The First Days Back in Spanish Class

The conversations are rolling about how to start the year in a CI/TPRS classroom. While I may not be perfect, this routine has worked fantastically for the last three years. I am the department of one in a high school so I know 3/4 of my students every year as they come back; I do believe this can work in middle school as well. For the elementary teachers, I offer no advice and believe you are a special breed of angel sent to work with young children. May the force be with you.

My simple answer to how to start the year is: teach your subject from day 1.

Here is how I plan it.

Steps to planning

1. If your school says you have to introduce certain things, do that.
2. Find out, 100%, what is your school's policy about dropping/adding/switching classes.
3. Teach rules and expectations in English: These should never be unclear in any way or leave room for "I didn't understand that".

The have-to's

I am a person who lives on the edge of "I will do what's best for my students" and "I still want to keep my job". Luckily, for the most part, I have had supportive administrators that allow me to flirt with that line and keep me in-check.

If your school requires you to preview a syllabus, do it.
If you have to rehearse and highlight emergency procedures, do it.

While you may think, "Oh, I'll do that next week. My plan is so much better," you are lying to yourself. Your plans are always better than the routine reminders, but you will forget to overview it and it is important.

Example: At my old school we had 8 period days with 48 minute classes. I taught Spanish 1 and exploratory. Students had the first 4 days to switch classes. We were also not allowed to give homework or "significant" in-class work to accommodate late schedule changes. Day 1- Required syllabus and class materials review. Introduction activity. Day 2- Required emergency procedure review (tornado, lock-down, fire, etc). Teacher naming students activity. Day 3- Required handbook policy review as selected by principal. Webquest on Spanish speaking countries. Day 4- Required (at our choice) team-building exercises. 

School policy on class changes

This is a big one. This should determine your first week's plan. You need to offer insight to the course expectations to your students and give them a genuine taste of class. If all you get through before the end of the changing classes window is a syllabus and one fun activity you will have students in your classes that may not be ready or as committed as they need to be.

My Light-bulb Example 

From my required days listed above, this was great for community building, but at mid-term I had a student come up to me in tears because class was too hard and she wasn't expecting to have to use and listen to "that much Spanish" (this was a very loaded situation). After that private conversation and midterms, I polled the class; over 90% were happy with where their grades, but over half said they didn't realize how much work it was going to be since the first days were "super fun and easy".

What I do now... and will in 7 days

Currently I teach high school in a block schedule and students have three days to change classes. Because of the order they are seen, it is possible that I don't see a student until day 3 or 4 (this has happened a handful of times).


My number 1 suggestion: teach from day 1 like it is a normal class. My Spanish 1 students walk-in and I only speak in Spanish for the first half of class; they've never had Spanish exploratory. I have them line up ("haz una linea" and I point and motion like a crazy woman). They get it every time. I also have a seating chart done before they walk in the door, I can make changes as needed. I model introductions by playing two people and then write it on the board phonetically (Oh-la, may yam-oh Profe). When the students catch-on, they say it quickly and and show them their seats. Once they all sit down, I go into English and high-five all of them for being awesome Spanish speakers. **I am aware this is not 100% CI/TPRS friendly, but it easily sets expectations of behavior among themselves, between myself and the students, and that they will survive.

My English portion is handing out a welcome letter that introduces the class expectations that both the parent/guardian and the student sign and turn-into me. I don't review it with them. They can read it on their own time.

Then back into Spanish we go. I play the super catchy "buenos dias" song from YouTube and have them join in. The second class we start the exact same way and then we play a pair-dance-switch game; they LOVE it every year and sing it to me in the halls... which gets the upperclassmen singing it too. Spanish 1 goes directly into cognates and then into a "manners game" were they get a small candy by saying "por favor" and "gracias" to each other for 3 minutes straight and exchange the candies hidden in their fists.

For Spanish 2, 3, and 4, they also have to do introductions and we start right away into "real learning". Spanish 2 typically goes into story telling, then asking, then a mini "mi verano" book project, and a novel by the start of week 3 (which is class 6 for us). Spanish 3 and 4 start with review projects plus a novel (see my post here with a freebie).

Rules and Syllabus

I assume they know at this point how to behave in a classroom and they will choose to do so, because I expect it from the moment they walk in the door. I also do not have any "required" information to review with each class (we do that with our 15 minute homeroom time in the AM).

Week one: I teach my expectations as they are needed, in English.
 

Week two: I go over my serious rules (this is a judge-free zone, give it a try, ask for help or tell me to slow down) and syllabus with students in English.

I normally hand out a quick "calendar" of the quarter or semester with quiz dates and grading period deadlines. They can add things in as we get there.

Behavior expectations

I truly believe that if you start class with rules you become a dictator rather than an educator; especially at the high school level. We need to trust students that they know how to act and just expect them to do it.

My other major piece of advice is: do not let students get away with any form of poor behavior the 1st quarter when you have new students. Be tough but loving. Being firm makes them know you are keeping them accountable for being young adults. My upperclassmen will walk into one of my classes and even give younger kids the stink-eye if they are sharpening a pencil while someone else is talking or if they break into English. I never taught these rules, but they just pick-up it is part of respect.

Model the behavior and consistently expect it. Foremost, do it with love. If you don't at least tell yourself you like all your kids, it's going to be a long year with no report or respect. Always give love and respect before they've "earned it". They are humans, they deserve it.

Also, do behavior correction in English. If you need to, send the kid to the hall to remove him/her from the audience (here is a link to my behavior accountability form), I have them complete the form, and then I check-in when I'm ready, quick chat, and we walk back in with a clean slate.  

Avoid sending kids to the office (unless it is physical/verbal violence). Sending kids to the office doesn't build a report with them, and it says "you are beyond my ability and/or care". You do care, you can't "deal with" unwarranted behavior in that moment because you are teaching, not because that student isn't important. In the last 6 years I have sent 3 kids to the office (once cussed out another student, one flipped a desk into my body while I was pregnant- she was high-, and the third walked-in while I was a sub and kicked another student in the gut). Sending them to the hall and the student knowing they will be contacting their parents with me the next time they have an issue seems to deter all of it.


I hope this is helpful and you have the best year yet, or at least one coffee and donuts can comfort.

-Sam

Teaching with TPR/TPRS in the Block

Many of the existing materials for TPR/TPRS are written for classrooms that see their students 5 days a week (i.e. vocab preview, story-telling, story-asking, embedded readings, writing day and novels). This can be more difficult to apply in the block, not to mention exhausting. Here is the overview of how I survive in the block.

My block set-up

My current school is set-up on an A B day block schedule where each class is an hour and twenty-five minutes. Each level of Spanish is one year (requiring passing at semester to continue).

I have taught in a 4x4 block, each class is an hour and a half (4 classes per day) and I saw them every day. A full year of language was done in one semester.

CI: Comprehensible Input

This is pedagogy. Students acquire language through meaningful input that they can understand. By keeping things within a clear frame of reference, students truly internalize meaning instead of rote memorization and rapid deterioration of vocabulary.

TPRS: Teaching Proficiency through Reading and Storytelling

This is methodology. This uses the idea of CI by labeling vocabulary “in-bounds” and using lots of repetitions to increase exposure and create true acquisition. This is done through readings, telling stories, reading novels, asking stories, and personalizing content to make it engaging for students.

Challenges

Using TPRS in a block can be exhausting. To keep students engaged for a whole block is innately a challenge. When you then take into account that TPRS pretty much requires you to be on point and turn into the crazy charades lady… I’ve never been called that (lie).

It is also hard to keep up a 5 cycle rotation when that takes two weeks, minimum, in your planning time (assuming no breaks or PD days, yay).

