Story Listening: You may already be doing this!

In the last few months, there has been a lot of discussions on social media about Story Listening. Teachers that are using the Storytelling method (aka Storyasking*) in their classrooms, are discovering that Story Listening can be an effective tool in second language acquisition and are sharing their experiences with others on Facebook, on YouTube, and on Twitter.

Many teachers are now asking each other, "What is Story Listening?" and want to learn about it so they can experiment with it in their classrooms. They want to try something new, but...wait.., is it new? It could be new for you, but I believe that many teachers are already doing "story listening" in their classrooms but haven't labeled it as such.

Do you use felt boards and felt objects/characters to tell stories? That falls under the category of story listening.  I love Stephanie Campbell's book "Cuentos de Ensalada" and my students enjoy listening to the stories about the characters in the story.  Who wouldn't like listening to a story that involves scenes such as shown in the pictures below?



(check THIS BLOG POST from 2011 and later ones in 2012 to find out more about S. Campbell's cool story!)

So, you may already be doing "story listening".

Below are two additional examples of "Story Listening", even if you don't specifically call it that.

1. Retelling events from a newspaper article is one form of "story listening"

In February 2012, I wrote a blog post about using the news article (pictured on the right) with my Spanish students. (The post is linked HERE.)
It is a sad short news article about an 8-year old boy that survived for over a week after his mother died. When I read it, I knew it was an article that I could use in class to tell to my students and to introduce and reinforce vocabulary and structures.  It keeps the students' attention because they want to know why the boy was living with the cadaver of his mother and how he survived.

Sharing articles (or "stories") from newspapers, is likely something that many world language teachers do now, or have done in the past.  That, my friends, is one form of storytelling.  You are not asking the students to create the details, you are not asking them to act it out, and you're not asking them to finish the story. You're simply telling them the information in language that they can understand.

I've been telling this story to my Spanish 4 as a first week activity even before I wrote the blog post in 2012. Without fail, it keeps the students attention. If you are doing something similar with news articles, you are not completely new to "story listening". 

2. Sharing past personal experiences is a form of "story listening"
 
Hasn't every world language teacher at one point shared a past experience with their students, in the target language, using vocabulary that is comprehensible at their level, introducing a few new words as needed throughout the story?  When I discuss "fears" with my students, I always tell them about one particular trip to Washington DC with my family. We visited the normal site-seeing spots in the city, and then took the metro to one area on the outskirts of the city. We did not know before planning our destination that the area was considered less safe. We ascended the staircase out of the metro station and things definitely looked different than other areas of the city. I was with my husband, and three young children, one which was in a stroller.  Almost immediately after we headed toward our destination, a motorist pulled up next to us, rolled down the window, and asked where we were going and then cautioned us that it was not a safe neighborhood. Students listen intently to that story because they want to know what happened next: did we continue or head straight back to the metro?

Sharing your experiences is sharing your stories. Since you are not asking them to add details, it falls in the category of "story listening". Teachers have been using stories in class for years. 



Not everything about story listening is new, and there are a lot of similarities to story listening and story telling: you need to use language appropriate for the level; you need to make yourself comprehensible throughout the story by drawing, actions, or writing the word on the board with it's translation when necessary; and it has to be interesting to the students.  There's not any language acquisition happening with students that are tuned out.

Thankfully, there are a growing number of teachers that are helping to guide others in how to use story listening with their students. They are gracious enough to give us a peek into their classroom by recording themselves telling a story to their students.  Ask to join the group CI Liftoff on Facebook for a wealth of information and great discussions.

One thing I really like about the newly-labeled "story listening" is that it encourages the use of legends and tales from countries throughout the world. It has been my experience that if I tell a legend to the students before we read the legend, the students encounter less problems when reading the legend, especially if it is an authentic resource. When I tell the legend beforehand, I am able to introduce the new vocabulary, the plot and the characters in language I'm sure the students understand. With that pre-knowledge, the students are more prepared to delve into reading the authentic resource.

I love that the community of world language teachers are eager and willing to work towards improving instruction with the goal of helping our students to improve their proficiency of the language.  Thank you to all those that are fine tuning story listening and the skills needed in order to best provide comprehensible input for our students! I plan to continue reading and learn from what you share.  :-)

*Note for clarification: Traditionally, when people talk about TPRS the "S" stands for Storytelling BUT...by that they actually mean storyasking. (In fact a few years ago some teachers were saying it should be called storyasking instead of storytelling.) In TPRS the teachers ASK for information from the students, and therefore the students help create or build the story.
Storytelling, as I use it in this post, is telling a story, not asking as story as in TPRS. As in the examples above, Cuentos de Ensalada, sharing personal stories, telling the students about a news article, that is not the same as TPRS. Keep in mind the terminology may not be what you are accustomed to and when I mention Storytelling, it is telling information and not asking for information.  
 

Semester Goals for Story-Asking

There are teachers that are incredibly talented at story-asking. Susie Gross, Jason Fritze, and Carol Gaab have mastered this art form. They make it look easy, which is a sure sign that they're extremely talented or they've been kissed by the storytelling gods. But, I imagine they have honed their skills and grew into the great storyteller or "story-asker" that they are over time, from practice, from observing others, and from reflecting on the successes and failures of their past lessons. 

I have come a long way from when I first started using stories in class, but I see the road ahead, and the final destination isn't even in sight yet.  

Therefore, this semester, more than ever before, I am working on improving my story-asking skills with TPRS in my Spanish 2 classes. Some of the specific goals I set for myself are: 

1. Golden rule: GO  S---L---O---W, including Point and Pause
This sounds like an easy rule to follow, but don't be deceived.  Students need time to process what is being said. Their minds are working on grasping how the words sound, what the words mean, and how they are used in sentences. That's a lot of processing going on! Don't bother trying to rush through, it will not end well if you do. Slow down, both your speech, and the progression of the story. The fun and excitement is IN the story, not at the end of the story.

Confession: Often, I make the mistake of moving the story along too quickly because I fear that the students will become bored. When I am tempted to move too quickly, I need to remind myself how I feel every time I observe Linda Li teach Chinese: I need a lot of processing time and I appreciate it when she goes slowly and points to the structures on the board.
 
2. Provide endless repetitions of the 3 (or less) structures during story-asking
If I want students to acquire the language, I need to provide a large number of repetitions of the structures and, the more compelling it is, the better the chances that students will be so focused on the story they forget it is in Spanish. 

At times, I have assigned students to keep a tally of the number of times I use the structures in a story because I wanted to know how many times I used the word/s. The tally marks help me realize that I repeated the structures far less times than what I thought I had. 


3. Limit the information in the basic storyline; add additional facts after the story is established for additional reps
This one is not easy for me. I am always tempted to add too many details to the story. I have to discipline myself to stick to the basic story, and provide the reps of the structures without providing too many details that end up distracting from the new structures. Keep it simple, and leave the option open to go back and add more details if the student interest is high. 
 
4. Interview characters during the story
This.Is.Powerful! When creating a story with students, make a statement about what the main character does, or where is he, or how he feels, and then...This.Is.Powerful...turn to the character and ask him information about the statement. For example: "Clase, Hayden está en el hotel en Las Vegas"; then turn to Hayden and ask "Hayden, ¿dónde estás?".  Hayden will then respond, "Estoy en el hotel en Las Vegas." In this way, students hear his response in 1st person singular, as well as 2nd personal singular in my question, and it gives the student actor, in this case, Hayden, a great deal of opportunities to use that form and become comfortable with it. If the student hesitates, I write the correct response on the board for him, so both he and class can easily see it and refer to it. I want the student actors to feel comfortable and it's perfectly acceptable to write the structures on the board to help keep them at ease. 
 
5. Hold students accountable for their "50%" by expecting verbal responses such as: oohhh, aahhh, Oh-No, etc, and answering questions throughout the story
This takes energy and discipline on my part. I need to be diligent about expecting students to be active participants in the story process. When students realize that this is an non-negotiable expectation, they understand that their 50% is just as important as my 50%. 

Confession: Sometimes, when students don't verbally respond to a statement or when I get minimal response from students to a question, I want to accept it and move on and conserve my energy for the rest of the story. However, when I insist on their response, and they verbally respond to a statement or question, those responses actually energize me and add energy to the room. 
    

6. Eliminate distractions for students
Cell phones are distractions. 
A student calling out in English is a distraction.
A student mouthing something to another student across the room is a distraction.
Anything that steals the attention of the student needs to be dealt with gently but swiftly so all students are in a position to receive the input and process it. 


7. Teach to the Eyes
In the last three weeks, I've made much needed progress on this one and I've seen the difference it makes during the story. Consistency - that's my goal for this one.  

There are more goals, but Rome wasn't conquered in one day, right? ;-)

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/">

Spanish Stories with the Subjunctive

Story-asking with students is beneficial for students in ALL levels. When students help create the details in a story, they become invested in the story and are active listeners and participants.

Es probable que la Sra. Hitz hornee galletas para nosotros.

I wanted to involve my students in creating a story with me that pulled them into the story development and was packed with examples of the subjunctive. The steps for the storyline and following activity is described below.

1. I started with a story plot from *Bryce Hedstrom (see below for info): Person A has two friends; 1 friend wants Person A to go with her to one place and the 2nd friend wants Person A to go with him to a different place. This creates the subjunctive phrase:  "Ana quiere que Marcos vaya a la playa con ella" (Ana wants Marcos to go to the beach with her - Ana wants that Marcos goes to the beach with her).

2. For the story, I asked which student in the class had a problem (but didn't tell them the storyline yet). After we found the student for the "person A" role mentioned above, we decided which two students wanted Person A to go somewhere with him/her and to where s/he wanted to go with Person A.
(For this example, Person A will be Colin, and the two friends will be Isaac and Megan.)

3. Colin needed to decide if he wanted to go away with Isaac or with Megan.  In order to do that, Colin (the character in the story) needed to think of the pros and cons (ventajas=advantages, desventajas=disadvantages) to going away with each of the two friends.

4. The students gave me ideas and suggestions for the pros and cons of the student going with Isaac or with Megan. Each sentence started with "Es posible que" or "Es probable que", which requires the speaker to end the sentence with the subjunctive.
Ex:  
Las ventajas de ir a Disney World con Isaac:
(a) Es probable que ellos se diviertan mucho en los parques de atracciones.
(b) Es posible que Isaac tenga dos "quick passes" y no necesiten esperar en las lineas largas en los parques.

Las desventajas de ir a Disney World con Isaac:
(a) Es posible que haya muchas personas en el parque.
(b) Es probable que la comida en los parques cueste mucho.

5. Students then suggested ideas for the pros and cons for going away with Megan.

6. In our class story, the students voted with which person and to which destination Colin decided to go. 

7. That evening I typed the story and distributed it the next day in class. We read the story together. I, or a student, read a paragraph in Spanish, and then I chose another student to read the same paragraph in English. This helped to ensure that ALL students understood the story completely.

8. I randomly put the students in groups of 3. Each group had to create their own story, following the format from yesterday's story (which they had the copy).  They wrote the introduction and then the pros and cons.

9.Then each group had to illustrate the pros and cons by sketching a person thinking with two thought bubbles. (For each student story there would be 4 sketches with 2 thought bubbles each.)

10. I put the sketches on the board, or for the Spanish 4+ the students drew directly on the board. A student put a letter on each sketch. Then I read the introduction and the pros and cons and students wrote or said which picture matched the pros or cons.

This activity provided a great deal of repetitions of the subjunctive used in context: creating a class story, reading the class story; creating a group story; sketching the group story; listening to the group story and identifying which sketch belonged to the story.

 *The initial part of this storyline is from Bryce Hedstrom's ebook "Expressing Desire: Teaching the Subjunctive #1" in which Bryce explains how to teach the subjunctive with stories. You absolutely must check out Bryce Hedstrom's website for a long list of FREE Spanish stories and resources for language teachers, as well as resources that are reasonably priced.   

EJEMPLO: 

Las ventajas de ir al prom con (name)

  1. Es posible que la chica compre cosas en Gucci para llevar al prom.

2. Es posible que la chica lleva un vestido de muchos colores. 


Update on 1/11/16:  Arianne (@dowd124 on Twitter) shared the following photos that her students made when they used the above story format.  Thanks for sharing Arianne!!!

 

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.

10 Uses for Revista Literal: A FREE Spanish Resource

If you're a Spanish teacher and you haven't heard about Revista Literal yet, then I'm here to introduce you to this incredible resource.  Revista Literal is the brainchild of Martina Bex, a language curriculum specialist and also the founder of The Comprehensible Classroom, the SOMOS curriculum, Garbanzo language website, and creator/writer of endless resources on TeachersPayTeachers (not to mention a national presenter and keynote speaker.  I stated above, it is a FREE resource. According to the Revista Literal website, "Revista Literal is a monthly publication for beginning Spanish language learners written by Spanish language learners. Each month, readers submit short, original stories for publication." 

After students submit their stories, Martina invites native Spanish speakers to proof the stories and then she adds glossaries for the stories and volunteers add the English translations to the glossaries. After the stories are proofed and have glossaries, Martina places the stories in an online format, creates a title page listing the stories for the month, and adds graphics to the stories. She credits the writers of the stories using the students' first name and town and state, and credits the volunteer proofers and glossary writers. Then she publishes the stories online as a free resource for Spanish teachers. 

Then, voila, you have a free resource that comes to you each month to use with your students. Some of the stories are written in the present tense and others in the past.

Here are 10 ways to add the stories to your lesson plans.

1. Partner Reading. Students pair up with a partner and read the stories to each other for X number of minutes. This even works for your novice readers because of those beautiful glossaries for each story.

2. Extra Reading Resources. If you have students or parents asking what is available for a student that is struggling, or on the other end of the spectrum, a student that wants to continue learning beyond the classroom, tell them about Revista Literal. I download the resource (yes, you can download it if you prefer to read it on paper) and add it to our learning managagement system so it is always available to students.

3. Bell-ringer. Project a story from Revista Literal and ask comprehension questions for students to answer. Last week I projected the story "EL LABORATORIO" and alongside where it was projected I wrote the following questions for my Spanish 1 students to answer in English.

ANSWER IN ENGLISH:
1. Write 2 descriptions for Dave.
2. Write 3 facts about his job.
3. List 4 things about Karen.

Although I only asked for 2 descriptions for Dave, when I went over the answers with the class and a student responded with 2 of the descriptions, I asked what other descriptions were mentioned. I did the same with #2 and #2, Then we read the end of the story together.

4. Sub Plans! Use your imagination on how you can make your life easier when you need to be absent from work. Revista Literal will continue to provide comprehensible input to your students during your absence.

5. Running Dictation. Read Martina's explanation of Running Dictation here. If you want to put a new spin onto running dictation, use an online crossword puzzle creator and make a crossword puzzle of information from the story. You'll get double-whammy of reading out of the story because students read the story from Revista Literal (in the hall or wherever you have it posted) and then have to read the crossword clues at their "home base" in the classroom. 

6. Chronological Order. Pull some sentences out of the story that can easily conform to a timeline and have the students predict the order of the story. Obviously, do not read the story with the students before this. If you want to do this as a group, show (tape to the board) 2 of the sentences and ask students which one is first in the story, then add another sentence and students decide the placement of the third sentence. Add another and continue; students can change the order as new sentences are added and the story order becomes clearer (or they think it becomes clearer). 

7. Find It. Project the story, read it together with the students, then play Find It with flyswatters as explained here. 

8. Mosaic Story(a). Do this before reading the stories with the students. Pull sentences from 3 different stories from Revista Literal and list the sentences on one paper in random order. Write a brief description of each of the stories (brief!-brief!-brief!) in English (don't mention any of the characters in the story by their name in the story), and the students' task is to determine which sentences go with which story.

9. Mosaic Story (b). Again, do not read the story with the students before completing this task. Pull sentences from several stories and have the students create a story using the sentences. You could tell students they can omit X number of sentences and/or you can tell students to add sentences to make the story flow. The Mosaic Story (b) activity will provide your novice high and intermediate students an opportunity to create with the language.

10. Go crazy! Students use any sentences from the entire monthly issue to create a short story. Limit the students to 10 sentences or whatever number works best for you. Come to think of it, THIS would be a good emergency sub plan to have available when you need it. 

Obviously, since Revista Literal has stories, there are a boatload of possibilities. 

Thank you Martina for making teaching a bit easier.  ❤️

How to use OCTOPUS (pulpo) in a Story

My focus when I started this blog was using TPRS with my Spanish 1 class. I knew that upper levels also benefit from TPRS, but I thought it was more useful for the lower levels. However, I found out differently this week when I recycled a story I used in Spanish 1 with my Spanish 4 class. The success of the story proved to me that ALL students, even in those in levels 3 and 4, will learn much better with comprehensible input.

