~Mme Hayles and the TPRS Experiment

SBG and Assessments

2012-01-26T08:59:00.001-08:00

I just gave a listening assessment to my first years and a reading assessment to my second years. The results were ho-hum...

What do you guys think? The class average was a low B, but with our SBG scale, that means that most of the students were not meeting my expectations. Did I give them a test that was too hard? Do I let it go because a B-average on a test is pretty good?

This week's stories

2012-01-26T08:52:00.001-08:00

Well, we are back in the TPRS swing around my classroom. This week, we worked on "wanted to buy," "looked for," "needed," and "found it." I've found that it always works well if the main character is missing pants. The kids are instantly engaged. My first telling of the story went beautifully, thanks to the creative answers of my kids...so I led my other class in the same direction and had two home run stories!

Here was the basic story: some chick was missing pants and wanted to buy white pants with green polka-dots. She went to a nightclub (not sure why...probably because my first character lived in the Jersey Shore) and saw some outrageous singer there (think Nicki Minaj, Katy Perry, Lady Gaga). The singer had the opposite pants on (green with white dots), but the lead was not sad because she got to dance! At this point, I went over to my computer and queued up the French version of "I'm Sexy and I know It!" (it exists!). My lead danced (I had a great male actor in my second class playing the girl and he LOVED hamming it up!). Stop the music! There was a problem!! L'il Wayne worked at the club and he was mad. He tells the lead "No pants, no club." So the lead leaves and goes to a store. At the store, they have beautiful white pants with green dots. Sadly, the lead does not have any money (pretty impossible to carry money around with no pants), so she hits the worker (someone fun like an Oompa Loompa or whoever the kids suggest), who falls asleep and she returns to the club to dance some more. Everyone is happy and dancing at the end!

Things that worked: Adding the music and the silly dancing in the middle. Having "masks" for the famous people...I printed off color pictures and pasted them to card stock (thanks Carol Gaab for the idea). The idea that the actor doesn't have any pants on.

Hooray for home run days! My upper-level stories were not nearly as interesting this week. Oh well, maybe next time!

Thoughts at the new year

2012-01-19T13:27:00.000-08:00

As I said in my last post, first semester was a firestorm! We hosted a family of five while they were between houses, I took a grad level class, I increased my work load by being full-time at one school (meaning an extra class and an extra prep...I now teach 6 classes with 3 preps)... It was busy! Plus, we, as a department, are making the jump to full-time standards-based grading.

Reflecting on the first semester, I think I did a pretty good job. We just got back from a trip to Quebec and my students did a fairly good job of communicating. They were blurting out stuff in French and didn't seem as afraid as kids from years past to try. I only had one student that I've had for more than a year take the trip, so I wonder what my results will be in the future. Another French teacher with kids on the trip commented that it seemed like my kids knew more than her kids, which is nice to hear. After her first year of teaching, she is ready to jump to TPRS for next year. Yippee! We could have all TPRS for French at the jr. high level!! Now what the high school has to say about that...we'll see...

I was a little down on myself at the end of first semester, thinking that I wasn't doing a very good job. I think it's because I started Pirates a little too early and didn't do enough comprehension checks and I lost a lot of kids. Now that we've started back on stories, I feel like they are getting the hang of things again, but that was a rough spot. Live and Learn

I hope to blog every day (as I said I would do at one point this year), but right now, having just returned from Canada, my brain is fried and I'm ready to go home and take a nap!

My absence

2011-10-26T07:35:00.000-07:00

I am so sorry that I haven't blogged in a while. I have been uber-busy with work, a grad class, and surprise house guests. Hopefully I'll find some time soon to write about the wonderful things that are happening in my classroom and the struggles...always the struggles. Thank goodness the good outweighs the bad!!

Be nice

2011-08-23T06:33:00.000-07:00

Compliment your students. Beyond telling them in class that they are the awesomest...notice their shoes or necklace. This is something that I used to be really bad at, but I think it makes a powerful difference.

Panic!....Phew!

2011-08-23T06:27:00.000-07:00

This weekend, I had a terrible feeling in my gut about this year. Can I really do this? Can I really do this so that 160 students learn? Can I manage huge classrooms back to back to back? What about planning time? Suffice it to say that I was a mess this weekend.

Yesterday, I came into school and I started doing my thing. For my students from last year, they were used to this sort of thing, so it went as expected. But with my new students....they LIT UP! They were smiling and laughing (or at least staying awake). I had just as much energy, if not more, at the end of the day as I did in the morning. What a great feeling! And, I continued asking my students if I was going too fast or too slow and they all said I was going at a good pace! It really is true...it feels slow to us, but it is just the right speed for our students. Thank you, Linda Li, for really drilling that at NTPRS through modelling.

Comprehension checks

2011-08-19T09:51:00.000-07:00

After NTPRS this year (and my experience last year), I realized that I need to spend a lot more time with comprehension checks, going SLOW, and making sure that EVERY student understands. Today, I started working on training my students (even the ones I had last year who feel like they know how to work this class) on how to make that happen.

We practiced several times what I expect from a choral response. I gave them a verbal cue..."Claaaasse?" in a very exagerrated question, followed by the question. I then listened to see if everyone answered. If not, I talked about how they should answer next time and we tried it again. Explaining what I was doing and why really helped my students understand what the heck was going on in class. I also said, "When I ask for a response from the class, it could be one word or several, depending on your level of comfort."

The next thing I did as I was doing a little circling was to have comprehension checks. At first, I just did a basic 10-finger check to see how much they were able to understand. If they were at a 7 or below, I reminded the class that they need to be stopping me if they don't understand. After a couple more minutes of CI, I did another comp. check, but this time I used someone's (Linda's?) word-by-word check. I had students give me a sign if they understood the word and could picture it and a different sign if they didn't know it. Then, I said the words I had been working on and checked them out. This was an AWESOME way to see my barometer students really quickly. It was surprising to me to see how many kids were struggling that were giving me all the "I'm okay" signs.

The last cool thing (at least I think it's cool) that I did was to have the kids tell me "oui" or "non" on the way out of class. Oui meant that they thought I was doing a good job and going at a good pace. Non meant that I was going too fast or too slow (and then I asked them to expand at the door). I was really surprised at how many Ouis I got...even with my second year students...considering that I was going sooooooooo slowly. Everything just reaffirms the power of going super slow. It's not the kids getting bored, it's us! (usually). I did have some kids ask what to do when I was going too slowly. I said that I would be checking in with them every so often and that if they were all on board that I was going too slowly, I would speed up. Otherwise, I wanted the faster processors to focus on something they could improve on or come up with an interesting story so they wouldn't get bored...

I love my job!

Day two

2011-08-18T15:07:00.000-07:00

Today, we started off with me giving an introduction of myself and what I like. With my second year kids, I did the whole thing in French, checking for comprehension and reinforcing my expectation that everyone understand everything. I think this went pretty well, but I realize that I need to spend a LOT more time on comprehension checks. It is sooooo important.

With my first year students, I told them that I could do my introduction in French...and I could make sure that they get the gist of what I'm saying, but I didn't want to do that because I didn't want them to get used to the feeling of being confused.

When we were done with that, we started talking about the syllabus. How exciting is that? I think it's going to go really well, though. I was a little nervous about yesterday because I couldn't remember a lot of faces or names, but I did better than I thought I would today. I just have to remember to take it one kid at a time. It also went better than I thought it would because the kids who were pushing my limits yesterday really calmed down AND they were still making jokes, just at appropriate times. This could be really awesome!!

First day, first day!!

2011-08-17T15:13:00.000-07:00

Ooooooo boy! What a fabulous but mind-numbing day! I met all but two of my almost 160 students and tried to remember a lot of new names and faces. Hopefully things will calm down tomorrow as I introduce myself and we start talking syllabus and procedures. And then comes the fun stuff of getting to know them through talking about what they like to do!!

I have to say that I was absolutely AMAZED at the retention from my 2nd year students. They were up, talking, answering questions, and UNDERSTANDING what I was saying. One difference? Me! After NTPRS, I think I did a much better job asking for clarification, slowing down, and not being afraid to jump in with English. I can't wait to start curriculum!

Back to school Eve

2011-08-16T13:49:00.000-07:00

Woo hoo! I am super excited to be starting another year with TPRS! And this time with a protege and some new Missouri TPRS friends. I think this year will be the best yet!

I had a meeting with a new parent who had some genuine concerns about her child being successful in my class because of some SPED issues, and I felt great being able to re-assure that parent that ANY kid can be successful in my class. I see it as an exciting challenge to bring that child into the classroom and make him/her feel great about being an individual and celebrating his/her strengths!! That is really the best thing about TPRS (besides not having to plan for hours and hours) to me. I love being able to create a true connection with kids.

I also saw a student from last year in the hallways. She was with her grandma, so I made sure to speak only in French to her. At first, she freaked out and said she didn't remember anything...but then she realized that I was only asking stuff we talked about millions of times during class (What did you do this summer? Did you see any movies? Did you travel? Where?). It was reassuring to me that she was able to remember the answers and UNDERSTAND what I was saying to her. I'm not banging my head against a wall anymore!!

Good luck tomorrow and this week (or later, if you're a late starter) with getting new kids (almost 160 for me this year!!!) and helping them find their voice and shine!

NTPRS wrap-up

2011-08-03T09:37:00.000-07:00

For me, this year of NTPRS was a lot more networking than last year. Last year I was just trying to learn as much as possible. This year, I learned a ton, but I also met some really awesome people. I can't wait to watch for their moretprs posts and such.

I also have to say that my brand-new colleague who came with me has decided to go into her first year teaching as a TPRS teacher!!!!!!! She is already receiving a little bit of kick-back for her choice of TPRS and standards-based grading, but there are enough people to support her that she'll be fine. And I'm her mentor at school, so how could she go wrong ;). In addition to my awesome colleague, we met and became very close with a couple of new TPRSers from the other side of the state. We are already making plans to meet up in October to touch base and support each other.

I love my job! I love TPRS! I love NTPRS! I love my students! and I love all of you...the army of TPRS. Together, we can teach the world to communicate.

Stories Worth Retelling: Teaching with Jokes-Bryce Hedstrom

2011-08-03T09:27:00.000-07:00

First, I have to tell all of you that I love Bryce Hedstrom. Last year, I didn't see him in any sessions because I was sooo busy with a bunch of other junk, but he stood out to me in the Fred Jones session. He said that Tools for Teaching changed his life. And that was a pretty big endorsement! So I tried it and I have to say that it changed my life as well. So of course I had to tell him that...and he was so great! I think that's one of the things that we TPRS teachers do really well: we tell each other when we've made a difference. I had people come up to me and tell me that my blog is helping them! It was kind of weird, but gave me the energy to keep it up, that's for sure!

Okay, so now that my gush-fest for Bryce is over, I'll tell you about this amazing session. The premise is really simple: sneak a joke in AS A STORY every once in a while to keep your students on their toes! It starts out the same: there is a boy/girl/monkey who has a problem. But instead of a conclusion, there is a punchline!!

For the first joke, Bryce pre-taught us a couple of key phrases: me duele (hurts me) and roto (broken). If my Spanish is jacked, I apologize. So we talked about what hurts worse, a broken nose or a broken finger? Who has ever had a broken finger? How did you break it? Does it still hurt? You get the idea. We PQA and circle the heck out of those two phrases because they are essential to the joke. Once we get bored of that, Bryce introduces our character. Gerry is a boy with a problem. He hurts. He hurts all over. He hurts when he touches his shoulder, He hurts when he touches his knee. At this point, somebody yelled that it hurts when he touches his hair. Bryce acted really confused and questioned us...Does it hurt when he touches his hair?? No...it never hurts when I touch my hair (this made me laugh so hard because Bryce has a beautiful bald head...). Gerry goes to the doctor and tells the doctor his problem. The doctor thinks and thinks and says "I know your problem!" Gerry is so excited...the doctor says "you have a broken finger!" The kids were never expecting that. They were expecting the wrong solution and then a second and a third location!! Genius.

Bryce has jokes for advanced levels, beginner levels, etc. They don't have to be culturally Spanish (or French or Russian...) jokes, they just have to be story jokes. Good stuff I tell you!

Activating Readers-Carol Gaab

2011-08-03T09:03:00.001-07:00

Only two more to blog and I'm done for a while!!

This was really helpful to me because I loved reading novels with my kids last year, but it took sooooooo loooooong. I got some great tips in this session to make the stories more fascinating and to make the reading go more quickly.

The first tip that she gave was that we should be doing more PQA than we do circling. We do circling to establish meaning, but then we involve our students to get reps. This makes it more interesting!! Real aha moment!

The other aha moment was that we don't have to make sure that they get every word in the reading. We don't have to write every unknown word/structure on the board and then circle for acquisition. Pick 4 or 5 per chapter that you want them to acquire and then just give them the others!

Okay, I'm just blogging my notes, but they aren't in any sort of order. I'll try to get things back in order.

First step is to think about what you want to do for pre-reading. This includes picking the phrases you want kids to learn...or what cultural tidbits you want them to pick-up. Pre-teach high frequency, essential vocabulary...WAY before the book is ever introduced. Then, start teaching background knowledge that they will need to know before you start reading. This could be history, historical characters (like Houdini), geography...anything!

All of this stuff will get them excited to read. Introduce the characters before you introduce the novel. Talk about parallels between characters and students. They should WANT to read!

During the reading: this is where I struggled. I either had students chorally translate or popcorn translate. and that was it for my bag of tricks. Carol had tons of better ideas: You could break the class into groups and have each group chorally read a section. You can read in English (sloooowly) and then have students fill in the blanks for important or acquired words. Have them read in partners. Do a jigsaw activity where each group translates a paragraph or sentence and then get in groups again so that each section is represented and have them read it together. Have the students respond to a key word ("Every time we read "the boy" you say achoo!") Or just use the audio books and allow them a chance to enjoy being read to. Good stuff right there. As with everything I learned from Carol, the key is to mix things up pretty regularly so the kids don't get bored with any one thing.

The students don't have to "get" every word to get the story. Carol suggests checking comprehension by ordering events, analyzing events, answering questions about the plot, acting out, drawing pictures, etc. You can also read the text with different emotions and inflections to ask the students to think about what is going on. Which one would be the best if I were an actor in the movie version of this book?

Carol also suggested two books for help with activating readings: The Read-Aloud Handbook by Jim Trelease (also recommended by Krashen) and You Gotta Be the Book by Jeffrey Wihelm.

Sigh...I love Carol...

Power Assessments-Scott Benedict

2011-08-01T09:06:00.001-07:00

I went to both parts of this session, but I'll combine them to one blog for space's sake.

This session was really poweful and helpful to me. It was helpful to see that I wasn't TOO far off with my experimentation into standards-based grading. But, what I did realize is that I didn't have to have the vocabulary section (first, because it's really hard to discern meaning out of context and second, because I could just add questions after the reading to see if they understood the vocabulary). So, in the future, I will just have my students read a selection and then have a variety of questions. Some about just various vocabulary words, some about the plot, and then a couple asking them to infer (a higher-level on Bloom's taxonomy).

It was also really helpful because I was struggling with creating standards to narrow down the broad national/state/district FL standards. Scott doesn't do that! Instead, he uses the standards as they are, but then GRADES them based on where he KNOWS they should be. Incredible.

He talked about feedback on formative assessments and how we should talk to a student about how they can improve instead of just giving them a number correct or incorrect. Since it is a formative assessment, this is about the student's growth in knowledge!

Scott also had some great rubrics that I will adapt/steal for my classroom. It was really awesome to see that Scott's rubrics and my Spanish department's rubrics from last year were very similar. AND it made them feel good too when I shared it with them!

For reading and speaking, Scott followed the pattern above. For culture, he did fill in the blank or multiple choice, since this is lower-level Bloom's taxonomy. For writing, he would either give them a prompt or have them write for a set amount of time. This is what I did last year! But I was grading fluency and not accuracy. He suggests using a rubric to help grade these. His rubrics have three criteria, and I am not sure if I can remember them off the top of my head: vocabulary, flow, and grammar maybe?? I'll have to look at his website: www.teachforjune.com and remind myself. For speaking, he would give them a prompt and have them come up two at a time while the rest of the class was doing another portion of the test. That way, the students were focused on their test and not on what the other students were saying. Sometimes he had the students do a dialogue with another student, sometimes they were re-telling a story based on a picture sequence, sometimes they would tell everything they could about a picture. In this way, he can grade all the students in one period and the grading is done when the bell rings.

I would highly recommend Scott's webinars or webversity if you have questions about this. He is amazing and has such an incredible grasp on SBGing. Good stuff!!

Presenting to Peers

2011-08-01T09:03:00.000-07:00

Last week, I presented a session on classroom management to a group of 40 peers, including my two administrators!!! It was sooooo fun! Teaching to a room full of teachers is not the easiest thing, since we all know that teachers make the worst students...but they were all engaged and open to what I had to say! Before TPRS and the confidence that I have gained through the method, I would NOT have been able to do it. There's something about TPRS that allows me to really be myself in front of a classroom. I was cracking jokes off the top of my head and relating to my students. Amazing!!

