Optimizing the use of the TPRS novels-Mike Coxon

Mike is a kindred soul, I feel like.  I can't remember if I've been to a session with him before or if I just remember him so clearly from the War Room last year...  He has a way of making anything interesting, and his session, which was on novels (and I've seen probably 10-15 sessions on novels at the past 6 NTPRS conferences), was full of interesting ideas presented in a way where every teacher there felt confident taking the skills back to the classroom.

The first tip he gave us what that changing clothing changes a character and changing the classroom structure changes the feel from typical to exciting.  He told us that in his classroom, when the kids are working on something, he'll sneak out into the hallway and change his shirt without saying anything.  The kids are so confused...but it's another way to make our classes the most exciting class of their day.  He also builds tents in his classroom under the desk as a prop and also for them to read in during the tent chapter of Brandon Wants a Dog.  Brilliant!

He shared some reasons for reading aloud to the students as they follow along in their book.  I always do this and I remind my students to follow along with their eyes because as they are hearing the language and seeing it at the same time, it makes connections in their brains between the way the words look and the way they are spelled.  Mike also adds that reading aloud builds vocabulary, shows how the language works, associates reading with pleasure, creates background knowledge, provides a reading role model (me), and plants the desire to read.

In this session, we learned 3 principles for optimizing novels: If it's a boring chapter, personalize.  If it's exciting, dramatize, and if it's cultural, YouTubize.  (He showed us a 3D video of Guernica to go with La France en Danger that was spellbinding)

Next, he showed us some ways to read a chapter.

First was a simultaneous read.  In this, he used 3 different sets of characters who all acted out the scene at the same time.  He "read" the chapter, adding details and actions not originally in the book to add interest and extra vocab.

In a Crime Scene Investigation, he puts on a detective hat after a chapter reading to "investigate" the scene.  We saw this with the poop scene in Brandon Brown.  Some example questions: What happened?  Was the poop perfect?  Was it big or small?  Why?

Fake Text Messages:  I have had this site pinned on my browser forever and I've never used it.  Mike showed us an example of text messages between Anne's "friends" mean girling her. "Did you see Anne's shirt today?  Where'd she get that?  Goodwill?  Ha Ha!"  Also, text messages between the dude dancer (can't remember his name from the book) and a friend not in the book. "There's a beautiful girl over there?  What should I do?  Go over and tell her you're an expert in dancing"

Mike has his teacher's aids highlight the dialogue in every copy, using a different color highlighter for each character.  I love this idea, especially in the French novels, where it is not always clear who is speaking.

Two other weird things Mike does that I would LOVE to figure out how to do is that he dresses up as a substitute teacher for a day and teaches the "sub plan" in character all day long.  Or he dresses up as a super hero to become Captain Grammar.  I love that idea for those long weeks in the spring when the kids think my class sucks (only because they are used to how awesome it is and they forget how good they have it).  I could become someone else so they appreciate me a little more when I come back the next day.

Back to reading the novels:  When reading aloud, stimulate the senses, have students read along, read slowly, quickly, in different voices, using different accents.  He also does Narcolepsy Reading, which is where he pretends to fall asleep and the kids have to yell the missing word.

After going to this session, I feel like I did a horrible job of pre-teaching the language... I just assumed (ridiculously) that the novels are repetitive enough that they'll just get it eventually.  DUMB!!  One of the things Mike showed us to pre-teach vocab is the 3-Ring Circus.  I have seen this before in other sessions, even saw it in my student teaching 10 years ago.  But I LOVED what I saw Mike do (well, actually me, because he used me as the teacher).  Pick one student and have them do a SERIES of actions (ex: open the window, climb out the window, close the window), then, have a second student do another series of actions.  This is amazing for repetition, because we will have to go back and coach our first actor to continue doing those actions.  Add a third person.  Ideally, at least one of the characters has makes a noise or has a line that they are repeating to add interest and rhythm.  Then, once the actors are well established, step out of the scene and circle.  "What seems like chaos to us is normal to them."  Think about that?  How awesome are our kids at multi-tasking?!  They thrive in this environment (unless they have stimulation issues...know your audience).

We can also bring in the thoughts of side characters to add subplot or invent scenes.  For example, in La France en Danger, we can create a scene where Pauline calls her dad to explain that she is in trouble and asks for help.  How awesome is that?!

