were getting a minor in linguistics, we spoil those fun surprises for the kids to enjoy.

Today was one of those days that really rang true for me and my students!

But anyways, more on how I've been doing La persona especial later!

Trying something new - La Persona Especial

So for years I have done the following to start my year in Spanish 1.
See PQA day 1 post.
See PQA after day 1 post.

In Spanish 2 a few years back I experimented with something else that was a bit of a flop.

But many have probably heard of Bryce Hedstrom's activity called, "La Persona Especial".

I've been really interested in this activity since I first heard about it. And I got to be in a private professional development session with Bryce on the plane as luck would have it where I could pick his brain about the activity. And he inspired me.

It also didn't hurt that the amazing French Teacher: Bess Hayles was going to be using the activity in her classes this year too. So if I needed to pick someone's brain about it, I will have a great resource in my own building!

But I have to admit, I am out of my comfort zone.  The idea that I thought I would try in my Spanish 1 & 2 classes is the following:

I will go over a basic set of questions about them, their name, where they are from, etc and then when I get to "what do you like to do", I will teach "likes" as well as then go into the third person form of the verb and let it segway into my previous experience with PQA. That will be the meat and potatoes of the activity, but I will also introduce new questions.

TPRS year 6 reflection

So I'm currently finishing up year 10 of teaching and year 6 of implementing TPRS and CI strategies in my classroom.

Some things that I experimented with in Spanish 1 (my only level this year) were:

1. bumping up the level of embedded readings
2. finding ways to practice 1st and 2nd person forms with actors
3. varying forms of verbs and popping up the grammar about them
4. using phrases/expressions that I haven't used in Spanish 1 yet
5. trying out New Blaine Ray materials and ditching them after semester 1
6. "hanging out" with my students (easy to do with 90 minute blocks and when students want to  talk even a little bit about their lives)

Here's a brief reflection on each.

Mafia game - Presentation

This year I use PAT with classes to help with buy-in for being on task during class.

So this week we have a lot of accumulated PAT and since it's the end of the year, I thought we could play a simplified version of Mafia.

I got the idea from Martina Bex last year.

Changes I made:

• I decided for my Spanish 1 class to remove the doctor, because we never finish a game anyway.
• I added a point system because we never finish a game so that way it gives some more semblance of purpose

And here's the presentation I came up with for today to facilitate the game. The language for "se hace de noche" comes from an activity we do earlier in the year so it's familiar.

You could easily take away the language like "killing" to something else. I talk about how the mafia eliminates people, but might use the term "kill" if the classes are familiar with it. The people they accuse go to prison.


If you can use it in your classes, great!  The kids enjoyed the picture of their town in the presentation.

Unstructured language time and pushing i + 1

While you might feel inclined to judge me for the following and think: "gasp, what a waste of time, he's such a horrible teacher!" please bear with me.

Something that I generally do after my kids learn how to talk about basic feelings and emotions through storytelling is to ask them as a class or as individuals (and to pop-up why I used "están" instead of "estás" for the group or why I used "estás" for one person, and they why I need "estoy")

At first it's really basic. The students would just say how they were doing and I might recast it for the class. If they weren't good or bad, I might ask a follow-up question or two.  If they were happy, I would ask why and I always give the options: "Por qué" (why?) or "no importa" (it doesn't matter).  It was a way for kids to talk about themselves a little bit. I rarely correct their language because communication is key.

I have noticed sometimes they help one another out (if someone says "you are" another might help and say "I am"). I don't ever squash this because I can tell it is in the spirit of kindness.

If they don't cooperate (but there is still a warmth in class), I might occasionally have someone's job be to draw names randomly with sticks (or I do it).

As the activity grows, my students might get a bonus for asking me, "What about you?" (¿y tú / usted?). Then I can throw in some i + 1.

But lately in the year, my "lesson plans" seems to get put on the back-burner as the students become more of a family. My asking them how they are doing might end there, but I don't try to let myself. If they tell me that they tired or sick, I might ask them why. Were they on their phone? Does their throat hurt? Did they not sleep enough last night? (Can we have a class competition to see who slept the least?).

