Yes, Reading...

As I mentioned before, this is my first year in a new school and I am very lucky to have all of my colleagues excited and determined to transition from traditional teaching to CI / TPRS.  It has been a very hectic but fun school year so far, and I am pleased to see the other teachers very happy with the results that they have gotten so far.  Our superintendent, principal and school board are so excited with our program, that allowed us to sell all of our textbooks to get funds and buy short novels to structure our courses!  Ah, we also got a grant and added district funds to go (yes, the four of us!) to Washington this coming summer for NTPRS15!  I am VERY lucky.
Anyway, with everything that the transition entitles, we have been successful in implementing the change, and have dedicated pretty much all of the first semester to TPRS and Movie Talks.  Finally, we got our first order: "Brandon Brown quiere un perro" by Carol Gaab.  

Before we began reading the novel, students' speed-writes had been successful as far as showing fluency development.  However, I had about 90 percent of students misspelling "quiere" (wants).  Only a few students did it correctly.  We began the novel this past Monday and on Wednesday, after reading two chapters, I had them write a summary, speed-write style (7 minutes, without use of notes or any kind of help). In the past, I had students read this novel after the second week of school... this is the first time that I take so long to do it.   I knew that reading improves spelling and polishes language, I knew it... but I had not proven it so dramatically to myself until now.  The process (as we say in México) completely "flipped the tortilla!" Out of my group of 35-8th grade students only FIVE misspelled QUIERE! Unbelievable.  Somehow, I thought that the improvement would be a bit more gradually...  Also worth to mention, it was not a coincidence that the students that didn't improve spelling of that word were the ones that I had to remind every few minutes to "please, read along!".  The fact is that after almost a semester of CI, all of my students can understand the book without a problem, that is why they were not feeling the need to read along to follow the plot.  As I explained to them, reading this book will reinforce what they have learned, enhance their listening skills, help them ACQUIRE some new vocabulary, polish their sentence structure, SPELLING and grammar in general.  I am thrilled to have the budget that we got thanks to the selling of our textbooks, and we are in the process of getting all of our novels for this year.  In our order so far are "Robo en la noche", (by Kristi Placido), "Piratas del Caribe y el mapa secreto", "El Nuevo Houdini", "Felipe Alou", "Esperanza", "Vida y muerte en la Mara Salvatrucha" and "La hija del sastre", all can be found at http://tprstorytelling.com/ 

"Present & Past Tenses: Another Attempt"

After ten years of teaching for the same school, I moved to a different one this year. I am very happy with the change and my only struggle at this point is to adjust from teaching three blocks of 85 minutes to five periods of 50.  I am still trying to figure out how to use TPRS and CI without rushing, and to provide the right amoun of repetitions within that limited time frame. However, things are going great and I am extremely optimistic. I have more collaboration than I ever had, which makes me very happy.

This year I have set-up two professional goals for myself:
1) Do A LOT of Conversation with the actors (to practice other verb forms), and
2) To introduce past tenses right away, from the beginning levels.

For the first goal, I found it is easier to say as I point to the answer: "class, if I say" George, quieres tacos?"what am I asking?" (students answer). "Great! Now, if George responds "sí, quiero tacos ", what is he answering?" (class responds). "Great! Now, let's do it!" And then I proceed to directly ask the actor. Yes, it is pure modeling! This reduces the actor's anxiety, which ultimately made ME uncomfortable and anxious as well ... so in the past I tried to avoid this interaction as much as possible.  Before, I just pointed at the answers for the actor to see, and gave him the answers orally if needed. But modeling WITH THE ENTIRE GROUP'S PARTICIPATION made a gigantic difference. It is going smoother!
  

For my goal # 2 I got a great idea (again!) when I read Cynthia Hitz's post about  Class Stories Folders . I Decided to adopt her strategy and so far I have 3 stories for each class. When we are creating stories in class I use both, present and past tenses using CI with lots of comprehension checks and pop-up grammar. However, it gets messy and in an effort to alleviate That, today I decided to type both versions (present and past tenses) underlining the target structures for each. It is very Important to keep a limited amount of target structures, as usual. You can see an example below.  I am hoping this will help students make connections quicker, and better organize their thoughts. I cannot wait for that "natural order of acquisition" to take place. What are your strategies to mix tenses in class?

