Now, I went into the semester with very little training. I'd gone to a 2 day workshop with Blaine Ray in September 2013, and a 1 day workshop with Carol Gaab in January 2013. I'd done (and continue to do) a lot of reading online, blog posts, tweets, etc. But didn't feel really ready. In October 2014 I attended the Maine TCI conference, and that helped build my confidence. I know coming back from that conference I was finally starting to feel more confident in my class.
It took me some time to get going with TCI methods in September 2014. I wanted to ease myself, and the students into the process. The first unit I taught was called El Mundo Hispanohablante. This unit was a basic introduction to the Spanish speaking world. Was it authentic TCI/TPRS? No. But I felt it was necessary to introduce students to the alphabet, some basic phrases, and to learn a little about the different places in the world where Spanish is spoken. The kids seemed to enjoy it, and loved doing partner work to practice speaking, or the alphabet.
After that unit ended, with great success on the part of the students (I think I made the final assessment too easy, and offered too much extra credit!- How would I know the kids would have learned the geography of the countries so well!?!). Even the listening and speaking assessment went well. Here I was with a group of 12 kids, 8 on IEPs and 2 on 504 plans, and they all had grades in the A-B range! That was only the beginning.
I had been looking through TPRS Publishing's curriculum with Cuéntame Más Textbook, but couldn't quite grasp how to teach with it. I read through A LOT of Martina Bex's curriculum mapping, hoping for inspiration. (I actually did use some great resources for sub plans early on in the semester, and I was shocked at how well my students were able to do!) However, I just didn't feel like I could teach any of that very well..... so I ventured to try my own story.
I chose 3 structures I wanted to focus on, and decided to use kids from the class, a penguin (they love my stuffed pinguino that we toss around), and Wiz Khalifa- a rapper. My second unit was a success! No quiere un pinguino had the kids reading, writing, speaking, and listening to stories in Spanish! They could even retell the story from pictures! They could illustrate chunks of the story! They could write the story from pictures! I was floored by the progress they had made, and how well they were able to use the structures on which we focused, as well as a lot of the little detail/extra vocab that we werent focusd on!
The success of that unit gave me the confidence to try the first chapter of the Cuéntame Más text. I created a Google Presentation (example) with the new structures and pictures for each mini-story. This helped me prepare for PQA (Personalized Questions and Answers). so that I felt comfortable in class. I am working on being more spontaneous and improvisational, but as a beginner, I still need my training wheels. The students really got into each mini-story. They especially loved doing a class story after the PQA. Being involved as characters or just contributors to the story gave the students a feeling of ownership, personalization. All semester long they were still able to recall the stuctures we used through the stories, as well as the hand gestures/movements we did. We had a lot of fun with "el lobo", "la oveja", and "el pastor." Many of the special education teachers working with my students in the Learning Center would comment to me that they too are learning a lot from helping their students. Day after day, these students (some of whom had been told they "shouldn't" take a foreign language) continued to surpise me in their retention and ability to re-tell the stories. I was seeing great results in their reading and listening skills, as well as speaking and writing. (I know, I know, I shouldn't force output, but I only see them for 4 months!! I had to!)
I will save more reflections on my third unit El Muchacho Pastor (Chapter 1 from Cuéntame Más), reading the short novel Esperanza from TPRStorytelling.com, and my last short unit Busca a una novia for the next post. I also have to reflect on the final exam I created for my students.
Hasta Luego,
Alison
