A Map of Spanish Readers

In 2004, when I left my middle school Spanish job and moved to another district to teach high school Spanish at Palmyra, there were very few Spanish readers/novels available to use in the classroom. The previous teacher left me with a class set of novels that was more suitable for an upper college level class, (and which were still shrink-wrapped so he must have had the same reaction to the books), and a splattering of other readers, such as El Cid, Don Quijote, Leyendas lationamericanas, Historias de la Artámila, and several others.  The ones that were most useful were 3 readers by Arturo de Rosa about the detective Pepino González. I used the Pepino readers with my Spanish 4 class although it took a lot of scaffolding to make it accessible, (especially since teaching with CI was not common practice at the high school when I started working at Palmyra so their reading in the language experience was very limited).  

However, in the last several years the number of Spanish readers available have exploded! Spanish teachers have a wide variety of readers to choose from to read with their students and to add to their class library for independent reading. If you're like me, and you want to keep the most recent Spanish books in your classroom to give your students a full range of books from which to choose, you are quite busy buying books throughout the year.

Not only are there loads of novels to choose from, and more added each year, but you can find a reader/novel that takes place in almost every single Spanish country, with only one exception - Paraguay.

I like visuals, so I created a map of the countries aligned with the readers that take place in each country. 

(I'll give the authors a week or so to email me any corrections and then I'll upload the maps to google docs so you can download them if needed.)

The danger to writing this post and making the visuals, is I may have unintentionally omitted a book. If that is the case, please let me know and I can add it although it may take a few days until I can update this post. The three main sites I cross-referenced for the list above was CI Reading (blog by Mike Peto), Fluency Matters, and TPRS Books. 

In addition, there are some readers that are listed in language catalogs that I have that I did not add because I do not recommend them for any level. 

There are only a few books in the lists above that I have not read; some I have not read because they are not available for purchase yet. Obviously, I have my favorites and there are some on the list that I was disappointed with, for various reasons. However, that is a personal preference and what I thought was not an interesting story, may be something that one of my students like, so I continue to make as many books available to my students as I can.  

I also add a few Spanish children's books in the selection and switch them out for different ones after a month or so. Since I liked the Pepino series, I make them available too.  :)  

TCI-Friendly Homework or Assessment

photo credit at end of blog post

When I assign homework, it is with the purpose to have the students interact with a written text in the target language or listening to a text in the TL. Examples of some homework that I have assigned in the past are:
- read a story, one created in class or a parallel story of the one created in class, and answer comprehension questions related to the text
- work with an online site to reorder the text in a story, or other activities related to the text, or
- read a script that is written in the TL, but read it to a parent in English, or 
- add sentences with details to an already established story, etc.

Below is a screenshot of the homework that I gave to my students last week. This type of activity could also serve as an in-class assessment.

I refer to this activity as an open-ended task because students are free to choose what information to add and where to add it in the story.  Some students will be very creative and take risks in their writing. Others will stick to basic, short sentences.
 

The story in the document pictured above, was created in class through "story-asking" in the following steps:
1 - Write the 3 structures on the board for students to copy and to write the English meanings
2 -  Assign actors for the story.
3 - "Ask" the story with circling techniques used in TPRS.
4 - Verify facts with the actors in the story.
5 - Pause for students to retell sections of the story.
6 - Use the student artist's sketches to retell the story.
7 - Ask the questions written by the student whose job it is to write questions.
8 - Project and read my previously typed version of the story.

Then I distributed the paper pictured above and we read the story together.  Students had the remaining 5 minutes of class to add 4 new facts to the story.  

At the start of class today, I projected the story from the document above on the board. Students shared (some of) the sentences they wrote and told me where they chose to insert the sentences. I typed the sentences into the story to expand it, and then we read it together. 

Instead of taking a text and paring it down to make an embedded reading, the students and I took a text and added to it to make an extended reading. (Basically, the opposite of an embedded reading.)


If you are interested in using the story with your students, the basic plot of the story is: someone went on vacation but didn't speak the language to the place he went.  When he leaves the hotel he wants to travel somewhere in the city but when he gets into the taxi, the person doesn't speak his language.  

This story took on a life of its own when I had the two foreign exchange students in the class (1 is from Germany and the other is from France) play the role of two of the taxi drivers that the main character couldn't understand because he didn't speak their language. The two foreign exchange students made the story more "novel" and there was obvious student engagement and buy-in from the other students.

The next challenge is to have the same engagement in subsequent stories.  

Note: Thank you to Melvin Cass for commenting below and sharing with me the correct Japanese.  Those changes are reflected in the document above.  :-)

Photo credit: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/11434163@N02/5059351239">NyC TaXi</a> via <a href="http://photopin.com">photopin</a> <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/2.0/">

Esperanza - A Verbal Book Report

Student sketches for Esperanza novel

My Spanish 4 students recently completed reading Esperanza by Carol Gaab, TPRS Publishing, Inc. I use this book in my Immigration/Guatemala unit of the curriculum.  The story opens up many opportunities to talk about immigration and why people are so desperate to enter the U.S.  I also like the book because the students learn about Guatemala.  There are so many interesting mini-lessons on the culture of Guatemala, the geography, the currency, the civil war, that can be explored while reading the novel. My recommendation, buy the Teacher's CD and a lot of that work is already completed for you.

For the final assessment on the book, I wanted a project that gave them the opportunity to explain what they thought were the key events in the story.  

For the final assessment on the book, I decided on a verbal book report in which students choose events key events of the story, sketch them, and then record their verbal book report.  Students chose to work alone or with a partner to sketch 10 events in the story on a long strip of white butcher paper. Then they   videotaped their verbal book report using a flip camera.  

The day the students recorded the videos, the class went to the atrium in order to have room so they could record without being really close to another group that was recording.  They taped their sketches to the wall and took turns filming each other. 

Below is a screenshot of the rubric.  I designed the rubric so that the sketches and events are worth 10 points, providing base points that all students should earn if they followed the requirements on the rubric.  The remaining 23 points focus on the actual verbal presentation.  With the first 10 points as a base points, I could more fairly assess the verbal presentation. (Find the pdf of the rubric HERE.)

I strongly dislike the traditional 100 point grading scale with A-90-100, B=80-89, C=70-79, D=60-69, and F=0-59. The rubric is my attempt to offset more points dedicated to a failing grade than a passing grade (59% failing and 41% passing).   

10 Ideas for using Monoface in the WL classroom

Have you seen the website named MonoFace? It's a website that has photos of different people with different expressions.  By clicking on the right eye, left eye, nose, mouth, and head and shoulders, you can create 759,375 characters and expressions (according to the website).  

I saw the link for MonoFace either on Twitter or on Facebook.  Since we didn't have school today, because of the lovely snow, (yes, I still think it is beautiful), I had time to explore the site.

How can this be used in the World Language classroom? For one, I'm always looking for images on Google for different stories and activities for class, which makes this a perfect resource for quick creations.  Or for more specific suggestions...

Create the character(s) and then:
1. Describe his/her physical characteristics
2. Describe the character and create a backstory for him/her.
3. Describe the relationship between several of the characters.
4. Make the character the star of your class story - co-create a story with your students about the person.
5. StoryASK with your students. AFTER creating the story, have the students create a character on the website that they think best suits the person(s) in the story. This can be done as homework to preserve class time for comprehensible input. Or, use this activity as a brain break.
6. Change the expressions of the character and add screenshots of the person in the typed version of your story to add more interest.
7. Give the students 5-9 shots of the character (same person but only the expressions are changed - mouth, possible nose and eyes).  Let students choose from the pics to match the person's emotions or reactions in a pre-made story.
8. StoryASK information about a set number of people (ex: 5 people). Then project on the screen some people you have made and students choose which person belongs to which description.  Students have to defend their choices, in the TL, of course.
9. (similar to #8) Project a collage of people you created, and read information about a person's life or past. Students listen to the details in the story and then decide which person they think best fits the story.  Once again, they will need to defend their decision.
10.  Ask students to think of x number of occupations and list them on  the board.  (x=the number of characters you have created on a collage)  Project the collage and students work in small groups to assign an occupation to each person. Compare the answers from each group to see how many are similar. 
(variation to #10) Brainstorm fears that someone has, or an embarrassing moments, or (fill in the blank w your idea). Then project the collage and decide which person had that fear, embarrassing moment, etc

Those are a few ideas for using MonoFace in the World Language Classroom that I can think of at the moment, but I'm sure there are MANY more possibilities.

I'm sure there are some other obvious uses that I have overlooked at the present time. If you have some suggestions for how to use this in the WL class, please feel free to share your ideas and activities in the comments below.  

4 - Part Guided Storytelling Activity

Last week I used Bryan Kandel's story about Viernes Negro (found here and other story scripts by Bryan found HERE), even though I took Black Friday out of the equation and made it more general: someone wanted to buy a present for someone else.  The class helped to create a story, we reviewed it, and then I distributed Bryan's version and we read that together.  We also watched an online story I made a few years ago on the website UtellStory (mentioned on this post), followed by reading the script for the story that was also on the previous handout.

After the class story, the two readings, and the online story, I was tempted to move on with new words, but I decided to give the students yet more exposure to the structures with some small changes.  Plus I wanted to experiment with a new idea I had for a 4-part guided storyasking activity.

Part 1. The target structures that the students copied were:
estaba desilusionado/a = s/he was disappointed
le dio = s/he gave to him/to her
lo compró = s/he bought it
la compró = s/he bought it

Then I projected the chart below onto the white board.

 For this story, I wanted both characters to be students in the class.  The first character, (the one that wanted to buy a gift) was permitted to decide to whom s/he wanted to give a gift and, when students gave suggestions for the other answers, s/he had the right to overrule them and not accept their suggestion.

The story in the guided storyasking format was successful in engaging the students since THEY provided the compelling information.  I think the fact that they could see the entire storyline from the beginning, made it easier for them to organize their suggestions and save their best suggestions for last.

As the students created the story, I wrote their answers directly on the whiteboard creating a reading at the same time. This format also helped remind me to pause for short grammar pop-ups such as asking about the LO or LA answers and the O ending in "desilusionado". When we finished, I read the story to them and added small additional phrases in the TL (such as before the "le dio" sentence I added, Alica fue a la casa de Manuel y....le dio el libro a Manuel). 

Part 2. When I was ready to review the story with the students, I tried a different technique that came to me at that moment. I left the completed grid projected on the board with the information, and I retold the story, but with some misinformation.  I told the students to CLAP their hands ONE TIME if I said something that was not correct information. It worked beautifully.  The unison ONE CLAP when I gave wrong information told me they were listening intently for meaning. Plus...there were receiving more input, more repetitions of the structures.  :-)

Part 3.  Students formed groups of 3 and I gave each group a copy of the blank document that I had projected on the board, as shown above.  (Click HERE to access the document.) Their job was to "write" a story by filling in the information as we had done as a class.  In the bottom right square of the chart, they had to decided how the person felt about the last gift and why.

Example of a completed story grid

I gave them 5 minutes to fill in the information on the chart.  Then I gave each group 4 sheets of paper and they had to decide which four parts of their story they wanted to illustrate on the paper.  They actually could have easily made several more illustrations for their story, but I wanted to limit the time spent sketching. When the students finished they paper-clipped their story grid on top of their illustrations and gave them to me until the next class.

Part 4. The following day, I distributed typed copies of the class story from yesterday for additional reading and to help students become reacquainted with the guided storyasking format grid. Then I randomly chose one of the student stories.  I used their story grid to tell the story verbally, (making on the spot corrections if needed). While I read/told the story, the students revealed their illustrations at the appropriate time to match what I was saying.

I have done something similar to this in the past. I'm convinced that projecting the actual grid onto the board so the students can see it when they help create the class story plays a key role in making parts 3 and parts 4 go smoother.

Summertime Personalized PD at Home

If your schedule or finances don't permit you to attend the great summertime  conferences (such as iFLT and NTPRS) or the new workshop formats such as Camp Musicuentos, don't despair.  There is no reason to abandon hopes of summertime professional development because there are plenty of opportunities to learn from online resources!   Try thinking of it as a summer of PERSONALIZED professional development at home.
Teachers that are searching for training and resources on providing Comprehensible Input to their students are in luck because there are a growing number of teachers that are posting videos to YouTube in which they demonstrate techniques of using the TL language in a comprehensible way with their students.  As you view the videos below, take note on how each teacher connects with the students by keeping the language comprehensible and by interacting with their students. 

1. Leslie Davison's - ¿Quién llegó? lesson


Leslie used the target word, llegó, 76 times in 12 minutes!  She successfully kept it interesting and the students engaged with/by:
- Student actors
- Props
- Comprehension checks: either/or questions; "What does ___ mean?"
- Restating the students' answers to provide more repetition of the target word
- Comparisons and parallel examples/situations
- Her energy, constant movement throughout the classroom, matched the students' energy 
(WOW!)

My take-aways: Don't short-change students, even high school students, on the number of repetitions of new vocabulary and structures; involve students as much as possible throughout the lesson 
My summer task: Plan a trip to the dollar store or the local thrift store for props. 

Another video example of introducing vocabulary by Martina Bex can be found HERE.