TIME TO CELEBRATE!

The end of the school year is finally here! Students were ready to go, and I wanted to have one more opportunity to help them realize how much they had learned.  This is only my second year teaching through Comprehensible Input, and I tend to be very hard to judge what I do... but funny enough, as I hear students converse with each other about their writings, or their speaking performances, I realize that they do the same.  We just have a very short memory! As I look back and reflect on the results that I used to get two years ago, comparing that with the results that I get now should make me feel pretty darn good!  It was my attempt to have my students do the same and appreciate their achievements before they left for the summer.  We had two different activities to wrap up the year: one speaking presentation and one final writing.  For the speaking, they had to create a story and illustrate it in a power point.  They were not to memorize, but rather tell their story to the rest of the group during our end of the year party. The intention was exactly that: to have it be a celebration of their achievement.  Since all of them were original stories, we had absolutely no behavior issues, and since all vocabulary was "in bounds" everybody enjoyed a myriad of tales, some funny, some sad, and some plain creepy!  The following example is from Spanish 1, and this student gave me his permission to post it:

 

 

After each presentation, we  -as a class- discussed more about the stories, and that way provided more repetitions.  All students were engaged in conversation! 
The next activity for our "celebration" was writing.  I had them create a story based on just a picture.  I made corrections and the following day I returned it to them.  I asked them to take their portfolios and get the very first writing that they wrote two years ago, the first of last year, then also the first one that they wrote this year.  They  read it to a partner or small group, and then compared those with the new one.  They enjoyed this activity as I did! They were laughing, and I heard many: "OMG! What did I mean here?" They were able to correct many of their old mistakes, and the fact that they saw all that progress was of a great value.  The following pictures tell more about the true celebration environment during this activity:

The goal was met! Realize that what we now consider to be "not a big deal" was something that we -students and teachers- doubted when we began our journey through CI.  What I forgot to comment, is that the very first writing in their portfolio was that of their freshmen year, when I was not yet teaching with CI.  I had them write "diary entries" every week.  It was painful! with the help of dictionaries, teacher and peers, it took about 30 minutes to write five lines of almost unintelligible messages that I returned with tons of corrections in red, many of those similar to:  "watch your verb conjugation", or "remember: ir+a+infinitive" ARGH! What was I thinking! This activity was equally eye-opening for me as it was for my students.  It was amazing to see them compare their "diary entries" to the writings that now they do in five minutes, without any help.  Pure fluency... and that is very much worthy of celebration!  Have a great summer!

 

Add Some Summer Fun to Your Reading!

As the school year comes to an end I struggle more and more to keep kids on task... it seems that these last days I have to convince them to work every day, and that we are not done yet!  We are reading Brandon Brown quiere un perro  with one group, and Piratas del Caribe y el mapa secreto with another. 
One of the activities I have students do after a class story, or after reading, is to draw sketches on paper and then retell.  This time, I got some chalk and took them outside to do the same, but on the sidewalk!  This winter was a very long one so students (and also teachers!) are ready to get out and enjoy the nice weather.  Students were very motivated and we all had a lot of fun.  It is also really nice to see other people passing by after school, trying to figure out what our Spanish students did!

 "Brandon está en la cama y el perrito está en el closet."

"Brandon encuentra la pipï y el popó en su dormitorio."

"Antonio tira la pistola en el piso porque no funciona.  Antonio es muy frustrado."

