I just had a really random thought/question: How did TPRS become a part of your school?

I went to a Blaine Ray workshop in Denver about 16 years ago because I was so frustrated that despite my hard work, students did not seem to be learning much of anything in my Spanish classes.  I had heard of TPR and the flyer said that students could become fluent with the TPRS method, so I paid for it myself and went.  The workshop was on Saturday and I started using my crude form of TPRS on Monday.  I started using it in one problem class. Within 3 weeks the results were so good that I started using it in all of my classes.  The process has been long for me, since I have had much to unlearn, but I keep peeling back the layers of the grammar onion that envelops me and learning to use real language and interesting comprehensible input with my students ever since.

Do you think it will ever be a part of XXX School District?! If so how?!

Student read Blaine Ray’s Patricia va a California in Spanish 1 over a period of 11 days.  Many techniques were used.  They read individuality and with partners, talked about it, acted out parts of it, and got background information about Guatemala.   All work was done in class.  No homework.

The challenge assignment for students that are advancing more rapidly was to re-read and then close the book and summarize each chapter.  This is a bit too long of an assignment, and I do not normally assign work like this–I do not think it would work for every student–but the advanced students actually relished it. They were to summarize, not re-write, each chapter and they could not copy any sentences from the original. They could not use a dictionary. I normally do not correct much on student work like this, but this student wanted it, so I underlined the (remarkably minor) errors for her.

Click on the link to see the entire essay: http://www.brycehedstrom.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Patricia-va-a-CA-Student-Summary.pdf

It is the method, not so much the teacher.  My student teacher did most of the instruction for the unit on this novel.  I coached her and gave her ideas and materials, but she did the teaching.

I had no idea just how much they had been picking up until last week.  I have a student teacher this semester and she has been learning how to get kids to class on time with consistent consequences before adding the lure of the videos. Last week we added the Senor Wooly carrot.  Students had been asking for them, but we had held off till last week, so they had not heard or seen ANY of the videos since the middle of December.  The retention is amazing.  A large percentage of the students know ALL of the lyrics to EVERY song we have played so far–including the two Chinese exchange students that did not know the words “taco” and “uno” the first days of class.  On Friday, these two girls came to my classroom and sang almost all of the words to “Soy Guapo”, “La Confesion de Victor”, “Billy la Bufanda” and “La Dentista” to us in delightful Spanish.  Other students sing along with the videos as they are played before class and they sing the songs in the hallways during the day.

Students even recognize snippets of song lyrics out of the immediate context of the videos.  My student teacher was gone observing the amazing Michael Miller in Colorado Springs on Friday and I gave a different excuse for her absence to each class–excuses that were based on the Senor Wooly song “Las Excusas”.  In first hour I said that she had the flu and went to the doctor.  In third hour, that she vomited.  In fourth hour, that her car exploded.  In fifth hour, that it was against her religion to work on Fridays.  In sixth hour, that her cat died.  But by seventh hour, the game had been discovered–students had been comparing stories and they had figured out that I had been giving segments of the chorus of the song as excuses for her disappearance.  This was mainly Spanish I kids checking with one another and comparing the admittedly outlandish excuses all day long until they had pieced together the lyrics!  I had no idea that they knew so much, and all thanks to the videos.

Gracias, Senor Wooly!

(I am not affiliated with James Wooldridge except as a raving fan.)

Pobre Ana is an older book and there are plenty of new ones coming out all of the time–I use those too.  I am aware the common complaints that the story is dated, too simple and does not contain enough culture, but I have found that if students understand the vocabulary and if I point out the interesting things in it as we go along, they like it.  For them to enjoy it, they must know most of the vocabulary and it must be compelling.  If it the interesting parts are not obvious, I have to point it out. I usually do that by parallel characters, acting out chapters and (my favorite) mocking the silly parts.

After reading the book one assignment was: Give your opinion about the book and tell how you could / could not relate to the main character.

