QuickTime recordings for TPRS activities

Today I presented the 8th episode of Cuentos de Ensalada to my Spanish 1 class. It was a one-woman act and I was a bit nervous having to play both parts in conversations. I used note cards to help me through it because it was lengthy too. The students were attentive and active participants in the telling of the story. At the end of the episode when Tomas' ghost says "tu padre, Tu Padre, TU PADRE", it only took a short time until the students started calling how they think Teresa's father was complicated in the investigation.

Before the story, to ensure that they remembered some vocabulary in the episode that they learned months ago, I did a short review with them. I listed the vocabulary on the board, we made up actions for the words and practice them until everyone did the actions with hesitation. Then the students had to work as a class to write a story using all of the vocabulary words. It didn't take them long to create their story. I wrote what they said on the board and they copied it in their notebooks. If you're interested in the story, it can be found HERE.

I distributed the 3-page story of the script of Episode 8. The students had a few minutes to read it to their partner. Since we didn't have a lot of time in class to retell the story, at least not today and tomorrow, 2 days away from Christmas, I was afraid that many of the students wouldn't be at school, so......I found a way for the students to read and listen to the script at the same time, at home.

I made 3 separate QuickTime recordings of the script since it is 3 pages long. (one recording per page), However, when I recorded each page, I purposely changed 5 - 7 words to other words. I posted the 3 recordings on Edmodo. Their homework is to listen to the recordings while reading along with the script. When they find a word that I changed out for another word, they are supposed to highlight the word and write the word I used. For homework they need to type their list on Edmodo and submit their work online. The best part about this homework assignment, at least in my opinion, is that it requires them to listen to the story AND read along with the script. Another repetition and at home - perfect.