Co-building a story-Carol Gaab and Kristy Placido

2011-07-25T15:44:00.000-07:00

At this point, a lot of this session was synthesis of what we learned in the other sessions. The difference in this session was the focus on taking student suggestions. I STINK at this. And during the coaching portion of this session, I learned why. I'm too flippy floppy on it. I'm always waiting for the perfect answer, so I take way too many suggestions and then pick the best one. Instead, I should take a couple of suggestions and either take one, making a big deal about how great it is that the student "guessed" the answer, or I should give my own answer. Either way, it should seem as though I know the story by heart and they are just helping me re-tell it. With the way I do it, the students shout out too many answers and then argue with me when I finally pick an answer. My fault! I need to be more certain in my answers.

We also talked about creating a space for each location to give the students help in remembering the plot.

Personalization-Barb Watson and Michael Miller

2011-07-25T15:29:00.000-07:00

I loved this session! Michael started off by talking about how he gets to know his students from the first day of class. It was reassuring, because I focused a lot on this last year. I even shook my kids hands the first week of school to build a connection. As the year went on, if I feel that connection breaking, I would just shake their hands for a few days and BOOM! the connection came back. It was really powerful.

I also loved this session because it gave more ways to embed advanced grammar structures into class so that they become natural.

In the video of Michael in his class, he started off by talking about famous people. Do you know anyone famous? Are you famous? Then, he switched to the future: Will you be famous? I believe that...will be famous. So much good stuff there all around one main word! The thing that stuck out to me about Michael's class is that it really felt like a conversation between him and his students. Really amazing stuff.

Comments

2011-07-25T15:26:00.000-07:00

I am having a hard time responding to comments...so, to Piedad, you are so sweet and I uploaded a picture. I'm getting better at this technology stuff, but still not great!

To Alike: again, technology. Once I figure it out, I'll add a link to your blog. I saw you at NTPRS, but wasn't ever close enough to talk.

To Anny: I'd like to talk to you about your sabbatical. What were you working on? Is your blog up and running yet?

Props in the Classroom-Barb Watson

2011-07-25T15:03:00.000-07:00

In this session, Barb talks about what works in her classroom with props. She uses them for interest value, to establish meaning, and as a classroom management tool. How in the world are they a classroom management tool? Students have their favorite props, and Barb will let them sit on desks as long as the student is behaving his/herself. If he/she acts out, the prop is removed. She also has a puppet who is a member of the class. If a student says something mean or out-of-bounds, the puppet gets very upset. Students respond to this more than if Barb just tells them to knock it off.

Barb also uses specific dolls as characters from the novel. This helps students keep characters straight and gives them a visual to go along with the reading.

I don't use props a ton in my class, except for when talking about my animal of the week or when a prop is just perfect for a story. Because I'll be trying to plan ahead more this year, I think I can use props a little more.

The Politics of Education-Dr. Stephen Krashen

2011-07-25T14:40:00.000-07:00

First, I have to admit that I am a hippy (I try to use natural soaps, grow vegetables in my back-yard garden, cloth diaper my baby, and recycle like crazy...). I was so happy to go to this session and be surrounded by hippies. I consider a hippy to be anyone who believes that we can improve on the status quo, is willing to fight to make it happen, and will use their beliefs and anything else they have to speak up for the little guy who can't fight for himself.

I already said how much I loved listening to Krashen speak during the keynote address. He was just as engaging here, and he didn't talk about aliens. :)

Krashen started off by telling us that we are not the problem in education. In fact, he said that our educational system is not broken at all. If we look at our national test scores, but remove the scores of those living in poverty, we are very competitive with the other countries. Which is pretty amazing as some of the other countries have little or no poverty and some countries do not educate or test those of below-normal intelligence.

Whew! It's not us! We're not failing our kids! Okay, so what now? Krashen says that there are three main things that have a direct correlation with achievement levels. He says that good public libraries are huge...access to books is one of the biggest indicators of success in school. But most of the poorer schools and communities do not have great access to books. Sooo, pump money into the libraries. But we also need trained librarians who can help students find books that are interesting to them. They need to feel compelled to read. Librarians are number two. And third is a trained library staff to help. Amazing! Of course, he has the research to back this up.

The other thing that Krashen said that I found incredible is that SSR is as effective or MORE effective than direct instruction in reading. I am dumbfounded by this! I will definitely be taking this back to my administrators this fall...

Krashen also talked about curing poverty to make sure that our kids are well-fed with HEALTHY meals and have access to healthcare to help reduce the achievement gap. All-in-all...amazing stuff.

Action plans: follow susanohanian.org and go to www.saveourschoolsmarch.org. We need to convince politicians that TESTING is not the way to go. Spend those billions of dollars used currently for testing to get more books in schools, feed our kids, and offer them school nurses.

Contrastive Grammar-Susie Gross and Betsy Paskvan

2011-07-25T14:24:00.000-07:00

Grammar in a TPRS classroom?! No way! Yes way!

I loved this because it gave us 3 basic skills to practice.

For our low performers, we ask them to translate a piece or a phrase that it already written on the board. This is the same as in comprehension checks...

For average students, we ask them to transfer the grammar rule we are practicing to another known phrase. For example, "If jouons means (we) play, what does chantons mean?" They should be able to figure that out...

For superstars, we ask them to produce language. "How would I say We like?"

We got to practice this skill, alternating between circling questions and the different levels of grammar pop-ups. Great practice.

The other thing that I really got from this session is the idea of color-coding my board. French should be in one color, English in another, and the grammar point should be in a third color. That's hard to picture, but I'll try to explain it: In the above example, I would write jouons in black, (we) play in blue, and then I would put a red square around the "ons" and (we) so that students can begin to see the pattern.

Great session and my first time to see Miss Susie in action!! AND, I almost forgot that I got to learn some Japanese!! Really amazing... Betsy was so in love with the language and the culture...it was hard not to get sucked in!

Comprehension Checks-Barb Cartford and Leslie Davison

2011-07-25T14:18:00.000-07:00

This session was a summary of a lot of things we had been seeing in our other sessions...well, as far as comprehension checks go. We have seen the instructors model these skills, and now we have a list of some to try.

We can do translation checks asking kids to translate what we just said (either the whole phrase or a portion) or even retell the story so far in English. Obviously, we need to choose the question based on the ability of the students.

We can also ask the students to tell us how much they are understanding through a finger check, answers to questions, or through a gesture to tell us we are going way too fast.

For us, we need to teach to the eyes...this will tell us quickly if a student is lost (unless they are faking it...).

The coolest things that I learned in this session is how to say "You are really good today" in Swedish...which sounds like Doo air duke diggy dog...or something like that. The other cool thing was how to have students text their level of understanding using www.polleverywhere.com. I can't wait to use this in my classroom! I think my kids will pee their pants when I tell them to pull out their cell phones in class!

Skipped sessions...

2011-07-25T14:16:00.000-07:00

I skipped the last session of the day because my brain needed a break and there wasn't anything I was crazy about. Instead, I talked to a bunch of people and checked out the exhibitors. Great stuff there. I bought three sub DVDs from Chalkboard Productions. I'm sure I'll blog later about how those worked in the classroom.

Power Grading part 1-Scott Benedict

2011-07-25T14:10:00.001-07:00

In this session, Scott explained the "why" behind Standards-based grading and how he uses that in his own class.

Scott breaks down his grading into five sections that he weights based on Bloom's Taxonomy. Culture is worth 10% because this is mainly recall of information. Listening and Reading are worth 15% each because these require a little more thought. Writing and Speaking are worth 30% each because they require the highest level of thinking. I love this idea and will transfer my gradebook to this. Last year I had 95% assessments and 5% homework, but I had already planned on ditching my homework grades for the upcoming year anyway. I have had horrible luck with homework in my classes and HATE it as a parent.

Scott also talked about the difference between formative assessments (dipsticks for teachers to see how the students are doing so far...also to provide feedback for students to improve) and summative assessments (test of multiple learning goals).

My school has been working towards standards-based grading for a couple of years now, so I understood the why of this method of grading. There were quite a few people who were shocked by this idea, especially NO HOMEWORK and NO PARTICIPATION. I believe in it... Anyway, I decided to skip the second part, not because Scott isn't amazing as a presenter (as you'll see in later sessions), but because I was already sold on the idea and really wanted to hear Krashen talk about politics.

Building Dialogue through Actors-Scott Benedict and Carol Sutton

2011-07-25T12:52:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite sessions because there was sooo much there. Variety, acting, humor, upper-level grammar, and useful phrases.

In this session, Scott and Carol taught us how to choose the right actor (not too crazy, not too shy...just right), how to use dialogue with different levels (low level are puppets, mid-level repeat the dialogue, superstars improvise), and how to vary the drama by having the audience repeat the words with different emotions.

When using dialogue, the teacher circles the dialogue, verifies the details with the actor, and gets advice from the audience. This is such a perfet way to include different subjects, tenses, etc. LOTS of practice. You can even go further by asking way advanced questions like "What did he want that she say? (subjunctive) or What would you like her to say (conditional)" Really really good stuff in this session that I can't wait to use.

Verifying details with Blaine and Von

2011-07-20T05:37:00.001-07:00

I love Blaine. He has a way of making me feel like the best, most awesome, student in the class. There really is no way to explain the magic of Blaine until you have a chance to see him teach. And I don't mean teaching about TPRS, I mean teaching a language. He is magic...

This session was practicing the skill of verifying details with the actors and then the class to introduce the first and second person forms. We had a lively discussion about whether oral stories should be in the past or the present. Then Cheri asked if we should introduce both past tenses of a word at the same time. Blaine asked me what my experience was last year in Spanish class... Here is my answer: I learned from Blaine that tenia means wanted. So when I say He wanted...I know exactly what to say. If he had given me two words and tried to explain the difference, I would ALWAYS be asking myself to choose before producing that phrase. That slows down production and creates way more errors than just giving tenia means wanted. So I really believe in the power of just using the language in context and giving the students the meaning.

When verifying, you write the "you" form of the question on the board with the correct response. Then, you ask the actor a question that has already been established. Example: Nilsa, are you a girl? Nilsa answers-Yes, I am a girl. The class applauds Nilsa and the teacher VERIFIES the detail by answering, Yes! That is correct! You are a girl! Another repetition there. Then, turn to the class and verify the detail with them: Class, is/was Nilsa a girl? Yes! That's right! Nilsa is/was a girl. Just another way to increase reps.

I don't have notes from this, but I think that was about it. We had a lot of practice time with Blaine and Von coaching. Again, magic!!

More notes from Carol Gaab

2011-07-20T05:30:00.000-07:00

I found my original notes from Carol's session Monday. I thought I would post them, because there are some really good things here...

Make sure that you display vocabulary through meanings or pictures. Pictures, props, gestures are more effective because we are visual creatures.

This is what Carol suggests saying when administrators ask "How do you differentiate": I tier my lesson based on cognitive ability…in other words, I have my core words for the day that EVERY student should internalize and then we have enrichment words (spontaneous) for the top half of the class.

Have some interesting dialogue in every story. Dialogue of the day (Do you want to go? Sure, I want to go!) Great time to use “advanced” dialogue that it high-frequency. Phrase of the week. I will have a lot more about how to embed dialogue into a story from a session on Tuesday.

Put question posters near appropriate items ("where" by map, "what time is it" by clock…) I really like this idea because it eliminates me looking around to point at the appropriate question word...

Partner work is not necessarily for production, it’s for teacher breaks, brain breaks, or a chance for them to think on their own. I do not do nearly enough of this because I'm always afraid that they will use the time to talk to their friend. I think if I give them a set amount of time and time it, they will be more likely to do what I want them to do. Also, it gives me a chance to hear them produce in a non-threatening way.

Use props sparingly and strategically…choose several for the week and then put them away. Emotional engagement increases because the props are always new! Favorite props (cereal boxes, hats, abnormal body parts, glasses, blow-up props, fake foods, empty containers, famous faces) Print off face on card stock and get popsicle sticks. I love the idea of famous faces. I can imagine how my kids would love to see a head of Snooki with her HUGE hair!

One individual question for every 4 group questions….say their name, pause, and then ask the question…offer a choice if they are stuck. This goes against the "old way" for teachers. Usually we are trying to "catch" our students to encourage them to pay attention. But that increases the affective filter. If we say their name, pause, and then ask the question, there is little chance they won't be able to answer. ESPECIALLY if we ask the question very slowly and point.

Improv with Von Ray

2011-07-19T20:46:00.000-07:00

Woo hoo! After almost a day, I was reunited with the Ray boys. I doubted that they would remember me, but they did and they were even looking for me! Woot!

Anyway, on to the class. This class was a training to help us as teachers be in the moment of the story. We need to feel comfortable not knowing what is going to happen next. We talked a lot about what makes things funny in an improv situation and then we got to work!

Our first practice was an improv game called One Word Story. In this activity, each player stands in a circle. One person starts the story with one work (Once) and the next player adds another word (upon)...etc. The goal is to have a cohesive, smooth story. Wow! This was really freaking hard. But we all agreed that it is a great team-building activity for our students and would also teach them a lot about being respectful of others' answers in our TPRS classroom. With only one word, it was hard for us to actually create a story with a problem and solution. Instead, we just kept adding details and characters and locations. Hmmmm...sound familiar?

Our second practice was called Conducted Story (I think). One player sits in the middle of the circle and "conducts" the story by pointing to different players for differing amounts of time. This was much easier and we actually had some story lines that made us laugh quite a lot. One of the girls in my group had me on the floor with two words that were completely unexpected. It wasn't that what she said was necessarily that funny, but it was sooooo out of left field that I had to laugh and missed a key part of the story. Luckily, Cheri from Lee's Summit was there to get our story back on track.

The goal of this session was not to find activities to take back to our classrooms for students to do, but rather to start to feel more comfortable with the unknown. Very fun!!

Are we doing a story AGAIN-Carol Gaab

2011-07-19T20:35:00.000-07:00

Another great session! This answered soooooo many problems I've had (real or imagined) with my classes. It also showed me, yet again, just how much I have to learn before I can be truly awesome and super effective.

The first point Carol made that I think I need to remind myself of 25 times a day is that the kids aren't (usually) the ones who are bored; it's us! We get so bored saying the same phrase fifty gajillion times that we assume we must be boring the students too. As I can assure you all after being in "classes" of Russian, Chinese and German this week so far, our students NEED that repetition. Most of them aren't bored, they are tuning out because we are going to fast and trying to further the story...

The next tip was to bring in props. But, like every tip that Carol gave us, it should be used sparingly for optimum response and excitement. Carol brings in a few props each week and rotates them so students are excited by the new props.

The next tip is to vary our techniques. Instead of having all choral responses, we should be calling on individuals, have them write it on their hand, bark for yes, etc. I really like this idea and hope to use it once the novelty starts to wear off.

The next tip is also a technique of our storytelling. It is using actors for dialogue. Right from day one! If they can't produce, speak for them and have them open their mouths as your puppets.

Use technology to excite students! No, that doesn't mean a snazzy PowerPoint (although it probably could...). Use Jibjab to explain a story point. Use blabberize. I had never heard of this service. Apparently, you can take a digital photo, center it over a mouth, and then record something for the mouth to say as it moves. Carol suggested using a celebrity crush and then record the story saying something romantic to a student!

We can also vary the types of stories we use. It doesn't always have to be based off PQA. It doesn't always have to come from asking a story. How about using a current event? I thought immediately of using Casey Anthony as a story starter. Carol also uses historical events to teach a story, but she often uses PQA situations the previous day to introduce vocabulary and increase interest in boring old history.

She suggest using music or TV theme songs or sound effects to create pizzazz in the classroom. Again, this is not something to be used every day.

Carol said again and again that not every story is going to be a homerun. We need to realize that our classroom is going to have some fizzles. We just have to learn how to deal with those in a positive matter and keep going in the future!

Krashen Keynote

2011-07-19T14:00:00.000-07:00

I thought this was absolutely fascinating, though I guess there were some that found it a bit boring. Not this girl! I was amazed at the sheer genius of this man and the fact that he was in front of me! I have my photos of me and Blaine and Von and me on the bulletin board in my classroom and now I have another "celebrity" I want to add. (I also have a picture of me and Jason Sudeikis...number one on my "list")

Krashen presented 5 areas of discussion

Krashen talked about a program called Reach out and Read where pediatric office workers, nurses, and doctors are briefly trained in how to teach parents how to read aloud to their children. During the wait time for the well-child check-up, the parents were talked to about read-alouds and GIVEN a free book. In this tiny way, research shows that the achievement gap can be reduced significantly. So, we should read to our children and our students to increase vocabulary development.

Compelling input-Krashen proposes that compelling input (where the listener is transported to another world and forgets that the story is in the target language) can destroy the affective filter and eliminates the need for motivation. We provide this by talking about the most fascinating subject in the entire world to students...them!

Next, Krashen talks about a study that shows how to delay dementia...good news for languages! Being bilingual is one way to delay dementia. The other two ways to help with dementia are to read fiction and non-fiction and to drink coffee!

I had a hard time following his next point about Arnold Schwarzenegger...But I think he is making the point that immersion does not make for fluency alone. The input has to be comprehensible in order to be beneficial. This reminds me of why I don't teach 100% in the TL anymore. It was like a game of charades where the kids are frustrated, I'm frustrated and little progress is made.