The students could answer however they wanted (positively or negatively), but they had to justify their responses.  Most of the responses were positive. What I liked most about their responses (whether they liked the book or not) was that they focused on the content and not on the language. Here are some representative samples:

“I really did enjoy this book. It actually taught me some lessons. I learned that I need to be more grateful for how fortunate I am compared to people in other countries.  Like Anna, I have also traveled to Mexico before. I have noticed that in the U.S. we have it much easier than they do there.  Maybe I could start a donation program like Ana did to help some people out in Mexico.”  –Male student, high academic ability

“I am definitely not the type of person that enjoys reading, but this book made me realize all of the little things in life and how precious everything is.  For example, Ana complained about not having new clothes or a car, but in reality she was lucky enough to even be wearing clothes and her family has a car to get around .  In my life it is hard to get to places because my family only has two cars and I don”t have my own. Money is definitely hard to get these days. My parents don’t live together so it is hard getting money form both of them especially when I need new clothes.  I don’t always get what I want.”–Female student, average academic ability

“I liked the book Pobre Ana. It didn’t only help me understand Spanish, but also got me into perspective.  It helped me see that my life is excellent. I learned what Ana learned, but at school.”  –Male student, average academic

“I liked the book. I thought it was very interesting. I would read it again. I like how her life changed a lot when she went to Mexico. One way that I can relate to the story is that we both have un hermano y una hermana. I am also the same age as Ana, or I will be on my birthday.”–Male student, low academic

“It’s a very nice book.  Because reading this book, I can know more things about Mexico and I know that no family is perfect.  In the airport, don’t tell all your information to some person that you don’t know. If that person is not good, maybe you’ll have some dangerous thing. Don’t think that your family is horrible because you have a dad and mom, have a house to live in.  In other places in this world, too many children don’t have a family a warm house. and if you are angry with your family, they will be very sad because they love you.  When she goes back to California she is not happy. I know she doesn’t want to leave her new family and friends. But she will see her real family.  When I leave here to go back to China, I will be excited and sad.–Female student (Chinese exchange student that is taking her first Spanish class)

 They didn’t all like it:

“My opinion for this book is this book is not attached to the real life.  It seems so fake when Ana just grabs Jose Gomez and asks him can he help her.  In real life, we don’t just grab a random guy (especially males) and ask for help. Ana should ask the police in the airport or females that have a baby with them.  when Ana goes to the gym, she meets a girl names Patricia. She follows Patricia home when she just met her.  It is very dangerous even though the person you are following is a teenager. Maybe that girl is a drug dealer.  And Ana should not walk home with Ricardo.  It is very dangerous for a girl to walk home with a boy and they are both teenagers.  Overall, Ana is not that smart.”–Female student (another Chinese exchange student that is also taking her first Spanish class) 

 “In the story in some instances I could relate with Ana in the fact that life can really suck sometimes.  Her parents yell and my parents yell.  They are poor and I am poor. But you don’t see me leaving the country. In the end, I don’t relate to a whiny little girl.”  –Male student, low academic

“As the book went on, I started to lose interest in it. It became harder to understand. When you don’t understand what is going on, it becomes frustrating. but as far as I can understand in the book there are a few things that I can relate to. In the story, Ana’s mom yells at her a lot. My mom yells at me a lot too. I can see how that can be frustrating. Also, I have an older sister who happens to wear the same size as I do. She always takes my clothes and it frustrates me. I really understand where her frustration is coming from. But when i am away from my family, like Ana is in the story, I miss them and grow very grateful for what I do have.” –Female student, average academic, sporadic attendance

“I thought the book was boring.  Once I learned the words, it was just a little kids story. I, in no way, can relate to Ana.  In my life I have a loving family, enough money, and good friends. Ana is just a whine bag who wants the world to feel bad for her.”  –Male student, high academic

“Although some people might have found Pobre Ana an excellent resource, I found it to be the worst book I have ever read. I know that the words are supposed to be small and simple, but that should not stop the author from making the book interesting.  On no level did I ever connect with this story. I do not purchase or wear Calvin Klein clothing or accessories. Somehow, Ana did not realize what their clothing costs–$60 for a freaking shirt!  Also, I do not complain every time a sibling doesn’t help me.  Does Ana not understand that they are free people and not her slaves? And on a last note, I do not complain or whine about everything!  Ana’s character needs to grow up and smell the smog.  It’s not a perfect world, honey. Get over it.  In my opinion, this book should have never been released, sold or bought. Something this atrocious should not have bee released as an educational tool.”  –Female student, high academic

Hello,

It’s ______. Sorry it has taken me so long to message you.

My Spanish class now is honestly very difficult and way
different, in my opinon. We work a lot out of this big book and do activities
from it. When we first get introduced to our words, he has this slide show where
we write down the Spanish word and what it is in English. Then on the big
projector there are the pictures of the words and he points at them and we have
to do motions for each word, so kinda similar to what we did in your class on
that part.

We get like a load of words and have to know them by like the
following week. Our tests have a bunch of questions. My teacher is very
nice and he helps out a lot, but I have failed both of my tests that we have
taken already, and we just move on. So I really am not learning anything and my
grade just keeps dropping. Sometimes he speaks his Spanish too fast and I have
no idea what he is saying. I was going to continue to go into Spanish in my
Junior and Senior year, but this will be my last year. Although, we are now
starting to study Spanish speaking countries. I feel a ahead of the game,
because we did all that stuff last year, and because we worked on it a lot, I
actually do remember what we learned. I hope this will help me out with my
grade.

I hope all is well with you and the class.

I am impressed with her ability to both analyze the methods of her new teacher and with how she is expressing herself. This kid was good at Spanish in a TPRS class. She liked it, got good grades and planned on continuing on to the Spanish 4/AP level. She could have done it too. Now she is going to quit taking Spanish. She is in a program where the teacher seems to believe in studying written lists and immersion (What Jason Fritz calls submersion or waterboarding), with a bit of classic TPR thrown in on the side. Her fond feelings for her old TPRS class are there, plus she seems to remember the Geography of Latin America Unit, so that may help her.

This breaks my heart, but at the same time strengthens my resolve to teach to the eyes and soul of each kid in my classroom every day with true comprehensible input.

Stay strong, my friends.

I was observed by my principal recently.  He liked the lesson and saw how the students were engaged, but he described my main method as “lecture”.  To put the best spin on this, I have to point out that he has a form with only a few check-off boxes and since I was standing and speaking most of the time in class, the closest description was “lecture” in the little boxes on his form.  Lecturing in my mind conjures up pictures of a professor hiding behind a podium and reading notes to a class as the students passively copy down notes. OK, so I was speaking, but was I the only one that was contributing to the lesson? Were the students merely passive recipients of information?

One way of demonstrating the difference between lecturing and what we do in a typical TPRS class is to count how many students from each class were involved in the story.  Well in one particular class there was Selena, Brody, Shaylyn, Victor, The kid who named the horse Victor (who was just tickled), and the kid who came up with Best Buy as the first location (who knew he was brilliant!), that’s six.  Then there was the kid that wrote the quiz, and the two kids that counted the new grammatical structures, that’s nine.  The two barometer students that I was checking constantly, that’s 11.  There was also the bright girl that asked about adjective placement and agreement and later about the verb changes she was noticing to whom I gave a couple of short grammatical explanations. And there was the energetic girl that kept yelling “¿Por qué? (Why?) whenever there was a detail that needed more explaining.  She kept us laughing and asking questions and talking even more.

That’s 13 students of varying ability levels and with varying gifts that all contributed to the story (differentiation!); over half of the class with a crucial part of the lesson.  13 students for whom paying attention was not a problem at all.  And the rest were obviously paying attention because almost everybody got an “A” on the follow up quiz.  Most answered with complete sentences even though I said a short answer or one or two words would do.

So this lesson directly involved 13 students and all of the rest were engaged and responding, the content and direction of the story was guided by enthusiastic student interest, I asked scores of questions in the TL the entire hour and students answered chorally and individually, nearly every student got 90% or more on a follow up reading and quiz, and then my principal described the method as “lecture” during his observation.  I’m still working on training him.  Sigh.

He came in too late or I would have given him this checklist for observing: http://www.brycehedstrom.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Checklist-for-Observing-a-FL-Classroom.pdf .

In our follow up conversation, he changed the “lecture” box and wrote in “other”.

Here is a question by a university student that came to observe and is wondering how students why the students in the Spanish 2 class he saw knew their verbs so well.