I have noticed that this can take a lot longer than I ever have planned. Sometimes my kids can do this for a long time. I might have them get up and brain break, but it just feels like we're hanging out in the language.

I've noticed that the problem here is I can't model very well the form for them to use. It's all conversational. So maybe I should try to assist by asking the class more often, "They want to say ___. How can we say that?" And if the class knows, write it on the board and applaud them for their cleverness. If they don't, let them know by writing it on the board.

Regardless of how poorly I might do this activity, this is single-handedly one of the things that I think many of my former students really appreciate about my class. We find our personality as a class through the inside jokes we learn about during those informal chats. While they might never turn into stories, it's just that hanging out in the language and completely wanting to know about my kids. It's also a great way to learn about brother, sister, mother, father, grandfather, cousins in context when it matters to them.

I hear from former students (and others who have only heard from friends who had me) that one of the best parts of my class is how much I interact with the kids in the language instead of just giving them work to do.

While we might not "accomplish" as much in some of my formal lesson plans, what's really better for the kids than hanging out in the language with them and pushing their understanding by i + 1?

Next year, I am going to be at a new school and I am excited to be able to try out Bryce Hedstrom's Persona Especial activity.  I think it will help establish a similar expectation in my class that the students are most important and that we learn about each other because we matter.

What's the password?!

So if you walk by my classroom during passing period, you'll most likely see something a little out of the ordinary for the average classroom: a line of students.

In the window to get into my classroom there is a green sign that reads: "Puedes pasar" (You can pass) and "No puedes pasar" (You cannot pass). The latter makes me think of Gandalf talking to the Balrog in the Fellowship of the Ring. Although I am sure he would have said something like, "No pasarás" (You shall not pass.)

Last year, students had to shake my hand to enter and I would say "good morning" or "good afternoon" to them.

This year, I have followed in the footsteps of some foreign language teaching pioneers and I make my students tell me a secret code before they can enter.

The secret code is posted on a small white board in the classroom with the Spanish and English translation.

Bathroom story (revised)

What's a storytelling Spanish class without a good bathroom story!

I'm sure you've all heard of Señor Wooly. He's fantastic. I admit that I'm incredibly envious of his talent and creativity and wish I had an ounce of all of his amazing abilities! If you haven't heard of him, he makes silly songs in Spanish with story lines that really resonate with students.

I don't personally have an account this year for his site, but he has the song: "Puedo ir al baño" on youtube.

Every year I have a bathroom story of some sort. In conjunction with the story, our warm up involves listening to the song by Señor Wooly and accomplishing various tasks (cloze, re-order lyrics, translate phrases from song, etc).  They always listen to it at least twice when class begins while completing the task, while I do necessary teacher duties (attendance, last minute prep, etc). I enjoy starting class with music whenever possible because it generally relaxes students to ease into class.

Click here to see post from last year.

In previous years, it was more like a traditional story from TPRS classes where a person goes to different people and asks them for information. Last year's structures weren't going to cut it.

Probably due to the nature of my class, it's always a fun time and I had no real reasons to change the story except the Spanish 2 teachers expect the kids to know some more information by next year that I haven't been able to really hit yet.

I need to use "to have to [do something]" and I thought that would go great with a bathroom story based more around the song: Puedo ir al baño by Señor Wooly.  And I could actually borrow the genius idea from Señor Wooly from the story within the song.

So here's what I came up with:

Some of the structures match the song more easily and/or I can use the song itself to create an embedded reading for the present tense while we tell a relatively simple story in the past. The part that I think is nice is how relate-able it can be (for some classes) or how farcical it could be for others. Also, we tell the story once we have TPR'd the phrases.

Remember that in anything it's always good to try new things and genre is always something you can play around with.  The best part about storytelling is that there are so many types of stories we can use. It's best not to limit ourselves to "character doesn't have ___. Character is sad. Character goes to so and so, etc.".

TPR (Total Physical Response):

Here's the TPR part where I have students get up and move a little bit for a brain break:

• Necesita ir al baño (hold tummy / cross legs)
• “Tienes que esperar” (point finger down at palm for have) / (hold out hand like picture for “wait”)
• Lo / la deja ir - let butterfly go free

And I always add more to it, "necesita ir al baño y se da la vuelta y sonríe" (s/he needs to use the bathroom and turns around and smiles). "Lo deja ir lentamente y grita en silencio" (S/he lets it go slowly and yells silently).

TPRS (Storytelling):

Here's my basic story skeleton. Let me know what you think!

Another spontaneous output experience #2

Something for us foreign language teachers to consider.

If you polled your students on the first day, "Why are you taking Spanish*?

*Or insert whatever language you teach.

While some of them might say things like:

• "I need it to graduate"
• "I need it for a credit"
• "It looks good for college applications to have 2 years of a foreign language"
• "I want to know what 'those people' are saying about me at Walmart'**

The other thing they would say is, "I want to speak Spanish!"

So my followup question naturally is: how many of them would say, "I want to learn all about Spanish through its grammar as if I am taking a linguistics class"?

In my experience, the best way I've found to accomplish the goal of helping them speak is through Comprehensible Input and stories!

And while I am only in Spanish 1 this year, my classes at this point in the year are just going crazy with output.

Sure they don't speak perfectly, but what Spanish 1 student does? Comparably, what 2-3 year old speaks perfectly? Heck, what adult speaks perfectly?

Story idea - monster - follow-up

A few weeks ago, I posted about a story line I was wanting to do with my classes involving a grandmother (or any other character), monsters and silliness. See that post here.

So I had a class that was a little bit ahead of my other classes due to a late start and I wanted to have an additional activity (reading pass) for enrichment and to get those pesky yo forms of the verbs for them!

See abuela embedded reading.

I wanted to give them a google slides presentation instead of another piece of paper to read and while I thought about telling the whole story again from the grandmother's perspective, it occurred to me that it might be sillier to tell the whole thing from the monster's perspective.

If I did this right, here's the presentation for the monster story (part 4):



To make a copy of the presentation, click here to see it through my google drive!

Another Spontaneous Output experience

So one of the things that I allow my students to do from day one is:

they are allowed to insult the teacher and only the teacher (and no one else in class).

This way, they get to practice all of those negative words (ugly, stupid/dumb, smelly, big loser, etc).

While it not be your style, I have found it to make class so much more lighthearted. And I get to constantly remind them of my stupidity when i make mistakes (intentionally or unintentionally).  It has turned ME into the class buffoon so that they can relax a little more and have more fun.

Something I miss this year since I don't have any Spanish 2 classes anymore is that Spanish 2 is able to talk more and can carry on conversations a little better (due to more input).  So class is more lighthearted and laid back because they are a little older and it's a good time.

Spanish 1 is a little harder because I have to keep them going going going with different activities (in the block) and we're constantly doing something (in CI as much as possible) and lots of brain breaks (still in Spanish though: songs, TPR, movement, quick transition, joke, etc).

And so I have missed having conversations with my Spanish 2s and also letting them run the class sometimes by building off of each other's ideas.

Nevertheless, this year I have been fortunate to have some very talented individuals in some of my classes and they have really been able to figure out the first person and second person forms of the verbs better than any previous year. So the insults, as you can imagine, have been even richer. And they are getting way more creative WITH the language.

Today in one of my classes, the students refused to ask me "¿y tú?" after I asked volunteers how they were doing today because I am not important. And they did a really good job of staying in the language. I couldn't believe some of the things they were saying (and being HILARIOUS in the language).  We were all laughing.

In the following class (last class of the day), I think we were similarly just talking about how people were doing for 20 minutes because of the hilarity that ensued from my students. I accidentally gave the student the impression that he was next to be called on, but I had said "ladies first" before that and as I asked a girl how she was doing, he responded with (in spanish) "you are playing with my head". (Something I tell them sometimes, but he said it perfectly in the second person and all).

When I later asked him how he was doing, he responded with "I am annoyed". And whenever they are mad or annoyed I prod them to tell me if they are mad at a person, mineral, plant or animal. And when they say person I ask silly questions with description words (that they know or don't). And it usually is that they are annoyed with me for some reason.
But the funniest thing all day was one of the cleverer students asked (in perfect Spanish), "Is his hair falling out?"

And I lost it. I went on to joke that there was a line (which I drew) and then I explained "and you are located over here" to which he walked over to that line and then said, "no, my line is here".

I wish I could remember some of the other things from that class, but as you might guess, I was laughing with them most of class.

It was nice to see how much they have been learning this year and to see them speaking (because they want to and because the context and environment allows it).  No one is forcing them and they are the stars of the show!

Story idea - the monster

So if you read my last post, you can see my dilemma. I now have to start coming up with my own story scripts and picking and choosing again via books and blogs of other TPRS practitioners.

And I was wracking my brain yesterday until right before bed, I finally had a story epiphany.

Element 1:
I needed to practice sale de (leaves), compra (buys), and the other usual ones (wants, has, sees, says, gives, etc).

Element 2:
In addition, going over family members (aside from dad, mom, brother, sister) is not my strong suit. Which got me thinking about this story script from Amy Bachman Catania with a grandmother yelling after finding a monster and leaving the house and grabbing a cactus.

I loved the idea of introducing grandmother because I wanted to use the word grandfather soon in a quick movietalk about dinosaurs coming to a house and hitting Santa Claus and an grandfather (old man) hits them and runs them off. (See video on Youtube.)

Element 3:
Oh, and not to mention I need to hit, "le gusta" (likes), "vive" (lives) and "se llama" (he/she calls himself/herself) to be closer on target at this point in the year.


Storytelling:
So as this is all coming together, I came up with the following:

TPR structures:

• abre la puerta - s/he opens the door
       (open a door)
• (this is a review of a similar phrase we learned in se hace de noche)
• la abuela - the grandmother
       (grab walker and smile)
• se llama - he/she calls himself/herself
       (make name tag on chest)
• this is also a review that I taught a little bit earlier on but I would like to practice "what's your name" and "my name is" more with actors.
• vive - s/he lives
       (my 1st class decided the gesture should be a zombie/monster walking because "IT'S ALIVE")
• le gusta - s/he likes
       (thumbs up)

See PowerPoint here.

Reflection - Former students

So this is my third year in school (year 10 teaching) and I have definitely come a long way since I started teaching Spanish.  I used to use textbooks that were slightly older than me. Then I tried a year with a newer textbook.  Then I tried a year or two without a textbook.  Then, I found storytelling and haven't looked back!

But in my third year, I have had a lot of students now and many of them have had exposure to my teaching and another Spanish teacher as well.  I taught Spanish 1-2 the past two years and I'm only teaching Spanish 1 this year.

I know that what I do in my classes can be slightly unorthodox for other teachers, even teachers in my department. And they teach their classes differently from me (I'm not saying people have to teach like me).  But there are times I tell my wife that I feel like I am crazy.  Here's what I believe:

1. I believe that TPRS is a really awesome way to deliver instruction
2. I believe that TPRS is great for my classroom management
3. I believe that TPR is a great tool to get the kids up and moving in class
4. I believe that incorporating music whenever possible (in a comprehensible way) is huge for my students
5. I believe that talking about my students in Spanish through stories, PQA, etc sets the tone for my classes that they will be about my students
6. I believe that going slow and looking for my students' eyes to check for their understanding is crucial to their learning
7. I believe that shaking my students' hands as they walk in and saying "buenos días", "hola" or whatever else, and slowly adding more conversational vocab as they walk in establishes the tone that you're entering the Spanish zone!
8. I believe that other activities under the umbrella of Comprehensible Input (CI) are also wonderful additions to the classroom.
9. I believe that I should do my best to speak 90% of class in Spanish in a repetitive, comprehensible and interesting way to ensure my students will acquire the language 
10. I believe that explicit grammar instruction has a smaller place in my classroom than it used to so I can teach them through using the language correctly
11. I believe that what I do is making a difference in their lives

These aren't all popular opinions in a foreign language classroom.  I've been called a maverick by an administrator at one point.  I've gotten myself into trouble with my fellow department members because I strongly believe the aforementioned items are crucial to my class for students' success (regardless of level).

But I digress.  Recently, I have had a lot of former students visit me and tell me how much my class meant to them and how much they miss it.  It's meant a lot because I give so much of myself in the school year to ensure class is a positive place where we can laugh and learn in a low stress way.  And it further affirms that all of the hard work I (and the students) put into class is worthwhile.