My Tips

I try to never let one focus in class last more than 25 minutes. Then we brain break, move seats, play a round of BANCO! (see post on time fillers here), something that shakes it up and gets their blood moving. *Exception: if we are MovieTalk-ing, story asking or telling and they are engaged and into it, we keep the momentum going. I had a handful of classes where the story asking lasted for the whole period and the bell rang at the very climatic ending. My quiet kid yelled  “Qué lástima” in protest. 

Read and write every day in some capacity; even if it is student work being peer-reviewed or read. This helps you transition and prepare for the next lesson or activity. Have them write a review of what just happened. Sometimes you need a break to get water to wet your whistle, or you need to find that class set of copies you made this morning and then set down over there, maybe?

Monthly self-talk is important, especially for the 1^st and 4^th years. Have students write themselves a note and file it away. Pass the notes back out at the end of the year. They can clearly reflect on their own progress. It is fun watching them become language snobs.

Don’t forget to make lesson plans. I know many teachers say things like “this seriously but down my planning time and paperwork”, “one day predicts the next”. I found that in the block, this is true to an extent. If I don’t have a plan, it is easy to feel “done” and let the last 20 minutes of class not be as impactful as they could be. Write those plans in a very short summary on the board to keep you on track. Here is a link to the free sample pages for my lesson planner I created to help me (there is a fully assembled version that runs August-June).

Set a timer or give a student the job of the clock watcher. They will help you remember to transition to the next thing (going from story-telling to writing to reading to oral summaries with a partner). If we need 5 or 10 minutes more, I just hold up one hand or two to my clock watcher and they know it is like hitting snooze.

Have back-up plans ready at all times. We all have that class that seems like a karmatic result of a wrong-doing from a past life. They drain you. Or, maybe you have a sick kid at home and you were so tired you left your coffee next to your lunch on the kitchen counter. If you practice certain activities or skills with your students, sometimes you can get them to self-direct a little better. Also having plans like this keep you from dipping into your sub-plans. 

Have themed days. These days are not related to a sequence of instructions, but rather to the “incentive break” of the day. If kids have you on Tuesday and Thursday of that week they can look forward to cloze listening or sometime of music and then game time.

Here are my theme days for my classroom. I love a good alliteration, it that is wrong, I don’t want to be right.

locura en lunes-We tend to play large-group games like BANCO!, board races, Simon Dice, Navegando, Spanish Partner Programming, Pasa el Bolo, and various others. Here is my post about whole class games that work for me. 

música martes- We do cloze listening activities (I keep a running doc folder with popular songs and lyrics pre-saved. This way I can blank-out vocabulary that related to our current stories, key words, or the frequent flyers and then print them as needed). I also let my upper levels, generally better relationship and I know if I can trust them, explore new music and report back (they draw a genre or country they have to look for).

muévete miércoles- I have always tried to find various dances to use as brain breaks but never thought to organize it. THEN, I went to the fantastic IWLA conference in 2014 where Allison Weinhold presented about baile viernes. I decided to jump in her conga line and organize mine midweek (it fits nicely with our early out days etc). If you are hesitant or worry about “wasting class time”, poohy. My kiddos haven’t noticed my dirty little secret: we start class with the dance, Zumba, or workout series (in Spanish) and then I never leave the TL and/or focus on difficult concepts (stressing grammar, addressing explicit grammar in English, pushing old vocabulary words, and requiring responses). They love it.

juego jueves- Depending on what the day looks like, they get 15-20 minutes to play games, in Spanish, with each other. Uno is super popular, my homemade Manzanas a Manzanas, conversation Jenga, Guess Who (I used one games and replaced the pictures with photos of other teachers), and Scrabble. They stay in Spanish; I expect it so they do it. If they veer off track, the time ends and we go back to normal class.

video viernes- Movie Talks are popular more frequently on these days. I also try to make their project work days fall on here. We have done music video analysis (pointing out landmarks, comparing the English version to the Spanish version, other cultural key points).