On Wednesday, after reading about embedded stories on Michele Whaley's website, I realized that lately when I write stories for class, I wasn't leaving enough freedom for the students to choose the direction of the story. So, I chose the focus words gana, pierde, manda; asked questions using the new vocabulary, and for Spanish 1 I started with the following skeleton of a story:

1. There is a (boy or girl).

2. S/he needs money.

3. S/he writes to Who Wants to be a Millionaire.

4. S/he writes to Minute to Win it.

5. S/he writes to Fear Factor.

6. S/he ____.

For statement #1, I asked: Is it a boy or girl? What is his/her name? Where does s/he live?, hobbies, friends, etc.

#2 - Why does s/he need money? + more questions

#3 - Is s/he accepted on the show? Does s/he go to the show? if no, why not? If yes, how does s/he go to the show? Does s/he go alone? How long did it take to go to the show? How does s/he feel? Does she win or lose?

#4 & #5 are similar to #3.

#6 What does s/he do after the game? How does s/he feel?

The students helped develop the story with their suggestions. At statement #5, I was prepared with a surprise for the student that was playing the role of the main character in the story. The task the character had to do on Fear Factor was to eat Octopus, which I bought at the supermarket and was, coincidentally, from Spain! I asked the student playing the role if she wanted to eat the octopus to "win the money" in the story. Her response was "Ewwww", which became part of the story of course. (I explain how Spanish 4 benefited from the student NOT eating the octopus later.)

The following day, the students worked in triads and received a packet of papers with the following photos: a large home in Ireland (the girl in the story needs money because she wants to buy a house in Ireland); the logos for the 3 game shows, a blank sheet of paper, and a pack of Post-It notes. The students wrote 1 sentence per Post-It note about the events in the story, sticking the notes on the page to which it related. On the blank sheet, they wrote the end of the story. When finished, the groups switched their packets with another group and read the story in English to their group. (Another task is to have them remove the Post-It notes before they exchange with another group, give the notes and the photos to another group, and that group has to put the notes on the correct sheet.)

Now...onto Spanish 4 and the octopus. Since Spanish 1 did not make use of the canned octopus, I decided to recycle the story for Spanish 4, but to use more advanced grammar and additional vocabulary. Their story went in a totally different direction; their character wrote 3 letters but one was to a famous person asking for help. I was even able to weave in some cultural facts about Barcelona and El Parque Güell (another teaching moment!). When we came to the 3rd task on Fear Factory, they suggested that "Juan" eat something. That was when I pulled out the octopus and this time the student in the role said yes, much to the delight of the other students. I popped open the lid and 'whew....', canned octopus has quite a strong smell. "Juan" tried it but didn't swallow it - which of course meant he didn't win the money in

the class story.

Others wanted to try the octopus so I obliged. In fact, I even ate some octopus for the first time. I can assure you my students will not forget that "pulpo" means "octopus". As they retold the story, I noticed significant improvement on their use of the different tenses and their overall grammar - sound evidence that TPRS helps even level 4.

Here is the story from Spanish 1:

iPads and Sketches in Spanish

Student sketches of Class Story

Last year I wrote a grant for an iPad because I wanted to use a digital storytelling app on the iPad to record the stories for my Spanish 1 students.  The problem last year was that when I received the iPad, I didn't have any Spanish 1 classes that semester.  Therefore I had even one more reason to look forward to teaching Spanish I this fall.

I have been asking/telling stories with my Spanish 1 classes since the 5th day of class.  Today in the last class of the day, I had planned to use the iPad to record a story.  These are the steps of today's lesson.

1. I asked the students to raise their hand if they could draw well.  Three hands shot up so I sent them to the board to "try-out" for the artist job today. (The applying for a class "job" idea came from Ben Slavic at NTPRS this summer.)  One girl was doing a beautiful job but taking a long time to sketch; the boy was looking at the other two girls to see what they were drawing; and the second girl, who got the job for today, drew a recognizable sketch in a few short seconds.  When I told her that she was in charge of making the sketches on my iPad, she was even more willing to help out.

2. I had a basic idea for the story with the focus words: trabaja, es perezoso/es perezosa; and el jefe/la jefa.  I "asked" the story with the students contributing to the actions and places in the story, circled each new sentence, and chose several actors to play the parts of the characters in the story.

3.  My artist helper sketched the story as it was being developed using the Educreations App.

4.  After the story was completed, I put the students in groups of 4.  Each group got 5 mini white boards and had to sketch 5 scenes from the story.  

