What does 1:3 look like?

First I arranged my desks into groups of three and hung a "group name" over each pod of desks.

The signs hanging from the ceiling are a country name withe a map of the country and a map showing where that country is in the world.  I just chose to call my groups by country names because it was better group 1, 2, 3, etc.  BUT this still allows me to make sure that each of the groups gets the same iPad that they worked on yesterday.

**Plus it allows me to make my super cheesy teacher joke "Guys there are NO travel visas issued today so stay in your own country!" :)

We use an image that represents that country as the screensaver so that I can immediately tell which iPad it is without having to take a Sharpie to my Otterboxes

Even when we are not using the iPads the trios with assigned roles is very conducive to the learning environment.

Vocab Scavenger Hunt using Label Box on iPads/iPhones

Goal: To teach new vocab, provide visual reinforcements, maximize repetitions

Objective: The students will use iPads to take and label pictures of the new vocab structures.

What we did:

First, we went over some good examples of how to act out a vocab. word.  This step is extremely important!  The first time I did this activity I assumed that kids would automatically know what makes a good visual aid of a vocabulary word...I was very wrong.  One group had a picture of one kid pointing angrily at another kid holding a notebook piece of paper with a picture of a sandwich on it for the vocab. structure "says".  When I questioned how in the world that picture would help me remember that dice means "says" the kids replied, "Because the guys says make me a sandwich."

Students were given an ipad and 1 handout per group.  We went over the top term/phrases for each set and they filled in the blank w/ the translation.

Then, after giving them very explicit expectations for not disrupting any other classes, they are set free for set amount of time (I highly recommend having a time keeper for each group to make sure they all come back on time). I make it clear that they come back at the assigned time regardless of if they have all the pictures done or not.  It's a scavenger hunt, so they should get just as many as they can.

Students put the pictures into storykit and email me the finished product.




Here's an example of the handout:

Piratas cap. 2 vocab scavenger hunt

Nombres: _______________________________________

iPad apps needed: iphoto to take pictures, label box to label the pictures, storykit to put labeled pics together and turn it in via email

Handout

• llama  ____________    
• llama por telefóno
• llama por la ventana

• están mirando ____________
• están mirando la tele
• están mirando un partido de voleibol
• están mirando las fotos de los estudiantes pasados
• están mirando un mapa
•  están mirando ….(¿?)

• habla __________________
• habla con Sra. Hall
• habla con Tai
• habla con Jeff
• habla con Sr. Adkins, Srta Nies, o Sr. Smith
• habla con  ….(¿?)

• buscan ____________________
• buscan un libro
• buscan un coche
• buscan un maestro
• buscan  ….(¿?)

• me gusta ________________
• le gusta _________________
• le gusta el libro
• le gusta el árbol
• le gusta la comida
• no le gusta el libro
• no le gusta la comida
• le gusta  ….(¿?)

A Warning that I verbalized AND put as a footer on the handout:

Do NOT interrupt any classes, meetings, etc! 

Do not disturb the instructional environment. 

Do NOT form a line to all take a picture with the same person, go on to the next one

Student Samples:

****AWESOME ADDED BONUS THAT HAPPENED COMPLETELY BY ACCIDENT***

(although I wish I could say I was brilliant enough to have methodically planned this out)

After all groups have turned in their photos via an emailed link, I copy/paste each groups link into a poll on our class edmodo page.  The homework is that the kids have to go on and use the poll to vote for which group they think had the best pictures to help us remember our vocab.  They LOVED the competition and I accidently got them to look at the key structures that many more times and think critically about them--hm this one is/isn't a good depiction of such and such word. 

I love it when an accident turns out awesome! 

"Coaching" up my reluctant actors to get better stories

With TPRS storytelling, sometimes the stories are so great, memorable, and engaging that students come back to me the next year saying "Hey Sra. Rivera, remember when Gomez vive en una caja en Chino? (lives in a box in China). 

Sometimes, you have an actor that is a natural, loves the attention, and can come up with way better facial expressions than I could ever suggest.

Here's Robert...loves the attention!

For Example:

Sean grabbed the white board and drew his own abs

Other actors will play off one outgoing student

Unfortunately, not every student actor that volunteers is Hollywood-bound.  It always shocks me. I will ask for a volunteer to act and I will have a student raise their hand, beg, yell "OH...ME, ME, ME!", practically leap out of the desk to be the actor.  Then, when I'm doing the story, this same exact kid that was SO animated just moments ago, is an absolutely boring, bland, bump on a log. 

It was this conundrum that made me first start "coaching" my actors. Coaching the actors turned out to have many unexpected benefits.

Unexpected benefits of coaching actors:

• better acting during stories
• increase in student engagement (reverse psychology, I'll explain how)
• more repititions

So, now I chose actors that haven't even volunteered, just so that I can coach them up...because it makes it easy to get more reps and keeps our stories and class from being monotonous.

Meet Logan and Jesse...

