Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Home run story!

I've been struggling with my 9th graders. Nothing is cool. Nothing is fun. French sucks. So do I. Anyway, today I had a story that I wanted to tell from Susie Gross. I had tried an earlier story of hers with an animal peeing in a bed, but it just didn't work. So I used another story about a kid who falls asleep in class. Perfect!, I thought. The first time around, I had a student with his head down when the bell rang. Dingdingding! You are my "bad" student. I made sure to talk about why he was a bad student. It wasn't because he was mean or stupid or anything like that...it was only because he slept in class. We got a lot of repetitions in talking about who was a bad student and who was a good student and why. Then we started talking about talking while sleeping, screaming while sleeping, and what is in students' nightmares. Finally we went back to my "bad" student. The French teacher was so mad at this student!! What does she do to him?? Does she hit him? Oh no! Does she give him a kiss? No way! She pours mineral water on his pants!! In my second class, I held a water bottle over my sleeping student and the other students stopped breathing, I swear. The anticipation was electric!! It was sooooo awesome. Now tomorrow we can re-tell and read it!
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3 comments:

  1. Reflections of a Spanish TeacherMay 2, 2011 at 11:15 AM

    I also have the hardest time in my freshmen class. We've had some successful stories but they all hate each other's ideas and despite my encouraging and modeling the encouragement, they still don't react to one another positively so I can use it in a story and have the class enjoy it. It's nice to know I'm not alone! :-)

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  2. AlikeJuly 12, 2011 at 8:08 AM

    Hi,

    I made a Dutch TPRS blog "Alike in TPRS Wonderland". Next week I'll post there about the NTPRS ; I put a link to your blog on my blog. It would be nice if you'll make a link to my blog as well (allthough it's in Dutch) : http://alikestprsblog.wordpress.com/

    BTW, will you be an the National? If yes, it would be nice to meet!

    Best wishes, Alike Last

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  3. tprsteachersOctober 23, 2011 at 8:16 PM

    Thank you for your post. I think many times it is hard to find the right thing that students connect with. I am prepping my classes for the we and hoping to find some ideas to do in class to have a great story to gets the class involved. I will check out both of your blogs. I am starting a social networking site for TPRS teachers. Come register as a member and create or join a group. I just setup groups for teachers in each state. I would love to make a page where we can share stories that worked in our class. Several translations of the stories could be offered. Also we could talk about the highlights of the stories and why they worked. Just as you demonstrated on this post. Thank you for sharing your experiences and thoughts. TPRS is really a great way to teach but always a challenge.

    Brandon Kerby
    www.tprsteachers.com
    Register at www.tprsteachers.com/register

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