Projects in World Language Classes: An Opinion

Let's talk about projects, shall we? 

It's something that comes up a lot.   I am basing this on the number of posts about projects in every language teacher forum, even those that are dedicated to comprehension based teaching.  
Important: I am writing this piece, on my blog, about what I think. I am not intending to judge anyone for their instructional choices. I *do* want to explore some ideas that have been sloshing around in my brain around projects and their various purposes. Again, I am not writing this to say that anyone is bad or less good or anything else. And maybe, you might find some ideas that support you in your journey to be a little bit more comprehension based and/or a little bit more equitable, which *is* what I hope to do. 

Some teachers build their whole language curricula around projects. Others use projects to manage an otherwise unmanageable set of school expectations and duties (e.g. coaching, directing a school play, etc.).  Others have such fond memories of their own projects in language class that they can't imagine not doing them! And, finally, some kids love them, parents and admin often love them, and they do seem to part of the unspoken list of "Important Things to Do In Language Class."

What are projects? 

When I think about projects, I am thinking of things like:

• Students write, edit, illustrate, and publish a text to share or include in the class library. 
• Students make a craft of some sort, usually culturally relevant.  They might present about the craft as well. 
• Students research a topic and produce something- a written or oral presentation or product on that topic. 
• Students work together to create a skit  to perform in front of other students. 

Project Based Learning (PBL), a super hot New Thing, has a lot going for it too, and many schools are jumping on the PBL bandwagon to show how their students are using real world skills to solve real world problems.  Now, I have some love in my heart from project based learning as a general educator, and I have a lot of questions and critiques of it as well- again, as a general educator. Having watched my colleagues move to an integrated project based learning system (and being dragged along for the ride), I see how it *can* result in meaningful learning.  IN GENERAL EDUCATION CLASSES.  As a language teacher, I have a lot of concerns. 

A recent post in a language teacher group got me thinking about what the purpose of projects might be, why kids (and admin) ask for them, and how we can meet that purpose in a way that supports language acquisition.  

My Opinion: Most projects do not support language acquisition. Especially for novice and intermediate leaners. 

Teachers might choose to do them for other reasons, so again #nojudgement.  

 I have written before on this subject, but here's a summary of my thinking:  (excerpted from this article):

• Projects are usually not level appropriate.  Most teachers overestimate what their students can and “should be able to” do, and most projects involve specific, contextualized vocabulary that will require time to look up and memorize, as well as discourse beyond their level. A good rule of thumb is “if they struggle with the activity, the task is too challenging.”
• Projects are incredibly time consuming for both teachers and students, using time that could alternately be used to do things that help students acquire language (e.g. input). 
• If the students have to produce something to share with others, either it is fairly low quality (because they don’t have the language yet) or it requires a great deal of time- consuming editing and correction on the part of the teacher.
• Dr. Bill VanPatten talks a bit about project based tasks in chapter 6 of While We're on the Topic, and points out that project based tasks are not intended to practice language, nor are they appropriate for beginners. He gives some solid examples of tasks that might work in upper levels. He also speaks very specifically about Project Based Learning (PBL) in Target Language.  

Most PBL is beyond what students of language can do at the lower levels. Imported from educational contexts, PBL assumes ability with language. This is why it is a popular approach for learning science, history, and other subjects; speakers work in their first language to complete PBL projects, but beginning students don't have skills in the second language equivalent to their first language skills. So PBL in languages might be better for more advanced language proficiency levels."   (VanPatten, 2019)

• Research in second language acquisition (SLA) tells us that practice is unnecessary for language acquisition. Students do not need to speak or practice to acquire. They need to listen to messages and read messages, that they understand. 

What do projects accomplish?

This is some new thinking for me: to really consider what it is that projects accomplish. 

When kids/parents/admin ask for projects, what is the purpose? 

What need is not being met (or not being visibly met)? 

In asking for projects, stakeholders might be asking for:

• more "fun"
• opportunities to follow their interests and personalize learning
• opportunities to create with language
• more time interacting with peers

So my question becomes: are there other ways to directly meet some of those needs, while still giving students lots of input?

Yes! I think there are! My first idea is centered around reading, aka Free Voluntary Reading / Self-Selected Reading / Free Choice Reading. 

Personalize Learning & Following Student Interests

Free reading is a great way to let students personalize their learning, follow their interests, acquire vocabulary that is relevant to them, and of course, to differentiate. When one student is reading about music, another is reading a story about immigration, and another is reading about a favorite sport, students are personalizing their learning. 

And remember- you don't have to have a huge budget to buy readers in your target language. There are many ways to get free and low cost texts in your classroom. (Hint: a printer and dollar store page protectors can go a long way!)  

You can read more about how I set up my free reading program here,  and from Alina Filipescu here: SSR/ FVR Reading Program.  Bryce Hedstrom recently wrote an entire book about it (which I have not yet read but plan on it!): High Impact Reading Strategies 

More time interacting with peers

Letting students talk about their books with each other is a very simple, quick way to let students socialize. Yes, I *do* let them speak in the shared language (English, in my case) because I only want them to do this for a couple of minutes. The payoff is huge as they get excited about their books, hear about different books, and engage in the habit of readers everywhere: telling people about their favorites. Andrea Schweitzer has a great activity for this as well- you can read that here, on Martina Bex's blog: Speed Dating your classroom library.

What about Game of Quotes? This game, from AnneMarie Chase, is social, fun, and lets students feel like they are creating with language...while re-reading. It's brilliant.

More Fun

Have you ever played Game of Quotes? Go do that. Have you ever gotten pleasure from telling someone about a book that you enjoyed? Let your kids do that! 

Co-creating narratives (aka Asking a story, story asking, TPRS)

For some teachers, asking a story is really stressful and doesn't work for them. I get that, and also, it works for me and it one of my favorite things to do with students of all ages.   You can read more about story asking here and watch me do it with students here and here. 

When I co-create a story in class, I have a script outline (usually, but not always!). I ask the students for details about who the story is about, specific events in the story, and often the end of the story. Students contribute their ideas, and often these ideas are glimpses into what they are interested in. 

Personalize Learning and following student interests

When you co-create a story and are able to incorporate student interests in that story, it is all about them.  I know it seems like story asking is very teacher directed, but when student suggestions and interests are incorporated, the story really does become their story. From watching Storage Wars to riding on the backs of giant bison (a reference to some popular animated Netflix show), their ideas that are included (and even the ones that aren't included) create a sense that the language in the classroom is theirs. 

More time interacting with peers

I ask students to interact with their peers in a lot of ways, both during the process of story asking as well as after.  During story asking, I might let them turn to a shoulder partner to do a quick recap of what happened so far (in our shared language or in the target language, depending on the level), or to make a prediction, or to decide what happens next.  After the story is done, I might do any one of a variety of interactive activities.  Play doh scenes comes to mind, as do any of the small group variations of Secret Input. (You can even see a video of my kids doing some interacting here: Breathing Space, Resting Space.)  Some of my favorite activities from the SOMOS Curriculum, like Running Dictation, Write Draw Pass, Fan N Pick, and 9-Square and variationss all involve some level of peer interaction (depending on how you do it).  And don't forget all the input focused Kagan activities and cooperative learning that Martina has adapted! The Lucky Reading Game, from AnneMarie Chase, is a blast and is virtually no prep. 

Heck, I have even been known to let students write, with a peer, their own version of the story (I give them 20 minutes and very specific directions). Although they spend their time speaking English during the process, the payoff is a bunch of different stories that I can type up (correcting any irregular language), and that we can then read, illustrate, vote on (funniest, most probable, least probable, most creative, etc.), and add to our class library. 

More fun

Story asking is usually pretty fun, in and of itself. And playing with play doh? Yep, also fun. Any of the post-reading activities I listed above are pretty fun! Some are more prep, some are low prep, and some are no prep.  

Creating with language: Some musings 

Now, you may have noticed that I haven't really mentioned a lot about giving students more opportunities to create with language, although that may be one reason why projects are requested. 

