"We're Going on a Bear Hunt"

http://bit.ly/zuhHOC

Do you remember the children's activity, "We're going on a bear hunt"? It is a story for children and as you tell the story, the children do actions with you. I did something similar to this with my Spanish 3 students today.

This week our juniors are taking high stake state tests in the morning. By the time I see them in the afternoon, the second to last period of the day, they don't have much left to give. Today, they were taking the second part of a test and by the time they were finished, there was only 22 minutes remaining in class. My lesson plans called for a TPRS story. However, after taking a quick inventory of their body language - slouching, droopy eyelids, wiped out expressions - I was afraid I wouldn't get quality participation because they were so worn out. Just then a thought crossed my mind and my plans were diverted.

I took the story I was going to use for TPRS and wrote 20 of the words on the board. Some were vocabulary words they had just learned, and others were new or ones we hadn't focused on. I told the students to stand up, (the first crucial step to help breathe life into them again). We went over the list of words for their meaning and then I asked them to come up with motions for each word - and they didn't disappoint me - the motions were fun and energizing. After 7 words we stopped and practiced them; then did the same thing with 6 more words; reviewed all; and decided on motions for the last set. I told them we were ready to start the story, and I quickly got a protest that we hadn't practiced all of the words together. No problem, more repetitions.

Now that we had the motions down, I told them that I was going to read the story and when they heard one of the words that we had made motions for (they were in the correct order of the story), they should make the motions. I read three sentences and they did the motions. One student asked for clarification, so then we started from the top again. The second time I got through the first paragraph, the phone rang - a counselor wanted to talk to one of the students. So, we started from the top...again. This was the 3rd time so they had the motions down perfectly.

We made it to the end of the story. I then asked them to tell me in English what happened in the story. Three students, that always participate raised their hands, but then I saw another student that doesn't participate as much as the others, with his hand raised and I knew the English translation was his. He did a great job, and when he missed the part about the fast food, others were quick to add it, and when he had a few questions about some parts, others helped him with the details.

We finished with 4 minutes left. No way was I going to lose those precious 4 minutes. I asked for 2 volunteers and they picked a partner to work with them. They went to the front and I told them that I was going to read the story again and the class would vote on which group did the best job with the motions. The class enjoyed watching the 4 students and I liked the fact that they were hearing the story AGAIN.

When the bell rang, I watched and listened as an energized, chattering, smiling group of students left my class. What a difference from 22 minutes ago when they were ready to slump over their desks and call it a day. Another plus - THEY energized ME!

Using Videos with TPRS - 3

My Spanish 5 students have been working on a short story by Miguel Unamuno, Spanish modismos, and a global collaborative project. After a week of those types of activities, I knew it was time to include another opportunity to learn through the use of videos.

I've had the following commercials clips on file waiting for the right moment and that was on Thursday. First, the video clips...








Here are several ideas of how to encourage conversation... the main reason I use videos.
In my opinion, the best way to work with these 3 short clips is to hit pause right before the twist is revealed, then...
- Describe the setting
- Identify objects
- Teacher asks sts true/false or short answer questions
- Decide as a class additional bits of information that have led up to the event or develop the characters:

What is the person's occupation?

What is the romantic dinner celebrating? What dinner is he preparing?

Where does he/she live?

Why is the man in the hospital? Was he in an accident? Did he have a surgery?

Is the man walking the dog single or married?

Does he have children? Why didn't the children walk the dog?

How old is the girl at the park?
- and, the obvious, ask the sts to guess what will happen next. By now, my students know that if I'm showing them a video it's most likely because there is a surprise ending. I tell them to be creative in their answers, and I repeated "sean creativos" enough times on Thursday that the students guessed some of the endings.

I'm sure there are some other activities that my students and I could do with these advertisements, so please feel free to share your thoughts with me if you have been inspired.

This video actually has five different clips. I used the website: http://www.embedplus.com/ to crop the video to contain only 3 segments.

ipads in Language Classes

This is not the usual type of post because I would like information from YOU...

If you are a language teacher that uses an ipad in your teaching specifically with TPRS or in the upper levels with CI (Comprehensible Input) methods, could you please share with me how you use the ipad?

Or, if you don't use an ipad in your language class because you don't have one, but have ideas for its use, please feel free to share those ideas with me also.

I look forward to hearing from YOU!

image from: http://www.reed.edu/cis/about/ipad_pilot/index.html

THANK YOU from a past student - the Best Part of my Week

In January, the first semester of the school year ended, bringing a close to the pilot program of TPRS instruction-based Spanish 1 level class. I rarely see the students from that class because (1) I do not teach Spanish 2, and (2) my classroom is in a separate short hallway that students do not pass unless they are specifically coming to my class.

However, on Friday after the bell rang to signal the end of the school day, I was returning to my room from the library when I saw a student from my Spanish 1 class. I greeted her with a "hola" (& her name). She stopped me and said that she had wanted to stop in my room to say thank you for teaching her Spanish last semester with "all the stories". She said that now that she is in Spanish 2, she realizes how much she learned through the stories that we created in class and from reading the additional stories. But to me, the best part about talking to her was not specifically her words, even though hearing her remarks certainly affirmed for me the benefits and necessity for language instruction with TPRS. But rather, the best part was . . . her smile. Her sincerity was unmistakable, along with the evidence of a growing appreciation and enjoyment of the Spanish language. BINGO! Can you think of any better way to end the week?

There you have it - a student that after just one semester of TPRS, sees the value and benefits of acquiring the language through the use of stories. This is exactly why I will continue to seek out workshops and materials that will help me improve my instruction using TPRS. I readily admit that I need more training on TPRS and welcome the opportunity to listen to advice of others with more experience and knowledge with TPRS.

Last Saturday, the other members of my department and I went to a TPRS workshop led by Michelle Kindt at Hershey Middle School--which was absolutely fabulous, Thank You, Michelle! This month I'm looking forward to attending a workshop led by Susan Gross. In the summer, I plan to attend other workshops or conferences. By the time fall rolls around again, I hope to have a solid foundation of how to teach with TPRS so I can give my students the best chance for success with a language.

Note: I have had fewer posts the last few months due to the fact that (1) I have a student teacher this semester and very soon she will be teaching all of my classes, and (2) I have one class of level 3 and the other 3 classes are levels 4 and 5. While I have used stories in levels 4 and 5, those levels tend to lean more toward class discussions, short stories by Spanish authors, and similar activities. Since my student teacher picked up the level 3 class early in the semester, I have requested 1 day a week to do TPRS with them. I also volunteered to work with four Spanish 3 students that are taking the class online at school because they couldn't schedule the class this year and they want to take Spanish 4 next year. I work with them a minimum of 1 time a week and they help create stories with me in addition to completing their online work. In this way, I can keep practicing TPRS while helping to prepare them for the next level of Spanish.
I look forward to professional development in the next few months and starting again in the fall with TPRS based instruction for lower levels and CI instruction in the advanced levels.

Videos & CI (Comprehensible Input)

I don't like when students are absent from class, but if we have a class discussion about a short film on a day when a student is absent, I have a sure-fire way to add more repetitions with the day's vocabulary the next day. When the student returns, I put the class in charge of explaining the video, using Spanish only, to the absent student. The absent student is the only one that is permitted to speak in English. I stress to the class that if the absent student doesn't understand, it's not the student's problem, but rather it is the problem of the entire class. The responsibility lies on their shoulders to make sure they are understood.

Yesterday, as an introduction to our unit on Love and Relationships, I showed the short film, "Blind Date".

First I had the students work in groups and they tried to match my answers to questions such as:
- What is something you can drink?
- What is something you put on?
- What is an action you do when preparing food?
We discussed their answers, did some light PQA, and moved onto the video. I stopped the video at 2:30 for students to retell the story thus far, using the vocabulary that they just learned in the previous action. I also asked them to predict what happened next. We then watched the remaining part of the video and practiced re-tells in a large group and then in small groups.

The retell was "on" the next day when two students returned to class. This group is getting quicker at the retells.

What would you do with this video? I'm looking for any creative ideas you may have.

I found this video on another teacher's blog, but I can't remember which one. I'll do my best to find it so I can give him/her the credit.

News Articles

At the beginning of the semester in my Spanish 4 classes, my goal is for the students to hear as much Spanish as possible, in the form of Comprehensible Input. We have a 5-block schedule, in two semesters, which means some of the students may not have had Spanish for a year, or even more if they had a year in which their schedule didn't match with the times Spanish IV was offered.

Several years ago I read a short article in the newspaper and I've used the article with my 4s ever since. The article is interesting by itself that I have no trouble keeping the students' attention as I StoryTell it to them (I never actually read it to them but I keep it close by in case they doubt it really happened). However, the thought occurred to me recently that I should try a different approach the next time I tell it.

First, my explanation of how I usually use the material in class and then my new idea.

We'll begin with the article:




1.Before I tell the article, I review any vocabulary that I think the students do not know or won't remember quickly, writing them on the board in Spanish and English, followed by PQA to the students using the vocabulary. (Still need practice on PQA.)

2. I tell about the news article using the TPRS style, stopping to retell in Spanish. I repeat the story or practicing verbal exer I feel comfortable that the students are able to retell the story, including facts such as what was the boy wearing, where he went, what he wanted to buy, etc. This is one story that we do not sketch.

3. Finally, I give students an answer in Spanish and they have to form a question in SPanish using information from the story. Example: My answer - mantequilla, harina y arroz (butter, flour and rice) - Students form the question - ¿Qué comió el niño para sobrevivir? (What did the boy eat to survive?)

Sometimes this last exercises proves to be a bit challenging for the students. I know because it becomes real quiet and you can almost hear them thinking. I don't have any problem getting the students to participate, it just takes them longer and you can tell they're focused.

My new idea is to begin the story in the middle and tell the students that a little boy walks into a store to buy something. And from there, I can ask them what they think he wants to buy, what type of store it is, how is he dressed, what season is it, what does he use to try to make his purchase, and on and on. As the students guess at what may be the right answer, they'll soon realize that something is definitely wrong that a young boy walks into an alcohol store, in his pj's, in the winter, with his mother's credit card, etc. This will lead me asking more questions to lead them to the reason as to why a little boy would do this.

I don't know if that type of discussion will work better than the first idea. My thinking is that if it keeps their attention, and it's in the target language, AND they understand it, then I will have been successful in giving them the necessary reps as per CI. I could always follow it up with another story by me or by the students.

Do you have any suggestions on how to use this article? (It is such a sad article.)

Reading for in class

10 Reasons to take Spanish (@ PAHS)

Course selection time is in full swing, so why not make a video to promote reasons to take your Spanish (or other language) course? Read on...

I haven't made posts on this blog lately for several reasons. One reason is that I'm constantly working to revamp the curriculum that I use in Honors Spanish 4 and Honors Spanish 5 to include (even) more Comprehensible Input.

The second reason, I'm talking an on-line workshop on digital learning in the classroom and there are a list of tasks to complete each week to help familiarize us with the different tools available for classroom use. I've used Animoto many times in the past so I can't claim that I learned anything new about this particular tool, but I tried a new idea which was to put the presentation in a Top Ten List format.

So... this video isn't directly related to TPRS or CI (Comprehensible Input), but rather helps to explain the scarcity of posts in the last 2 weeks. Maybe I'll look into asking the Broadcasting advisor if they can show this on the Morning Show at our school to promote Spanish class.

Name Change

Some of you may have noticed that I changed the name of the blog a few weeks ago. It changed from "TPRS with Spanish I" to "TPRS with Spanish". I originally started the blog to track and share the activities I did with my pilot TPRS Spanish 1 class. Since we are on the block schedule at my school, the last day of class for the first semester was on January 20 and I no longer have a Spanish 1 class. (And I sorely miss my students in Spanish 1!).

However, I enjoyed blogging about my Spanish 1 activities and through the last few months have added activities that I do with my upper level classes. Therefore, I will continue posting on this blog, but there will not be many posts dealing specifically with a beginning class.

In my opinion, what is one of the best parts about blogging? (answer) becoming acquainted with other educators that stop in to visit my blog and leave comments and sharing ideas with them and, in turn, learning from them. Thanks for all that have shared their comments, ideas, and materials with me!

MAGIC happens when you least expect it

One thing I love about TPRS is that you never know when the students will help to spin a story that turns into MAGIC. I'm learning that many times this happens when you don't follow your plan A. Susan Gross explained to me that the story I have planned should be considered "Plan B", one that should only be used if all else fails. After she said that, I realized that the day before, I had experienced exactly that with my Spanish 3 students. Below is how I shared the story with Susan Gross last week:
I can relate to what you said about my story being plan B. That happened to me on Friday. I wanted to review le/les gustaba(n) and en vez de. But, during PQA I found out I was the only one in the classroom that had never heard of the singer "Drake". When they asked me what music I like and I said Brad Paisley, one of the students (a great guy that has a great sense of humor) said, "oh, you're country" and then made kind of a "duh" sound. And a that moment I remembered a story about a guy that goes into the town village every day. All the villagers think he's dumb so they offer him a nickel or a dime and he always picks the nickel because it's bigger. They laugh at him because they think he's stupid and the next day the same thing plays out. This continues every day. Then one day a stranger sees this take place and pulls the guy aside to tell him he should pick the smaller coin because it's actually worth more. The guy then says that he knows that, but if he picks the dime, they won't offer him the choice every day and he won't be able to pocket the 5 cents every day.

I knew that the words for city and country were coming up in the near future so I decided the "dumb" person would be from the country and he would go into the city every Wednesday. When I asked the kids who the person from the country is, of course they said "Sra. Hitz". (The previous day we had a discussion, in Spanish, about how I live on a farm and that I wake up at 4:10 a.m. every morning to feed the cows before I come to school and at times help deliver calves - yes, even to the point where my hands go where no hands should ever go in a cow. If you live on a farm you know exactly what I'm talking about.)

So, I chose actors to play the other parts, and of course I played myself, and you know what Susie?, I had a blast and the actors were awesome. The students were so focused on what was going on in the story. It was PURE MAGIC! Of course then the story was over and I laughed when I saw my "focus words" of gustar, etc on the board and someone said, "Yeah, whatever happened to the person going to the Drake concert?" and right on the heels of that comment another student said, "I like stories. I learn a lot" (or something similar).

I know I can't expect that every day, or at least not until I relax more and learn to let things play out in a natural way, but WOW, it was enough to energize me and make me want to see it happen again.

That happened last week and to my surprise, my students in my two Spanish 4 classes served up more MAGIC yesterday when we talked about the fears of some of the students. (Who would have thought that a high school student would be ok with acting like a bird?)

Be assured, this MAGIC doesn't happen every day in my classes. Admittedly, there are days when the story just falls flat and I'm left wandering what went wrong. But, just knowing that the potential for that energizing MAGIC to pop up at any time is there, makes the start of each story an interesting and unpredictable adventure.

Thanks Susan for telling me to move my Plan A to the Plan B spot and leave the door open for MAGIC to enter the classroom.

TPRS School Board Report

A few weeks ago the Assistant Superintendent asked me to talk at the January Board Meeting about TPRS (Teaching Proficiency through Reading and Storytelling). I asked my students in Spanish 1 if anyone was interested in coming to the board meeting with me to help with my presentation. The photo to the left is of the 3 students that came to the board meeting.

After the Assistant Superintendent introduced me, I turned to the 3 students and asked them to introduce themselves. Then I gave the list of vocabulary words that my Spanish 1 students had learned to a school board member and asked him to circle 8 of the words. I then handed the paper to the students, told them to write a story using at least 5 of the words, and they left the board room to write a story.

Meanwhile, I explained TPRS to the board members, gave examples of what happens during a TPRS class, shared with them the progress that I have seen the students make with this instruction, and answered their questions. At one point I went out in the hall to check if the students were ready. They said, "Almost, it's a great story, Señora." and the second time I checked on them, they were practicing reading what they wrote and said, "it's really good and we don't want you to hear it yet."

Finally, after 10 minutes or so, they were ready and they came back in the board meeting. They took turns reading, first in Spanish and then two of the students translated it to English. As they promised, it was a great story that included all the words they were given, and in a short amount of time! Needless to say, the students were a big hit and their language abilities were evident to the board members and administrators. I was so proud of them, standing in front of the board reading their story, demonstrating their Spanish language abilities, and looking relaxed because they had hours upon hours of comprehensible input to draw from, and a lot of class experience on creating stories.

I'm certain that the students' story had a bigger impact and impression on the school board members than anything I said about TPRS. Thank you María, Alejandro, y Raúl!

Their story is posted below with the 6 words they needed to include in a different color:

Hay un chico que se llama Edgardo. Edgardo vive en Hershey. Un día Edgardo va a Hersheypark, cual es un parque de diversiones. El es muy deportista porque él es en el equipo de fútbol. Él oye algo. Es un concierto en el parque de diversiones. Él va al concierto de Justin Bieber. Él canta con Justin , pero él canta mal. Las personas tratan de golpear a Edgardo con tomates. Él corre y tropieza en el suelo. Él espera a la policía y llora porque el se rompió la mano. Es muy mal porque la mano está blanca. Todas las personas están tristes.

GLOBAL PROJECT - Collaborators Wanted - Spanish or Language Learners

My Spanish classes are looking for other classes to collaborate on a VoiceThread project with them. Since our 2nd school semester doesn't start until Tuesday, January 24, I do not have the VoiceThread complete yet since the students need to give me their photos to add to the VoiceThread. Below is a sample VoiceThread of what ours will look like after it is completed - hopefully within a week of January 24.

Below are recordings in English and Spanish that explains the project. If you need additional information, please e-mail me at:

cynthia_hitz@yahoo.com
or connect with me on twitter: #sonrisadelcampo





Here is the SAMPLE VoiceThread:

I'm looking forward to hearing from other teachers and adding your class to our project. 

Bulletin Board of my students' collaboration with students in other parts of the world.

Comics in TPRS class with Bubblr

Last week I stumbled upon a message on Twitter by Shelly Terrell in which she mentioned a 5-week on-line workshop on "how to use web storytelling tools and mobile apps to motivate young learners" titled "Digital Storytelling 4 Kids". Even though I'm a secondary educator, I decided to participate to learn more on how to use digital storytelling in my classes.

This week the focus is on using Comics in the classroom. I had a list of sites for making comic strips, but never used any in class that I personally made on the computer. The comic I made this week is one made on Bubblr which uses photos from Flickr. I wanted to start a story with a comic and also have include culture.



(for larger format: Juan y el encierro by srahitz)

I choose El Encierro (the running of the bulls in Pamplona, Navarra in Spain) because:
1) who doesn't like watching the world news in July about the brave people that run with the bulls down the streets of Pamplona
2) I can embed information about the "La Fiesta del San Fermín" in the story.
3) I can include geography facts if the person begins the journey in Galicia and works his/her way toward Navarra.

In what ways do you use comics in the language classroom?