Kindergarten Day with a Twist

About every other Friday I have "Kindergarten Day" with my groups.  I read a children's book while students sit on the floor and enjoy the story, just like Kindergarten students do.  I have them interact and participate in the process as I pause and ask them questions about the characters, or when I ask them to predict what will happen next.  I use regular children's books, or books from the Reading A-Z website. It is a paid subscription, and it is well worth it! There are books in English, French and also Spanish.  The great thing about it is that they adjust to your needs, and also are based on high frequency words! I am lucky to have a SMART board  and the Reading A-Z books have a "projectable" version that allows me to turn the page, hide text, color and/or write on the board if I want to.  Some of the books also have worksheets that are fun to use after the reading.  Before beginning the reading, I show them the cover of the book, and we try to develop as much background information about the character as possible.  This is a great review of things that they have learned, and will not be covered in the story.  It also takes them to the highest levels of the Bloom's Taxonomy, because they are applying and creating!  I write on the board what they come up with, such as name, description, family members, where does the character live (city, house/apartment, description of it etc.), hobbies, you name it! I help them by underlining words that can lead to more detail.  For example, if a student says: "she lives in a house", I underline "house", so that the next person sees that s/he can expand on that topic and add details to the house.
This time, I brought "Goyo el Pollo" (as I named it!) which is a toy that I just bought to play the "hot potato" game.  We used ten minutes to play it, and the student that "lost" had to give me background information on the character.  This was a great variation, as I saw students more engaged in the process.
After the game, I had a lot of information about the girl in the story:  family, parents' occupation, siblings, house, grandma was a millionaire because she played baseball with Felipe Alou, etc.
Then, I read the book, and did "circle"  the target structures.
After the book was read, I asked questions about the details of it, and also about the target structures to make sure they were acquired.  Then, we moved on to the worksheet.  The worksheet was very simple as it is truly for Kindergarten students, but still helped reinforced the target in a relaxed way that I realized worked as a great brain-break too!
We all had a lot of fun, learned a lot and closed our work week in a happy note.

Promoting Student Involvement & Creativity

One of my biggest challenges in the classroom is to find innovative ways to keep my students' interest and help them develop fluency.  TPRS has been one of my favorite tools to accomplish that, but sometimes it is difficult to engage students in the creation of stories. 
During my commute home last night, I heard on the radio about the "scandal" caused by a video from a security camera inside of a hotel's elevator in NY, where Beyonce's husband was "attacked" by his sister-in-law.  It is a three minute video that you can watch here.  Since it is a video from a security camera, there is no audio and now the media is going crazy speculating reasons why this happened.  So, I decided to do the same in class... let's speculate and figure out what happened!

1) I printed out pictures of the three famous characters, placed them in plastic sheet protectors and tied yarn to them, so that student-actors could "wear them".

2) In Spanish, through Comprehensible Input I told students that we were going to be "investigators" and find out the reasons why this woman was so mad at her brother-in-law, and why Beyonce didn't do a thing to defend him.
3) We watched and described the video in Spanish, Movie-Talk style. 
4) We selected student-actors to recreate the scene, (including the bodyguard) and we added dialogues.  It was a blast!
5) After the story was finished, they did a timed-writing, and also retold the story orally using their own drawings.

I adjusted the same plan for all my levels, with Spanish I being simpler, and my Spanish 4/5 more complex.  With the higher level we talked about what they "had done" and ended up with something like:  They had danced a lot, had sung a lot, and had drunk a lot of milk.  All of them, except for Solange (Beyonce's sister) had eaten something, but she hadn't... that is why she was in a very bad mood, OBVIOUSLY! :)  In the elevator, she told Jay Z that his music was very bad, and he responded that he had hit her puppy.  Then she tried to hit him, while the bodyguard tried to stop her and JZ yelled "protect me!".  Students decided that Beyonce was sleeping in the elevator, and didn't notice a thing. 
I over-heard students as they walked out, saying that this had been the "must fun story this year!".  What made it so fun?  We do these kind of stories all the time!  It must be the so called "connection to the real-world"... they can discuss something that actually happened.

Another Approach to Clarify Preterite and Imperfect

Every year when my students ask "When do you use CAMINÓ instead of CAMINABA?" I feel overwhelmed (and a bit scared!) because I know that I don't have a way out, and I have to explain when to use preterite and imperfect.  Teaching through Comprehensible Input implies avoiding grammar rules and memorization, as we are trying to use words in context knowing that eventually students will "get it".
This year, in my attempt to find a quick solution that will satisfy the need of an answer without making it a long lecture and a list of rules to memorize, I used the picture below from "Where's Waldo?"