Side note: Mike is awful at driving games, but pretty solid at killing aliens

Make a Movie with Senor Wooly aka Jim Wooldridge

This was a two-night event that ROCKED!!  Senor Wooly was giving us the tools to create short films that could be used easily as MovieTalks.  Night one was going over the different types of shots and camera movements as well as a set of rules.  Talking about shot and movement do not make sense in a blog, so I'll just give you the rules.

1. Hold phone horizontally (I broke this in the very first shot I tried to make...)
2. Don't film everything in just one shot.
3. Use close-ups
4. But use them sparingly
5. Record way more than you think you need
6. Don't zoom
7. Don't pan
8. Scan the environment before you record
9. Don't film in front of windows
10. Outside, shoot at dawn or dusk 
11. Film at the same height as the actors

To see my very first editing job, click here 

We used a free app called Adobe Premiere Clip, which did awesome things, but editing on a phone is not my cup of tea because I have fat, dumb fingers.  Just ask my friends how many of my texts they actually understand.  Thank God for real keyboards!

Night two was to film our piece in groups.  Here is our final product   My group was Andrea Schweitzer, Jeremy Jordan (who did the editing quickly) and me!  Every group did amazing work considering that everything had to be shot and edited in less than 2 hours.

Ask a Story 2.0 by Craig Sheehy

This session was about how to create stories that are more interesting than the cliche of a person with a problem goes somewhere, doesn't solve problem, goes to a second location, doesn't solve problem, and then goes to the 3rd location and solves the problem.  Craig has been reading tips for writing from a man named Ian Irvine.  There is a lot that goes into this, and to truly type out all of my notes would take twenty-five pages.  So instead of trying to explain the 41 ways to spice up a story, I'll just type them and if you have a question about a specific tip, please let me know.

The basic tenants of a story are to create suspense and tension in stories using a character that students can identify with.

One HUGE tip is to start our stories in the middle of the action/problem and then go back and flesh out the details.  No more "There is a boy who wants a cat."  We need to surprise our students and starting out every story the same way will get very boring very quickly.

To spice up characters, they should be:

1. Sympathetic: in trouble, underdog, vulnerable and/or deserving
2. Interesting: powerfully, naturally gifted or highly skilled, unusual, attractive, funny, or dangerous
3. Have clear goals
4. Have a strong opponent
5. Tailor the character to maximize suspense
6. Take away hero's defenses
7. Create anticipation and expectation
8. Romantic tension
9. Micro-tension
10. Rapidly changing emotions

To spice up a problem:

1. Put character or friends in danger (physical, psychological, emotional or moral)
2. Wants can be: love, friendship, escape, master a skill, discipline, art or realize a dream
3. Pose a mystery or puzzle
4. Force hero to face problem
5. Raise the stakes
6. Make it more difficult to solve
7. Shorten the deadline
8. Unusual twists and reversals: he got what he wanted, however, that made life worse for someone else

To spice up the plot:

1. Make a problem clear
2. Put the hero at a disadvantage
3. Increase the pressure
4. Create conflict with everyone and everything
5. Create inner conflicts and dilemma
6. Use of dramatic irony (the audience knows something that the character doesn't)
7. Use the unknown to create anxiety
8. Put hero in a perilous place
9. Create mysteries (find a ouija board or a voodoo doll)
10. Design puzzles
11. Leave issues unresolved for a while
12. Use reversals
13. Secrets-clues should heighten suspense
14. Use subtext-hidden agenda
15. Turn dramatic event into a question
16. Make it worse

To spice up structure:

1. Structure the beginning to create suspense
2. Tailor hero's actions to increase suspense
3. Vary fortunes
4. Sequence antagonists reactions to increase hero's troubles
5. Heighten critical scenes
6. Climax, resolution, ending
7. In editing-reflect

That's all 41 ideas.  Still here?  The main idea is to do at least one of these things to avoid our usual trap.  For example, during another session, we were acting out the dance scene in Pauvre Anne and Andrea Schweitzer (my roommate at NTPRS and buddy) had the brilliant idea to insert details about Anne's friend to infer that she was jealous of Anne and the flirting boy.  Brilliant!!  Just think about trying to get better at doing one of these and our stories will get better.

Discard the Discipline Plan with Alina Filipescu

I love you, Alina.  When I grow up, I want to be like you... (I say this because she tells me that she reads my blog, which is incroyable!)

Alina has this aura about her that makes you love her.  She is sweet, kind, and she knows what she's doing in a classroom.  This session was about the procedures that she uses to keep her students engaged so they don't have time to cause problems.

I'll start with her procedures and then talk about her other ideas:

• Whenever she says that she has a secret, the students all lean forward with their hands over their ears
• When she says Excellent, the students repeat while giving a double thumbs up
• When she says That's sad, the students repeat giving a thumbs down
• When she says That's ridiculous, students slap their thighs and stand up and shout That's ridiculous!
• When she says that someone has a problem, they put their hands in a cross over their chest and exclaim (Oh no!)
• When she asks Do you understand? They reply I understand (she does this in multiple languages)
• When she snaps her fingers and says click (to get their attention), they snap twice and say Click click
• When she leans forward, that is their cue to answer chorally (do avoid hearing from only the fast processors and to reduce the feeling of chaos)-LOVE THIS IDEA
• When she says Ok, I'm turning up the volume, they need to speak louder

Those are just the call and response type things that she does to keep the learning active.

Here are some other things that she does in the classroom to build a sense of community to avoid discipline issues.

• She has an activity called That's me!  I'm pretty sure I blogged about this last year, but just in case...  She has a list of statements and if that statement describes you, you stand up (or sit down if you are already standing) and say "That's me!"  I like the idea of this because I can see doing it as a brain break in the middle of establishing meaning to get more reps while getting the kids moving.
• Alina establishes her routines and expectations from the beginning and is consistent throughout the year.  She is forever repeating herself to the kids.  I had already planned to put my most important rules on a PowerPoint and have them scrolling the first two weeks of school with reminders every Monday throughout the year.... I need to be more consistent and I need to re-state my expectations every day
• Here is some verbage that she uses with kids "Thank you so much for raising  your hand and waiting to answer."  "It's okay to laugh, it's okay to smile, it is not okay to talk over, blurt out, or chat with your neighbor"  "I love that you are so creative, but I need you to wait until ______ next time."  "When you _____, you make me a better teacher."  I don't know about you, but seeing the actual sentences modeled for me helps so much.  I'm always looking for what other teachers actually SAY to their students.  It helps me immensely.
• She seriously limits vocab in the TL by saying "extra vocabulary is just noise right now, either say it in English or let's find a way to talk around the word you are looking for."  And she TEACHES them how to circumlocute!!
• She teaches them four words in the TL: thing, event, place, and person.  For example, she had a student who didn't know how to say laser gun, so instead, he used her helpful words to say "He has a thing that says pew pew."  
• She has a poster of How to Participate hanging from her ceiling with things to do to Pay Attention and things to do to Contribute (I think she said she got the list from Bryce Hedstom's website...)  First off, I love that it is there for students every day and I love that it is not hanging on the wall...instead it is in the room since it is hanging from the ceiling tile.  I'll have to find a spot for a poster in my room....
• She talked about her Password at the Door, which gives her one-on-one time with each student before class to check in with them and their attitude while at the same time teaching important phrases.  I am thinking of having my students line up outside to get into my class. It's a cultural thing as well because, in France, the students (even high school students) stand in a line outside of the classroom until the teacher welcomes them into the room.  
• Classroom jobs is something that I did last year and blogged about extensively last summer.  I plan to do a wrap-up blog about my first year with jobs and reflections about that.  One of the jobs that Alina uses that I LOVE is the human poster holders.  Instead of having word posters on the wall (which is awful when you teach 4 different preps), she using construction paper and writes the words on both sides of the poster.  Then, each time she uses that word, the student holding that word holds it up higher so that everyone can see.  Brilliant!
• Alina also suggested not handing out the jobs all on one day.  I failed at that last year...
• Once a year, Alina writes meaningful thank you cards to each student telling them a bunch of personalized things that she is thankful for.  I usually do this at the end of each year...but I like the idea of doing it throughout the year or in the middle of the year and MAILING them home!!  

But, the quote that Alina said that stuck with me is: We have to help our students become the human beings we want in our society.

Thank you Alina...for your smile, your kindness and your love of our profession.

Spanish with Blaine Ray

I always look forward to my Spanish lessons with Blaine.  He is such an amazing teacher, I love to see him in action, and I always learn something new by watching him.

This year, he said that there is a huge gap in our classrooms between what we teachers think they are understanding and what the students actually feel confident about.  We need to recognize that and find ways to repeat repeat repeat and slow down without making it seem overly simplistic.

Last year, I implemented the following five steps to creating details:

1. Teachers says a statement to the class (Meredith is beautiful).
2. Teacher asks the actor (Meredith, are you beautiful?)
3. Actor answers in a complete, accurate sentence that is written for them to read. (Yes, I am beautiful)
4. Teacher repeats and agrees with actor (Yes Meredith, you are beautiful)
5. Teacher reports back to the class (Class, she is beautiful)

In this way, we are bouncing back and forth between 3rd, 2nd, and 1st person without it sounding awful or overly repetitive.

This year, I plan to do this and implement Bryce's movement (moving to a different location during step 1 and 5) to help differentiate the points of view.

Blaine says to repeat this until kids have a feeling of confidence in one sentence.  This takes practice with parallel characters (and always use yourself...that way when you talk to your actors, they are also practicing speaking in all 3 points of view).  The actors are allowed to make minor grammar mistakes (prepositions or adj agreement) as long as the verbs are correct.  

Feeling Like a Citizen-Bryce Hedstrom

I love the way that Bryce creates community in his classroom.  I've blogged about him several times over the years (and hopefully I will come back and hyperlink to those blog entries), but I still

get something new every time I see him.

This session was about Persona Especial and how he implements it.  I used Persona Especial last year, after many years of using Ben Slavic's Circling with Balls...  All of these ideas are very similar in that our first weeks (or months for me!) of school, our curriculum is created by getting to know our students.  When I first started, I took their activities and created a bizarre story for each student in my class, like Bob swims in the toilet!!  But a couple of years ago, I did away with the crazy stories (unless the student initiated it) and did more realistic stories based on the student's actual answers.  So last year, I put off talking about activities until I had gotten to know other things.  We started with names, ages, and then things they have: job, license, car, dog, etc.  Then we went to family members by talking about where they live and who they live with.

Okay, so here are the things that I learned this summer that I plan to change about how I've been doing things...

First, Bryce said that brain research shows that the social side of the brain learns vocabulary better than the cognitive side of the brain.  So, by making connections to PEOPLE, EMOTIONS, and STORIES, we are helping our students learn better than if we gave them vocabulary lists...things that we all know, but it's super cool to learn that science supports it.

Also with brain research, Bryce changes where he is in the room for the different points of view.  When he is speaking to a student, he is close to that student (not too close!) and angled towards him/her.  When he changes to report what he found out to the rest of the class, he moves to the center of the room.  This helps differentiate the two POV in the brains of our students.  Brilliant!  I plan on trying to do this, for sure.

Bryce starts out the year with name, age, and grade.  He will ask about 5 students in the class those three questions, circle the crap out of them, and then give a quiz where students have to write 10 sentences about those 5 students in Spanish (1st or 2nd day of school!!)  The thing that I stunk at was, trying to get reps in, I would bounce between like 3 students (as a parallel character) while doing this.  After watching Bryce again, I think I will stick with the one student until they are "finished" and then move on to my second student.  Parallel characters are great, but the purpose of this activity is not just getting reps.  It's about gaining the trust of the students and teaching them that they are worth my time and attention.  Also, have the students spell their names so that we can start hearing the alphabet.

After that first day or when he feels the kids have those structures, he moves on to the other questions on his questionnaire.  The language and the questions build so that each student answers all the questions the other students have already answered, plus the new question.  Then, when all students have shared, he will go back and get the missing information from the first students (who may have only answered their name and age).  For this reason, he will pick the most vulnerable, shy looking kids for the first day because the spotlight will actually be on them for less time.  He also never talks to a student if they say they don't want to share...respecting their boundaries until they are ready.

Good stuff!  I highly recommend seeing Bryce and trying some of these things out!