Okay, I'll admit that I got lost here as well, but it was at least entertaining. Krashen talked about aliens and if they have visited us and how they communicate. What I took from this point is that we have to be proactive in trying to change the way language instruction is seen in modern culture. Is it seen as "kill and drill"? Is it seen as memorized dialogues? If we see something that we don't agree with (as Krashen saw on Star Trek), we should be vocal and call or email the creators.

I was very impressed with Krashen's knowledge level and his wonderful sense of humor. Maybe I'll send him a pound of Kansas City's own Roasterie coffee.

The Art of Going Slowly-Bryce Hedstrom and Linda Li

2011-07-18T21:07:00.000-07:00

Wow! Chinese!!! This was so much fun. Linda is a true artist as she takes something as banal as "looks at" and makes it fascinating and challenging. Very fun session.

I think we all as TPRS teachers know that we HAVE to do a better job at going slowly, pausing and pointing, and teaching to the eyes. In fact, one of my biggest goals for next year is to make sure that I don't lose a single student. So this was a good reminder of how I can accomplish that goal.

I have to say that Bryce spoke directly to me when he started talking about forgetting all the intellectual stuff and really worrying about our hearts and what they are saying. In the last year, I have gone from having a job to having a job that I LOVE...that I'm excited about. For the first time in my life, people can ask me how work is going and I feel giddy. It is really because of the heart and love mindset that I feel that way. I have removed the pressure from myself to have students who can get an A on this textbook unit test or students who know how to say, "No, I don't have any." I really believe at this point (and I hope I don't get fired for saying this) that my job is less about curriculum and more about the kids. Of course, I try to cram as much French into my time with them...and I know that I am doing that successfully...but I'm also teaching them that it's okay to be a goofball. Or not. It's okay to like reading. Or not. Wow, that was a tangent.

Anyway, I loved this session. Some quick things that I took away for the classroom:

Don't allow students to repeat after teacher

Make sure to teach and re-teach the gestures for "slow down" and "I'm lost"

Remind students to do the gestures

Embedded Readings with Laurie Clarcq and Michele Whaley

2011-07-18T20:53:00.000-07:00

First off, it is always awesome to put a face to a name, but then I always try to put more information with the face and the name and my head usually explodes. This is what happened when Laurie introduced me to Michele today. Of course I've seen the name a thousand times on the moreTPRS blog and Laurie's blog, but I knew I should know more about her. Is she a colleague of Laurie's? Is she the one (of many, I know) from Alaska? Cue head exploding. So if you happen to be a witness to one of these instances of social despair, I apologize in advance. Anyway, it turns out that Michele is indeed a Russian teacher from Alaska!

In this session, Laurie and Michele worked in Russian (well, Michele worked in Russian and Laurie explained the pedagogy behind the embedded readings) to show us how this is truly beneficial to beginning students. This was my first experience with TPRS in a language other than French or Spanish. It was AMAZING! I realized that TPRS really does work...even if it's not in a language extremely similar to my second language.

Michele spent time working on a few key structures with us. Then she added a parallel story (I am assuming here that most of my readers know these basic ideas. If not, please add a comment and I would be happy to expand) in which two new characters looked at each other and said or did not say hi to one another. By this time, we were fairly comfortable with recognizing and understanding the new structures. Then, Michele had us write down the core structures on a sticky note. Then, she asked us to work in pairs to create a story in English using those structures and whatever else we wanted to add. She later used these student stories to create an embedded reading.

Okay, so what is an embedded reading? I highly recommend that you check out tprstalk.com for explanations and example stories. But I can summarize here by telling you the basic outline of an embedded reading. An ER is created to level instruction to meet the needs and abilities of all students. It starts with 4-5 core sentences that each student should have no trouble reading after circling and PQA. Then, in the next "story," those same core sentences are there, but we've added detail or a time stamp or a repetition of a sentence or a prepositional phrase or.... The teacher, or the class with teacher guidance, takes the second story, copies it, and continues to add. This can go on several times...usually 3 or 4 times.

Why in the world would we want to do this? Well, for repetitions sake. By the time the students have read all of the versions of the story, they have heard the core vocab in the prep circling and PQA and they have read the sentence (and understood it) at least 3 more times. Another reason is to scaffold for the slower processors. If you gave those students the final version at the beginning, they would look at the amount of words and give up. By giving it to them in this way, they don't even realize how awesomely they are able to read until the end. Ha ha! Teachers trick the students again!

Anyway, I am sold! I tried this a couple of times in the last year, but it seemed like a ton of work and it took so long to read that the students are bored. Seeing how it worked in this session with true beginners, I realize that my final versions were WAY too long to keep the interest of my students for that long. Plus, I was having them chorally translate each version. BORING! They could just as easily have translated to a partner or read silently and visualized. Things to do next year...

NTPRS-I'm here!

2011-07-18T20:49:00.000-07:00

This year, my second, I brought a colleague with me who will be starting her career in my district with me as a mentor! On the almost 4 hour trip from KC to St. Louis, I tried to explain the week of love, support, and excitement that is NTPRS. I was a little hesitant in case I just had a really good year last year...I mean, could all of those people really be that nice ALL the time??

Well, I am happy to report that it is just as loving and welcoming for a second year as it was for a first year attendee. I think my colleague is having a good experience in the beginning sessions, and I will post entries about my sessions as I find time and brain function.

PS-Shout out to Liz Hughes who said she reads my blog! That is certainly NOT something that I'm used to hearing "Oh, I read your blog!" Wow. Really puts the pressure on me to put something worth reading here...

Home run story!

2011-04-26T12:56:00.000-07:00

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!

Compliments

2011-04-21T08:49:00.001-07:00

It may seem like a tiny tiny thing, but I've found myself complimenting people more this year. I think it comes with the mindset of teaching with love. I greet my students at the door and make sure to tell them if I like their new haircut or that awesome shirt. In the past, I always meant to say something to the girl with the awesome shoes, but then I would get caught up in teaching...I don't even have to think about it this year!

I feel like NTPRS changed my view of teaching so much (especially Ms. Laurie Clarcq!!)...I can't wait to see myself this time next year!

P.A.T. and grammar puzzles

2011-04-20T12:34:00.000-07:00

I've talked before about how much I struggle with my second year students. They are just sooo hard some days! I love their personalities and they are so funny, but it causes a real classroom management problem most days. Today, they made me so proud! Lately, I've been having students try and write the answers to the day's song/grammar puzzles on the board for minutes for P.A.T. Today it hit me how awesome they are doing on this. They are really focusing on trying to "catch" others' mistakes and actually trying to solve the puzzle on their own before the answer is written on the board. Today, one of the puzzles was "I will take her place." We have not worked with the futur simple, but I have thrown a couple of examples in on our grammar puzzles because it appears so frequently in song lyrics. I had a student today write "Je vais prend sa place." Another student piped up and said, "I think there is supposed to be an -re at the end of prendre." I was blown away. First, that a student would find a work-around for the phrase instead of inventing a word for "will" and second, that a student would pick up on the missing -re! It might be commonplace in others' classrooms, but I was proud of these kids today. Thank goodness! I was about to tear my hair out!

Free writes and preposition "chant"

2011-04-20T12:28:00.000-07:00

Today I was looking at my first years' five-minute free-writes and it really hit home how much my students are learning. It's interesting, as a language teacher, to watch their progress on this task. They start out first with a few words strung together or phonetic spelling of sentences we have used in class. Then, their fluency starts to increase and they write more and more. At a certain point, they slow down on the writing, but the accuracy increases. It is so fascinating to be able to "prove" all the theories we believe in with TPRS. That fluency precedes accuracy, and that accuracy comes with exposure to the language and not through worksheet after worksheet and drill after drill...

Another thing that warmed my heart today was a review of my preposition chant. I talked about this in a previous blog as a type of "time-waster" to try and get kids to learn location words. Well, today, one of my sloooooow students outshone all others on this chant. I'm sure everyone has had a student like this: super sweet and tries really hard, but the eyes are kind of vacant. Today, I feel like I had a breakthrough with her because, as a cheerleader, the chant really worked for her!! I'm going to make time to sit down with her soon to talk about coming up with gestures for all vocabulary words. I know that this should be a no-brainer part of my TPRS classroom, but I haven't really been using it in class. I'm very hopeful that gestures could be the key to unlocking her brain and helping her learn French!!

Assessments

2011-04-18T09:10:00.001-07:00

Okay, the BEST thing about standards-based grading is seeing a student improve and being able to throw out the old score. The way I do this is: I use a "template" for my reading comprehension tests. First, I list 25 vocabulary words and their English equivalents. If they can get at least 20 of these, I continue grading the test. On the back of the test is a paragraph that either I wrote, using vocabulary that they know with a couple of new words thrown in or I take a paragraph from the novel we are reading, but have not yet read. Then I ask them some questions that I really really think they should be able to answer along with a couple of questions that I would be surprised if they could answer. That way, I know who is meeing my expectations and who is exceeding them. So, this semester I am trying to assess them at least once a month to monitor their progress. Most of them are continuing on at whatever level they were before, but there are some students that are doing better on these latest tests with new, harder vocabulary. If they can show me that they know the latest stuff (with some old stuff recycled of course), then I throw out any prior grades that were lower than their latest effort. I LOVE being able to do this. Because it really gives an accurate picture of what the students are capable of.

Teachable moment

2011-04-12T12:39:00.000-07:00

I had a student start class today by saying "I know this isn't what we're talking about right now, but my mom told me about the law they just passed in France about the Muslim women" Right then, I knew I had a choice. I could validate her by saying that I had heard about it and move on, or we could have a mini class discussion. I decided to talk about it because I wanted these students to hear about the issue. So my student told the class what had happened and then offered her opinion: That it was a great thing for women's freedoms because they could no longer be forced to wear this concealing garment. I countered that, by banning the burka, they were actually reducing women's freedoms because those husbands who "force" their wives to wear the burka are sure as heck not going to let them out of the house without one. So...their freedoms are actually being lessened in that case. I also pointed out that some women choose to wear the burka on their own accord. I talked about what my friend and Spanish teacher had told me: that she wore her hijab out of love and respect for her husband. I probably shouldn't have been so political with my students, but I wanted to give them something to think about. At the end of our discussion (which sounds more one-sided than it actually was), one student said, "Man, there are good sides and bad sides to everything!" EXACTLY! I wish more Americans would realize that very point. You learn so much if you just open up your mind...

Tuesday block

2011-04-12T12:31:00.000-07:00

Today, I started the class with a new song of the week: Sarah by Kyo. I realized the other day that even if the activities that we do with the song are not effective, they do so much beyond that that it is worth spending five minutes a day on it. For those WS lovers, it gives them a chance to "fill in the blanks." For those who love memorizing, they are supposed to memorize 5 out of the 10 phrases from the song. But, my real goal at this point is for what happens outside my classroom. Lisa Reyes called this "the ripple effect." Some are singing along (what???), some download the songs from iTunes, but they are all being exposed in a substantial way to French music and culture. They've heard Edith Piaf, Jacques Brel, and Dalida along with Shy'm, Garou, and Christophe Wilem. It's wonderful! So I'm going to cut myself some slack if they're not filling in all the blanks on the worksheet or passing every little memorization quiz. Then, we did our animal of the week. This is another "time-waster" in that I don't really assess anything or expect them to learn anything from it. It's my way of exposing them to the third person plural. My hope is that if they see and hear Ils sont and Ils ont and Ils mangent enough, it will stick in their head and come out when they want to say "They are handsome..." Pie in the sky? Maybe! Finally, I found a guide for Pobre Ana that I ripped off and translated into French. Even though we are already on Chapter 6 of the novel, I had the students work through the activities for chapters 1-3. They worked very hard on it and it gave me a chance to walk around and look at individual papers. Very good exercise. I'm planning on making other guides for the other novels before I teach them next year. It gives the students something concrete to look at and work with and gives me another reason to make them read the chapter...again! I'm fed up with my second years right now, so I'm not going to blog about them today. Maybe tomorrow!

A typical Monday

2011-04-12T12:28:00.000-07:00

So this Monday we did our phrase of the week, which was A+ this week. I thought they would really enjoy learning some "text" language, but it really confused them. Oh well. We'll go on to something else next week. Then, we went over prepositions again and then talked about their weekends. I'm finding that it's really hard to blog at the end of the day because the last two classes of the day are KILLERS for me. They are so draining and take up so much classroom management that I just don't have a lot of good things to say at the end of the day. I think I'll try blogging in the middle of the day...

April 7: Standards-based grading

2011-04-07T13:13:00.000-07:00

This was the second half of my non-sub day this week, so I won't talk too much about it. Last week, we had a meeting of those of us who are venturing into Std-based grading. I'm really thinking of changing my grading again next year. This year, I did 70% assessments and 30% homework first semester and then changed that to 90% assessments and 10% homework for second semester. There is another teacher in my building who does 100% assessments. And she's a math teacher who assigns math homework every night! She says that she keeps track of homework and whether or not they turn it in, but it counts for none of their final grade. I REALLY like this idea. I find that I mainly do completion grading on these things anyway...so I might as well not count them as anything. Sooo, I'm thinking that next year I will break my grades up into reading, writing, listening, and speaking. Listening assessments will be my little quizzes that we do after stories. Reading will be very standards-based because I will design my test so that they are answering different levels of questions and can stop whenever they get stuck. I blogged about this last semester, if you are wondering exactly how I do this. Speaking would be based on re-tells. Writing would be based on free writes and fluency. Can they write 100 words in 5 minutes? Would a native reader understand the story? Did the author write with spelling and grammatical accuracy? With this, I would count a 3 as having the appropriate number of words and a native speaker would understand. 2.5 would be less words, but a native speaker would understand. 2 would be mid-level words, but very hard to understand. They would get over a 3 for wowing with content or accuracy. Thoughts??

April 6

2011-04-06T12:41:00.001-07:00

Today my 1st years played with some Quia vocab or freerice.com (you can do French vocab or even art!!) while I tried to catch up on some other junk. It wasn't the best lesson, but I had to have something that a sub could do with the other half of my students yesterday! For my 2nd years, I wrote a melange of the two hours' stories and made copies for everyone. They were supposed to read it, translate it, write a copycat story, and try to put it in the past. The copycat stories were pretty amazing. I had a student who never says a dang word in class read her story and it was full of all those tiny words of awesomeness like "parce que/because" and "plus que" more than. Instead of writing simple sentences, she was using those words to create more varied sentences. I was very happy. Two other groups had amazingly creative stories using last year's vocab and funny details. I had one group that was a little behind the others. The problem with that group is that I have some students who are SO creative in English that they just can't seem to limit themselves to being creative with the vocabulary they know in French. So there were tons of words in English. Oh well. As far as transferring it to the past, they didn't do so well. Again, oh well! They did all seem to know that "il y a" becomes "il y avait." So that's something! On to tomorrow!!

April 3rd

2011-04-06T08:34:00.000-07:00

Another block day! My 1st year students started off with Mon Pays again. Then we went straight into Pauvre Anne and finished Chapter 5. Next we took a "brain break" and watched episode 4 of Chez Mimi, a very silly show on Discovery Streaming that is made for French language learners. My 1st years have already watched all of the Telefrancais episodes (available on youtube), so this is our next step...I don't know what we'll watch when we're done with Chez Mimi! After that, we took a quick quiz over Chapter 5, just oui or non with me giving statements in English about the chapter. Most students do very well on these quizzes and I consider it a pretty good indication of their listening comprehension. Then, I had them do a five minute free write. I try to have them do this about once a week to practice writing fluency. I do not check grammar or spelling or anything. The purpose is for them just to practice writing. The goal is for them to write more words than the previous week, with an end-goal of over 100 words in 5 minutes. Once that stuff was done, we sang a silly song called En Voici, En Voila by Alain le Lait (found on Youtube) about different kinds of food. Finally, we finished the day by talking about what the students had done over the weekend. With my 2nd year students, we followed a similar agenda, but we substituted a TPRS story using l'a emmene, s'est reveille, and a quitte as our 3 phrases. We finished that story and then took a comprehension quiz like the one we took with the 1st years. Then we did a free write and followed that with watching the last episode of Extra (again, available on Discovery Streaming). I've ordered Friends in French to watch with the 2nd years next week. My goal is just to get them listening to authentic French and getting used to not understanding every word. My goal when I'm speaking, telling a story, or we're reading is for them to understand every word. So this is their chance to make wild guesses. We finished with talking about their weekend. I love this activity because it can take a really long time if you ask a lot of follow-up questions. Plus, it gives kids a chance to say Je suis alle au cinema or j'etais malade. J'avais une boum. I'm exhausted! More blogging later!

