CI Friendly Back-to-School Night Information

Last night at Back-to-School night, I wanted to give the parents a demonstration of TPRS. However, I also wanted to show parents how to access class information and materials on my teacher webpage on the school district website, and explain class procedures and other important information to the parents, such as why there are no student desks in my room, and what novels we read. I knew that with the information that I wanted to share, I did not have the time needed for a successful TPRS demonstration.  In lieu of a demo, I gathered the papers and materials from that day's class (see photo below), taped them to the board, and explained TPRS using the visuals aids.  The following was written or taped on the board:


1. The 3 focus words for the day, with the # of reps of each word written in red.   There is a small yellow post-it note on which a student wrote tally marks to keep track of the repetitions. 


2.  A notebook paper with the details of the class story; written by a student.  (I tell students that do this job and the job mentioned in item #3, that they can write in English or Spanish.)

3. The notebook paper with questions related to the story; written by a student.

4. The sketches for the story by our very talented student artist of the day.

Those visuals were beneficial in showing the parents how words are introduced and used in context throughout the class period, and the number of repetitions needed for students to, first, recognize the word and, later, to eventually produce those words.

As parents were entering the room, I had Mike Peto's powerpoint playing on the benefits of learning a second language.  You can find and download Mike's powerpoint at his blogpost HERE. Thanks for sharing Mike. :-)

I also covered my boards with information on:  grades, output, input, and the idea that someone else mentioned on one of the forums I follow: ask parents to finish the sentence, "I had 4 years of (Spanish, French, German, etc.) in high school and I..." 

Donkey-Jote also made an appearance so I could explain the expectations for target language use.  

This blog post will serve as a file system for me to use the same information at out next Back-to-School night in February 2016.