How to Create and Implement a Robust CI Classroom-Craig Sheehy

This session was for teachers who have material they have to cover because of a textbook or vocab lists or whatever.  Craig broke down how to take that information, those lists and make them work in a CI classroom.  I took notes, but I am fortunate enough that I don't really have anything that I have to teach beyond high frequency structures.  And, lucky me, we are working as district French teachers to get away from the textbook (again) and make our curriculum more about what kids need to know vs what the textbooks tell us they need to know.

Anyway, here are my takeaways from Craig's session:

Steps to create a CI-friendly curriculum when you have vocab lists you are supposed to teach:

1. Put the cognates in a column.  Those you will not have to teach because the kids should be able to figure them out very quickly.
2. The rest of the words go into three columns, MUST KNOW, NICE TO KNOW, and SUPERSTAR WORDS (for those crazy words like scuba mask that end up on vocab lists for some insane reason).  Also look at what grammar points you are supposed to be hitting and think of some target structures that you could use to kill two birds with one stone (vocab and grammar at the same time)
3. Take your MUST KNOW list and break it into chunks of 3 or 4.  That group will become your key structures for your story.
4. NICE TO KNOW words can be used as detractors (Did Joe walk to the door or the pencil sharpener?  In this example, door is a high frequency word that kids will need to know, but pencil sharpener does not necessarily need to be taught.)  You can also use these words in your set-up, extra details, etc.  Your main story will focus on the MUST KNOW words, but you can throw in some NICE TO KNOW words every once in a while.

The three steps to a story:

1. Background info: this is where you talk about all the things that aren't actually a part of the story.  Maybe our character just returned from Disney World and that is why s/he is calling her grandma.  You can use this for character development, to teach adjectives, or to teach weather.
2. Problem: The character has a problem (duh!)
3. Solution
4. Add a parallel character to compare/contrast/get extra reps.

Craig teaches on a block, and he teaches with LICT.  This is his schedule for each story (3 stories per chapter of the book).

Day 1 (and 2 if you aren't on block)-Establish meaning: could be through PQA, TeacherTalks (Phototalk, Proptalk, MusicTalk, ArtTalk, CurrentEventTalk, CultureTalk, StudentTalk, MovieTalk, ActorTalk, Gestures), or whatever you want to use.

Day 2 (or 3 and 4)-Ask a Story: Find your character, Create Background information for the story, Use parallel characters, Explain the problem, Use multiple locations, Think of potential props.  Your core story (what you re-tell, circle, etc) should not be more than 15 sentences..  Anything else that you add for interest or repetition of structures is good for students to hear, but you don't have to repeat that information.

Day 3 (or 5 and 6)-Reading: students could read the same story from class, a parallel story, an embedded reading, a prepared story (like what's in the book), or a fairy tale that uses the same structures.  This reading does not have to be exactly what happened during class, but it should use the same structures and be 98% comprehensible.

I really liked that Craig pointed out that our core story is what we should worry about drilling into our kids' heads.  Those 5-15 sentences are the ones that we want to pour out of our kids' mouths.  Anything else that I added (like a detail that the mother is secretly jealous of the dog) is just for them to listen to and to add interest to the story (unless I'm creating an embedded reading).  

Good stuff!

Opening Session with Katya Paukova

I opened my 6th NTPRS with a keynote breakfast (something new...) with Katya Paukova.  It was impressive to me that almost half of the attendees are newbies who have never been to an NTPRS before and are learning about the method.  As they go through the journey, I hope they will reach out when they encounter bumps in the road.

Katya spoke for about 45 minutes about her journey and shared some great words of wisdom about language teaching.

• Learning should not be painful.
• If we learn the culture, we will accept the people (because we will see that they are people just like us).  
• Fluency does not rest on grammar knowledge; in fact, the most successful speakers are the ones who speak without fear of making errors.
• We are all learners, just at different stages of this journey.
• You don't need everyone to like it, you just need one (I need to remember this...I have fallen into a terrible habit of allowing a class to fall into chaos in fear of losing one student because they might not like me if I re-direct them)
• Just because it hasn't been done before doesn't mean it can't be done.  (Woah....think about that one for a minute.  I feel so bogged down by fear of failure and fear of the unknown...Big ups to those coaches who encourage me to go for it...  Especially Mira Canion who may have inspired me to write a novel and to Andrea Schweitzer who may have convinced me to try making videos...)
• I think that this should be shouted from the rooftops: TPRS IS USED AT THE US DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE TO TEACH LANGUAGES TO OFFICERS WORKING IN MILITARY DEFENSE!!!!!!  If it didn't work, would we trust the safety of our country to the method????
• Before, we were not taking students to the desired end of proficiency and we have to change direction (through CI)

Great keynote full of laughs and love and cheering.  I'm so glad that I decided to drink the KoolAid and become part of this family.  And for those I'm missing this year...come visit KC!!