Logan

Jesse

Neither of these boys "volunteered" to be an actor today. In fact, both would probably be quite happy if I had left them alone to blend in to the backgrounds from their comfy seats...but what's the fun in that? :) 

I would never bring a kid up in front of their peers unless I can ensure that it will be a positive, successful experience for them, so here's how I do that...

Demonstrating how they should act something out:
If it's something that can easily be acted out from their desks, I'll have the whole class demonstrate. One of the structures for today was is worried. Jesse was at a loss for how to show us "is worried." So I jump in and it goes something like this...

Jesse is worried...oh no no no no.  Jesse that's not worried.  Show me worried.  Ah man, I just don't feel like you are worried.  Class, show Jesse what worried looks like. Ah, Jesse...look, Jake is worried.  Ooo, Jenny that's a GREAT worried. Uh, Billy, I'm not sure if that's worried or gassy...oh, it's worried? Ok, we'll take it...Billy is worried.  Ok, Jesse... now show us worried.  Much better, phwew back to the story...Jesse is worried.

In addition to keeping the audience on their toes and participating, I was just able to "milk" another 12 reps of the vocab. structure.

Jesse is worried before

Jesse is worried after

Especially if asking your "actors" to do something that might be out of the comfort zone of the average teen, I always demo. first.  I've noticed that if I'm goofy first, it gives them permission to be goofy without worrying that their peers will think they are goofy.  They are only doing what that crazy teacher did.

Demo: sees a pretty girl

Demo: "suave walk" to girl  

Demo: Touches her hands romantically

Demo: grabs her hands 

What's even better than teacher demo. is when another student will demonstrate an idea he/she has about how to best act it out.  Here's Robert demonstrating for Logan what a "sexy walk" looks like, it was HILARIOUS!  The pictures do not do it justice!  I wish we had caught the video of it instead of still pictures.

Logan's first attempt at "suave walk" to the girl. (Logan is a brilliant and serious student and silliness is one of the few things that does not come naturally to him--his first attempt here was affectionately described as a robot with polio)

Robert jumped up and said "let me show you what a "suave walk" looks like...it started with a twirl

...then the strut...

...and of course ended with the double guns pointed at the pretty girl

It's moments like these that make me LOVE my job!

We had planned a school trip to Costa Rica for spring break.  Originally, it was going to be my colleague MaryBeth Johnson and I as chaperones of the trip.  Unfortunately, as the trip neared it became obvious that for me to go on an 8 day trip right now would be extremely tough on my family.  (I have 3 small kids and the realities of 8 days away weighed in). I gave my place away to another colleague Mollie.  Although I missed the trip myself, I LOVED hearing the stories from the kids today when they got back.

We spent the better part of 3rd period listening to stories from Robert and Jason, two of my level 2 students that went on the trip.  Since we are currently reading Robo en la Noche, it was great for the class to get to hear all about the country, culture, the millions of translations of the phrase PURA VIDA, etc from their classmates instead of me.

The first "teacher high" that I had was this conversation:
Me: So, boys...did you find yourselves able to speak a lot of spanish?
Jason: Oh yeah!
Robert: OH MY GOSH!  We were speaking like fluent Spanish. (BTW They were not speaking fluent Spanish, but I absolutely LOVE that he thinks they were) ...It was SHOCKING!!! Like every time that I needed a word it was right here [points to forehead] I would pause and think I need to say this word...and then I realized OH I KNOW HOW TO SAY THAT!!!

Hearing this from them was better than any pat on the back I've ever received from a supervisor! 

It was SO awesome to hear the boys talking about all their adventures, describing the host mother's cooking, the adventures on the suspension bridge, the experience volunteering in the animal sanctuary, their newfound appreciation for paved roads :), etc.  Just when I thought it couldn't get any better, I had probably the best 30 seconds of my entire teaching career...

The bell rang and as the students filtered out, I noticed Robert was kind of lingering as I arranged some things on my desk. Then he cleared his throat, shuffled his feet a little awkwardly, and spoke.

Robert: Um, Sra. Rivera, I felt bad that you didn't get to go because I know you were really looking forward to it.  So, I got you this...

He reached in his backpack and pulled out a bracelet that he bought at one of the markets in Costa Rica.  Here is my new favorite piece of jewelry EVER!  Seriously, I think I will treasure this bracelet for the rest of my life.

Developing CARING learners for the 21st Century

Developing CARING learners for the 21st Century

...this is our district goal.  It's on our website...in our pamphlet...maybe even on our stationary.  I recently examined my role as a teacher supposedly trying to reach this goal.  As I reflected, I had to admit that YES, I do quite a bit to prepare my kids for the 21st Century, YES, they are learning quite a bit of Spanish, but caring....hmmm, do I make efforts to develop them as CARING learners? Well, I won't let them be outwardly mean to each other...but do I show them what caring looks like? 

Today we took the first part of class for a little bit of "Character Ed."

What we did:

I set up the activity by handing each kid a square of scratch paper and told them to get out something to write with.  I further set up the activity by telling them "There is only 1 rule... you must all remain silent while we watch the video..I know you will want to talk when you see this video, and I promise to let you react..but at first we want everyone to see the entire thing, so rule #1 Remain silent during the video."