Here's the thing: I think that it is possible to give students lots of opportunities to create with language, but I tend *not* to create activities that force them to do so.  The one glaring exception to this is when I ask students to do Timed Free writes (Fluency Writes).  Please read more about why I choose to do these, if you are curious. 

The reason I don't force them to create with language (with that one exception) is that I strongly believe that forcing them to create won't help them acquire, and it has the strong potential to raise their affective filter- that is- to make them stressed out, which will inhibit their acquisition. 

I will work on a future blog post about how I create opportunities to create with language at some point. Annabelle Williamson (La Maestra Loca) has a lot of brain breaks that support students creating language as well- take a look at her blog for some ideas.

One way that allows students to create with language is to give them rejoinders. 

I use rejoinders all the time, and I find that they are a great way to let students express themselves, even when they are beginning language students. For more about rejoinders, hop over to Grant Boulanger's blog and learn more. 

So, to sum up: when stakeholders ask for projects, it's worth it to ask ourselves: what needs are not being met that they think projects will meet? How can I meet those needs in a way that will support language acquisition?  

I hope this blog post has given you some food for thought!  

Story asking! Video! Friday Afternoon!

So, you remember that Plan B class? They have made big improvements. HUGE, in fact. Not perfect. Far, far from it.  But...they have come a long way. 

So much that I asked a story in class today!!!  Since storyasking is one of my very favorite things to do in class, I was pretty joyful. Since it was the end of the day on a Friday, I was pretty exhausted.  

In fact, I asked the same story with two different sections of my Spanish 1B class of 8th graders.  

Level Up your Learning

 Use this form (and read the article while you are at it) to observe.  (This was a collaboration between Martina Bex and I.)  

Real talk

Please forgive any and all language mistakes- I am human.  And for a minute, I started to ask the story in past tense, then remembered mid-word what class I was in front of. 

Notes: The first THREE minutes are in English! Gasp! I was setting expectations.  That, to me, is a very good use of L1.   Also, for the first couple minutes or so of the actual story, the camera is on its own personal journey of discovery in my classroom.  It decided not to focus on me at all.  Skip to about minute 5 if you feel like you must, but the sound is pretty good in those first couple of minutes.  

You will see me mouth the words "pollo frito" a few times.  I am doing this because we established (ages ago) that when we say it, one kid leads us in his favorite dance. Thus, I use the magic of the fried chicken dance very carefully.  

At about 13:20, a kid starts to have a side conversation and I have to send them out of the room.  (They are going to work on a written assignment.) 

I also did this story with another class, but for now, here is one video. My apologies for not taking the time to add subtitles.  It's Friday night.

Click here if it won't start playing. 





This lesson is the Story asking part, day 2, of SOMOS 1, Unit 10.  Used with permission.  




Resources about story asking:  
Story asking: Summer SOMOS Fun Club Video
Story asking: bit.ly/storyaskingsupports  
Blog post and more info:  https://comprehensibleclassroom.com/2019/07/24/tprs-storyasking-made-simple/

#StoriesConnect Tips
#1-Set expectations
#2 Managing Choral Responses
#3- Teaching how to make suggestions

What is TPRS™?  

Storyasking tip #3: Teach how to make suggestions

For more storyasking ideas and supports, check out http//:bit.ly/storyaskingsolutions.

Story Asking Tip #2: Managing choral responses

For more storyasking ideas and supports, check out http//:bit.ly/storyaskingsolutions.

StoryAsking Tip #1: Set expectations!

Hi, this is a quick post to link this short video I made with one tip (and some links) to help you build some confidence with story asking! Sorry the video is a bit messy- I am on my way to the NAIS People of Color Conference in Seattle, and since our airplane’s front window cracked (!) we have some extra time in the airport!




For more storyasking ideas and supports, check out http//:bit.ly/storyaskingsolutions.

A week in the life of a comprehension-based classroom

I had a pretty good week.

Not a great week- in fact, I went home sick one day with a migraine- but the rest of the teaching went pretty well.

Here are some of the things that I did- maybe you all can find inspiration here!  This is just a list with links of things that I did with all my classes!  