Feel free to add your input to my answers. 

Todd asks:

I noticed that when your students were answering questions and commenting they used the preterit and imperfect right every time. How are they doing that so well already in Spanish 2?

The don’t get it right every time and they don’t know all the forms of every verb in the preterit yet.  The students that were answering were volunteering, so they were more confident.  But the main reason is that I have been using the most high frequency words in the past tenses a lot.  Students have heard the most common uses in all of our class stories, class discussions about novels and in class conversations.  They have heard them used as we talked about their summer vacations and as I asked them questions and they have heard them as we talked about their weekends every Monday morning.  Here is a breakdown of the most high frequency verbs and their tenses: http://www.brycehedstrom.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/VERBS-IN-THE-TOP-505-SPANISH-WORDS.pdf  I look over this list often and try to focus on those words as I speak and ask questions in class.

The Spanish 2′s have also done a fair amount of light reading and they are picking up past tense verbs from the novels too.

I would say that most students know and can use the following words fairly fluently now: did, went, arrived, saw, thought, said, was talking, there was, could, had, knew, wanted, needed, read and watched. Those are all high frequency verbs. They are very useful and I want my students to know them so I work them into what they hear in class.

It is something of an illusion that all of the students know and can use all verbs in all forms of the preterit and imperfect right now, but the verbs they know, they are getting to know well. This is having an effect on their confidence and they are using the correct forms in wider and wider ways that we have not even studied yet.

Here is an insightful question by a university student that is conceptualizing her student teaching experience and how she can teach with TPRS within the constraints of a school district where every element of every lesson is spelled out with long lists of vocabulary.  

Feel free to add your input to my answers. 

Elizabeth writes:

I was looking at the curriculum guides for the school district where I will be doing my student teaching and was wondering how manageable it will be to cover all of that information. It seems like a lot. “Covering” to me carries the stigma of plowing ahead without student understanding. I was wondering how you managed to do this.

Elizabeth,

Good question!  I have reviewed the materials that you attached from the school district where you will be doing you student teaching. They seem to run a tight ship. Lots of work went into those materials. The first document, the curriculum map is sound–those seem like useful things for students to learn.  And I think you have some real insight even before you have already started to teach–”covering” material is not the same thing as students knowing it and being able to use it. When students can use the vocabulary and structures confidently and without hesitation, then they know it.  Teaching something does not mean the students have learned it.

That school district’s curriculum follows the ACTFL standards and guidelines very closely. Unfortunately those standards lean more towards rules-and-forced-output based teaching rather than on teaching with comprehensible input. A big problem with a curriculum like that one is that it is so expansive.  The sheer number of items to teach is overwhelming if you take it seriously.  It is unreasonable to teach that much material and expect most of the students to be able to use it fluently and confidently. Having students study long lists of of words does not equal long term language acquisition, even though it may be good enough for bright students to pass as test.

Rachel writes:

First of all, I wanted to thank you again for welcoming me into your class today!  I had a wonderful experience and truly enjoyed myself!

I was wondering about the allocation of time for students vs. teacher talk.  In my understanding of T.P.R.S. the student is never forced to speak until he or she feels that they are “ready” to speak.  This means that the allocation of time when it comes to the students vs. the teacher talking may seem off, but this is simply a result of pedagogical differences.  Is this right?

Rachel,

It was my pleasure. You are welcome any time.

You are correct that I did most of the talking in the lessons that you observed. Students sometimes speak a lot in a TPRS class, but in this lesson they were not required to speak all that often.  This was an example of teaching with comprehensible input–that is how students acquire language, not by production. They were not passive, though and they all were required to show understanding.  They lesson was constructed as one big comprehension check. During the two lessons that you observed they may not have seemed to speak much due to both the level and to the nature of the lesson.

The two class you observed were both Spanish I classes.  This was a simple lesson that absent students could “study” on their own and get caught up.  The vocabulary was concrete, easy to understand, and was a limited set of words: the colors.  This was not a typical TPRS lesson, but I planned it this way because it was homecoming week and also the beginning of elk hunting season. I knew that several students would be gone from each class and there would also be constant interruptions during each class period all week.  Welcome to real-life teaching!