2. Alina Filipescu's MovieTalk of Oktapodi   Click HERE to see the video.

Alina takes full advantage of the students' interest in the video to provide solid Comprehensible Input with the following techniques:
- Comprehension checks: What does ____ mean?  What did I just say? Who remembers (word)?  What did I just ask you?
- Grammar "pop-ups" (short explanations of grammar)  Examples: ser vs. estar; "What is the original verb before it is changed?"; lo que
- Restates students' answers to provide more repetitions in context
- Plays short clips of video and discuss the action
- Reviews past words with motions
- Refers to vocabulary words on the posted list

My take-aways: I don't need to narrate every single action in the video. Post the list of vocabulary to refer to when it appears in the video.
My summer task: Choose target structures from short films on my Pinterest board and add them to my lesson plans for the fall.

3. Michael Coxon's video of Blaine Ray's "la besadora" lesson

 

From what I've read, Blaine is a guest for the day and he dives right in with the "la besadora" lesson.  Blaine is THE master of TPRS and a master storyteller because he:
- is prepared with a skeleton story with target structures  
- engages students by asking them for details in the story
- asks "Why?" to develop background information; adds interest
- provides input on 1st, 2nd, and 3rd person singular (I, you, s/he) by turning to the actress and asking her to verify the details
- goes slowly, finds where students break down on understanding and works on that structure before moving on to the next detail in the story

An extra bonus to this video is that Michael added notes on the screen, detailing what skills Blaine uses in the lesson.

My take-aways: Verify details with the actors!  (I've read/heard of this technique but rarely use it. The day after I saw this video on YouTube last week I employed it in class and it worked remarkably well, even though my students were not accustomed to the technique.)
My summer task: Make a poster to hang in my room to remind me next year to verify details. 

4. 'Kindergarten Day' with Carrie Toth (click HERE for video)
This is another way to teach with comprehensible input.  Carrie describes it HERE and Crystal Barragan describes her experience with it HERE. 

In Carrie's Kindergarten Day video:
- It may seem very basic and not "rigorous" enough for a high school class, BUT I assure you the students' minds are constantly negotiating meaning as they hear the children's story told/"read" in another language.  
- She goes beyond the printed story, and engages the students by asking them to suggest names, state what the characters are doing, etc.
- She utilizes comprehension checks throughout the story.
- Carrie makes it an enjoyable experience for the students by permitting them to relax on the floor.

My take-aways: Include more Kindergarten Days in my lessons! I wrote a post mid-year stating that I wanted to include this every 2 or 3 weeks in my classes, but it didn't realize that goal. 
My summer task: Choose a minimum of 3 books per each Spanish level I teach and determine the best place in the curriculum to "read" them to my students. 
 


This is only the "tip of the iceberg"!  There are many, many videos available on YouTube.  I suggest that when you watch, you mentally take note of what the teacher is doing that makes the lesson successful; then make an action plan to implement those techniques and strategies in your classroom in the next school year.

Meanwhile, in July I'll be constantly checking my Twitter account to read the tweets from the lucky teachers attending the summer conferences.  If that's you, please tweet, tweet, and tweet some more. Note: tweets with photos will be especially appreciated.  Thanks. :-) 

Reading to Students - Part 2

I read the first 3 chapters of Brandon Brown quiere un perro to my Spanish 2 classes during the first week of school. (see earlier post "Reading to Students" for information on how I read the first 3 chapters of the book).

After a four-day weekend due to Labor Day, I wanted to review the events in Chapter 3 before continuing with the next chapter with the following activity.

Chapter 3 
I organized sketches of the main events of chapter 3. The easiest way to do this if you do not want to make the sketches is one day before this activity give the following slips of paper to 9 of your students. (Hint: Use a standard piece of copy paper and divide it evenly into 9 squares - like a tic tac toe board; then when you piece it together again, you won't have to resize the sketches to fit onto one paper.) Write the following sentences in the TL and give them to students, or in English if you think that is needed.
-  Brandon says goodbye to his mother and leaves on his bicycle
-  Brandon sees Jake and his dog outside of Jake's house
-  Brandon and Jake leave Jake's house on their bikes
-  There are many people and dogs in the park.
-  A little dog passes in front of Brandon and Jake on their bikes.
-  Brandon picks up the little dog and talks to it.
-  Brandon picks up the dog and rides to his house with the dog.
-  Brandon enters the house with the dog.
-  Brandon is in the bedroom with his dog and he is happy.

Collect the sketches and tape them together but NOT in the correct order that they appear in the book. Write a,b,c,d,e,f,g,h,i on each of the sketches.
Write sentences in Spanish that will match each of the sketches.

The following day, project the sketches onto the board with a document camera (or copy a sheet for each student). Talk about the sketches, especially if the students' artwork may not be as clear as you would like. Describe a sketch and students say which sketch you described.