Spanish 2 Honors 

Monday: We started with Weekend chat, then we co-created a story from SOMOS 1, Unit 14.  After class, I typed it up.  
                                  
Here are some resources for co-creating stories:  

• Summer SOMOS Fun Club episode on Story Asking
• Handout and resources
• Blog post and more info (From Martina Bex)
• If you are coming to ACTFL 2019, I will be presenting on this very topic!  

Tuesday: We reviewed the story- students read it out loud in pairs than worked to create their 
Top 8 events, then we reviewed those events as a class.

Students reading!  

Wednesday:I went home sick, so students read for 15 minutes (Free Voluntary Reading/FVR), did a 10 minute free write, and worked on Sr. Wooly or Garbanzo for the remaining time.

Thursday: no class

Friday:  Free voluntary reading, short discussion about upcoming all-school service project, then Running dictation with their Top 8 Events from Wednesday.   (My directions that I post are here.)  To finish, we reviewed upcoming hard deadlines and filled out daily engagement for the week. This class was shorter than usual due to a special schedule. 

Spanish 1B

Monday: Weekend chat, read and dramatized biography of Barrio Zumba from a resource from Nelly Hughes.  (It looks like the resource is no longer available, though.)  We played a short Pencil Grab game with the true/false questions included in resource.  Then we listened to the song Mexicano.

This was the starter for our discussion about food

Tuesday: We briefly discussed favorite foods, then listened to the song Mexicano again and tried to fill out the cloze lyrics included.  We listened to the song at regular speed once, than at 75% speed (I love youtube when it works!) a second time.  For a brain break, I taught them the basic steps to a zumba routine set to the song, and we danced for a few minutes.   Then we reviewed the lyrics (with L1 translation) and discussed them briefly.  Students independently read a text (also from Nelly's resource) about Mexican food, and then responded to comprehension questions by coloring a glyph that I created.  


Wednesday: I went home sick, so students read for 15 minutes, did a 10 minute freewrite, and continued to work on their glyph.  

Thursday: no class

Friday: Free voluntary reading for 10-15 minutes, then short discussion of our all-school service project.  Students then got into teams for the Lucky Reading Game!  We played that until it was time to review upcoming hard deadlines and fill out daily engagement for the week.  One section had an extra 15 minutes of instructional time, so we spent some time doing a Write and Discuss about the service project.  

Spanish 1 Honors 

Monday: Weekend chat, then we started a new unit today, SOMOS 1 Unit 04, so I introduced the core vocabulary and students put those and our unit objectives into their interactive-ish notebooks.  

Rare homework, from The StoryTeller's Corner

Then I taught them gestures for the core vocabulary and we reviewed gestures for other words. (Click here for an example of what that looks like, from a different class.)   We used the resources included in the unit to see the words in context and then did some personalized questions and answers.   (Here is a video of that process, but with a different unit, if you are curious about what that looks like.)  

Although I *rarely* assign homework, I assigned an activity from this resource from The Storyteller's Corner, where they had to draw and color what they want to be when they grow up.  

Tuesday:  We discussed more personalized questions to start- including "what class do you want to take that is not possible at our school?" I learned so much about them!  Then we spent some time on the song "Quiero Ser", by Nubeluz, which depending on how you introduce it can be loved or hated.  

I LOVE this song and kids seem to respond to that!  First, I told them how much I love it, then I gave them the lyrics to follow along with.  The second time we watched the video, and the third time (no joke!) the kids wanted to try to do the dance that the singers do.  Finally, there is a short comprehension-based activity that they worked on that is included in the unit.  

Wednesday: No class.  Before I went home sick, I took their colored pictures and put them into a slideshow for Card Talk on Thursday.

Thursday: We started with the question "What do you not want to be?" and "Why?" and that discussion lasted for a while.  We followed up the discussion with a Write and Discuss, because the previous night, one of my fellow PLC members said she was trying to do more W&D and I realized that I should try to do that as well. (I love my PLC, even if this year we can only virtually meet through voice messages.)  