Another atypical TPRS element to this lesson was that the vocabulary was not all high frequency words.  Some of the color words are used very infrequently.

I stagger the teaching the day before your observation so that you could see the progression of the big lesson from one day to the next and get a better idea of the sequence. In the first class, the words for the colors were introduced. This was also unusual for a TPRS lesson. In a normal TPRS class, complete sets of vocabulary are not all introduced at once.  We normally would not introduce big lists of foods or clothing all at once, for example.  In this instance, the students had already heard and used some of the color words before.  They know a song that includes lyrics about green eyes and brown hair, and they had also used the words “red” and “white” before.

I asked a lot of questions and the whole class answered. Some of the questions were simple, some required higher level thinking.  I brought them from passive to active use of the vocabulary and combined it with lots of previous vocabulary, especially the verbs that we have been using.  During the lessons in the two classes you saw the students go from demonstrating understanding to simple production. None of the activities were listen and repeat and none were mere translation. The production was simple, but the students had to think at higher levels at the end.  At first, they were just lifting the colors as I said them, toward the end they were saying what secondary colors were created by combining the primary colors that I mentioned.  I also had them say the colors associated with local high schools and professional sports teams as well as holidays.  At the end they were explaining how there could be two answers for the question, “What is a combination of all the colors?” (the answer depends on if it is paint or light that is being mixed and the students were required to figure it out–they did), “What is an absence of all colors?” (again, it depends whether paint or light is being discussed).  All of this was in the target language and I think it qualifies as higher level thinking.

We finished with a story about two colors that the students acted out on their desks with color squares.  The colors were purple and orange because those two are a bit harder for students to remember for some reason.  In the story, a cute color (orange) that was pestering an irritable color (purple) and got treated poorly as a result.  they students acted the story out on their desks as I told it and answered questions about it as I reviewed it, including questions about possible reasons for the behavior of each color.

At the end, students in the second class (second day of the sequence) answered 65 questions from reading.  Many of the questions were similar to the ones they had heard before in the class–they needed to access prior knowledge and think a bit, rather than simply repeat forms.  In this two day lesson the students used all of the language skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing.  They were also asked to do some higher level thinking and pull in knowledge from other content areas.  The cultural piece in this lesson was admittedly weak–just a mention that there are different words for brown hair and eyes and for other things that are brown colored.

You are correct though that speaking was limited in this particular lesson.  Please come back to observe again and you will likely wee more speaking from the students. Thanks for the good question.

Would you send me a quick description of your “repasito” bellringer? Is it an oral or a written task? I was doing a bellringer that involved translating short sentences, but I found that going over it was a drag on the beginning of class. What is your experience?

The repasito is a short written review that students do as a bell ringer activity at the beginning of class every day.  For me, it is an important classroom management tool.  The purpose is to have something for students to do when they walk in to class; they have their job to do and I have mine. It helps to ground both me and the students. The repasito helps me by creating a bit of time to deal with absent students, answer questions and take roll. It helps the students by reviewing what we were doing the day before and getting them focused on Spanish class. Students also have to be quiet during that time which can help to establish a disciplines tone in the classroom as well. I was amazed when, after a teacher had observed my classes for a week and did interviews afterwards, several students mentioned that the repasito was one of the things that helped them to learn the most in the class. I was not expecting that.

The repasito is written on the board, ready for the students when they enter the classroom each day. It is always in the same spot on the whiteboard and always consists of five questions–that makes it easy for distracted students to spot it and easy for their distracted teacher to remember how much it is worth at the end of the week. It is usually five very short questions that remind students of the words or situation from yesterday’s lesson. Students write their answers in their composition books.

The repasito is low stress, but consistent. It is not a quiz.  Students can use notes, look at words posted around the classroom, or quietly ask their neighbor for an answer but most remember the answers and write them with no trouble.  that’s what I want–quick and successful for them.  Like every day, I want them thinking that this Spanish stuff is easy, that they are good at Spanish.

I also like to make the questions comprehensible input, so usually it is just a quick translation from Spanish to English. Level I students in particular can read Spanish and show understanding with English. We quickly go over the answers when I have finished taking roll. It is odd when everyone does not get 100%.