5.  The groups presented their story in front of the class.  They needed to say at least one sentence to narrate each white board. They were permitted to write their sentences on a paper and use it during the presentation, but only 1 group chose to use a paper during the presentation.  (I'm sure that had a lot to do with the fact that I had circled the sentences and structures so many times when creating the story.)

6.  While the students were sketching and planning their mini presentation in #4 above, I typed the story.  After the presentations, I projected their story on the board.  I read it in Spanish and they read it in English in unison.  We also read a similar story that a morning Spanish 1 class had created to give the students additional repetitions of the vocabulary and structures.

7.  After the students left, I used the sketches that my student made and recorded the story on the Educreations App.  (It's embedded below.  Keep in mind that I have to speak slower at this stage of their learning.)

8.  Every day after school, I post a summary of that day's class activities and upload any documents that I distributed in class and attach any links to websites we visited.  I embedded the Educreations story so both classes are able to access it 24/7.

I was glad to finally use the iPad for its original purpose and hope to continue recording stories throughout the semester.  I want to post the collection somewhere online for my students and the students in the other Spanish 1 classes at my school.  If you have any suggestions on a good site to post them, please send comment below or send me a Tweet on Twitter @sonrisadelcampo.

 

Flatline - Bad news during story-asking

In teaching, there's not much that takes the wind out of my sails more than when I tell a story with my students and it falls flat. Completely flat, with no chance of reviving it. Unfortunately, that is exactly what happened today. I planned a story, I had the targeted structures for the story, but the story started sluggish and went downhill from there. It was a failed attempt, no beating around the bush, I'll call it for what it was.

If this has happened to you, you know the feeling. I could actually hear an echo inside my head saying, "abort, abort, move on", but as strange as it may sound, aborting a story that is flatlining and moving onto something new, can be even more scarier than forging ahead with a deadbeat story. (By the way, Why is it called deadbeat? If it's dead, there isn't a beat, right?)

Well, there was no life in the story, and hoping it would revive was a utter waste of my time. Wishful thinking, but no chance of revival. The clear signs were:

Glazed eyes.

Slowed pulse. 

Contagious yawns.

Glances at the clock.

(That's describing the students, by the way, not me, or at least I hope it didn't describe me.)

It was the last period of the day, so after students left, my first instinct was to talk to my trusty colleague for some feedback, but unfortunately she had another commitment at the end of the day. So tomorrow, I will try again. I'll review the basics of story-asking and look for the missing link, and hopefully, this situation doesn't repeat itself tomorrow.

We all have an bad day, an off day, a day where striving to provide the "compelling" in Compelling Comprehensible Input feels way out of reach. I'm going to view this as evidence that there is a lot of room for growth and learning on my part. And that may explain the expression "growing pains", it's a it of a painful experience.

PTS - Post Thanksgiving Slump

Are you one of those teachers that as soon as ACTFL ends you look at where next year's ACTFL will take place and pencil in the dates on your calendar, hoping that you will return the following year? If so, you know the high feeling of being at the conference, attending powerful sessions, collecting ideas to add to your lessons and teaching strategies, listening to and participating in discussions on second language acquisition, connecting with friends, meeting people you've only met before online, buying new novels for your SSR library, and a host of other memorable situations (such as waiting in a line that stretches down the street and then funnels out to 8 lines of a dozen+ deep of people, elbow to elbow, in order to buy some renowned pastries from Mike's pastries). 

long lines at Mike's Pastries, Boston, MA

At my school, returning from ACTFL is followed by a day or two of in-service, then Thanksgiving vacation, black Friday, weekend festivities, and our last free day at home to enjoy Cyber Monday. Then Tuesday rolls around and school is back in session and I'm armed with ideas to improve my teaching and how to help the students soar to heights never imagined.


Then - whoosh, reality hits and the big dreams and expectations deflate in no time flat. What? How can this be? What happened here? Who stopped the music? 

Ohhh, I've seen this before. I know what this is. It's the nasty Post Thanksgiving Slump. If you don't know what I'm referring to, knock on wood, you may very well be in the minority or there must be some strong fairy dust blanketing your classroom. 

If you DO know what I'm talking about, then you may be experiencing the same type of week that other teachers have mentioned in different online forums that I've been reading lately.  

I received an email from a friend yesterday in which she shared about her frustrating day. A big part of her frustrations, and mine after one of my classes in particular today, is the attention, or lack of attention and motivation, from the students. I contribute it to the combination of coming off a long Thanksgiving break (our students had 10 days without school) and looking forward to the Christmas season and other holiday events.  To students, school is the only thing standing between them and another long break. The memories from the previous break rush through their heads and clash with the hopes and plans they have for upcoming break, and this all happens while they're sitting in your classroom. That's exhausting, and then we, world language teachers, expect them to be active participants in class. 

It is what it is. (I actually strongly dislike that expression).

Anyway, after thinking about my friend's email last evening, I decided that my students could use a boost also. I put my current lesson plans on hold and decided to enjoy storytelling, (notice I did not say story-asking), with Jack and the Beanstalk with my Spanish 2 students. The idea was to provide them with solid Comprehensible Input in describing the characters, where they lived, a description of their house and their few possessions, how they felt, etc. 

Before class started, I had already placed the chairs in a big circle. That alone created a stir as students came into the room. (I wrote instructions on the board and allowed them to pick their own seat. Check the end of the post to read how I moved students around before the story.) I started the story by telling them their job was to listen with the intent to understand, let me now if they didn't understand something, and to add details as I asked for them. Below is a general outline of the plan. We only got to the part of the story where Jack traded the cows for magic beans. When the students are adding details, the focus is on the actual story and not finishing the story.

Once upon a time there was a boy. What was his name, class?
The boy lived with his mother. They lived in a little house. Where did they live?
They lived in a little house because they were very poor.  The house had a kitchen. What was in the kitchen? Was there a refrigerator in the kitchen? What color was it? Was it a big refrigerator or a small refrigerator?
The family was poor so there wasn't very much food in the refrigerator. When there was food, what kind of food did the mother put in the refrigerator?
How many bedrooms were in the house? (one) If there was only one bedroom, who slept in the bedroom - the mother or the boy? Ok, so the mother slept in the bedroom, where did the boy sleep? 
The family had one pet. What was the pet?
Then onto the action.
One day the mother was very sad. Class, do you know why she was sad? It was because she was hungry but didn't have money to buy food and there wasn't any food in the refrigerator.  She called her son. She said, "Jack, come here". She asked Jack if he was hungry. He was. They both were hungry. The mother told Jack "go to the market with the (animal that the class decided upon), and sell it for money. Bring the money to me."    

At this point in the story, the students had already helped to expand the story with interesting details. I wanted a quick review so I asked for 3 volunteers and then I drew 3 small boxes on the board. I told the students that, without talking to each other, they each were supposed to choose one element of the story and sketch it in the boxes that I had drawn on the board. I gave them 30 seconds to draw.

While they were drawing, I wanted to keep the other students engaged, so we counted from 30 to 1, in Spanish, but with a twist. We stood up for 30, sat down when we said 29, stood up to say 28, etc. 

We looked at the sketches and the first thing the students had to do was put them in order.

Then I asked students to tell me information about each of the sketches. They said several sentences for each sketch - a great review.

My original plan was to continue the story, but we only had ten minutes remaining in class at that point. (The pre-story activities we did to wrap up yesterday's ending activity and the seat changing activity took time from the beginning of the class so we didn't have the full 70 minutes of class for the story.)

For the last 8 minutes of class, the students did a timed write to retell the story. This information was helpful to me to see their ability to produce the language.  After reading their papers during lunch, I wondered if it would have been more helpful to write the story WITH the students instead of a timed-write. I'm still weighing the pros and cons of the timed-write over a class story writing.

The activity did what I had hoped it would do. It kept the students engaged while they were receiving comprehensible input and it was enjoyable for both the students and for me. It was a one-two punch to the Post Thanksgiving Slump. More of this will be needed; one day doesn't dissolve the slump. 


Here is a novel way idea to change up seating after students have selected their own seats. Keep the 90%+ TL alive by saying the statement in the TL.
The students chose where to sit in the circle. Then I read 10 statements and if the statement applied to them, they had to move from their seat to another seat that was open. If possible, they couldn't sit in a chair on either side of their current chair, and they couldn't sit next to the same person as before.

Stand up and move to another seat if...
- your last name has 7 or more letters.
- your first name has the letter "i"
- you are NOT wearing sneakers
- there were 3 or less (including you) people that slept in the same house that you slept in last night
- you have phys ed class this semester
- you have a female dog
- you are wearing yellow or pink
- you celebrate your birthday in January, February, March, or April
plus other sentences (I had a total of 10 but I can't remember the last two sentences)