Then hand a reading review sheet on chapter 3 and let the students work in groups of 3 to complete the review.  Below are my instructions and the first few sentences of my worksheet.

I went over the answers on the left first, followed by the answers on the right. 

Chapter 4
I wrote the following words on a large piece of paper (white butcher paper):
se despierta, se hace muchos ruidos, se duerme, recoge, lleva, de nuevo, está nervioso, (la cama) está mojada, ve, tiene vergüenza, observa, cierra
Together the students and I decided on a motion for each of the words and then we practiced them TPR style, adding a new word after I felt each word and motion was solid.

Then the students formed a circle with their chairs and I asked for 2 volunteers for each word.  I instructed them to stand up and do the motion when they heard the word(s) while I was reading Chapter 4. I used the document camera when reading chapter 4 so students could follow along as I read and both listen and look for the word so they could do their motions. The reading kept the class engaged and they even helped out their classmates if I paused after a word and the students assigned didn't hear or read it right away.

After the reading, I distributed a paper with questions and multiple choice answers to review what they read.  

An example of questions on my handout is:

1. ¿Quién se duerme rápidamente?     Brandon       el perrito       Brandon y el perrito

2.  ¿Cuándo se despierta Brandon?      a las 7           a las 6             as las 5

The multiple choice questions gave them reading practice to go along with the verbal input they have been receiving on the book. 

Chapter 5
I chose the following structures to practice from chapter 5. I put the verbs in the past tense since I am slowly adding past tense into our warm-up discussions.

había
se llamaba ______
vivía solo en una fortaleza
quería comer con 

I story-asked a story about a boy that lived alone in a fortress that wanted to go out to eat with someone. I had a powerpoint to go along with the story to rule out who the boy did not want to eat with, which included capitán Crunch and el presidente, in order to have them become familiar with those cognates that are used in chapter 5. The powerpoint also had places where the boy did or didn't want to eat with the other person. 

Because the vocabulary was introduced with the past tense, I wanted to make sure the students got an abundance of reps of the past tense, therefore we didn't have time to read any part of Chapter 5. We'll continue with that tomorrow.

Sharing Resources for Spanish Classrooms

Image:307575551_810fdee3e0_parrots_sharing.jpg

 Are you looking for resources for Spanish audio, information and news, stories, and other information for your classroom?  As I find sites and resources I copy the URL and add them to my account on Only2Clicks, a website that I mentioned a few weeks ago in my blog.  Today I discovered they have a new feature that allows you to share as many of your collections that you choose to share.

Click HERE to find 4 of my collections I am sharing which are: TPRS, Audio, Cuentos, Info/News. Most of the websites are for Spanish classes, but some have links for resources for French, Italian, English, and other languages.

The TPRS tab includes both active and non-active TPRS blogs, many that I go to  regularly to find ideas and resources for my class. If you have a favorite TPRS blog that I don't have listed, PLEASE share it with me so I can add it.

The Audio tab has useful sites, some that also have the corresponding transcript! I use podcasts from iTunes that aren't listed on this page (yet), but I wanted a tab for other audio that isn't found on iTunes.  Also on the Audio page, I included a site that is entirely in English called "Old Radio World".  There are links to audio of radio shows from the 1930s, 40s, and 50s.  Not exactly anything I can use in the classroom, but I find it entertaining to listen to (outside of the classroom) from time to time.

The Cuentos tab has a long list of sites with short stories or other reading materials from beginners to more advanced.

The last tab is Info/News which has websites of both English and Spanish news sources.  

Only2Clicks makes it easy for me to add sites to my different categories AND find them again when I need them.  

As I mentioned above, if you have favorite sites that fit into one of these categories that I don't have listed, please share them with me and I will add them to my Only2Clicks collections.  Thanks!

Valuable Resource - Videos of TPRS in Action

Several months ago I followed a link and found several videos of Ben Slavic teaching his high school students French.  I watched them even though I do not know any French.  They were helpful because he narrates the story-telling method and describes what he thinks went well in the class and what he would do differently.  At that time I saw other language videos, but had to get back to my plans for the following day, so I never did watch the other videos.

Yesterday, as I was reading  The International Journal of Foreign Language Teachers online, I saw a link to the same group of videos and spent hours watching several different teachers.  Once again, it was helpful to see the method being used in a classroom instead of just reading about it.  The biggest thing I learned from them yesterday is that I need to remember to take it SLOW.  

Here is the link for the videos of the Denver Public Schools teachers on TeacherTube.