I explained that the decision to use preterite or imperfect is based on the intention and the perspective that we have in our messages.  I had them look at the picture on my SMART board, and look at all the different situations in it.  For example, let's look at the bottom of the picture, left corner.  If my intention and the main event is to say that a woman took a picture of her husband (preterite= what "happened") while three women were flirting  (imperfect=what "was happening") with a muscular guy, I say "la mujer tomó una foto de su esposo mientras tres mujeres coqueteaban con un hombre musculoso".
The imperfect is the "background" of the picture that we want to paint for our listener/reader, so that s/he has a bigger idea of what happened.  If my intention, or the "main" event that I want to tell is that three women flirted with a guy, and a woman was taking pictures of her husband is the background (not the main event of my message), I switch perspective:  "Las tres mujeres coquetearon con el hombre mientras la mujer tomaba una foto de su esposo." I had some volunteers do this in English.  They looked at one specific situation and chose it as their "main event, or reason for the message".  Then, tell the class what event was that, and describe what was happening around it. There were a lot of expressions such as "ahhh" and that made me happy!
I don't know if this helps you, but certainly my students said that this exercise clarified this subject for them. Do you have any ideas to facilitate comprehension of this topic?

Organizing Ideas During Movie Talk

One of my favorite activities in class is the use of short films, commercials or animations to provide comprehensible input and lots of repetitions to my students in a very compelling and engaging way.
The technique is called Movie Talk. 
Basically, you choose a short video (preferably no longer than 5 minutes) that contains the vocabulary or structures that you are interested in.  Then you play it in class, pausing when the image shows what you want to describe, and providing the repetitions that your students need to acquire the structures, TPRS® style.  This is beautiful because it is totally in context, the images are entertaining and students are following very attentive, because they want to know what will happen next. 
When I first began using the technique I would play it all first for students to enjoy, and then replay it to pause and talk.  This year, I modified it after seeing Cynthia Hitz's blog posts on the same topic.  It did make a difference, because students' attention is not the same when they have already seen the end of the story.  Duh! :) Martina Bex has also a very resourceful blog, and she has been posting a lot of ideas on how to use Movie Talk.
In my opinion, based on my own experience, the key to Movie Talk is to have very clear what your targets are for the lesson.  It is easy to go crazy on details! You still will describe and talk about many other things that are shown, but it is crucial to focus on a limited amount of vocabulary.  The rest is the "frosting on the cake", it is what provides the context for the comprehensible input that your students receive.  This is a great way to differenciate: according to their level and abilities, students will get just the right amount of that "frosting", and still you will have the whole group meeting your target.
After collecting the writings of my level 4 class this week, I saw that many students were making the same mistake when using imperfect, specifically the verbs "era" and "estaba"  (was).  I thought that was a done deal! So, I decided to use Movie Talk to address the issue once again.  I am preparing a lesson using "Chicken or The Egg" , a fun animation about a pig who falls in love with a hen.  This time I made a graphic organizer (see below)to help students land all those ideas, and clarify their confusion.  It has two columns to categorize era/estaba, (target) and two other columns for the other preterite and imperfect verbs that we will include as the "frosting".
Students will have their handout, and I will have it on my white board as well, adding as I go through the video.  I hope this organizer will make a difference in facilitating the acquisition of these complex verbs and structures for my students.  What ideas do you have to improve this activity?

Evaluating Reading and Listening Skills

I am reading Felipe Alou by Carol Gaab with my Spanish 4/5 class. I got also the teachers guide from the

 website, which has helped me a lot with ideas and more!

This has been one of the most fulfilling units I have had since I switched to Comprehensible Input.  The book gives you the opportunity to truly reach  across curriculum and get into social studies, physical education, health, even current events! Before starting chapter 3, I had to introduce and practice "Deber" (must) using comprehensible input.  I used the power point to first get through some verb-conjugation for those students that need all the forms at once, however, I introduce them still using comprehensible input.  That part takes just a minute or two.  No explanation, just quick references such as:  what is the "N" in "DEBEN" doing?, pop-up grammar style.  Then, we go over the rest of the slides developing conversation:  I ask the question, and they discuss it with the student next to them.  Then, we discuss it as a whole class.



We have read 3 chapters so far, and watched the movie "En el tiempo de las mariposas"  , which is the real story of three sisters who suffered through the dictatorship that our book talks about.  So, my students have had the opportunity to really study the topic in depth, and now I wanted to test them in their writing, reading and listening skills. This time, I tried to do something simpler to test them.
1) For the reading part, I had ten questions based on the story that they had to respond using either English or Spanish.  The focus here is to test them on their understanding of my questions, not their writing. Most students responded in Spanish because "it is harder to switch back and forth!" :)
2) For listening, I read ten statements based on the story that they had to translate into English. (You will find the statements on the third page of the document).