Grading changes for next year

Since learning about Standards-Based Grading from Scott Benedict (Teach for June) so many years ago, I changed my grading style and never looked back.  Since then, I have used the following weighted grades: Listening (15%), Reading (15%), Writing (30%), Speaking (30%), and Culture (10%) because I felt that production is harder, so it should have a higher weight.

After binge listening to Tea with BVP for the last two months, I have changed my mind (at least for levels 1 and 2).  I now feel that we should not be assessing level 1 students on writing and speaking because they probably aren't ready to produce...and especially not in a stressful assessment situation.  So...I thought and I thought and I went around and around.  I listened to Bill talk about communication in the lower levels and I realized that students are communicating with me in a foreign language every day when they are participating in my class.  By giving me a quizzical look when they don't understand.  By answering in one word when I ask a question.  By laughing when something is funny.  We don't think about it, but they are communicating with us.  Even though it seems like the teacher is doing all the communicating, it is a two-way street.  Otherwise, I could just sit at home and tape myself speaking French and take a nap during class...

With all of that in mind, I will be piloting something new next year.  I will be implementing a Communication grade in levels 1 and 2 (3 and up will obviously also communicate...but they will be able to speak and write...so I'll keep my old gradebook).  Most of their grade will be based on their attempts to learn the language.  If they are looking me in the eyes, listening to what I say and processing that information to either answer or ask for help...they will receive a good grade.  The rates of acquisition are such that I HATE dinging a kid who is trying to get it for not getting it....YET.  I know that, given enough time, they will get it, and most of those students, even my SPED kids, make huge gains in language learning, even if they don't end up with an A at the end of the year.

Thoughts on this crazy idea?  Logistically, I'm planning on using a version of Jen's Great Rubric (google it and you'll see lots of blogs posting about it), having students do a quick self-assessment daily, and then I will agree or disagree and the grade goes in.  I'm trying to figure out a way to do it electronically through Schoology so the grade will autopopulate in PowerSchool, but my gradebook isn't live on Schoology yet, so it's all just a thought now.  If any of you have any advice or warnings...let me know!  Less than a month until school starts!

Seating changes for next year

If you follow this blog, you know that I tend to ramble and not be super cohesive.  This blog was created as a way for me to word-vomit on a page in order to synthesize my own thoughts and help me process and reflect upon my own learning.  So, apologies if that makes you crazy...

Next year, I am excited to be trying some new things in my classroom (as always).  Last year, I went deskless and sewed 30 chair pockets to store pencils, white boards, markers, etc.  Students complained that their stuff was never where it was supposed to be and something that was supposed to make life easier ended up taking extra time because class couldn't start until everyone had looked in the other 29 chairs to find their folders.  I tried numbering the chairs, but I really think someone was moving the folders on purpose (or there's a folder fairy....maybe an Elf on the Shelf??).  So this year, we are moving to color-coded folders (each hour has a different color) and each hour will have a box to keep their folders.  If anyone puts their folder in the wrong box, it will be super obvious because the colors won't match.  I am also going to have one of my jobs be the Supply Person who is in charge of handing things out and collecting when needed.

So the sad news is that my chair covers are now outdated, BUT getting rid of them is going to allow me to change up my classroom seating.  Instead of having all 30 chairs out in a horseshoe for every class, we can get out only the chairs we need for each class and the configuration can change each day.  I'm really excited about this!  AND I am going to be able to think outside the box and add a variety of seating options (if my donors choose project gets funded...over halfway there!).  So my kids will have a choice of a bungee chair, a bean bag, a yoga ball, etc...and I can use the seating as an incentive to get to class early and to be on task because you can't sit in a cool chair if you can't meet my classroom expectations.

Other ideas to follow in my next blog post!