March 31st-Block day

2011-03-31T15:18:00.000-07:00

We have block days at least once a week (which is actually two days), but we are blocking just about every day right now to accomodate state testing. Fun fun! I'm hoping to be able to get back into a groove of having a lot of activity choices, because I've been relying an awfully lot on just reading Pauvre Anne and Pirates. So today, I started the day with my first years and we started with our song warm-up...I'm pretty sure I've blogged about this activity before, but let me know if you have questions. This week I'm using an old song: Mon Pays by Gilles...oh what's his last name?? Anyway, I'm trying to mix in some old classics so that my students really get a good base in French music (and Quebecois, bien sur!) Next, we reviewed the story of Pauvre Anne from chapter 1-4. I try not to do the full review every day or they just get super bored, but I like to do it pretty frequently to refresh some of that awesome vocabulary and help the slower kids catch up. So I asked a lot of questions about what's happened so far. Then we started reading chapter 5. When we're reading, I now read a paragraph out loud, pause so they can ask for clarification on unknown words and then usually circle some key plot points in the paragraph. If the paragraph is particularly confusing or has a really important bit of information, I will have the kids translate individually. I take a volunteer for the first sentence and then let them pick someone else for the following sentence. I know that this breaks all sorts of reading rules, but with the dictionary in the back, I know that every student CAN translate it...it just might take them a while. And I've even got some students who will give a slower student a super easy sentence because they know it will boost their self-esteem. That's really cool to see! I also stop for culture clarification sometimes, like when Anne goes to the bank to exchange her U.S. dollars for euros. It's a great chance to talk about the proximity of the European countries and how they banded together to gain more power and strength globally. Once we had read 2 pages, we took a singing break and sang a new song: Bee Bee, Mouton Noir, a translation of the classic nursery rhyme done by my old cooperating teacher. Then we spent some time learning a "cheer" that I was taught in high school going along with the prepositions. Devant, derriere, a droite de, a gauche de, sur, sous, dans, avec, chez, a, de, pres de, loins de, a cote de, en face de, au milieu de, tout droit. I think I might have a couple of spelling errors there, but you get the idea. For some reason, this is super easy to remember and very helpful later. Finally, we finished with a rousing game of football (americain). I used Fred Jones' idea for this game, straight out of his book. I drew a football field on the board and broke the class into two teams. I didn't have my large class today...I'm worried it might not go so well with a class of 30... Anyway, I had questions that were worth 10, 20, and 30 yards. Each student took a turn being "quarterback" and trying for their choice of yards. If they got it right, I moved their magnet that many yards on the field. If they got it wrong, the other team could sack their quarterback for a loss of 10 yards if they could answer correctly. It worked very well in my classes and they were pretty engaged. I like this game because it gave every single student in my class a chance to be successful. With my 2nd year students, our song of the week is US Boy by Jena Lee...a super-catchy current hit about how much French girls love American boys. We then had storytime, continuing a story about a boy named Kitty Kat Man, who helps George W. Bush find the best BBQ in the world. I have to admit that things got a little goofy in this story. At one point, Bush gets scared when a cashier at Gates BBQ yells (Hi! May I help you??) at him and pees his pants. When he tries the McRib, he throws up, which makes Kitty Kat Man throw up (and his stuff has a hairball in it, of course!). Then who shows up, but Dolly Parton. And how in the world do you describe her without describing all of her attributes. So I taught them nenes. Not sure if any other French teacher in the world would be comfortable teaching this word, but since it was taught to me by a 2yr old boy...I figured it couldn't be too crass. After story time, we played football and that was a day!

Blog every day??

2011-03-31T15:17:00.000-07:00

I haven't blogged in quite a while, and I think it's because I'm just waiting for something amazing to happen. But I'm missing the small victories that come with every single day. So I'm debating blogging every day or every other day to say what my lesson plan was...how it went...and any small miracles that I see. So...let's see how this experiment goes!

This is why I teach!

2011-02-14T09:17:00.000-08:00

Just last week, I was chatting with my aunt-in-law, a reading teacher in a very tough school district. She had had a bad day and was looking for some support from a fellow teacher. We talked about how rough it is to feel like you're making a difference when the results just aren't there...

On the heels of that conversation, I had a moment that affirmed my choice of profession... On Friday night, at my son's soccer game, I ran in to one of my students from last year. It was odd to see him there, since I live 35 miles from the district I teach in...but oh well. This student was a student who was walking a fine line between good kid and deliquent. I knew that he had support at home, but his friends were taking him down a bad path. He got in trouble almost every day in my class and really seemed to be asking to be kicked out of school. But he really touched my heart. I knew that there was something special in him. So I tried to ignore some of his behavior and just kept silently pushing him. So, Friday night, I ask him how things are going for him at the high school. He has a 3.0!! And an A in French!! He said that he was really surprised how much he remembered from my French class after a long summer off of school. And that was a student from last year, before NTPRS and all that awesome training and coaching I got in Chicago!

So I keep the faith that those students who are trying so hard to get left behind, that try so hard to push my buttons...some day, they'll wake-up.

How about you all? With those kids, do you push them? Do you have high expectations for them or do you take a passive stance with them? I struggle with this because my instincts tell me to be passive and touch base with them every so often to let them know that I want them to do better without breathing down their neck in class, but I also think that they need high expectations just like everyone else. Thoughts?

Assessments

2011-01-21T08:32:00.001-08:00

The other night I couldn't sleep due to too many snow days and no routine. As I was trying to force myself to sleep, of course my mind starting racing with thoughts of school. I'm really trying to figure out the best way to assess my students.

Last semester, I weighted the grades so that assessments were worth 70%, homework 15%, and participation 15%. I really think that killed a lot of grades. My "homework" is that the students need to do something on their own, outside of class that has to do with French. They can watch a French movie, look up music videos on youtube...really anything. I know it's not really helping them learn French, but it has generated some excitement as students download songs onto their iPods, teach their siblings French, or take the opportunity to practice French by texting a friend in French. So I feel like it is valuable, but I don't want it to kill anyone's grade. Soooo, this semester I am going to 90% assessment, 5% homework and 5% participation. This way, it won't kill anyone's grades and the grade letter will actually reflect what they have learned in the class.

Now, for assessments...I've blogged a couple of times about my standards-based assessments and I really want to continue this practice. Last semester, I had story-quizzes about every week or so, weekly spelling tests, and then the standards-based assessments. I began the semester by asking for feedback, since I had 3 students drop my class because they "didn't like it." (All three were dropping to take a ceramics class...so I wonder if the other class was just more enticing?) Anyway, I surveyed my class to find out what they like and what they don't...and what helps them learn. They are sick of quizzes! I thought I was helping them out by just having quick 10 point quizzes every other day, but they hated it! So, back to the drawing board.

I'm really thinking about doing more Kindergarten-style assessments. My son's grade card tells me how many sight words he can read, how high he can count, how many numbers he can write and identify... How can I make this work in my classroom? Obviously, I can have my students count as high as they can in French. Any ideas??

The Big Payoff-Literally

2010-12-21T04:23:00.001-08:00

Okay, this is going to sound bad in the beginning, but hear me out! Yesterday, I got physical proof that my love for my students is evident and that they are reciprocating. Three of my students brought me a gift yesterday. I've gotten Christmas gifts from students before, but they have always been the very generic, my mom bought this and made me bring it to you, kind. These three students went together and found me a necklace with different charms, including the Eiffel Tower! This is the first time that a student has actually bought me a personal gift, using what they know about my style and likes to buy me something! I was super excited not for the gift, but for the feelings behind the gesture. Call me naive, but I feel like I'm succeeding in creating a classroom where students feel loved and validated.

Getting the hang of expanding a story

2010-12-07T12:30:00.000-08:00

Finally today I feel like I have a feel for expanding a story. I took a story from chapter 2 of Look I Can Talk about a rich fat cow and a poor monkey. I started off trying to review some vocab that I knew that they already knew, so we talked a ton about the cow. Why was she rich? What color was she? Why was she fat? My students really added some amazing details to this puny little story about a cow and a monkey. In 40 minutes, we just created a back-story for the cow. Now tomorrow we'll introduce the second character and build his back-story...and finally we'll try to get around to the plot.

I honestly feel like I get better at TPRS every day. I'm learning more, getting more comfortable...and I don't dread a class or going to school ever. Even now that we are winding down for Christmas...I've got something that I can do and teach my kids and entertain them!

Oh, and I haven't even talked about Susie Gross's ideas to stick in culture. So far, we've done a story that takes place at the Louvre...so I took a quick break and showed some pictures of the museum and we talked (in English) about why the Mona Lisa is so famous...which really helped the story along. Tomorrow maybe we'll get to the Moulin Rouge and the can-can!!

Results of speaking test-Warning...Emotional!

2010-11-18T07:39:00.000-08:00

I am sitting here trying not to cry in front of my students. (Yes, I'm blogging during class while the students play on freerice.com to practice French vocab and donate rice to poor countries!) I just had a student come to take his speaking test. Background: This kid is "trouble." He walked in the first day with an "I dare you to make me learn" look in his eyes. After talking to his teacher/mentor from last year, I learned a lot of information about his heart. He hung out with some bad kids before and was trying to re-create himself...but he didn't have any other friends to support him in that. So, needless to say, I have quite the heart for this student. Today, he wasn't going to try to take his speaking test. Another student said, Just try...it's easy. So he came to me reluctantly and tried to work out some activities that his classmates do. I also want to say that this student missed more than half of my classes due to behavior issues. He gave me 4 of the 5 and then hesitated on "Brenda sings" I could hear him starting the ch sound that starts chante(sings). He stopped and said, "I can't remember." I said, "Yes, you do, just say it." He said, "Brenda chante." Then, I went on with my "above and beyond" questions, asking him where Brenda sings in French. He answered the question as well as another one...in French!!! When I told him that he got 100%, he shyly smiled and walked away. Can you imagine what his life might be like in a class where a teacher dismisses him as a problem child? It breaks my heart.

Results of Std-based assessments

2010-11-16T09:07:00.000-08:00

It's been a couple of days since I posted last, so please excuse me if I repeat anything said in the last post....

Last week, I gave my comprehension assessment, as outlined in the last post. Then, I got them back and I was confused again...How in the world do I grade this?? Here is what I did:

I looked at the matching section and I graded that and wrote a number correct. If they got 20 or more, I wrote a star, because I knew that they had met my goal for that section and received at least a 2 on the assessment.

On the back, I realized that some of the students were able to answer quite a few questions from section 3 without doing so well on the 2 (matching) section. I realized that some of my questions were too easy. Questions where they have to know a single vocab word to get it correct do not work...that's what the matching section is for! So, I threw those questions out and focused my attention on the questions that required actual comprehension of the reading. Questions like Why? How? Describe? really seemed to show me how much my students were understanding.

For section 4, I wrote questions that really tested whether or not my students were super-stars. I embedded some new vocabulary and asked them to define the words, using context clues and prior knowledge. I also asked some grammar questions...but I think those might have been too easy. So when I graded this section, I used my gut. If a student really impressed me with their insightfullness, I gave them a 4...and thus a 100%. If they were almost there, they got a 3.5.

So a 4 is 100%, 3.5 is 96%, 3 is 92%, 2.5 is 84%, 2 is 76%, 1.5 is 70%, 1 is 60%, .5 is 50% and a zero is 40%.

What this grading scale does is it allows you to give lots of credit to those students who are trying, but just haven't gotten it...yet. They can re-take the test as many times as they need to once they "get" the information (I'll probably write another story...) Another thing that I loved/hated is that it really showed me where my students really are. Sometimes in class, they can pass my comprehension quizzes (because there is so much English on the board)...but they haven't internalized the words yet. This is a great communication tool because they are telling me what they're not getting and I can then pass that on to parents. It's a bummer because students who were feeling very successful might now have a B or a C. But I bet if I gave them the same assessment in a month, they would do much better. But they are SO freaked out because their grades might be "tanked" for a few weeks.

All-in-all, I LOVED this process. I am going to do a speaking assessment tomorrow where the objective is to talk about 5 friends preferred activities. A two will be if they struggle or miss one or two. A 3 will be that they gave me 5 activities, but didn't really expand much. A 3.5 will be if they can answer English questions in French about where they do the activity or when and a 4 will be if we can talk back and forth in the TL about the activities. We'll see!!!

Standards-based Assessments

2010-11-12T10:41:00.000-08:00

As a district, we are moving towards std-based assessments, as are a lot of districts... This month, I have been working really hard on trying to create an assessment to prove that my kids are learning. I think that we, as TPRS teachers, really feel a lot of pressure prove that we're not just singing and telling silly stories, but preparing our students to communicate in the TL. I know that I have felt that pressure lately, times one hundred, due to some teachers in the upper levels who haven't been the most supportive of me.

With that in mind, I set out to prove that my students can meet our district French standards. The first problem? We don't really have any district standards for French. When we got together to write them a few years back, we were told to use the National and State standards as our guide. So our standards look really, really vague. So I thought...and I thought...and I thought. What have I been teaching my students these last 3 months? What should they know after sitting in my class all those hours? Well, for my first years, that was pretty easy, I guess. We've been circling with their cards, so they have a TON of vocabulary dealing with activities. So I made a sort of list of the vocab I think they should know at this point. They all fit into the category of discussing activities, so I made that my "theme" under the standard of comprehension.

The next step was to create an assessment that would easily tell me if students are meeting my objective, falling below it, or going way beyond what I've taught or expect them to know. So I took 25 of the vocab words from my list and made a matching section, asking them to match the French to the English. I called this my basic knowledge level. If they can do this, I know they've "got" the information. Next, I asked them to apply this knowledge by reading a short story I wrote, using the words, and answering English questions in English about the story. I had some trouble when grading this part, because I realized that some of the questions were way to easy. Asking if science class was fun or boring really only required them to recognize the word for boring...which they already did if they completed the first section correctly. So I had to throw some questions out and stick with questions like "Why?" "How?" and such. In the last section, the above and beyond section, I had my students translate some new words, using context clues, background knowledge, and what they know about French. I had never taught these words and the students had never seen them before. I also asked them to make inferences about the characters and pick up grammar points, such as why there is an -e at the end of this particular word...etc. Things that I consider nice to know but not essential at this point in the year.

I've run out of time, so I'll have to blog later about giving the test and seeing the results!

Fun conversation

2010-10-06T07:19:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I wasn't really sure what to do with my second year students. I thought they were going to do a project on French castles, but then I decided against it. So I thought that we should practice "peut" (can) because it is a very high frequency word. But how to do it?? I had a moment of genius and decided to talk about whether or not my students had superpowers (I just used English for superpower). Then, when they said yes, we talked about what they can do. Can you swim like a fish? Can you lift the entire school? Can you run super-fast? It ended up being really funny. In one class, they loved it and tried to come up with hilarious superpowers. In the other class, the boys decided that none of them had superpowers...but my girls came alive with it! It became a funny moment every time I asked another student if they had a superpower. When a boy said no, the boys cheered...and when a girl said yes, the boys got "mad" and the girls cheered. All in all, a great day out of a strange, last-minute idea.

Taking a break

2010-10-05T07:54:00.000-07:00

This morning, I was exhausted. My eyes were closing as I drove the 45 minutes to school... The thought of hyping myself up for TPRS was horrific. So, I thought of what I could do that would meet my objectives while giving me a break.

Today, we're taking a break from stories and doing a cultural project on the monuments of Paris. It's a nice break. I hope they'll be reinvigorated for stories next week...

Curriculum maps

2010-09-29T12:48:00.000-07:00

This week, I got an email from Nathan on the moretprs list. He had tried to post his curriculum maps to the list, but it won't allow attachments, so I asked him to send it directly to me.

When I finally got around to opening it, it was amazing! Our district is REALLY pushing common formative assessments and GLEs and powered standards, etc. I was having a really hard time figuring out how to take what I do in the classroom and making that fit into these little boxes where traditional teachers write -ir verbs. He did an extraordinary job of making that fit. I feel good about it and hope to take what he has done and make it fit with my curriculum. It will also really really really help me to have something to give to the high school teachers who are not very excited about my TPRS "experiment"

Gathering steam...

2010-09-29T12:35:00.000-07:00

I feel like the year is finally getting into a groove for me. I have a pseudo-schedule that I'm pretty much following for every week. On Monday and Tuesday, I have story time. For now, that means circling with balls. I write everything down on white bulletin board paper stuck to my white board with magnets. If I fill up a sheet, I write it on the board and copy it down later. I keep two sheets of words up at a time...after that, I write them down and give the kids a non-scored quiz to see which words they've internalized. I tally the score and if more than 15-20% don't know a word, I recognize that they need more time and I try to recycle it as much as possible. The words that they do know, I write down in a spiral (keeping one list for each hour). I think what I'm going to do is have the students copy down the list every time we reach 20 words. Then, those become no-excuse words that they should know. I can quiz and test them on these words at any time. That way, there should only be a couple of students in each class who need to study the words...everyone else has internalized them. It's a lot of paperwork and recycled paper, but I figure it's less than if I handed them all workbooks and worksheets throughout the year, right?

Okay, so that's what I've been doing on Monday and Tuesdays. With my first year kids, on Wednesday and Thursday (we have blocks those days), we do a little reading. I write up a story based on the vocab we've been working on and adding a few new words that I know they don't know. I read it in French, then they tell me what words they didn't understand. I write them on the board and then we read it chorally in English. After that, I ask a bunch of questions about the story in French. We are also learning basic introductory vocabulary that doesn't fit well into a story. The first week, we went over What's your name and responses and how do you spell that? The second week, we added How old are you? The third week, How are you? The fourth week, Where do you live? and Describing people for this week. I think that's going pretty well. They have a hard time switching gears when we go into this because it's vocabulary that we mainly use on block days and not during story-telling (except for I usually ask my actors what their names are when they are acting). We are also working on the alphabet and counting during these days. The last thing I do on block days is the TPR commands. I don't know why, but I HATE teaching this way. I can never think of what to tell them to do and it just doesn't feel good to me. Does anyone have any helpful hints for making this better?

On Fridays, we do our PAT. So far, we've watched Telefrancais and French music videos, played Boules, played vocab games, and eaten French food. It's worked out really well and the kids really look forward to it.

Oh yeah, and I almost forgot, we also sing on the block days. We sing some authentic songs like Alouette and some silly songs like If you're happy and you know it (in French)

I'm feeling really good right now. I just wish I had some help coming up with stories and song activities...

Excited to talk

2010-09-15T13:04:00.000-07:00

With my first year students, I haven't really encouraged them to talk or make any sentences yet. Today, I was teaching them some basic introductory vocab like "How old are you?" Then, I left the room and came back in so that they could ask me those easy questions.

First question from a student: What's your name? (Great! We learned that three weeks ago and have been reviewing it a little bit)
Second question: How old are you? (Good, we're practicing that today)
Third question: Do you play football? (Wow! We hadn't practiced this at all as a question for a stranger...only in context when circling with balls)
Fourth Question: Do you dance like Beyonce? (Umm....awesome. Where did that come from??)

My kids were really excited to be given the opportunity to blurt out anything they could in French. A couple of times during this activity, I had a girl raise her hand, and instead of asking me a question, she told me part of a story that we had told in class while circling with balls. An example: Madame Hayles loves Johnny because Johnny plays basketball better than Lebron James. I was floored!

Then, we were doing some easy TPR stuff and I was ordering the kids around and playing Madame dit with them...and one student asked if they could order me around! Of course, I said yes. So they were telling me to sing slowly like Justin Bieber. And sit down slowly and dance and sing! It was fun. And it was great because instead of being intimidated by speaking FRench, they were SUPER excited about it. They couldn't WAIT to show me what they could do.

What a wonderful reminder of why I'm doing this!!

Hitting the wall...and getting back up

2010-09-15T12:58:00.000-07:00

It's not just me, because I've read other posts from people who are hitting the wall... I'm getting worn out. I'm not as excited as I was on the first day, when I was super-emotive. I had a couple of blah days, but I feel like I'm getting back into it.

Today, with my first years, I abandoned circling with balls and instead started with a basic story using some TPR verbs. So, I had a boy who wanted something and he went somewhere and there were multiple things there to choose from. Okay, that sounds confusing, so I'll just tell my story from 3rd hour. There was a boy. His name was Barcon le garcon. He was 6013 years old. He walked quickly, backwards to the circus because he wanted a tiger. He wanted a yellow tiger with red stripes. There were three tigers at the circus. He looked at tiger number 1, but tiger number 1 was really a bear! He looked at tiger number 2, but tiger number 2 was blue with green stripes. He looked at tiger number 3, and tiger number 3 was yellow with red stripes! But, tiger number 3 had 7 heads. Barcon wanted a yellow and red-striped tiger with only one head. He was sad.

One of my students said on the way out, "That was my favorite story so far!" It was really stupid and didn't take long at all. Not a lot of new vocab (except there is and wants...) and zero preparation from me!

Two weeks in...

2010-09-07T10:29:00.000-07:00

So many things are going so well so far... Friday, I went to one of my administrators, who I've worked closely with in the past on some problem students. I said to him, "I don't think I'll be needing your help this year...I really feel pretty comfortable with classroom management and how my classes are acting this year." He asked me to elaborate and said, "I'm glad to hear you say that. I've noticed a difference just in the way you carry yourself this year." He then asked me to send a staff-wide email on what has been working for me this year in the classroom. I haven't done that yet...not sure I have the balls to pat myself on the back in front of the whole staff.

Here's something that hasn't been going so well. Maybe we can work together to find a solution... Today, after the lovely three-day weekend, my fire wasn't there. I was talking about my students and what they like to do, but I wasn't really excited about it. I think I've been so worried about the kids getting bored that I'm projecting that to the kids. I'm worried about it, so it's becoming boring. I have to sell it more...

My other problem is that my second year kids, who went wild last year, are getting fidgety sitting all day. I've tried to mix it up by singing active songs and having a couple of students act...but I'm still telling one story (one really really long story) and they all want to be part of it. Thoughts?

Blurters

2010-08-26T08:32:00.000-07:00

For those of you who are not familiar with blurters, they are students that you pick to help you out by shouting out the English when you say a particular word in the TL. Usually, these are tough words that need a TON of repetition to stick.

So yesterday, I had a kid who was falling asleep in class. I noticed that my kids were having a really hard time with where, so I asked him to shout it out everytime I said Ou. He did, stayed awake, and wrote on his evaluation that he enjoyed being part of the class that day. What a boost for that kid! My colleague said that she wondered what life was for him in other classes, where teachers don't engage him to be part of the class?

Today, I used this technique again with a kid with severe ADHD and Asperger's. I had him shout out "has" every time I said a. It helped him focus and I think it helped the rest of the class remember what a means. AND, at the end of the class, I was able to thank him for helping me out today.

I think I've said it before on here, but it is such a different experience teaching when I'm more interested in my kids and their understanding than I am about curriculum. I've picked out what's important. If a single student doesn't get it, we'll keep working on it. No big deal. I won't "move on" (which is silly in TPRS, where everything recycles all the time) until we're all understanding!!

First block days

2010-08-26T08:26:00.000-07:00

Sooooo, ninety minutes is a little much for storytelling this early in the year. Even with interesting details, lots of comprehension checks, and individual questioning, my kids are getting bored. So I threw in some TPR commands and singing to break up the class and then went back to it. It seemed to work, but I think I'll work in some reading on block days in the future.

Today and yesterday, I asked my kids to do a written comprehension check of the 12 or 14 words we'd been working on at the beginning of the year. After only 3 days, all my kids got two words right and only one or two missed a couple more. Everyone was pretty successful, even though I'm not grading it or anything. I feel good! I've never had this many SPED kids, and they are doing great as well. It is so rewarding.

At the bottom of my comprehension check, I had the students write what was working and what could be better. Amazing to me that most of the students said that I could go slower. I know that I need to go slow...even slower. I get it! Now I just have to train myself to do it. All the time, not just the first time through a structure. It was also an ego boost because the kids said that they really enjoyed the class, even the kid who sits in the back and "dares" me with his eyes to make him do something. He likes the class because he can just sit (even though I check in with him every so often to make sure he's paying attention).

Woo hoo! Is it perfect? Of course not! But I'm improving so much!!

Actual TPRS

2010-08-23T13:35:00.000-07:00

So far, I've only blogged about my experiences with classroom management this year, which is still going swimmingly! But on Friday, I started circling with balls (or guitar, in this case), with my students.

In first hour, I picked a student who drew a rock band, knowing that I had a toy guitar for a prop. We talked about how he plays guitar (not baseball!) with his feet (never his hands!) better than Jimi Hendrix. That's all we got to on Friday, so today I picked up where we left off, fully intending to review the story and move on to someone else. It was not to be, because it turns out that little Johnny plays guitar at the library. And there is a girl there! What was her name? Well, of course, it was Betty White. (The kids went wild with this detail...they were very worried that Robbie was going to fall in love with Betty) Betty is Johnny's g-ma and she plays the accordian. Anyway, the story went on until 5 minutes before the bell, when I stopped it to do a quick comprehension quiz. It's amazing to me what I learned through osmosis at NTPRS. I think that once your brain starts going, those funky details emerge naturally. Last year, I struggled so much with trying to think of funny details and trying to figure out where the story was going. This year, after watching Blaine and Von and everyone else, it just pops into my head and I think, "Of COURSE that's what happened!"

This continued with other crazy kids in my other two hours. We are still on the first student! The other students really want a chance to get in there and talk about themselves, but I have my stars for right now! I'm so excited to see what happens with Betty and Johnny tomorrow...

Another bonus for me and TPRS: today, I asked my second year students what they did this weekend and they remembered how to answer, using "Je suis alle" (excuse the lack of accent) and J'ai regarde! Woo hoo!!!

I am having more discipline issues with my second year students. I have one class that is really pushing it because they aren't used to me cracking down. It will take a little while for them to calm down, I think. But, I have decided that they will not ruin my class for the other students. If it comes to an issue where they are losing PAT time consistently...I will take those talkers and give them a textbook and a nice quiet room to do the book work.

First day/second half

2010-08-19T10:15:00.001-07:00

Well, my second year students were a little surprised when I said that they couldn't socialize in the classroom. But I think they figured it out pretty quick. I only really had one or two students who couldn't control themselves. I'll have to see how the year progresses with them.

I was really excited to see my students again this year. It's surprising to me what a difference it makes teaching from a loving spot instead of a curriculum spot. I smiled a lot more and joked a lot more and touched a lot more (not in a gross way). I really feel like I connected with the kids. I hope that I can continue down that path and not get bogged down with what I "have to teach."

I used Dale's hand signal and counting down from 5 with my loudest class when they got crazy talking about their summers. We hadn't practiced it and I spoke quietly, and it worked! I felt like doing a cheer, but of course I just acted like I would accept/expect nothing less.

I think the main difference in my feelings on classroom management is that my expectations are so much higher. And I am going to respect myself and the other students in my class enough to not lower those standards for one or two loudmouths. I can't wait to see what this year brings! And I can't wait until NTPRS 2011 to learn more!!!

First day!!

2010-08-18T10:25:00.000-07:00

I just finished the first half of my first day back at school, and I really think that all the reflection over the summer has made me a better teacher this year. I read Fred Jones: Tools for Teaching and saw Dale Crum at NTPRS, so I had my desks labelled with numbers and handed each student a card with a number on it. My "assignment" was on the board, so they could get right to work if they wanted to. If they wanted to chat, I asked them to go out into the hall and told them how much time was left in the passing period. I had a class of 30 (my largest class ever), and they tried to chat a little bit, but I gave them "the look" and moved in...it worked!

I was amazed at how hesitant the students were to shake my hand at the door. I had to chase some down...

After class, I took the index cards, made my seating chart, and jotted down anything I could remember about the student on the back of the card. I feel like I'm coming from such a strong, caring place this year. Starting off in English was great because I could joke and be myself right off the bat.

Now I'm preparing for my last two classes...and I had them last year. It will be a little different because I had these kids last year when I was a weenie...BE STRONG, BESS!

Culture in the classroom-Phrase of the week

2010-08-05T10:10:00.000-07:00

One of the things that I am going to make darn sure I do this year is be consistent with my phrase of the week. Last year, it was something that worked really well. I spent maybe a minute once a week on it, and it magically appeared in my students' vocabularies.

My sister is home from a year abroad to renew her Visa, so I was asking her for some common phrases that are being used in France right now. Here are some phrases that she told me that you might want to use in your classroom (if you teach French, that is) I don't have accents on this computer, so you'll have to add your own...

fais gaffe: watch yourself
tu pues comme un ours: you smell like a bear (my kids LOVE this one)
Ca m'est egal: I don't care
fais attention: pay attention
franchement/vachement: frankly/really really
c'est chaud: that's rough, that sucks
tant pis: too bad
et alors...: so?
Ca tue/c'est mortelle: that's killer, that rocks
Tu es tres charmant(e): a compliment for the opposite sex, usually used for the ladies
supercanon: hot lady/bombshell
je suis a fond: I'm excited
j'ai le beguin pour: I have a crush on
degun: personne
se bouffer: to eat
un gar/un mec: dude
une nana: a chick
ca craint: that sucks
t'es nul: you suck (of course, you would use this with caution...)
a plus dans le bus: see you later alligator
a la prochaine dans le train: after a while crocodile
il est a fond la caisse: he's into that
cingle (accent aigu) d'elle: crazy about her
fetard: partyer
bosseur: worker

I'm also going to try to come up with some natural subjunctive phrases to use in my stories. So far, I have (of course I can change the subject):

Il faut qu'on fasse
Il faut que j'aille

If you have any that you think are pretty common, let me know! I haven't taught subjunctive ever and haven't really used it since college, since I only teach first year. Help a sister out!

The week before school

2010-08-05T10:03:00.000-07:00

I have been getting ready in my head. I'm planning out what the first day of school is going to look like. I am reading Tools For Teaching and figuring out what systems I will need to have ready in order to change the atmosphere in my classroom. My second year students are going to be in for a rude awakening...

First, I am going to change the setup of my classroom at one school (where I have my own classroom) to make life easiest. Then , each desk will have a number taped to it to facilitate seating charts.

I want to make a large, color sign for my door that says something like "Caution: Entering Work Area" to create a distinction between the social hallway and my quiet classroom.

I need to check on my question signs and see if I need to change/add any questions there.

I want to take some white bulletin board paper and tape it up around my room for writing structures. One of the things I learned by being a student in Blaine's classroom is how important these visuals are. I knew exactly where to look if a word/structure hadn't stuck in my head yet. And even now, when I think back to our story, my mind visualizes the word paper and I can remember what the structures mean...

That's all I can think of for now. I'm sure I'll be adding once I read more of Tools for Teaching and actually get into my classroom

Day 5-Classroom management-Motivation

2010-08-05T09:56:00.000-07:00

Must have classroom arrangement and meaning business first! You can not rely on motivation if you have no control over your class to begin with. You have to have control and then use motivation to encourage responsibility

Build cooperation
· Teachers need cooperation from students

Rules that work:
o Show up on time
o Walk as they enter the classroom
o Bring materials
o Be in their seats when the bell rings
o Be working when the bell rings

· Cooperation is voluntary-Why should I?
Creating motivation
· Incentive system must accomplish multiple objectives simultaneously, be cheap, represent a reduction of the teacher’s workload

Time allowance
· Students tend to waste time
· Students can’t learn to manage time until they have time to manage
· We have no intention of losing learning time as the price of supplying the students with incentives
· We are supplying time as an incentive in order to increase instructional time

Regaining time loss through PAT:
· An allowance of time (say 3 minutes per day)
· Teacher is giver of PAT (time, structure, bonus) and timekeeper
· Student choice (as a class) is to squander, be selfish or save and share
Nuts and bolts:
· Basic allowance (3 minutes a day per day so the week equals 15 minutes for a standard week)
· Bonus PAT:
o Automatic (if every kid is meeting your expectations-be in seat when bell rings, be quiet first 5 minutes of class, have materials, they get an extra minute for each for an opportunity for another 3 minutes per day)
o Hurry-up (for transitions-I expect that this should take 2 minutes, if you take less time than that, I will give you the extra time as PAT)
o Helping (for erasing board, picking up trash
o PAT contest (how can we get as many minutes as 1st hour??) set-up a goal (keep class all in French for 20 minutes and you’ll get an extra minute of PAT)
o Layering (kids can “earn” parts of your curriculum like movies)
o Time loss (when students take longer than allotted for an activity, if they are still talking when you reach zero on your hand gesture, when a student wants to tell a story. Kids don’t lose PAT time, they use PAT time)
· Spending PAT: Do activities you would do anyway (games, videos, reading time)
o Bingo
o Basketball
o Double diamond baseball-baseball with both teams playing at the same time
o Hollywood squares
o Concentration
o Cut throat-4 different boards, put up a picture that represents a story (1000 for first done, 900 for second, 800 for third…etc. Every mistake costs them 50 points and the students point out the mistakes)
o Around the world
o Musical chairs
o Give them candy or stickers for winning the game, not for good behavior

· Need a stopwatch

· Ways to destroy your system
o Take time off randomly for various offenses
o Change the rules to your advantage
o Use time to manage a behavior that you could have managed with your body
o Use PAT for something like a quiz: announce a quiz a week in advance and then “run out of time” for the quiz on Friday because it’s PAT time. This idea is something that proves to the kids that they are truly in charge of their PAT and that you will not mess with the time that they have earned.
o Only use PAT when stopping behavior doesn’t work
o Neglect to make PAT a priority
o Start with a certain amount of time and deduct for each offense-this is a punishment instead of a reward
o Fail to structure enjoyable PAT activities
· Beware of PAT abuse:
o When time loss becomes excessive, students become resentful and cooperation ceases.
o Give time in minutes and take off in seconds

My question is: how do you manage crazy behaviors during PAT? Do the kids automatically behave because it has become the norm in the classroom?

Day 5-The Power of Music with Lisa Reyes and Barb Watson

2010-08-05T09:33:00.000-07:00

Benefits:
· Listening: natural speed, native accents
· Effortless reps on enriched phrasing-“I had that song stuck in my head all night long!”
· Full engagement for all students
· Confidence-concrete evidence over time
· Flexibility of mind: grammar and vocab
· Customized to your class-Beyoncé in Spanish for a black kid who said he couldn’t learn Spanish because he’s black
· iPods: I downloaded that last night!

Purposes:
· Success breed success
· Listening as CI-teach specific phrases. Not necessary to understand every word…just focus on your target structure
· Differentiation
· Full-engagement

Basic elements
· Daily listening
· Cloze challenge
· Daily sentence puzzle

Choosing music
· Pace/speed
· Popularity
· Timing (holidays, novels)
· Curriculum/culture
· Grammar
o Chosen by curriculum
o Obvious in lyrics
o High-frequency phrases
· Students’ requests

My (Lisa's) song prep
1. Prepare cloze activity with word bank
2. Select 10-15 familiar phrases (high frequency!)-context helps them to acquire the phrase (ex. En mi casa me dicen v. en mi casa)
3. Create 5 puzzle sentences (ex. En mi casa me dicen….In my house, they tell you) Puzzle sentences are sentences with blank spaces to help students focus on grammar points without getting drilled

Weekly plan
· Day 1-Translate high frequency phrases, listen one time each day(cloze)
· Day 2-6-Listen (cloze), 1 sentence puzzle per day-go over as a class
· Day 3-6-star easy phrases (set goals)-the quiz is to translate the high frequency phrases “Pick 4 that are easy and you know and star them)
· Day 6-show video
o Give participation grade (both sides)-Go around while the song is playing
o 2 minutes for review
o Quiz is 15 sentences…count out of 10 and allow for extra credit
o Correct together; be generous
o Collect for grade (# correct)

Differentiation
· Strong students fill in everything and can’t wait to share-You could also encourage stronger students to fill it out without looking at the word bank later in the semester.
· Regular students fill in some of the words and wait
· Weak students fill in a few, and wait to write in most answers with you-Make sure that they aren't just waiting by walking around and encouraging them. Also, there is a word bank, broken up by stanza to help the weaker students.

Madame, I’m done with my song! This is what you can have students do after the song is filled.
· The cloze activity
· Read and follow along
· Sing along
· Sing without looking
· Completion of all steps is not required

Ripples
· I can’t get that song out of my head!
· I put it on my iPod!
· Can I pick a song for class?
· We get a new song today, right?
· What’s the next song?
· Can I burn a CD of our songs?
· YouTube, with caution, of course
· Quiet time for teacher to check homework. Start the music and they happily settle down

I love this idea!! I usually try to use music in the classroom, but this is a great classroom routine that allows me to use music every day. If you want to share songs that have worked well in your classroom, please post!

I have used Chanson pour Marie during domestic abuse awareness week. It's really cheesy, but I had a group of boys who LOVED it and begged for it every Friday.

Of course, Sympathique by Pink Martini is AMAZING. It goes so slowly that I could use it in the first couple of weeks with my beginners.

Parlez-vous Freezepop by Freezepop offers great practice for "Nous Sommes..." and is a really catchy dance number

Any additions??

Day 4-Classroom management with Dale Crum

2010-08-05T09:18:00.000-07:00

This was a quicky version of a 3-day workshop on Fred Jones Tools for Teaching. I went home and bought the book, so I might add some further thoughts here, or in a future blog...

Book recommendation: Reluctant Disciplinarian by Gary Rubinstein: Advice on classroom management from a softy who became a disciplinarian

Teaching is harder than parenting because you have other people’s kids and there is a variation of personality types.

3 pieces of classroom mgt:
1. Discipline
2. Instruction-TPRS
3. Motivation

This first post deals with the discipline portion of the 3 pieces:

There are 2 things you can do with behavior: increase and decrease. You need to consistently increase behaviors you want and decrease behaviors you don’t want. Must STOP bad behavior and START doing what they should be doing.

Classroom setup
· Room arrangement: 3 zones of proximity surrounding teacher’s body in concentric circles. Red (closest-students don’t act up), yellow (middle-kids check to see if teacher is paying attention), green (farthest-will act out)
· Classroom management expert works the room-walking around and looking at kids
o Walk the room to constantly change the zones of proximity
o Allows camouflage when you have to correct a misbehaving student. Simply walk over and prompt the student for what you want them to do…
o The natural enemy of working the crowd is the helpless hand-raiser (I don’t get it!): TPRS helps us with this kid because he is usually our barometer student. If it’s something complicated, model it and put directions on the board that are clear. Check in with your students when you are walking around and keep them on task, pointing to the direction that they should be working on.

· Try to create an inner loop that you can walk in order to keep the proximity changing
· When you ignore an issue, the other students assume that it is okay to exhibit that behavior
· The first assignment is I want you to talk! I’m not just going to cut you off, but I’ll count slowly to let you finish up. Count down with fingers from 5 to 0. Then stand there for about 5-10 seconds to allow the silence to settle. If anyone is still talking, move in and make eye contact. Nothing mean, no glares…

Reality is law: The standards in any classroom are defined by whatever the kids can get away with
· Succeeding from day one
o Rearrange your room to make it the best you can
o Desk creep: make marks on the floor where the front of the desk goes. Have students make sure that their desks lined up correctly
o Decide how you want students to enter the classroom
o Greet them and put them to work
§ Stand in the doorway
§ Give them something to do
§ If someone is talking, walk over and say “This is a no talking time, go ahead and get to the assignment”
§ By doing so, you define the entrance to your classroom as a doorway between two different worlds. This defines the classroom as a work environment.
§ Bell work (On y va!) continues until 5 minutes after the bell rings. Useful learning activity while you look after those organizational chores.
§ Grade bell work for the first couple of weeks, make marks and give it back. After that, you don’t have to…just collect it on Fridays and then throw them away.

o Introduce yourself-students don’t do well in an impersonal environment
o Establish rules-general rules are the wish list, specific procedures and spell out exactly “how to do this and that”
o Routines:
§ Practice quieting down
§ Partner work
§ Moving desks
§ Storytelling
§ Etc

o Go over few rules on the first day, make sure they are rules you are willing to enforce at any time, simple and clear, post rules
o Teach specific procedures and routines
§ Practice until it gets under 1 minute and there is no wasted time
§ Jokesters get old after a while.
§ Spend the first 2 weeks teaching the rules and procedures and practice them
§ Pay me now or pay me later. Do it right first and do it well all year long
§ Harry Wong www.firstdaysofschool.com

o Book suggestion: Setting Limits in the Classroom by Robert J. MacKenzie
§ Soft limits are rules in theory, not in practice
§ They invite testing because they carry a mixed message
§ The verbal message seems to say stop, but the action message says that stopping is neither expected nor required.
o Being Clear with your words
§ Keep the focus of your message on behavior.
§ Be direct and specific
§ Use your normal voice
§ Specify the consequences for noncompliance
§ Support your words with effective actions.
§ If student refuses your punishment, there are steps in Fred Jones for how to handle it
§ In the final analysis, the price you pay for inconsistency is a lesser ability to nurture.
§ No has to mean no every time
o Calm is strength, upset is weakness: when you get upset, you start losing part of your brain (The Triune Brain Theory)
o Learning to relax is an indispensable survival skill for anyone who works in a stressful environment
o Emotions are contagious
o
· Body language alone can keep the class in line
o Our actions: the turn (the slower the better to show them that it’s worth it to you to deal with the behavior), never use your mouth to take care of what proximity should take care of
o
· Backtalk is students trying to get out of something-blame it on anything or anyone to get out of discipline

Day 4-Last day of Intermediate with Von Ray

2010-08-05T09:11:00.000-07:00

This session was for working with a written story.

Steps for Reading and Discussing a Story
1. Teacher reads a sentence in TL
2. Class chorally translates the sentence.
3. Translate one paragraph (or less) at a time. This should not take very long
4. Ask the facts. Circle structures that are high frequency, still to be acquired, or new structures.
5. The facts can’t change.
6. Students respond as a chorus
7. Add details to the reading by asking additional questions about the paragraph, remembering that the facts can't change.
8. Students guess the answers and you're off with adding to the story!
9. Parallel story about one of the students: similar story with details about your student using the student as actor with props.
10. PQA works well also. “BS” is something I have done with the readings (read my session with Michael Miller to learn more about BS)
11. Continue on once interest wanes or once the parallel problem is resolved.

Remember that the focus is to offer CI, not to get to the end of the story or to the end of a chapter or page. This could take a LONG time.

After some peer coaching, we returned to the large group to see some peer teaching. This was done by Liesje (pronounced Leesha) Konyndyk from Kalazmazoo, Michigan:

Her structures were:
Il devait apprendre à: he had to learn how to and il savait: he knew

Ideas I picked up from this session:
Tell story in the past and then have One day…to integrate imparfait and PC
Story idea: Lindsey Lohan needs to learn to do 3 things for a movie role

This worked really well and had a lot of interaction and interest from the "students." Imagine how much fun you can have with students acting how to dance well and dance poorly. We also had Von Ray teaching Lindsay (aka me) to speak Keebler Elf. Hilarity!

Final thoughts on NTPRS

2010-07-24T08:56:00.001-07:00

I promise I will finish blogging on day 4 and 5, but I'm just so exhausted right now, it will have to wait a couple of days.

My final thoughts on this weekend:
Laurie and I were talking at the end of the conference (sadly, the only time we really got to talk to each other) and we were talking about goosebump moments. Laurie, who was coaching during the conference, said that her goosebump moment came with watching teachers who were petrified to teach at the beginning of the week becoming confident and seeing them teach again at the end of the week. I can only imagine what she witnessed as a coach, because I saw the same thing happen as just an attendee.
My goosebump moments came about every day, but always for the same reason. Beyond the learning…beyond the networking….beyond the fun of being around other language teachers, there was this feeling that pervaded the entire conference. It was a feeling of genuine love and concern for others. I have never been hugged or touched by so many “strangers” in my whole life. I heard grown men saying “I love you” to each other and really meaning it. It wasn’t as cheesy as it sounded, because it came so naturally to them. I don’t know if this is because we are all a part of a language revolution that we have to fight so hard for or what… But I have a feeling that it goes back to the reasons that we all decided to take the TPRS route in teaching. We love kids. We want to do what is best for them. We really believe that Beth is the most beautiful girl in the entire universe. We want to validate these students and give them the attention that they so desperately desire. And that is why we came to TPRS….it’s not that TPRS makes us all gushy lovey dovey fools, it’s that we were always like that and TPRS lets us be effective teachers without squashing that love. In fact, it allows us to develop that love and show it to the kids in a way that is not going to get us on the evening news. Powerful stuff…
One of the most magical things that happened to me this week was the chance to meet Blaine and Von (especially Blaine because he is the master and the Spanish class that he taught was small enough that we got a ton of interaction). I’ve talked a little bit about Blaine in my Spanish blogs, but I want to think a little more about what happened outside of the Spanish class. When we passed each other in the hotel lobby (Blaine or Von), they never passed me without complimenting me somehow. Blaine would say, “There’s my little mosquito…” Von would say, “Man, you were an amazing elephant. You really are a great little actress.” As their student, I got to feel how it felt to be praised by my teacher. Or even noticed by them outside of the classroom. I feel like I’m being unfair to the other teachers, because they were the same way. Barb made a point of smiling at me and connecting with me, even though she was only my teacher for a couple of hours (she even bought me Pirates for saying something nice about her on moretprs J). Dale Crum talked to me the day after I had him for classroom management and said that he appreciated how positive and enthusiastic my face was during his presentation. I’m imagining what my kids will feel like if I can remember this skill in and out of my classroom.
Today, we had our farewell luncheon, which was really sad and wonderful. We had Michael Miller singing a song that he wrote about TPRS (the best line: I’ve been Blainewashed), Bryce singing a sweet, sad song in Spanish that he sings every year to his seniors, Susie Gross sharing a poem about being a great language teacher…and then, I guess, we had me! Blaine surprised me by asking me to tell the story that I learned in Spanish class for the room. I was a little nervous because it was so spur-of-the-moment and I hadn’t had any Spanish since Wednesday, but I did it anyway. As I was telling my story, I could hear the gasps from the audience when I would say something like “le dijo” or “queria ser” I thought to myself, “Wow! I must be doing something really impressive right now!,” but I couldn’t tell you what it was or why it was so impressive. I was just telling the story. THIS STUFF WORKS. Now, to be fair, I do speak French, so some of the structures are similar and I am a very motivated learner…but I also only had 8 hours of instruction.
I’m almost done reflecting, but the funniest thing that happened this week was how every teacher started talking differently. I guess I shouldn’t say talking, because it was really the reactions that changed. There were lots of “oooooohhhhhs” in everyday conversation. Lots of “oh no oh no” crept into our lingo. Something that only we can appreciate, I guess.

Day 3-Parking in First Gear with Michael Miller

2010-07-22T09:30:00.000-07:00

In this session, Michael talks about how to extend establishing meaning by creating conversation between teacher and students. Here are the notes I took:

Step one: establishing meaning
Tell the word, show a picture, give a gesture and a translation…start to BS (blabber to students)
Talks about what is in his classroom…what color, what number

Trick: have gestures for certain words and get participation points…extra for the first one For example, every time Michael says the word for man, they slap the desk for participation points.

When students insist on speaking English, say if you want to use English, let me give you this book and you can translate it to English.

Tricks for staying in step one and conversing with kids:
· Still use your vocab structures
· Break them down if they are too long
· In advance, think of typical questions you could ask about those structures
· Beginners: Who, what, when, where, how many, what color
· Advanced: how, why, did you (verb) too? (past tense), will you (verb), would you (subjunctive)
· 3-ring circus: present when they do it and past when they sit down
· Set up class for BS: I expect a reaction: Wow!, how sad! I can’t believe it! That’s not right! Obviously!
· Be interesting and interested*** Care about your kids
· Gesture with translation (un plato…un plato means plate)
· Imagine that you have a plate (subjunctive!!)
· Dirty (Who has dirty socks? Hand check! Who has dirty hands? Why are your hands dirty?)

Day 3-Intermediate with Von

2010-07-22T09:19:00.000-07:00

Today's class was about getting away from the scripted story

Abandon the script when the class is creative enough to make a funnier story. Otherwise, keep with the script “C’est mon histoire!”

Use scripted stories for ideas and adapt to the vocabulary level of the class**

The goal is not the story, the goal is comprehension. Get every student to a 10 by circling and re-telling the story, adding details for the advanced students

Here are two things that I noticed from this week that I want to put into my stories: “How did he react?” and the students are allowed to make noises. Adds interest to the class. Blaine used “Three requirements” with a story in Spanish class. This is great because it gives us extra locations, problems and characters to expand on.

Parallel characters allow us to compare and contrast, which is a skill that students need for the AP test or in advanced classes in college.

When in doubt, turn to the actor and ask them in the second person.

Another teacher modelled this and asked us what a character wanted. We guessed and she said "no, it's obvious, he wants a wig!" And she whipped a wig out of her purse. Oh my gosh! It was like magic! I need to do more of this with wigs and fake mustaches.

Coaching:
Use your discipline problem students to make noises or actions for difficult words (vacuum)
When using cognates, still check for comprehension because not all students are “listening in French”
Individual comprehension checks. If they are slow, give them two options to choose from where they can’t screw up. If they do screw up, play it off as if they answered correctly.

Day 2-Musical Echoing

2010-07-22T08:04:00.000-07:00

I attended this session because I love music and want to know how to use it more in my classroom. I personally was not interested in the method that the presenter used, but I'll post my notes in case anyone else is interested. She has books and music that you can buy...I'm assuming they are available from Teacher's Discovery?

She makes up a story of 6-8 stanzas or lines. Each stanza or line is subdivided into 3 segments of about 5-8 syllables or beats. Each segment needs a picture to represent the story.

Then she takes these and makes them into a song. She plays the song for the students one time, with the pictures and then circles the meaning.

If anyone is interested in this, I'd be happy to expand more, but I wasn't really interested, so I just stayed to get the idea of the process and then left when they started practicing.

Day 2-Spanish with Blaine

2010-07-22T07:45:00.000-07:00

Today in Spanish class, we had some teacher questions about discipline. I agreed to be the obnoxious student so that Blaine could model discipline for us. The thing that that taught me is the dynamic pesonality that Blaine has is truly magical. I really really really didn't want him to be mad at me. I'm not sure if that's a representation of Blaine or of my people-pleasing nature... He reacted to everything with love. He turned to me when I was talking and said with a smile, "Hey kiddo, this is not going to work if you are talking. For this to work, you can't talk, write or sleep. That's a pagame" He explained that pagame are worth 5 points of participation points per grading period (100 total possible). They can earn these points back by making a nice card for him, shaking his hand to have a genuine bonding moment or writing a 100 word essay. He validated me so much during that "class period" and said at the end that those kids who are attention seekers or having a bad day are the ones that his heart goes out to. Those are the kids that he really wants to reach. People pleaser? Maybe this will work for me.

On to the notes!

Whenever there is a choral response to an info-seeking question, don’t take that answer so that they are shocked! I love this idea. As a student, it really made me sit up and take notice. I think I blogged about this already, but if I didn't...I'd be happy to re-explain in the comments section.

Add extra details that you “forgot” the first time through the story. Blaine would go to re-tell the story and then get "stuck" on some tiny bit of information that he forgot to create interest and extra reps. For example, we were continuing with a story that we had been working on for 3 hours. In this story, there was an elephant in an internet cafe in New Zealand who saw the facebook of the most beautiful girl in the world... There's a ton more to the story, but this was all basic information established very early. He came back to it. Class, there is an elephant...where is the elephant...was he alone? (new information) No! He wasn't alone! I forgot to tell you! He was there with his mom and his dad! Then we talked about them. They were divorced. The mom lived in Minneapolis and was friends with the mosquito we had been talking about...it went on and on describing these two super-minor characters that he had "forgotten" to tell us about the first time through the story.

Basic structure of story-telling
1. Establish problem 2. Character development 3. Go somewhere and try to solve problem/doesn’t work 4. Resolution

When Blaine is "lesson planning," he starts with a couple of sentences and he knows the resolution before he begins. The middle can go anywhere.

More on discipline: We talked about rudeness rom students. He gave the example of using a student and asking: Is there a girl or an elephant? A student yells out "Elephant!" Blaine goes to the student and says: This does not work if you do that. You cannot say that she’s an elephant. She’s not, she’s a girl. What we’re doing does not work if you’re doing that. –Blaine
Take care of discipline problems in English.

One of the greatest tips that I saw was to use the actors to verify information, using you and I… This adds a ton of interest for the students, increases reps, and introduces 1st and 2nd person.

Part of my "acting out" was begging to be in the story. When I asked to be the elephant, he came, hugged me, and said “Honey, I love you, but this is my story…we’ll get to you another time” That hug shut me up. I think I've always been afraid to touch my students because of the fear of being sued or something. I'm going to get over that. Seriously.

This is a quote from one of the teachers in our class. Her name is Jammie and she was trying to explain why you don't correct speaking when a student makes a mistake:
"When you correct a child learning a language, they are not developmentally ready for the correction. When you say “no” to form, they think you are correcting the content. No, you don’t say I goed to the store, you say I went to the store…That’s what I said! "

Day 2-Intermediate class with Von Ray

2010-07-21T07:59:00.000-07:00

Here are some notes that I took from the presentation. They don't follow a narrative, so please excuse!

Students pass through 5 phases :
1. There are slow processors who can’t produce. (These would be your focus students)
2. There are fast processors who can produce very little.
3. There are fast processors who can produce with hesitation and errors.
4. There are fast processors who produce with accuracy and hesitation.
5. There are speakers with fluency or ease of expression.
Until the students reach level 5, they need repetition and circling. More time with the structure until it becomes natural.

During a story, you only have 3 options: Go back and add novel information, circle, go forward.

The goal is to practice the language and make the story last as long as we can make it last. It is not to get to the climax!! (I think I need to focus on this more. Just parking with circling and adding more details. I think that's the biggest thing I've gotten this week)

Two reasons to circle: turn slow processors into fast processors, to practice new or difficult structures. Circling is boring when sentences are short or when the structures are not new or difficult
Faster processors: review the facts of the story, add details, start over, and keep asking known details. These students can always benefit from extra repetitions to get to ease of expression

Parallel character (this is what we focused on today): a student in the class or a celebrity who parallels the story of the main character to add more practice for the structures without getting tedious. Add details about the parallel character to extend the story. Then we talk about the problem with that parallel character and come up with the resolution. You have to decide if the parallel character is interesting enough to continue with the parallel story. If it’s not, talk about it for a minute and then continue with the main story. It can have a connection to the main story, but it doesn’t have to!

Quote from Von: We’re always looking for students who want to play by raising their hands and adding details. If no students want to play, you can pick a student or use a celebrity.

Big idea:Contradict what the students think is the correct answer to increase interest. I noticed that this really caught my attention when I was a student in the language classes. I was always really surprised and laughed at the answer. We would be following a story and the teacher would ask a question that we thought we knew the answer to through inference of the story. We would answer one way and the teacher would say, No! You're wrong, it's actually (something bizarre). AFter lots of circling, it's great to be surprised by some new bit of information that's a little shocking.

Try to stick to the same thread. Parallel story should have just one thread and one problem with a resolution. Just make sure that you keep to the main structures!! You can add details and characters as long as we’re working towards the resolution of the problem.

These are some notes from the coaching session with Michelle Kindt:

When a story crashes and burns, just abandon it. You can have them draw 6 boxes and have them draw the story as you re-tell. Or, you cannot finish it and have the students finish it as homework…

When a kid really talks a lot in the TL, give them praise, let them finish and then say “don’t be intimidated by _____, she’s special and this is coming really quickly to her.”

Michelle used index cards as circling cards for each statement. Character 1 wants to have dinner with character 2. Keep other ideas for the characters or verb written down there for circling. She has them numbered so she can go through the circling easier.

"We can get our kids to love French so much that they keep taking it or so much that they travel. This leads to world peace…" Michelle Kindt-French coach What a beautiful thought. I'm an optimist too! Wouldn't it be nice if we were making such a huge difference in our classrooms every day??

Day 1-Cultural storytelling with Barb Cartford

2010-07-20T14:04:00.000-07:00

I brought away a few things from my session with Barb. First, she loves children and she loves her languages. She also really loves all the things that make people people (art, family, values, etc). She told us that she was using the popularity of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo in her adult Swedish classes and that she would be wearing a costume to become here on Tuesday. Amazing.

Okay, here's what I took away from this session, my goals for infusing culture into my class:

use history and biographies as stories and reading
use French art to teach colors, body parts, family, etc
use children's tales and compare them to well-known American stories (ex. Asterix v. Mickey Mouse)
Use costumes!!

Barb told us about her Frida unit. This is how she works the biography of Frida into her lesson plans:

Establish meaning of new vocabulary the first day
2-4th day: tell about the life of Frida using actors, visuals, and props. There should be at least 3 phases in her life (childhood, young adulthood, old age)
Show the works on the 5th day, using a jigsaw activity. Each student gets a questionaire about art (What jumps out to you? What is the feeling of the painting? How do you think the artist felt when he/she was painting this? etc) with a color and a number on it. The colors group the students to a particular painting. The students get together and discuss the painting to become "experts" at that particular painting. Then, they are grouped by number so that each group has one "expert" for each painting. The number groups travel around the room and the expert tells what his/her group found out about the painting...more discussion.

I LOVE this idea and can't wait to steal it. I would also like to add a day where the students mimic the style of the artist.

Day 1-Spanish with Blaine

2010-07-19T19:59:00.001-07:00

This was my first time meeting Blaine or seeing him teach. AMAZING! I also have to say that Sunday night, when we were checking in, I saw this adorable blonde woman catch sight of Blaine, say hi, and then beam like she had just met the president. I certainly understand her state of mind. It is pretty cool to be in a room with the creator of something so magical.

Here are some gems I got from the mouth of the guru:

As he was setting up the class, he said to all of us "I can't feel that this is hard. To me, speaking Spanish is as easy as speaking English. You have to help me. If you stop me, I appreciate it." He really created a climate of encouragement for all students, in my opinion. I feel like I ask students to stop me, but I don't make them understand how important it is or how much I want them to do it.
He also said that when he asked a question where he wanted us to guess, it had to be a proper noun or in Spanish, because this story is a Spanish story and it doesn't have any English in it. I really liked that. I have a hard time keeping my classes in French...but he does it in such a way that is really magical.
Finally (for today), we had a student who wanted to know why there are two ways to say "was." His answer, instead of going into rules and long explanations, was that there are two ways, he knows how to use them correctly, and we are just supposed to listen and try to absorb until we get the feeling for which one we're supposed to use. Brilliant! It's an easy way to explain our methodology to students without going into long pedagogy discussions.

More tomorrow (hopefully if my husband doesn't keep me out too long at the Cubs game!)

Day 1-Intermediate class

2010-07-19T19:40:00.001-07:00

Von Ray was/is the teacher for this class. He had us laughing with stories about his struggles with traditional language learning (oh, can't we all relate!). Here are some gems that I gleaned from his presentation:

We can infuse interest in our stories by using famous people, exaggeration, and irony
In the beginning of TPRS, the students don't have the language to be able to answer open why questions. We have to work up to that to ensure that students are using the TL (or proper nouns) to respond to our questions.
We were talking a lot about how to keep interest high. Von taught us a story using German, to try and show us how many repetitions a new learner needs before feeling comfortable in the TL. It was quite a few. He used inflection, whispering, yelling, emotions, and random noises to keep us engaged in the simple story. Then, when we had that part down, he went back to the beginning and it wasn't boring! This was an eye-opener to me...to see just how much repetition is necessary to really get something stuck in my head (obviously the point of the exercise)
He did a pop-up grammar of the difference in the verbs for singular and plural subjects. The student didn't give him exactly the answer he was looking for, but he praised the student and moved on. He said that he would come back to it in about 5 minutes or so to see if he could get the answer he was looking for. If not, no big whoop!

After the brief presentation, we were broken into smaller groups for peer coaching. I was so scared of this! Especially after almost 2 months of no teaching. But I was the third volunteer to be coached on "advanced" circling (circling out of the traditional order). I got lots of praise, but was told that I need to focus energy on circling the stuff I want them to actually learn and not the stuff that they already know. That was a "Duh!" moment for me. I'm excited to go back tomorrow and see what else I can learn.

I have to say that everyone I have encountered has been so kind. I know that teachers have a special kind of heart, but I think that TPRS teachers go beyond that. We truly are a special little community of colleagues looking to better our craft and each other. And I don't think that it's too far of a stretch to say that we want to better the world too. I know that Ben Slavic talks a lot about decreasing the achievement gap among his students. I feel that power here with me in Chicago.

To go a little further on this tangent, I ate lunch today with an amazing woman named Dixie. We happened to be in the lobby together at the same time looking to eat, so we decided to go together. We talked about our experiences with TPRS (mine being pretty short and hers going back to the beginning!) in different school districts with different ages and different SES. We shared our hopes for the world and language learning. It was a great experience and I hope it was just one of many I'll have this week (which may be difficult since I have to spend some time with my husband!)

NTPRS-Initial observations

2010-07-19T07:00:00.001-07:00

I got here last night and, I have to admit, I'm a little bummed that I brought my husband along. Yes, it's super nice to have a week's vacation with my hubby and no kids, but we've got plans in the evenings that don't always involve me getting to hang out with the other TPRSers.

I've already met Laurie Clarcq...so sweet. She actually spotted my nametag and called me out. I'll be excited to talk to her more about loving kids and embedded readings.

I'm hoping to add all of my notes on here as the week progresses...

Passe Compose

2010-05-10T10:06:00.000-07:00

I haven't blogged lately because I have a bit of teacher-itis. I absolutely cannot WAIT for this year to be over. I have had some really bad days coupled with a super-long winter. I'm done!

Anyway, today something happened that merits blogging about. During state testing, there were a lot of days where I was supposed to be in two buildings at once because of overlapping schedules. (I travel, and my schedule is a bit strange) Because of that, I had to come up with lesson plans for my kids that they could do without me. I decided to give my second year students a huge packet of worksheets (yuck!) over the passe compose because I figured it couldn't possibly hurt them and they would get a little exposure to it before moving on to the next teacher at the high school. I didn't teach them anything over the passe compose outside of little pop-up grammar points about how to say We did this or They did that. They are really good at using first person past because we use it every Monday to talk about what they did over the weekend. Today, one of my students said that he went to a friend's house. I asked what he did there and he thought for a second and said "Nous avons mange de la pizza and nous avons joue des jeux videos." He is a smart kid, but not one to do homework or study at all. Is it a stretch to say that he picked that up from pop-up grammar and can now use it in authentic situations?? Is that real acquisition??

End of the year blahs

2010-04-20T07:03:00.001-07:00

I haven't posted much or even read many TPRS blogs lately because it's that wonderful time of year when the kids are crazy and everyone is itching for summer. I know that this should be a perfect time for TPRS, but I did not do a good job of setting up my classroom management in the beginning of the year, and I am paying for it now!

So, I'm "punishing" two of my classes with book work. It's not really a punishment because there are a few who enjoy the change of pace. The amazing thing that I've discovered is that I have taught my kids everything in the book (so far...). We started on page one and they are all rock-starring it. It's giving a great boost to those kids who feel like they aren't learning anything because they aren't the superstars of the class because they know the right answers. And, I'm still able to do the book work in French. We had a long discussion about Ile-de-France because that was highlighted at the beginning of the chapter. We even sang Aux Champs-Elysees together. It wasn't a homerun day, but it worked for now. I didn't have to constantly yell to have myself heard...I gave them time limits for completing the book work...and we made it through. I'm still hoping that they will get bored at the end of two weeks of this stuff and ask to go back to storytelling. We'll see...

My 9th graders/2nd years are already begging for more stories because they have had to do worksheets due to crazy schedule overlapping where I was supposed to be teaching in two buildings at the same time. I'm excited to give them something that they want and know that it's really good for them!

Defending TPRS

2010-03-31T07:08:00.000-07:00

I guess another argument is raging on FLTeach about whether or not TPRS is a valid, successful teaching method. I happened to read a post from an insightful TPRS questioner that make me sit and reflect. It was bothering me so much that I decided to respond, even though his initial questions were not directed at me. I just thought I'd share my responses, because they made me think about TPRS...

I thought I'd jump in here because I am just beginning to use TPRS in my classroom this year. I am constantly reflecting and trying to decide if I'm doing the right thing for my students. Your email gave me more food for thought. I thought I'd try to answer your questions from my point of view.

Question 1 (dealing with the fact that immigrant Mexicans are surrounded by the language yet can't really speak it): I work in a restaurant and have a ton of interactions with immigrant Mexicans. In my experience (which may differ from your experiences with ESL students), these men and women are not really immersed in the language as our students are immersed in the language. They listen to Mexican radio stations, they watch Univision, they read Mexican newspapers, they work with other Mexicans with whom they can converse in Spanish... I had the same problem when I was living in France as an exchange student and that is why I am not as fluent as I could be. Our students are not fully immersed in the language, but they are experiencing it in a more academic setting. Instead of sitting and watching a TV show in French with no idea what is going on, they are listening to a teacher who is speaking slowly, ensuring comprehension at every turn. They are going to acquire the language faster this way than they would in a day of living on the streets of Paris (I think...) I'm not trying to make the argument that my classroom is a better place to learn a language than actually being in France, just trying to explain the differences between the students in my classroom and the immigrants in America.

Question 2 (dealing with the evaporation of knowledge): I can't really speak a whole lot to this question because I am only in my first year of teaching TPRS. I can tell you that I started teaching this way because I was SO frustrated in how little stuck with my students after a summer of not speaking or hearing French. What did stick, however, was the vocabulary used in actual conversations between my students and myself. Every Monday, we would talk about what happened over the weekend. My second year students, who had never been explicitly taught the past tense (because it is taught in our second year), remembered on day one of school how to say "I went to Florida," correctly using etre as a helping verb, but switching to avoir to say "I saw a film." That's what stuck with them because those conversations meant something to them. So I decided to try TPRS because no matter what I taught them, I figured I couldn't do any worse than I'd been doing in getting the language to stick. I'll be interested to see what my second year students remember next year! And as for reading, my kids read all the stinking time! They are shocked as to how much they can understand when they read.

I hope this helps answer your questions. It really helped me to think of the answers! I love reflecting and trying to figure out how to best prepare my students to become fluent in the language. That's my ultimate goal...I want students who can read, listen, write, and speak. Some skills just come later in the learning process...

Grammar

2010-03-29T11:33:00.000-07:00

Confession time. I am not a grammar lover. In fact, until two summers ago, when my department was writing curriculum, I didn't know what an interrogative adjective was. Or any of those other buzz words that come with language and grammar study. But guess what? I lived in France for a year and didn't starve. I even took university level classes with native French speakers. And yet I did all this without knowing what a possessive pronoun was. I used them...just didn't know what they were called. That's probably one of the reasons that TPRS is so attractive to me.

Another reason that TPRS is so attractive to me is that it is actually making me more fluent. Usually, only immersion weekends and travel can boost fluency, but I am learning so much! Structures that wouldn't normally flow off my tongue are becoming more natural because I am making a point of teaching them in context. Yet another bonus for TPRS!!

Free writes

2010-03-29T07:21:00.000-07:00

I have my students do a free write every Friday. They moan and groan, but it's a great way for me to see their progress and have something in my hand to show other FL teachers. I was absent last Friday, but my sub gave them a free write assignment. I was looking over them this morning, trying to decide if I should enter a grade for them or not because most of my students weren't able to write very much. I was SHOCKED to see what one of my F students wrote. He wrote 110 words about baseball, his family, his friends, and how he doesn't like being alone. LOTS of spelling errors, but I was able to read it and get his feelings and purpose. This is the same student who told me at the end of last year that I couldn't make him drop my class when I asked if he really wanted to be here. How can I harness this intelligence that is there, inside him? He's so stubborn and will shut down at the slightest re-direct.

At the very least, his writing has given me hope and incentive to keep trying with him...hooray!

Second year

2010-03-24T11:14:00.000-07:00

There is so much freedom with teaching kids for a second year. I love knowing what they should know, getting to know them better, and building on the basic vocabulary. It's so awesome to be able to see the differences in abilities between the first year students and the second year students and know that I did something to create that. This year is even more awesome because I'm not using a textbook. I know that everything that they know came directly from me and my choices in music, movies, and books. My pedagogy is working! How exciting is that! My students are learning and it's not just the perfect students who go home and study for hours. In fact, it's almost impossible for my students to study at home because they wouldn't know what to study (I wonder if that's a good thing...). Instead, I can tell a difference in my students' innate abilities through their output. Everyone can understand most of what I'm saying. Most, if not every student, can answer my questions with something...and then the top kids can really go to town talking to me. They can bring out a word that I've used just a couple of times and blast it in my face. Those kids are still awesome, but it's really great to see other kids succeed too.

At the coffeeshop yesterday, my colleague and I were discussing how to assess these kids. She said that she gives oral tests and is giving significant points (like a C) for simply understanding the questions and responding with yes/no. You know, that's really hard for these kids. Seriously, it's like we're speaking a foreign language or something! Shouldn't they be rewarded for making such a giant leap??! They have to be able to hear the words, attach meaning to those words (usually by switching them to English), sometimes they have to switch the word order around...and then they have to know how to respond. So what if they don't answer in a complete sentence?? That's for the top kids. I need to be happier with the level of my kids' comprehension. What they're doing in my class is huge. HUGE!

Success!

2010-03-24T11:07:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I was leaving school with a Spanish teacher and we ran into one of my students. This student has huge self-control issues, and I had been sending him out of class into the Spanish room. As the two of us walked by him and said hi, he said, "Mme, you should send me to the Spanish room again!" I answered in French, "Why?" He said, in French, "Canon's in there." Me: Canon? Who is Canon? Him: My boyfriend (petit ami) Me: Your boyfriend? You want to give him a kiss? Him: Eeeww, no! He's just a friend. (He then gestured that he was short) Me: Oh! It's your friend who is little, not your little friend/boyfriend (petit ami). My colleague and I continued to our cars and then to Starbucks for coffee. My colleague was amazed at how much my first year student was able to understand and respond to me in French after less than a year in class (and many of those first days spent in other classrooms because he was too disruptive). Ahhhhh...success.

Refreshed after Spring Break

2010-03-23T11:29:00.000-07:00

I came back from a week off feeling pretty darn good about teaching. I was happy to see my students, and we started off on a great note. Well, at least it started off well with my second year students. They were really paying attention and enjoying talking about what they did over break. My first year students are just squirrelly. I love their energy, but I'm struggling so much to get them to shut up and play the game. They are really understanding a lot and I do have those exceptional students who are going above and beyond on production too. But I can't get the rest of the kids to be quiet. I fought it really hard for a while, but then I realized that the problem wasn't getting any better and I was sending out some really good students...who were missing the CI. Lately, I've been allowing a little more laissez-faire, but I can see it in their grades. When they're not paying attention, their grades tank. It's the same old thing...

Observation

2010-03-11T07:52:00.000-08:00

I was observed this week by a member of the PE department who knows nothing about FL beyond her experiences in high school. She came to see about my pacing and amount of time spent in the TL.

Today, we met in an interdisciplinary group and she shared her findings with me. She was very complimentary about the class...the gestures...the conversations, etc. She said that she saw a very high level of interest and could see how it would help the students learn.

It felt so good to be validated by other teachers in the building. I've been pretty down on myself about TPRS lately...I don't do enough circling, I'm not going Slowly enough, my stories are boring, I'm getting tired of the stories, my classroom management sucks. It was nice to remember that I am accomplishing something! If absolutely NOTHING else, at least my kids are excited about learning another language, right?? Right??

Racism...what the heck?!

2010-03-04T10:50:00.000-08:00

I have seen two articles lately about racist actions taking place on college campuses. One where a KKK hood was found on a college campus and the other about students putting cotton balls on the lawn in front of the black studies building at my alma mater. It makes me sick to think that there are college students who are so ignorant. How can a person go through over 12 years of education and be so dumb??

One of the reasons that I decided to choose French as my content area is that I hope to educate students to be somewhat worldly and not so sheltered. I hope that by teaching them about the differences in cultures, they might realize that just because it's different, doesn't mean it's wrong. Different is just different.

I've noticed a "new" trend with my students to make blatently racist remarks and think they are funny. I have a hispanic boy who is constantly referred to as "The Mexican" He laughs along, but doesn't realize that it's becoming a part of his identity. Instead of being Carlos (not his real name), he is the Mexican. They do this to all races. I have an African-American student who is constantly referring to black this and black that. Today, I asked what color his room was and he said it was black because he lives in The Black House. It's really sad when I can't even teach a color without someone making a racist comment about it... I try to teach them the difference between appropriate and inappropriate jokes...but it's so ingrained in their lives at this point. I just remind them every time they make a comment and then send them out if I think it was malicious. Same thing with gay jokes...and red heads! South Park has now made it common for me to hear "Gingers don't have souls..." And kids think it's SO funny.

What can I do to combat 23 hours of racism/homophobia? They are surrounded by it on the TV, their friends, maybe their parents...

Brain-based learning and Marcia Tate

2010-03-04T10:47:00.000-08:00

I went to a seminar yesterday by Marcia Tate on strategies that work with the brain to help kids learn. I've posted about her ideas before, but yesterday I got to see her in action! Afterwards, I went to say thank you for a seminar that was applicable to all content areas. I told her that I don't get many opportunities to go to these things because foreign language is kind of out there on its own. She said, "Well, with FL, you have TPRS!" I was so excited because I was thinking the whole time that TPRS goes right with her 20 strategies!

PQA-I get it!

2010-03-02T11:25:00.000-08:00

So, today, I was going to start a story from Anne Matava's scripts about dirty hotel rooms. So I put the words up on the board: (bed)room, travels, and dirty. In the past, I have written the words on the board, given the gestures, and jumped into the story. Today, I remembered that oh-so-important step of PQA. I have a class of 26 squirrely kids. They are really really excited about French, but they also get really really excited about anything anyone else says and go way off topic.

Today, I started out by asking a kid what color his bedroom is. This is a quieter boy who doesn't interact much with the class. He said his room is white. Boring! So I asked him if he has a lot of posters on his walls, thinking that maybe I could spice this up. Nope, no posters. So of course, I told the class that he had 27 posters of cute little kittens in his room. They loved it. We talked some more about his love of cats and I moved on to another student...ignoring the loudmouths who were begging for me to pick them. I asked a girl about her room and if she had any chairs in it. She said that she did, so I asked how many and what color. My goal was to have very distinct rooms for each student. I wanted one student to have posters, one to have a chair, and one to have a television...recycling vocab that they already know.

At the end of the hour, the kids started to get restless and goofy from all the hilarious CI I was giving them about their classmates...so I had them take a quick comprehension quiz and BINGO, class is over.

I finally understand when teachers say, "I could have hurried through the PQA and forced a story...but we were having so much fun with PQA!" Now, I have two more structures that I can PQA tomorrow during a block and then start the story.

Hooray PQA!

Grammar?

2010-02-24T09:22:00.000-08:00

This is something I posted to the FLTeach listserv. It just really ticked me off that this woman was assuming that a native French speaker was ignorant because they made a grammatical mistake in a letter. Oooo, I'm mad about it. But I tried not to let that show in my response. Does anyone have any feelings about this?

Leigh said: "I see a ton of grammatical errors because one family is Armenian and another, just plain ignorant, which I don't tell the student because she's so proud of her French relatives."

I hate to jump in on this, but this phrase really struck me because I've been having similar conversations with my colleagues. Is it really that they are ignorant or is it that the academic French that we are taught and teaching in schools is too perfect? I had a home stay three summers ago with a brilliant, well-read French woman. I asked her to explain the difference between Il est and C'est to me. She said it was the same: that the two phrases were interchangeable. I know that it is not strictly true, but it is being used currently interchangeably in France.

I was also listening to Fresh Air on NPR yesterday and they had a quick blurb at the end about nit-picking the English language. For example, if we are following the strict rules of English, we should NEVER say that there were 5 people at dinner last night because you never use people with a specific number. Instead, you should say 5 persons.

So, are we teaching outdated grammar rules like this or are we teaching our students to sound educated?? I have no idea because I don't live in France and I'm not a native speaker. I don't want my students to go to France and use outdated language rules, though...they would sound too stilted. I also don't want them to spend a bunch of their time and brain space memorizing rules that are ancient.

Maybe someone on here with a finger on the pulse of the language can answer this.

NTPRS

2010-02-09T11:23:00.000-08:00

I absolutely can't wait to get to Chicago this summer. Perhaps I am romanticizing it a bit, but I feel like I will really know my ass from a hole in the ground at the end of an intense week of TPRS training.

Here are some things I hope to learn:

1-Reading strategies....is it all strict translation or are there other ways to check comprehension
2-Basic classroom setup...because I started TPRS after the beginning of the year, I feel like I'm always doing catch-up on the procedures of the classroom.
3-"Curriculum" creation...what "should" be taught first to ensure a successful year of reading and listening.
4-Other activities...what can I do with stories after I've told them?
5-Story ideas...I've been doing a "bad"job with this because I never have a plan beyond my three words. I have no structure in my head beyond the old "There is a _____. ____ has a problem so they go ____, etc."

Ohhhh Frank McCourt

2010-02-02T11:19:00.000-08:00

I try to read a lot. A lot of different things. I can do this because I drive 45 minutes to work every day (and then home), so I get books on tape (really CD) and listen as I make the mind-numbingly boring drive. This week I'm listening to Teacher Man by Frank McCourt. I highly recommend listening to his books instead of reading them because he is the narrator and you get his voice...accent, singing, etc. It's quite an experience.

Anyway, today's excerpt was about how self-denigrating he is. Is this a common problem amongst us teachers? I feel like I understand exactly what he's saying when he describes second-guessing every action he takes. "Oh no, Susie has her cell phone out. Should I say something to her? If I say something to her, she might get mad at me and the whole class will turn against me. What if she refuses? Then what will I do? What if I don't say anything and the other students see that she's using her cell phone and then I've lost all authority." Oh man, that's my plagiarized version of an experience he talks about. I'm obviously not alone...because he has/had the same problem...but I wonder if other teachers have the same thoughts? Does it ever end? Will there come a point, maybe ten years down the road, when I have enough confidence to walk into MY classroom and let the kids know that, like it or not, they're going to play my game or there's the door. That sounds really harsh, but I'm coming to discover that it doesn't have to be...right? I want every person in my class to enjoy coming to class. But right now, I have a student who is poisoning the experiences for the rest of the class. Instead of enjoying a story, they are waiting for me to do or say something "unfair" so they can pounce on it and mumble stuff under their breath about how horrible I am. In my mind, I'm being "unfair" because I'm handling the needs of all the students at that particular point in time. If I have a student who didn't sleep last night because she was physically fighting with her dad and got thrown out of class...I'm not going to nitpick on her for whispering to her neighbor. Sorry, but I'm just not heartless enough to do that. But, the student who constantly and LOUDLY berates me in front of the class? Hmmm...I might just be a little harsher on that student. (although usually I'm not because I try to outlast the behavior...classic error)

I guess what I'm rambling about is my insecurities in the classroom and how badly I want them to go away. I'm hoping that they will magically disapper in time.

I want to cry

2010-02-01T09:20:00.000-08:00

What a day!! I have a class that tore me to pieces today. My crime? Taking away a cell phone. Then I took away some kids Tech Deck that he was playing with. Then I said that if the students didn't want to participate in class today, they were more than welcome to go elsewhere. My class just wasn't having it today. I kept trying. But I have one student (okay, actually I have 3 or 4 in that class) who poisons the rest of the class.

We started our story today and when I asked for suggestions for names, someone yelled out Madame Hussein. I thought that was really clever, so I jumped on it. Little did I know that they were making reference to me (Madame) and how horrible I am. It became clearer as we described the character further. She was evil. Very very very stupid. Every time this student would make his suggestion, he would snicker. It finally dawned on me what was going on, but I tried to ignore it...thinking that I would rather look stupid as long as we were making progress in the story.

Long story short, I finally stopped and told the students that they are not being forced to be in my class. If it is so horrible and I'm so unfair, they can drop it. There is no FL requirement in our district. I tried to engage them in dialogue about what I do that is unfair...they wouldn't bite. I know that it's my fault because I shouldn't let it get to the point that it got to today. I should have sent the poisoners out of class much earlier...but I want to give them the benefit of the doubt, even if it makes me look like an idiot. But for some reason, that translates to me "having it out" for them. Like I come to school some days and say "Hmmm, how can I make Bobby's day horrible today?" Because my classes are so fun when everyone hates being there...(dripping sarcasm here). It honestly makes me want to cry and give up.

Two things I do that work (I hope)

2010-01-26T07:00:00.000-08:00

When I did my student teaching, I was working with a TPRS teacher, so I had a pretty good idea of the theories before I began teaching myself. I've stolen (no such thing in teaching, right?) several ideas from her that I use in my own classroom. They work for me, when I remember to do them.

First, I try to have an animal of the week. I have a bunch of stupid stuffed animals given to me by friends who don't know what to do with the crazy amount of stuffed animals that we parents accumulate as our children grow. I pick out one and give the French translation. Then we talk about the animal. For example, this week, I had a monkey (un singe). We came up with 5 sentences to describe monkeys in general. They live in the jungle or the zoo. They eat bananas. They say "oo oo ah ah" They are brown, orange, etc. They throw poo. I try to always have at least one bizarre sentence to make them laugh. It works better with some animals than others. This gives the kids a chance to learn animal vocabulary that we can use in stories and it gives them a chance to practice the third person plural conjugation. Hooray! Success number one.

My second success that I try to do once a week is to have a phrase of the week. I was doing the animal on Friday and the phrase on Monday, but I've pushed it back to Monday and Tuesday now. I pick a colloquial phrase that they would otherwise not learn until a study abroad experience. Sometimes I ask my sister in France for a phrase that is branchee...today I went here: http://www.uqtr.ca/argot/frame.html. I put the phrase on the board with the translation and tell the students that we are going to try to use that phrase as many times as possible this week. I never bring it up and we don't do anything more with it. Sounds like a useless exercise, right? Except that kids really remember these phrases. Today I'm using J'en ai marre (I've had it/I'm fed up!). It is amazing to me how often these phrases show up in writing and stories.

Whatever works, right?

Mondays

2010-01-25T11:34:00.001-08:00

Yuck. I've been feeling my passion dwindle these past couple of weeks. Pretty strange since I haven't worked a full week since well before Christmas break. And it's all because of one class of do-nothings and another class of clowns. I love the clowns, don't get me wrong. They could rock my class if they could just shut their mouths for five seconds. I'm just not enough of a stickler to send out the entire class when they are all talking. Instead...I wait until it quiets down and just one person speaks out. Then I send that person out, but I don't feel good about it because it's not fair. Everyone else was talking too, they just happened to be the one who spoke last. I do much better with black or white rules. If I see a phone or an iPod, I take it. End of story. I don't care about excuses or sob stories. That's the way it goes. I feel justified in this because the office then punishes...it's a school rule...and it's not like a bathroom pass where emergencies happen.

What to do about the chatting?? I feel like I'm always facing a losing battle because, by now, the behaviors are already stuck in the kids. If I crack down now, they'll be so confused! I wanted to take a whole week and work on nothing but behavior, but with Christmas and the new semester, I haven't had a chance to do it. When will classroom managment get easier??

Amazing blog post-Thanks Ben!

2010-01-25T11:31:00.001-08:00

I have to share this because I just love it so much. It really breaks down asking a story so that even a novice like me understands completely how it works. I can just see every step taking place in Ben's classroom. If you haven't already read it...do!

http://www.benslavic.com/blog/?p=5840#comments

~~~~~Mme Hayles and the TPRS Experiment~~~~

SBG and Assessments

This week's stories

Thoughts at the new year

My absence

Be nice

Panic!....Phew!

Comprehension checks

Day two

First day, first day!!

Back to school Eve

NTPRS wrap-up

Stories Worth Retelling: Teaching with Jokes-Bryce Hedstrom

Activating Readers-Carol Gaab

Power Assessments-Scott Benedict

Presenting to Peers

Co-building a story-Carol Gaab and Kristy Placido

Personalization-Barb Watson and Michael Miller

Comments

Props in the Classroom-Barb Watson

The Politics of Education-Dr. Stephen Krashen

Contrastive Grammar-Susie Gross and Betsy Paskvan

Comprehension Checks-Barb Cartford and Leslie Davison

Skipped sessions...

Power Grading part 1-Scott Benedict

Building Dialogue through Actors-Scott Benedict and Carol Sutton

Verifying details with Blaine and Von

More notes from Carol Gaab

Improv with Von Ray

Are we doing a story AGAIN-Carol Gaab

Krashen Keynote

The Art of Going Slowly-Bryce Hedstrom and Linda Li

Embedded Readings with Laurie Clarcq and Michele Whaley

NTPRS-I'm here!

Home run story!

Compliments

P.A.T. and grammar puzzles

Free writes and preposition "chant"

Assessments

Teachable moment

Tuesday block

A typical Monday

April 7: Standards-based grading

April 6

April 3rd

March 31st-Block day

Blog every day??

This is why I teach!

Assessments

The Big Payoff-Literally

Getting the hang of expanding a story

Results of speaking test-Warning...Emotional!

Results of Std-based assessments

Standards-based Assessments

Fun conversation

Taking a break

Curriculum maps

Gathering steam...

Excited to talk

Hitting the wall...and getting back up

Two weeks in...

Blurters

First block days

Actual TPRS

First day/second half

First day!!

Culture in the classroom-Phrase of the week

The week before school

Day 5-Classroom management-Motivation

Day 5-The Power of Music with Lisa Reyes and Barb Watson

Day 4-Classroom management with Dale Crum

Day 4-Last day of Intermediate with Von Ray

Final thoughts on NTPRS

Day 3-Parking in First Gear with Michael Miller

Day 3-Intermediate with Von

Day 2-Musical Echoing

Day 2-Spanish with Blaine

Day 2-Intermediate class with Von Ray

Day 1-Cultural storytelling with Barb Cartford

Day 1-Spanish with Blaine

~Mme Hayles and the TPRS Experiment