Fun App: TextingStory Chat Story Maker

Get ready for that feeling when you find an app that you immediately think of a boatload of possibilities for using it in your classroom.

I was scrolling through Twitter tonight when I saw a Tweet from Meredith White about the app, TextingStory Chat Story Maker. Less than a minute later I had downloaded the app and was creating a short story to use in class tomorrow for my bell ringer.

I made the video to go with Martina Bex's curriculum, SOMOS 1 Unit 2. I'm enjoying the ease of using the SOMOS curriculum, especially since this is the first time I've taught Spanish 1 since spring of 2012. 

Thank you, Martina (a.k.a. the coolest person I know ❤️ 😊 - right back at'cha)

Have fun using the app!!!

Morir Soñando, Felipe Alou, & Béisbol - A Culture-packed Friday

Think back to your high school Spanish class and answer this question, "What were 3 of your best memories from that class?"

Are any of your answers related to food? 

Food would probably be part of my students' answers. I enjoy including teaching about the culinary aspect of Spanish countries, but it's not always possible (at least to the extent that I would like it to be) when I have classes of 30 students and no easy access to a refrigerator and other kitchen appliances. 

However, making drinks from a Spanish country is less of a challenge because ingredients can be kept chilled in coolers and the appliances needed are small and portable.

My students and I are reading Felipe Alou, a TPRS Publishing Inc. novel about a Major League Baseball player and manager, and his journey from a small town in the Dominican Republic to the United States, and the obstacles he overcame to achieve his dream.

The Teacher's Guide is packed with resources for discussions related to segregation and discrimination in the US in the 1950s and 60s, about the DR's past of discrimination towards the Haitians, about the homes in the DR, and other cultural topics related to the DR.

In addition to the sources in the Teacher's Guide, we read A-Z Reading's Spanish book on Rosa Parks and the article "Diez pruebas de la segregación racial en los Estados Unidos en los 50 y 60". After tackling these tough subjects, I was ready to change focus toward the food in the DR. 

My friend, Nelsi, is from the Dominican Republic and a few years ago she made the drink "Morir Soñando" for me when I was at her house. It's delicious and easy to make so I made a list and students signed up to bring the ingredients and the paper supplies to class. 

I used to tables for workstations for the students to extract the juice, measure the milk and sugar and ice, blend the ingredients, and serve it in cups. All of us enjoyed a refreshing cup of Morir Soñando and even had several cups extra that students asked to deliver to teachers in the building.

Our class is split by lunch, (35 minutes of class, then lunch, then 35 minutes of class).  In the second half of Friday's class, we played the Beísbol game (shown on the right). We used the questions that came with the game, but I think the next time we play, I'll use questions specific to the novel, Felipe Alou. (There were 3 different levels of questions: easy questions the person scored a Single; average questions the person scored a Double; and difficult questions the person scored a Triple.  If the previous player scored a Single and the following player scored a Double the first player will then be on 3rd and the second player will be on 2nd. Outs occur when the person asked the question does not know the answer.) It was the first time I've used this game even though it's been in my storage cabinet since my first day at this school.

Making the drinks and playing Béisbol was a relaxing, but cultural-filled class period and fun way to end the week. I'm adding the Morir Soñando and Beísbol activities to the curriculum for next year.

Now... if I could only figure out how to convince administration that I need (let's be clear, it's not a want IMO, it's a need) a classroom equipped with an oven, stove, refrigerator, microwave, and sink, I can e-x-p-a-n-d on this and immerse the students even deeper into the culture of different countries.    

Embedding Culture in TPRS & CI

Last weekend I took some time to look over the curriculum in an effort to find areas that my Spanish 2 students needed additional emphasis or exposure. The obvious answer was irregular preterit verbs, especially in the nosotros form, but I wanted to add cultural information that enabled me to teach those forms.  We had just finished reading El Nuevo Houdini and in the teacher's guide, there are two cultural readings on Mexico.  My students had read one of them, but the day I had planned to read the second one we ran out of time.  (Both of the readings were written by Kristy Placido.)

My goal was set: create a lesson with a story and other materials on
- irregular preterit verbs in the nosotros form
- continued use of the imperfect 
- recycle the "mientras...on-going action = imperfect" structure
- include cultural information about Mexico

I missed one day of school, but even with that missed day, the students had a good dose of CI on the above structures throughout the week with a variety of methods.  Here is a brief listing of what we worked on:

Previous Week: See structures and vocabulary at this post.  I wanted to make a concentrated effort to include at least some of those structures in the stories.

Powerpoint on Mexico: Since the powerpoint is not in story format, but rather pieces of cultural information that most of the students had little or no knowledge of beforehand, I used PQA (Personalized Questions and Answers) while introducing the new material. It was interesting to learn which students had eaten mole and ensalada de nopales, to watch their reactions when they saw the Lucha libre slide, to survey their opinions on the different types of music, and to share a short video on the serpent, in shadow form, descending from El Castillo en Chichén Itzá. I had to stay focused on either/or questions, and comparing students' answers to each other to keep the information personalized, the students engaged, and to avoid slipping into a dry presentation of a powerpoint. (We've all suffered through quite enough of them in our past.)

TPRS: Find the story that I wrote HERE.  
The focus words were:
- fuimos-we went (we've had this before, but it was needed)
- no quisimos pagar-we refused/didn't want to pay 
- le dijimos a (name)-we said to (name of person);  
- vimos-we saw.  
Each class created their own story, as I guided it along to keep it going in the direction to work in the grammar and vocabulary above.  
The first page of the file is the story I wrote before the students created a story. The following day we read the students' story and the story I had made.

We did several review activities to keep the information about Mexico fresh in our minds.  To add a little variety, my plan was to buy green, white, and red balloons, blow them up and work them into one of the review activities, but alas, I forgot to pick them up at the store.  Next time....

Imperfect Review: A story of a boy and what he liked to do when he was little; made for 2nd language learners.

Short Story on Gustar Another story on Storybird about "Tomi" and what he likes and doesn't like; in the present tense. IMO there is no danger of repeating this verb too much. For some reason, it continues to be one of the trickiest structures for my students to acquire. Find it HERE.

Mexico Story Chart.  The last activity of the week, was to complete the chart   
 below.  It is set up so it creates a story as you fill in the information.  Students had to pick a place or event listed on the powerpoint and then write what "we" saw there, what "we" did, what "we" refused to do; whom "we saw", etc. We worked as a group to complete the information for the first two columns, and then students worked with a partner to fill in the last column. I encouraged creativity!

For the last 5-10 minutes of class, students handed their charts to me and I told them who went to Mexico, where they went, what they did, etc. and then asked short answer, true/false, either/or questions in the TL and compare one groups' answer to another groups'.  On Monday, I'll do the same activity in a quiz format.

An extended writing idea is to have students choose one of the 3 sets of information and write it in story form, adding more details (descriptions using past tense, conversation/dialogues, or a problem that needs to be solved).