3) For writing, they had to use past tenses and (for differentiation purposes) choose between three options:
        a) write a summary of the book (minimum of 100 words)
        b) Make a "hybrid": tweak the story introducing original parts
        c) Make your own original story with characters living in Dominican Republic during the dictatorship.
What do you do to test these skills in your classroom?

Make it relevant: Interviews to develop conversation.

In my search for helping my students make connections with the "real world" and apply their learning in context, I decided to begin student interviews in Spanish 4 class.  I found that activity in Cynthia Hitz's blog.  What makes student interviews great, is that they bring relevance into our classroom.  Do you remember the feeling when you could hold your first conversation in your target language?  Personally, that is what encouraged me to continue my English studies.  That "this works!" feeling is indescribable, and I really want my students to experience it.  As a first interview to set up guidelines and also to get students motivated, I invited my niece Isaura.  She is from Mexico, but right now is studying in Germany.  She is 19 years old, and obviously interested in languages, which made her a perfect prospect for this activity.

There was some preparation to make sure that our time was used efficiently, and to avoid the risk of the the activity turning into an improvised and chaotic session.
Before connecting through Skype:

1.  I asked my niece to write some questions that she could ask my students.  I gave each student a number, so she would call on a specific one to respond and engage in conversation.
2. I gave my students 15 minutes to write questions for Isaura.  I told them they could ask anything they would like, and also wrote on my board the following question words for them to have a start:

•¿Quién…?

•¿Qué…?

•¿A dónde…? (To where…?)

•¿En dónde? (in where…?)

•¿Cómo?

•¿Por qué?

•¿Cuántas / cuántos?

•Do you think that…? (Piensas que…)

I decided not to force students to participate, but all had to write their own questions anyway.  Forcing them would have taken away the fun and relaxed environment of a real-life conversation. Besides, it is all about the comprehensible input, isn't it?
So, students AND guest had questions to ask each other.  The conversation began.  Students had to introduce themselves before asking their questions.  After the natural nervousness of the beginning, they all relaxed and had a great time! I was making comprehension checks and other comments to make sure that every student was following, and also that the conversation had a natural flow.  When there was a pause when I asked for the next volunteer, it was Isaura's turn to ask them a question. No dead time at all!  Having students and guest ask questions helped the interview turn into a conversation. My niece was impressed with the ability that my students have to communicate, and students were thrilled to test their skills with a native speaker.  I believe that this activity gave them that "this works!" feeling I was talking about! Now we are all set for student interviews in our classroom. 

El Nuevo Houdini - Chapter 5

Today, we read Chapter 5 of "El Nuevo Houdini", from Carol Gaab.  In preparation for the chapter, I introduced structures for my students to acquire first.  Since I began teaching with CI/TPRS, we have been reading novels in group:  I read in Spanish and they do a group translation while I do pop-up grammar.  This is the first time that I let them read on their own, for a change... however, I needed to make sure that they had all the elements to succeed.  This is how it went:

1) I introduced new structures in context using the power point below.  For each structure, I have a sentence to present it and then converse with the group, personalizing as much as possible.  Students wrote each structure down and created their own example with a picture to illustrate in their notebooks.  Then, as suggested by Martina Bex I included in the powerpoint some practice sentences for students to translate, and see the structures in other verb forms. 





2) After circling each structure and students were responding without hesitation, I had them read the chapter with a partner.  They were able to call me for assistance if needed, but just a couple of them did it for a couple of times.

3) When they finished reading the chapter, they had to draw illustrations to retell the entire chapter, and practice. 

4) Then, I had them work in groups of 4.  Using their own drawings, they pointed at a frame and asked another member of their group to describe the part of the story depicted in that specific drawing.  They alternated students, pointing at a frame at a time until all frames from all students were told by a partner.

 

Since they were familiarized with the story, nobody had problems with the activity, and they had tons of repetitions of the target vocabulary and structures! They liked the independent reading and the feeling of success that it gave them.  However, I will not do it every time, since I think I need to emphasize the pop-up grammar and conversation that come with reading in group.  What do you do to vary reading in your classroom?