Then, we listened to and danced to the song Quiero Ser again, and finished the class with Card Talk about their desired future professions.

Slide for Card Talk about the future...

 
Friday: After a short discussion about our all-school service project, we did the lyric activity suggested for Quiero Ser by Amaia Montero, that is included in the lesson plans. Students have the lyrics out of order, and working in pairs, they had to quickly cut them up then listen to the song a couple of times and put them in order.  After, I briefly comprehensified some of the lyrics and reviewed the order, then we read the included biography of Amaia.  This was a super-shortened class, so that is all we had time for!  

Fifth grade: I see these kiddos for 45 minutes a week.
 As a warm up, we did a little TPR (Total Physical Response) and acted out a couple of sentences that were interesting.   Let me explain what I mean:  I had them draw how they were feeling, then I asked "Who is tired?" and "Who is hungry?"  They were all hungry so I gave them the phrase "wants to eat" and asked them "What do you want to eat?" and pulled a couple of props out as ideas. It turned out that one kid wanted to eat a dinosaur so we acted that out (with another kid being the dinosaur) and so on.  Of course, I was narrating it in Spanish and making sure it was comprehensible.  


We have been working with our own version of this simple beginner story (in Spanish!).  Last week, we did "all the world's a stage" with the story and I took pictures of the kids acting it out.  Then I put the pictures in a slideshow. (Description for that activity coming soon- sorry! For a longer read about Reader's Theatre, check out this resource.)

Click for an editable slide to show!

I passed out a copy of the story for kids to review with a buddy, then I showed them the pictures.  I wanted them to look at the picture and decide what moment in the story it was representing, then write that moment down on a whiteboard (using their copy of the text). 

Here is an example of the directions etc. only I used pictures of the students acting out the story rather than their illustrations.

 I had no idea how it would go, honestly. This is an activity I do ALL THE TIME with my older students, but I wasn't sure if it would be ok for the younger ones. 
It went...ok.  A couple of kids were really frustrated because it wasn't the kind of thing that had a clear-cut answer, but I think that is the kind of kid they are at this stage in their lives, and the rest of them seemed to enjoy it and read the story about 20 times.  

Then, we transitioned to another new activity.  A couple of weeks ago, I gave them a simple storyboard to illustrate with the text of the story, and then I cut up their illustrations and the words and put them in baggies (1 per pair of kids) to make some partner activities.  I wanted to try this kind of activity (also available in French) that I learned about from an excellent presentation by elementary teacher Alison Litten, so I tried it.  I did modify the directions to be in L1 to allow them to focus on the reading and re-reading of the story.  I was surprised at how quickly it went for the fast processors (who I grouped together), and how completely on task all the pairs were!  I will certainly be doing this one again!  

So, that's it!  I hope this was a useful read!  

Storyasking! Videos!

Here are some videos of StoryAsking (part 1 and 2). This is Camina y Corre, SOMOS 1, Unit 2.  I am working on videos of PQA and our collaborative mural, but one thing at a time!

For more resources about story asking, including what it is, how to do it, and tips to make it go smoothly,  take a look at this episode of SOMOS Summer Fun Club and these resources.    

I *did not* take the time to subtitle these in English, sorry folks.  I just would not have the time to do this until...summer, and then I would forget.  Please accept my apologies to folks who are not Spanish speakers, and take a look at some of my other videos for subtitled versions.

IMPORTANT:  These students are NOT novice level students. They have had one solid year of comprehension based teaching with a focus on communicative embedded input.  (They are CI taught.)  This group is Spanish 1 Honors, and were assessed at the end of last year to go into standard or honors tracks.  I don't yet have too many videos of me teaching novices because my only novice class is fifth grade, and I do not have video release forms for them.  Sorry!

What you will not see: TONS of classic "circling" questions.

What you will probably see: lots of comprehension checks, brain bursts (quick brain breaks), some routines and procedures, and a lot of language.  And one class clown.

Want to get better at asking stories? Martina Bex and I collaborated on this resource to help.  Watch this video and use one of the organizers referenced in the post.  This is a great way to start training yourself!

