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!

Comprehensible Input with the MONO

Hay un mono. (from first episode)

So I have met various educators over the last year or two who have told me how much their classes have enjoyed a little story I made about a "mono" (monkey).

Backstory:
I thought it would be fun to make a super simple TPRS like story about a character that wanted something and didn't have it and so they went to the 3 locations. And as I drew one day on my iPad, suddenly I had a monkey, an island, and Antarctica. From there the first "mono" story was born!

Since then, I have had teachers who have met me at conferences (or have told me via email) how much their classes have enjoyed the story.

New storytelling adventure (Fall 2016)

I've been doing another Youtube endeavor under the title of "Cuentas Conmigo".

This is the fourth story. I just wrapped up episode 6 yesterday and I am really proud of how it is turning out.

In the previous Cuentas Conmigos, there was very little emphasis on anything cultural.  And I realize that that might be seen as a weakness to the videos. If teachers use them in their classes, perhaps it would be best to add in some more little cultural tidbits. In this way, teachers could use them as springboards for discussion or as a nice little culture pop up.

The first episode you can really see this is in episode 5 where we learn that the narwhal can't do any tricks. While he is painting a familiar painting (well mural actually) should be seen. It's something I learned a lot about thanks to Mira Canion and her wonderful TPRS reader: Agentes secretos y el mural de Picasso.

And in this week's episode, the main character finds himself going to a Spanish-speaking country, where (as it was a country I visited many years ago), I threw in some different places that he could potentially have gone to!

New storytelling experiment - first and second person

So I am doing a side project this semester with anyone willing to join in.  I decided to do another storytelling experiment this semester in the past tense and also do the same story in the present tense (depending on school climate where the video is being watched).*

In my first story, it was mostly narrating in the past tense. There wasn't a lot of first/second person forms of the verbs (past or present).

In my second story, I tried to have the turtle say more, but you didn't hear him talking about it as much as I would just have the bubble with the first person form.

This time around, I wanted to really expose learners to language in context and thought the best way to get the characters to talk about themselves is similar to in the classroom itself! Interview them. So I will periodically be interviewing the actors in the story to ensure we have the correct information (and also that their voice is being heard).

Check out my attempt at this in episode 2!

Present tense - episode 2

Past tense - episode 2

*Even some teachers who like to use stories and CI find themselves locked into a textbook that predominately goes over the present tense in level 1.

New Interactive Youtube Storytelling

A few years back I did an experiment called Cuentas Conmigo where I basically did a TPRS story but on Youtube. At the end of each video, people would write in the comments section the next detail, which I would add in the next video.

It was really fun!

Here's my new attempt.

I am going to do the same story in the present and past tense.

And I have some ideas on how to get more first person / second person forms of the verbs in there (interviewing the character).

I think it's going to be fun! Please join in by adding your details and if you're a teacher why not get your class involved to?

Present Tense:

Past Tense:

And you might subscribe to the channel where I wanted to do a new storyline each semester (maybe even one in the summer depending on how this one turns out!)


Check out my Cuentas Conmigo channel or playlists of old Cuentas Conmigo attempts.

More music in videos

So I am experimenting with something for my youtube channel.  While I have made many videos explaining grammar over the years, one of the most popular has incorporated music.  It was a song that I had learned while I was taking high school Spanish.

And so I decided to experiment by adding more music to a few different topics and see how well they do over the next few months or until December.

It's kind of crazy that they all popped into my head within a week or so of me deciding I should try it.

Let me know what you think!

Present Tense -AR verbs song

Web Series - Check out first story!

I finished the first entire story based around a monkey wanting bananas.

The story is in the present tense and will slowly build on previous structures.  I will make more stories about the monkey and other characters as I go and each video will get increasingly more difficult.

After each story, there will be a quiz!

There are subtitles in English to offer 100% transparency or for those who want to check what it means.

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPD6O-TouCqQXu4LDPOnzAUGDh7r3G7TV&feature=mh_lolz

Let me know what you think!

New Web Series - Learning Spanish through Stories

Hello everyone!

So I found myself over Thanksgiving relaxing and drawing on my Ipad, only to realize that I could make sub-par drawings and narrate them in Spanish, after some tweaking on the computer.  And Voila!  I have my very own Comprehensible Input videos that will slowly get more complicated each video to help learners acquire the language versus working on the grammar out-rightly.

The best part, they'll be short and each will cover a structure as we tell a story.  I'll then recycle that structure in future videos.

Each story will be about 10 episodes long and then we'll move on to a different story.  The structures will get increasingly more difficult as we go and eventually I would imagine some pretty intense storylines.

Here's the first video & second video starting from scratch!  I think I'll do a version in English as well.

Let me know what you think!  I'm excited and I think it turned out kind of neat!

Read about my first storytelling venture from a few years back:
http://profesoranonimo.blogspot.com/2012/07/tprs-year-2-online-storytelling.html

or see my first and second interactive storytelling attempts on Youtube:
story 1 & story 2

FLAM Conference St Louis 2012

So a few weekends back, I was given the opportunity to co-present two sessions at Foreign Language Association of Missouri (FLAM) with Youtube's Spanish and Portuguese guru, Professor Jason.  It all started on twitter since I had seen him at last year's conference and thought, "Wow.  That's the guy from Youtube!"  I know it's silly since Youtube is one of those things that anyone can get on provided they have a camera and some video-editing software.  I hit him up later on Twitter and we decided to give some sessions about our videos to foreign language teachers in Missouri at the FLAM conference in St Louis.

He covered the first part mostly about the usefulness of videos such as ours in learning and education in the future.  We are seeing a major shift in how the global classroom is.  People can learn many things on the internet that they couldn't before.

In the second session, we presented on our actual process of video-making.  I took the chunk of time up explaining my process because as the years have gone by, I have continued to hone it and it has gotten much more complicated.  If you would like to see more or less what I presented, here are some videos I made for those who had to leave the session early or wanted to see afterwards, click here.

FLAM was ok this year.  I really was hoping for more TPRS-friendly presentations.  I was talking to the guy that I've been conspiring with this year (post about that later) and I thought we should try to present next year at FLAM a few sessions on TPRS.  I would like to do three sessions.

1. Session 1: an immersion into TPRS (a class conducted in TPRS)
2. Session 2: a TPRS workshop (where we can learn about some skills and practice a few)
3. Session 3: How we integrate TPRS into our classrooms (with examples, possibly videos of students, etc)

I think it would help.  There seemed to be a lot of interest in TPRS, but many didn't really feel comfortable enough to use it for lack of seeing it in action.  Let's hope I can present on it next year!

Interactive Youtube Story #2!

I don't mean to turn my blog into a commercial... but I was really excited about doing some storytelling over the internet with some of my fans on Youtube.  It worked out well in April-May.  So I thought we could do another one for this semester and hopefully another one in the coming semester.

I would like to create things that even I could use for when I have to be gone for some reason.  In this way, I could use various episodes of the story and have students watch them.

Otherwise, it's just a fun hobby!  Please watch it and leave a comment!

Rules video:

Episode 1: