Donkey-Jote: Helping Students to Stay in the Target Language

Donkey-Jote listens for students that don't speak TL

When I attended IFLT15 in St. Paul, Minnesota, this year, one of the sessions I went to was presented by Darcy Pippins (@DarcyPippins on Twitter) on how she prepares her students for the AP test, outlining the books and curriculum starting with level 1. In her presentation (find more information about her session and others HERE), she mentioned that she uses La Rana de Vergüenza to encourage her students to stay in the TL. La Rana de Vergüenza (the frog of shame) is a stuffed animal that "hops" to a student's desk if s/he talks in English rather than in Spanish.  The frog stays on that student's desk until another student talks in English, and it then "hops" to that student's desk.  The goal for the students is to NOT have La Rana de Vergüenza on their desk as the end of the class period.

Donkey-Jote was cold :-)

I liked this strategy as soon as I heard it and planned on implementing it with my Spanish 4a & 4b* classes.  Our classes started on Monday (Aug. 24), but I hadn't mentioned the frog to my students, until the third day of class when I heard more English from my students than I cared to hear.  In the middle of class, I stood up and walked to my closet that has stuffed animals, and a variety of other handy items used in class, and started searching for a stuffed frog. I found a stuffed bird, a stuffed turkey, and then, ahhhhhh I saw him - Donkey-Jote. Donkey-Jote is a stuffed donkey (from Shrek) that I used about nine years ago for a special project when we read Don Quijote. 

I put Donkey-Jote by my chair (we sit on chairs in a circle, without desks) and explained the "rules".  The expectation in Spanish 4 (4a&4b*) is to speak in Spanish unless the student has asked for permission to speak in English.  If a student speaks in English without permission, Donkey-Jote sits on their lap or by their chair.  Donkey-Jote remains there until another student speaks in English without permission.  The student that has Donkey-Jote at the end of the class period earns a point.  After earning 3 points, the student needs to make an appointment with me during academic prep (study hall) or after school, to talk to me in Spanish for 10 minutes and at the conclusion of the 10-minute conversation, the 3 points disappear.

There are several beautiful benefits to using Donkey-Jote or La Rana de Vergüeza:
1. The students have an extra incentive to stay in the TL.
2. The students, not the teacher, are the ones listening intently for someone to slip out of the TL into English.
3. To clear the points, the student speaks with me in Spanish for 10 minutes, about whatever we choose: what's happening in the news, what's happening in school, the college the student plans to attend, the student's pet, etc, .... which is real, normal conversation in the TL.

After two days of Donkey-Jote joining our class, two different students each have 1 point. Interesting enough, I think both of the students were the first ones to talk in English and after Donkey-Jote moved to sit with them, no other students "slipped up" the rest of the class.  Small donkey - big impact.

Thank you DARCY PIPPINS! 

Update: Check out Dustin Williamson's (@dwphotoski) new addition to his class - Donkey-Jote!
  

This is Haiyun Lu's Shameful Caterpillar (see her blog post HERE for more information)
 
  



 

This is Kristy Placido's "el chavito".  He is "the tattle tale. He has been trained to sniff out use of English and alert on the person who uses it."  

FREE from Desks!

As I prepared my room for this school year there was one major difference from other years; there are no student desks in my room.  I've been teaching without student desks since January 2012, with the exception of when I shared my room with a new teacher, but the desks were still in the room, either stacked against the walls or grouped in pods in the back and sides of the room. This year I don't have to work around the student desks. They're gone!

The district office administrators and the high school principals have been in my room many times and they are accustomed to seeing the students without desks. Early last spring when I told one of the assistant superintendent that I'd prefer not to have desks in my room, he replied that due to computer labs being converted to regular classrooms, the district would soon purchase desks for those rooms.  Not necessary - my desks could be moved into those rooms. They also moved my chairs with the desks and bought new chairs for my classroom.  The general consensus from everyone that has tried them thus far is that they are more comfortable that the previous chairs.

Table for student Story and Quiz Writers

(I'm sure I've mentioned this before, but it's worth repeating...I am thankful and appreciate that I work at a school where the administration supports the world language department!)

My biggest class this semester is 28 students (30 next semester) so I made two long rows of chairs. I have three tables in my room for student use.  The table in the front (next to the balloon bulletin board), is for my student story writer and quiz writer.  The story writer will write details about the class story and the quiz writer will write true/false questions for a possible quiz.  Since their job involves writing, I thought they would appreciate using the table instead of a clip board. 

For my Spanish 4 and Spanish 5 classes that are somewhat smaller than 30 students (they're smaller this semester but next semester the numbers soar to the size of the lower levels) we will simply turn the front chairs around to face the back of the room and form a circle. I have found that almost without exception, those students prefer to sit in a circle which helps set a good tone for conversation and sharing what is happening in our lives and in the news.   

Two tables are in the back of the room, which is where students will put their backpacks during class. Backpacks on the floor increase the chance of tripping and they can also be distractions.  

I want students to form the habit of entering the room, taking out a pen or pencil, their Cuentos folder, and their composition book, and leave their backpack on the table.  They'll grab a clipboard from the crate and move to their seat.  

On days when students are illustrating stories on large butcher paper or some other type of occasional project that requires creative writing space, they can move the backpacks to the back counter and floor and use the tables for a workspace.

I'm not brave enough to remove my desk from the room.  I don't use the desk during class, but during my planning period and after school, that is where I read compositions, grade, and make parent contacts because it is next to the phone.

Today, I bought the swivel stool pictured on the left (a solid cherry stool, it was a real steal bought at a Furniture Store's tent clearance sale) which I'll take into school on Monday.  I've had my eye on my colleague's, @KristaApplegate, stool for years, and, finally, I have one for my room.  

The most important part of my room is still missing - the students!  That will change on Monday.  :-)

IFLT15 - Post 2 - Workshops

The IFLT15 conference was held on July 14-17 in St. Paul Minnesota at Tartan High School.  As I mentioned in the previous post (IFLT15 - Post 1), Carol Gaab and Grant Boulanger were the organizers of the event.  They created a schedule that provided the opportunity for participants to observe teachers in the morning, both elementary and secondary classes, as well as workshop sessions in the am and pm sessions.  In the previous post I shared what I experienced from observing the teachers, which was fantastic!  In this post, I'll share information from the sessions that I attended each day.

Opening Plenary Session
The Opening Session was conducted by Carol Gaab, Kristy Placido, Carrie Toth, and Darcy Pippins.  I was helping with registration so I didn't see the first half hour but I was there for the remainder of the session. 

Carrie Toth and Kristy Placido (@senoraCMT & @placido) shared their experiences working with KIVA and the Pulsera Project and how they extended their classroom beyond the 4 walls.  Through their projects, they connected their students to other communities in various countries and helped students to have a more global view, including raising funds to build wells in Mali. You can read about their projects on their blogs (Kristy Placido and Somewhere to Share - Carrie's blog). Carrie also talked about: how to use Twitter as an authentic resource, her Water is Life unit and connecting it to science, 

Darcy Pippins (@darcypippins) gave a brief talk on the success she has been experiencing with her AP students.  After hearing Darcy speak about her students, I made a note to attend her session later in the week to learn the steps involved from beginning levels to AP.  

(Carol Gaab spoke to the group in the Opening Session and in the Experienced Workshop after lunch.  It's been a few weeks and I don't remember which information was shared in each session so I lumped it together below.)

Carol Gaab (@carolgaab) reminded us about the importance of backward planning, how to plan a "unit" based on novels, the importance of repetitions, and the need for a variety of experiences for the students.  Some quotes from Carol (and I hope I wrote them correctly while frantically typing on my mobile device):
"Point & Speak, Pause, Repeat" - the basics
"Pacing is an Art"
"Talk to your students to find content"
"You don't have to create a story; stories are all around you"
"Timing and Repetition is Crucial"
Referring to repetitions "don't be nice, be sneaky"
"BRAINS crave NOVELTY"
"Refine, define, combine"

Carol gave a demonstration on different ways to involve students (in this case teachers), with a story about Jane and Tarzan, and demonstrated story-asking with a reading action chain. She wove an incredible amount of repetitions into the "lesson" to show us how to keep it fresh and novel for students.

Sessions: 
Due to observing extra teaching sessions and helping to coach on Wednesday and Thursday afternoon, the sessions I attended was reduced.  To get the most of my time, I chose presentations that I hadn't seen at other conferences and/or presenters that I hadn't seen before.  

Carrie Toth - iPads
- use apps to enhance the CI and storytelling
- uses Educreations with Chac Mool: students sketch pictures on regular paper, take photos with ipad and upload to Educreations
- students work in groups to write a story similar to the class story, students pose for photos, upload photos to Educreations; Carrie records the story on Educreations and plays it for the class the following day
- Popplet: make a thought web of a character from a novel
- Appsmash Feltboard & My Comics; create a scene using feltboard app, upload to MyComics app, add speech bubbles
- Puppet Pals - for review of a novel
- Thinglink: describe a character from a novel; related information
- 30 Hands - students used this for their KIVA advertisements and uploaded the video to YouTube
- Tellagami: Appsmash Tellagami and Explain Everything

Martina Bex - Culture Units
Martina (@martinabex) walked the participants through the process of creating a culture unit.  She outlined 7 steps to follow when creating a culture unit, and she paused after each step to allow participants to work in small groups to discuss and create a possible unit. Check her handout for the outline and a graphic organizer to start planning your next culture unit! Also check her website, The Comprehensible Classroom, for a goldmine of resources.

Her handouts, as well as many other handouts for IFLT15, are on TPRS Publishing, Inc. website. Click on the IFLT15 Conference tab, then click on IFLT 2015 Program.

Darcy Pippins - AP
Background on Darcy's school's language program:
- Spanish is required for grades 4 & 5
- Spanish 1 is offered in 8th grade
- AP Spanish taken in senior year (with some exceptions).  If students do not take Spanish in 8th grade, they may skip Spanish 4 and go from Spanish 3 into AP as a senior. 
- High school Spanish classes have 160 hours per level. 
It's obvious that her school district understands the value of learning a second language!

- Darcy recommended the book "Whisperer" by Donalyn Miller. This author tells how her students read 40 books and kept journals of books they read. 
- Darcy had create ways to keep her students in the target language: La Rana de Vergüenza - a stuffed frog; if a student spoke in English the frog "jumped" to that student's desk and remained there until another student accidentally spoke in English. 
- Word sneak game - see Jimmy Fallon's video of word sneak to see this demonstrated
- Cloud of Doubt - how Darcy referred to the subjunctive without using the grammatical lingo
Darcy outlined the novels that students read in each level.  They are:
Sp1: Brandon Brown quiere un perro; Las aventuras de Isabela, Esperanza, Isabela captura un congo; Piratas
Sp2: El viaje de su vida; el Nuevo Houdini, Problemas en paraíso, Felipe Alou
Sp3: Viva el toro, La herencia, Los ojos de Carmen, Vida y muerte
Sp4: La guerra sucia, La calaca alegre, Esperanza renace, Vida o muerte en el Cusco, La hija del sastre

Mike Coxon - Beyond Movie Talk
Mike (@coxon_mike) shared ways he continues providing Comprehensible Input beyond Movie Talk.  His link to his blog is Optimizing Immersion.
- "Don't forget about the R in TPRS when using Movie Talks"
- Go beyond the story by asking for the Backstory, what happens before or after the clip, have students act the parts in the video so draw out more information and conversation
- two videos he uses in class:  The Balcony Girl, Vampire's Crown, 

Those are a few of the notes I took while attending sessions.  If you want more quotes and links for resources, I suggest you check the Twitter hashtage "iflt15 and/or search for Wendy Farabaugh's twitter feed from July 14-17 (@MmeFarab) or Dustin Williamson's tweets (@dwphotoski).  Others were tweeting also and, by the end of the week, there were tweets from new Twitter accounts thanks to Kristy Placido's and Carrie Toth's lunch session on Twitter. Also, according to Martina Bex's blog, The Comprehensible Classroom, she will blogging about IFLT (and NTPRS) in the near future.

The conference ended with an inspiring and informative talk by Dr. Stephen Krashen.  Some of his remarks:
"The human mind yields helplessly to the power of a story."
"Comprehension is win-win."
"We are not against testing, we are against excessive and useless testing."
"We have school and we have the brain..which one can you change?"
"Reading is not A way to develop the highest forms of language; it is the ONLY way."
"Read for one hour/day for pleasure and your proficiency will go from intermediate low straight to the top"
and so much more - Check @MartinaBex and @mike_coxon on 7/17 for more tweets on Krashen's talk (which is the source of many of the quotes above).

Overall, GREAT conference and one I recommend to EVERYONE!

Takeaways and A-HA Moments from IFLT15 - Post 1 - Observing Teachers

This year was the first time I attended the IFLT (International Forum on Language Teaching) conference.  It is a conference for world language teachers that is attended by teachers from the United States and from many different countries throughout the world. 

First, I want to give a huge shout out to Carol Gaab and Grant Boulanger for the hours upon hours they dedicated to organizing the conference and working out all the details (registration, meals, lodging, scheduling, tech issues, Taco Bar night, etc.) to make it the fantastic conference that it was.  

IFLT15 organizers: Carol Gabb and Grant Boulanger - What a team!

For me, the priceless gem of the IFLT conference is that you can observe learning labs (language teachers working with elementary and high school students). Yes, real students that live in the school district sign up for a week of language classes.  There are extra chairs in the back of the room for IFLT participants to observe the master teachers as they teach the students. Being able to observe teachers interacting with actual school-aged students makes IFLT truly unique and a MUST for those seeking to improve their teaching skills. 

Personally, if my administration asked me to plan a Professional Development day during the school year, my first choice would be to observe other world language teachers that use CI and TPRS.  I can learn ten times more by observing another teacher than simply reading about what goes on in their classroom.  Which brings up a good point that all of us should be willing to allow other language teachers to observe in our classrooms and to invite others into our classroom to observe as we teach.  It will not only benefit the observers, but if you have the opportunity to get feedback from the observers, it will benefit you also.

Below are take-aways and a-ha moments from observing the language teachers. (There were more teachers at IFLT15 not mentioned in this blog post that I did not have the time to observe. )  

Grant Boulanger - Secondary Spanish

Grant Boulanger: Personalization Master

- Grant's first order of "business" with the students was to get to know them by talking to them in the target language, Spanish.  Grant wrote a blog post about creating a small community in your classroom (find it HERE), which is exactly what I observed in his class.

- When students slipped into English, Grant patiently and quietly pointed to a sign on the board to redirect the student to use Spanish.

- Grant had rejoinders printed on colorful papers on the board. With the rejoinders easily visible, student use of the rejoinders to react to information and the story was effortless.  
Examples:  No me lo creo (I don't believe it); Yo, ¿qué se? (What do I know?); ¡Afróntalo! (deal with it!); ¡Ojalá! (I wish);  ¡Menos mal! (thank goodness). The photo above to the right, and the one below, shows a few of the rejoinders. For more examples and order information, go to Grant's blog post HERE.

Grant Boulanger's rejoinders posters

- Constant eye contact with students, perfect pacing, comprehension checks, it was ALL there to keep it comprehensible and create a comfortable setting for students in a well managed classroom.

- Enjoy the conversation - he didn't rush anything in the student/teacher conversation.  A good example of using the language to get to know the students.

- At one point Grant asked a student to spell a word.  The student hesitated and said he didn't know how to spell it.  Grant's response was perfect - "I know you don't know the letter and that's okay. But how do you get the information from me that you need?" to which the student responded, "¿Cómo se dice (the letter the student didn't know) en español?"

- During the debrief session after the students were dismissed from the room, Grant said from the start he teaches his students that they need to keep three things in mind when giving a response:
    Appropriate TIME
    Appropriate PLACE
    Appropiate TONE

Thank you Grant for sharing your teaching skills!

Jason Fritze - Elementary Spanish
I don't teach elementary but my goal is to offer an after school program for 4th and 5th graders at my school district for a few weeks, maybe 2 sessions 2x/week for a total of 10 sessions.  Observing Jason gave me many ideas on how to make this a reality. I was so intrigued with Jason working with the elementary students and how quickly they were learning that I actually went back to observe him for the 2nd time during the week (during a time when I was scheduled to go to sessions instead of learning labs).  Working with elementary students has a different set of challenges than secondary students, but Jason worked wonders with the students and managed to use the target language easily more than 90%.

- The rule in Jason's class is that students are permitted and encouraged to blurt out answers in Spanish. The only time they may speak in English is if they raise their hand and ask permission. 

Jason Fritze - energetic, expressive, expert, electrifying, etc, etc, etc...

- Jason used speech bubbles when a character in the story talked. This provided double CI - written and verbal, plus it added interest for the students (and the observers). 

- Wiggle breaks - I call these brain breaks in the high school, but when I saw the endless energy of the elementary students, I decided the breaks Jason provided were not only to give the students' brains a break, but to allow them some time to move around.

- Backward planning was evident.  Jason choose his focus structures to align with the book he was going to read with the students at the end of the week.  Then he used those structures to ask students if they had a pet, if they wanted a pet, who didn't have a pet, etc. When he found a student that didn't have a pet, he used that information to create a story with that student as the main actor.  In the story, the student went to different people to ask for a dog. This is where he used the speech bubbles for the conversation between the actors.

- One student did a nice job acting but when it came to speaking or "crying", the student was hesitant.  Jason used this opportunity to pull another student into the story to be the voice of the actor.  Eventually, the actor felt more comfortable and the voice student was thanked and returned to his seat.

Jason Fritze - Indoor Piñata Fiesta

- Jason told the students that if they were able to do all the things he had planned, then they could celebrate with a piñata fiesta.  Jason prepared the students for the piñata party with two videos - one was animated and the other was an authentic video of children at a party hitting a piñata. He used the MovieTalk method to cycle target words related to the piñata.  He introduced a song, focusing on the chorus to keep the words inbounds. Before the students left the class for the piñata party, he explained how they were going to hit the piñata and his expectations - all in Spanish, of course, and with comprehensible language to the students.  

Two days was not enough observation time for me. Jason is energetic, expressive, entertaining, expert, etc - the list goes on and on. I truly wanted to watch his magical teaching for a few more days and to see how the students progressed from day to day!

Linda Li - Secondary Chinese

The One and Only LINDA LI

I didn't have to observe Linda to know she is a master. When I was first learning TPRS methods, I was a student in her class at NTPRS.  If...you are someone that thinks learning Chinese is difficult, you will change your mind after being a student in her class.  That's how talented she is. You don't learn Chinese, you acquire it. What a treat to observe her again!

- Linda creates conversation or, better said, finds the conversation, from what is happening in her class.  Several (adult) students had their morning coffee cups with them and Linda was able to keep a conversation flowing related to coffee. 

- Posters of the target language in red and English meanings in black are abundant in her room.  She used a laser pointer to point out a word if a student hesitated on the answer.

- She used TPR throughout the lesson to move students from one place in the room to another.

-  Recycle, recycle, recycle words.  

Seriously, if you ever have the chance to observe Linda Li, don't let it pass you by. Move heaven and earth to get to her classroom and then sit back and watch a true master.

Karen Rowan - Elementary Spanish
At the end of the week, I cut short observation of one learning lab in order to get a glimpse of Karen's class. She was reading Las aventuras de Isabela with the students, but not only reading...she had student actors to act while she read with the students.   

Karen Rowan - Reader Theater Director Extraordinaire

- Biggest take-away - Teachers may need to coach the actors!!! If the actors aren't doing what you want them to do, coach them, model it for them, get in on the action and demonstrate exactly what you want the students to do.  It increases student interest to see the teacher also acting out the scene and Karen was able to sneak in a LOT of additional repetitions of key structures and vocabulary.

- She involved the whole class in acting following the above activity.  She put students in groups of 3, assigned each a role, and re-"read" the portion of the text for them to act as she read.  She moved throughout the class encouraging and modeling the actions and applauding those students that were already "experts" in their acting skills.  

Karen Rowan has started to offer webinars (example: on Reader's Theater).  Everyone now has the opportunity to benefit from her years of experience of teaching with CI (to school-aged students and to adults in Fluency Fast classes) by attending her webinars or watching them after they are recorded.  Additional information on Fluency Fast classes, free sources, books for class, and other useful resources are available HERE.  

Thanks Karen!     

IFLT16 is 11 months away, which means you have 11 months to make arrangements to attend. Better yet, 11 months to tell your colleagues about IFLT16 and provide meaningful Professional Development for the whole department!

If I recall correctly, Carol Gaab announces the location and dates of IFLT sometime at the beginning of the new year (if not sooner).  Check her website TPRS Publishing (HERE) to find more information. You can also find her on twitter @CarolGaab.

Zihuatanejo, Mexico & "El Pescador y el Hombre de Negocios"

Fisherman in Zihuatanejo, Mexico

When you are on vacation do you find yourself making connections to your travel experiences and the classes you will teach in your upcoming school year? I do this often and even more so when I happen to be in a Spanish country.

Earlier this month my travels took me to Ixtapa, Mexico. The neighboring town is Zihuatanejo and each evening the coastal waters are dotted with lights from fishing boats.  In the morning, the fishermen take their catches to the fish market in Zihuatanejo. See the beautiful pictures of this market shared at THIS website.

My husband and I took a tour of the area and we arrived at the fish market around 11:00 in the morning.  Unfortunately, there were only a few fishermen remaining at the market selling fish.  Our guide told us that the fishermen come to the fish market early in the morning with the fish they caught the previous night or earlier in the morning, display their catch on blankets, and the townspeople come to the market to buy fresh fish for the day.  He said by 11:00, most of the fisherman had sold their fish and had left for the day.

My first thought was "What are they going to do the rest of the day?" and that's

when the story, "El Pescador y el Hombre de Negocios" popped into my mind.  Obviously, I don't know what each of the fishermen had scheduled for the day, but it is possible that they were home with plans to enjoy the rest of the day with family and friends, as in the story.

I read El Pescador y el Hombre de Negocios with my Spanish students to show the contrast in values: the fisherman understands the spending time with family and friends, whereas the businessman is focused on ways to grow a business and make more money.  When reading the story with my students, I had always related to the fisherman, but was surprised to find that when I was at the market my initial thoughts were more aligned with the businessman in the story.  Wow. That stopped me in my tracks and made me reflect on a few things.

I also realized that I needed to make some changes in how I introduce and use the story in class.  In the past, we read the story first and discussed it afterwards.  The next time we read it in class, I'll begin with my picture of the fisherman and the pictures on the slideshow from the above link, describe the fish market in Zihuatanejo, Mexico, and then ask the students to brainstorm ideas on what the fisherman does the rest of the day, and see where the discussion takes us. I'm interested to see if the class discussion will naturally bring out the two differing views, (the fisherman and businessman) before the students even read the story.

There are several versions of the story, some take place in Mexico, India, Costa Rica, and other places around the world.  You can find the story that mentions Mexico HERE.        

Bulletin Board Celebrating Seniors

In May, for my last bulletin board display of the school year, I created a bulleting board that would celebrate the seniors in my Spanish 4 and 5 classes.   The seniors provided me with a photo of themselves and then they completed the information on the kite of their names, their highest level of Spanish at PHS, the college to which they are going, and their intended field of study at college. 

It was a way to honor the seniors before they graduated and to showcase to other students in the school the amount of semesters each the seniors were enrolled in Spanish classes. 

It may be hard to see in the photo, but the two figures at the bottom of the bulletin board have just released the strings of the kites, symbolizing that they are moving on from high school to the next adventure in life.  The two figures represent the Spanish 3 teacher and myself because all the seniors had both her and I as their Spanish teacher this year or in the previous year.

La Silla Especial - Interviewing Students

There is an activity I've done in the past with my students called  "La Silla Especial" in which I've "interviewed" them in front of the class in Spanish in an effort for the students to learn more about their classmates and to provide comprehensible input.  This idea comes from Bryce Hedstrom's  "La Persona Especial".  You can find an explanation and information on the activity HERE and a poster of the questions and additional information HERE. If you need the questions in French or Japanese, check Bryce's website for these resources.

This year, after the interview, the students wrote information about the interviewee on the board and I took a photo of the person surrounded by the information.   Then I printed the photo, glued it to orange or yellow paper, and displayed it on the side whiteboard. We started "La Silla Especial" early in the semester, and continued it either as part of the planned lesson or when there was extra time at the end of the lesson.  Hands down, it was one of the students' favorite activities.

We call it "La Silla Especial" because the students sat on a swivel chair, but I may change it to "La Persona Especial" as Bryce calls it because the focus is on the student and not the "silla".

The Telephone Game

When I was little, I used to play a game called "Whisper down the lane".  Everyone sat in a line. One person whispered a sentence into the ear of the person next to him.  The next person listened to what was said and then repeated it to the next person in line. When the last person has heard the sentence, he shares it with the group to see how much it has changed.

For several years, I've been doing an activity similar to this with my Spanish 4 classes.  My students always call it the Telephone Game. This year I tweaked the activity and made it suitable for level 2 also.  The two versions are listed below.

It's best to do this activity where you have a lot of space because you don't want students to hear others not on their team. That makes it an ideal outdoors activity.  

1. Write a story in your TL that has a lot of details.  HERE is the story I wrote in the morning the day of the activity. I used this as an oopportunity to recycle structures and vocabulary that I taught throughout the school term. Write questions about the information in the story.

2.  Divide the class into teams of 3 or 4.  It works best if all teams are equal.  If the numbers aren't equal, you can recruit the extra students to serve as "eavesdroppers" (they listen to the students to make sure they are speaking in the TL).

3.  Everyone will need a writing utensil.  When we go outside, each student takes a clipboard and a pencil with them.   

4.  The teams should each form a line, with a lot of space between the first person in line and the second person, between the second person and the third, etc.

5.  The teacher tells (reads if necessary but be sure to "tell" the story and add emotion) the story to the first member of each team.  They should listen well because they will be in charge of retelling it to the next person in line.

6.   After you, the teacher, have told them the complete story, they walk to the #2 person of their team and the 1st student tells the story to the 2nd student on their team.

7. After the 2nd student has heard the story, student 2 walks to student 3 and tells her the story.  While student 2 is telling the story to student 3, the teacher should hand a paper with questions about the story to student 1. 

8. When student 3 has heard the story, she tells it to student 4.  Student 2 then has time to complete the questions about the story.

9. After student 3 is finished telling the story to student 4, hand each of them a paper with questions for them to answer.  

When all the papers are completed, redistribute them to grade.  The team with the most correct answers is the winner.

2nd version
 This is the version I used with Spanish 2.  

1. Students form groups of 3.  
2. Tell the exact same story that you used for a higher level BUT this time ALL the students listen as you tell the story.  
3. Hand 1 question paper to each team to complete after you tell the story.
4. The team with the most points wins.

Another variation is to have the students work in groups of 3 but only 2 students from each team listen to the first version.  Those two students work together to retell the story to the 3rd student on their team that didn't hear the original version.

Two years ago I had 3 stories that weren't quite as long as the one linked above, but, of course, they are temporarily missing.  

Suggestion: If you are doing the activity in the first version, tell the students that the person that feels most comfortable with listening activities and retelling should be the first or second student.  If the first few students miss information, the rest of their team will miss out on more points.

I demonstrated this to my Spanish 4 class by having 6 students go out to the hall while I told the story.  Two students in the class then had to tell the story to 2 students that were in the hall.  Then 2 more students came into the class that were in the hall and listened to the story from the students that listened to my version, etc.  The students enjoyed listening to how the information was not communicated correctly, or not communicated at all!

The students enjoyed this again this year. They enjoyed it so much that I'll be writing new stories to use for another time before school ends.