PART 1  For some reason, this preview is not functioning.  Use the button on the upper right hand of the screen to open it in a new window, or click here.  



PART 2 - click on the link or use the button in the upper right hand corner below to open in a new window.  Sorry!

Responding when comprehension breaks down, and a simple story

This year, I was invited to be an apprentice teacher in the Teaching Lab at iFLT'19.  It was a great experience, and a fantastic learning opportunity.

Co-teaching and planning with 3 other amazing teachers!  Teaching adults! No curriculum!  The set up was one master teacher and 3 apprentice teachers, planning each day and then team teaching and co-teaching.  Leslie Davison, the master teacher, brought some props and had a few high frequency (and hilarious) words in mind, and an idea about a theme for the week.  The theme: durian fruit.  It just so happens that I use a reading by Kristy Placido in my classes about the durian, so that worked out well. But that's not what I want to talk about today.


Instead, I want to talk about when comprehension breaks down, how I beat myself up, and how our team responded.  I also want to share a very simple story that anyone could use. (The example is written in Spanish. Scroll down for the English version.)  

I want to focus on the moment when we realized we had to slow down and how we responded.

We had a wide variety of levels, from total beginners to folks who could write full paragraphs in Spanish, although the class was advertised for beginners. (Sound familiar? Like any class in any school!)

We had just discovered (through some formative assessment and comprehension checks) that some of our students were not understanding our messages, and were not stopping us to clarify.  This was a huge wake-up call for me.

For a while, I felt like a real failure- my one job that week was to make these adult students feel positive and confident about their language, and to create an environment where they understood everything and felt safe to say if they didn't.  I was already out of my comfort zone (It turns out that I think that adults are terrifying.) and was feeling unsure of my skills and my role as a co-teacher.    (Not because my colleagues weren't rockstars- they were. But because co-planning is really, really challenging if you are just meeting each other for the first time!  It got a lot easier pretty quickly.)

Martina helped me flip my mindset about this- she pointed out that I *was* doing my job- that I was checking for comprehension, and based on the information I received, we made a plan to meet the students where they were at.  She also helped me see that I had developed a strong enough relationship with the students to notice when one was very uncomfortable and figure out what was going on.  

Our teaching group (me, AnneMarie Chase, Jahdai Jeffries, and our fearless leader Leslie Davison) decided to focus deeply on three structures and work very hard to stay in-bounds for just those three words.  They were wants, goes, and gives (to).   We had already introduced these structures, but we wanted to really spend more time on them.  We felt comfortable adding the expressions is feeling happy  and is feeling furious because one is a cognate (furioso)  and the other we had used a ton and could easily explain.

A very simple script

I wrote a simple script and made a slide in Spanish.

Click here for the slide, reading, extended reading, and activity


I think that this is a great example of a very tightly constrained story taught at the beginning of an instruction cycle.  If I do say so myself!


I asked the story, using all my skills to keep it comprehensible, checking for understanding, and most of all, personalizing the story so that it was fun and funny.  I went as slow as I felt I could go, and I challenged myself to keep the words that came out of my mouth very limited.  This is known as sheltering vocabulary.

I was delighted to find that a student who came late to the class was super excited to be an actor in the story, and although she had no prior language skills, she was a hilarious presence and knew how to have fun with the story.

Here is the first story:  (Click here for the English version)

Now here is the cool part.  Because we were co-teaching, once I was finished asking the story, AnneMarie got up and continued to work with it.  She decided to flesh it out and add more details- because we knew that everyone understood the base story.  She did a variation of this activity, while retelling it and adding more specifics.   Notice how Version 2  of the reading is more complicated and uses a bunch more words.  It's also way more interesting!

Student draw-along from our story

While she was teaching, I was sitting in the back of the room typing up the story, and adding details as she went.  I was also creating a very simple formative assessment (but also more input!) to give to the students when she was done.  I took sentences from the story and created two options for details, e.g. Risha (wants/has) a monkey. 

Students wrote the correct word on a whiteboard, but really, they had to re-read the sentence and make sure they knew what it meant.  To further scaffold all the reading, I added a glossary on the bottom of the page so all the words were easy to find.

I think that teaching adults in this situation was a good reminder that no one needs to be made to feel bad for not remembering a word- I put those words on the slide as support- if they needed them, great. If they didn't, they could ignore them.

I have never had the experience of co-teaching with other experienced teachers, and once we figured out how it was going to work, it was really fun!  Adults weren't really that scary, and I did actually know what I was doing, and there is ALWAYS room for improvement!

Carol Gaab, Jahdai Jeffries, AnneMarie Chase, me!, Jason Fritze, Linda Li, Donna Tatum John, Mark Mullaney, Dina Marshal, and Grant Boulanger, IFLT10 Closing 

How to ask a story: Live (facebook live) event: Friday, Aug. 3, 3:30 MST

Hi, this is just a quick announcement to say that if you are part of the SOMOS Facebook group, you can watch a live presentation about how to ask a story using a script from the SOMOS curriculum.


If you are not part of the SOMOS group but want to join, please search for SOMOS in the search function for Facebook and answer the questions so we know you are a real teacher.

This live recording will be available for you to read after the event.

I hope to interact with you there!

More videos...because someone asked

Video part two, inspired by the request on the SOMOS facebook group.

Lesson: Somos Unit 100 (level 2), La Muchacha y La Ardilla
Class: 8th grade Honors/ Spanish 2


Here is a video of me introducing vocabulary, teaching gestures (well, sort of- the camera got pretty wonky), doing translation activities, and finally asking the story.

This lesson is protected under all relevant copyright protections.

Shared with permission.
If the video doesn't start playing when you press the arrow, try opening it in another window.  I am trying to troubleshoot this. Sorry!  

Video: the most terrifying thing I have done in a long time

I filmed myself asking a story.

It is possibly the scariest thing I have done in ages.  No. Posting it is the scary part.  I could dwell on all the flaws.  (Because there are many areas to improve.) I could be very cruel to myself and hate on all the things that women typically hate on.  I could be embarrassed about my language (Because truth be told, ever since my first so-called mentor told me seven years ago that I had no business teaching Spanish during my first year teaching, I have been embarrassed to speak in front of adults. I know.  I need to get over that.).

But instead, I am choosing to look at what went really well.  I laugh so much during this video.  My kids do too.  It was a funny day.  The kids surprised me.  One of my actors had words falling out of his mouth.  I paused and pointed, went S.L.O.W. - maybe even too slow- and stayed in the target language for the better part of the hour.  I did lots of brain breaks and used actors and introduced a parallel character.  The story is absolutely hilarious, creative, and memorable.

So, in the spirit of doing one thing that is terrifying: here is my video. If it doesn't play, click here.  

Background:
Curriculum/story: this is from Somos, Unit 6, and I have taught it so very many times that I mostly don't need a script.  The structures I am lighly targeting are se levanta, se sienta, and le grita.
This unit is available for free.

Grade/level: these are my "honors" 7th graders, in Spanish 1.  They are, as a group, fast processors with a lot of language kicking around in their head.  They are NOT beginning language learners, so if you are watching and thinking about your own students, know that I am adjusting my pacing and my language use for this group- everything is faster and they need fewer repetitions.

What you won't see: A ton of repetition or circling.  These kids just don't need it- they don't need me to circle anything to death.  As I grow as a TPRS/CI teacher, I am getting a better handle on when to ask a billion questions, and when not to.  If this were a novice class, it would look much different.

Goals: In a pre-assessment (I used TPR), I realized that they comprehend the three structures, but they have never experienced them in writing nor from different perspectives.  My goal was to co-create a funny story that we can work with over the next week, doing activities such as rewriting from different perspectives and adding more characters in order to work on those other forms (me siento, le grito, les gritan, etc.).  I know from experience that this story (and unit) is truly an introduction to such lofty grammar topics as Indirect Object Pronouns and Reflexive Verbs, and I do not at all expect them to use the pronouns correctly for a long time.  This is just more good input.