Then I showed this video..if you haven't seen this video before and you work with teens, get a tissue ready:

1. I paused the video at : 40  seconds in and have the students write #1: The initial impression of this team is...
2. We continued  watching the video.
3. I paused the video again at 4:00 and have students write #2: The most obvious lesson to be learned from this video is...
4. We continued watching the video.
5. After the video is finished, we wrote #3: Another/secondary lesson to be learned from this video is...
6. Then they had 45 seconds to share out within their groups (I think this stair step is really important when trying to get critical/reflective thinking from students..let them have time to figure out their answers themselves, then share in a small group before sharing out in large group. This almost always helps the students feel more courageous and will get you a better class discussion.
7. After discussing in groups, we discussed as a whole class.
8. Finally I asked them to turn over their papers and respond to this prompt: If Jonathan was a student at SHS, how do you think he would be treated if people had never seen this video?

 Here are a few of the reflections from my students:

 

Homework in a TPRS classroom?!? What? ...aannnnnndddd they'll get more reps? YES PLEASE!

La Cita Romántica De Tim Tebow Y Ani

Habia
Estaban en ....

Estaban en ...

Goal: to maximize repetitions of vocab structures used in stories in class, by having students review and think about meanings outside of class.
Objective: The students will use pictures from our class stories to retell (in Spanish) our story from class (aloud) using key vocab to a parent.
ISTE NETS in green

I HATE busy work.  I think all teachers do, because we get our fair share of it.  Don't get me wrong, I'm more than happy to do anything that will help me do my job better, but I can't stand when I'm made to spend time on something that will NOT impact me as a Spanish teacher in any way, shape, or form. Because of this, I also really try not to make my students do anything that will not later help them to speak, read, and write better in Spanish.
 
Back before I saw the light (when I taught traditionally instead of TPRS), my homework was often conjugating a long list of infinitives into whatever tense we were currently "learning."  OR even better, a worksheet that had them rewriting sentences that required them matching the given subject to the appropriately conjugated verb.  Usually, students would all copy the 2 kids that actually did the work right before the bell and, of course, none of the students had any idea what the sentences actually meant.  They were just completing a pattern. I might as well have given them a fill in the blanks worksheet  that looked like this:

□ ◊ O □ ◊ O □ __ O □ ◊ O __ ◊ O □ ◊ __  

I have found a homework activity that has proven to be very impactful...

So, now that I am following the TPRS model, I obviously have thrown out any of those old homework assignments.  One activity that I am occasionally using as  homework has proven VERY effective and beneficial for those students that actually do it. (Alas, They are still teenagers and sadly some of them don't care about learning Spanish nearly as much as I do!)

I post the pictures from our stories on our class edmodo page (Communication & Collaboration) and assign that students use the pictures to guide them as they re-tell our story (Critical Thinking, Problem Solving, Decision Making) to a parent, guardian, study hall teacher, etc.  In order to get credit for this assignment, students must bring in a signed note telling me that they retold the story in Spanish.

Now, I know that I am not hearing them tell the story and I have no idea whether they use correct pronunciation, intonation, use the wrong conjugation of the verb, etc...NOR DO I CARE!  My goal here is that the students understand the overall meaning of the words and take some risks and at least attempt using the words.  This is a formative activity and it is not my expectation that they students have fully mastered speaking with this vocabulary; only that they are on their way to mastery.  I usually follow up by beginning the next class by showing the story again and having volunteers tell a section of the story for an official speaking assessment and, without fail,  the students that turn in the note that they practiced at home, are WAY more successful that the students who did not do the homework....SHOCKING, I know.

I use the app storykit and post on edmodo, which seems to be a good method; however the format or specific app(s) used is irrelevant.  It's the process of giving the students exposure to the pictures and vocabulary again and forcing them to think about the meanings of the structures that makes this activity so successful.

Here is a link to an example of what the stories look like:

http://iphone.childrenslibrary.org/cgi-bin/view.py?b=gvbtrbo3haaizid6n55o

Awesome added bonus: In addition to the students getting more exposure and practice with the new vocab structures, most of the parents LOVE getting to hear what their kids are learning in class.  

Beefing Up your cuentos with Label box app on iPhone/iPad

Do you take pictures (or better yet, have a student taking pictures) during your stories in class? If not, YOU SHOULD START! It's one of the best ways to get more "bang for your buck" on each story.

When you have pictures, it opens up a lot of possible extensions:

• re-telling of story next class
• great foundation for both writing or speaking assessments later
• competitions between classes the "the class with the best acting gets their story pics posted on the class wiki"
• good to have as a resource for absent students
• helps me remember what in the world we did

Ok, so here's an awesome app. that I use all the time in my Spanish classes. The great part, it's compatible with iPad and iphones; so chances are either you or one of your students already has the hardware needed to implement the use of this app. The really great part, it,s FREE!!!

You can probably just figure out the app yourself and think of way better uses than I have, however if you would lik to see an indepth explaination of exactly how I use this app in my classes watch this video: