August 20, 2016

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90 minutes.

An hour and a half. To some people the idea of trying to engage students for this immense amount of time is frightening.  It must be impossible!  And to do a TPRS class for 90 minutes?  How does one sustain that energy?

On the other hand, there are plenty of other teachers who find themselves on the opposite end of the scale.  90 minutes would be a luxury, the Jacuzzi tub of class periods.  How wonderful it must be to have all the time you want (and more) in a day with your students, instead of rushing through a 42-minute class.

No matter your comfort level with a long class period, a block schedule does create some logistical issues for the lesson plan.  In order to know how to plan a block class effectively for a TPRS/CI classroom (and I will distinguish later why I’m not just saying TPRS), we need to understand a few universal truths about a block schedule:

1. Just because the period is twice as long, it doesn’t mean you can just teach two days in one day.
2. You won’t see your kids daily, or you won’t see them all year.  You get 90 days, not 180.
3. Block scheduling gives teachers fewer preps and possibly more planning time (in theory). And often (in theory) class sizes are smaller.  In theory.
4. With fewer different classes (and fewer class periods), some “housekeeping” tasks like taking attendance and dealing with absent students happen less often.
5. In a 4×4 block schedule, students can often “double up” on subjects that interest them, taking multiple levels in one year. This is an advantage to students who would like to reach high levels of World Language classes or take more than one language.
6. You can NOT expect to talk for 90 minutes every day.  It is bad for your voice and students will not love you for that.

There are as many different block schedules, and odds are some administrator will pick a really confusing one. There is a year-long alternate-day block, a 4×4 block (4 classes/day, for a semester), a trimester plan where students take 2-3 courses three times/year, or any other wacky combination an administrator can dream up with rotating daily schedule.  Some schools even attempt a hybrid schedule with some “regular” classes and some “block” classes.  In the 2016-17 school year, my schedule is Spanish 4 every day 1st block, for the fall semester, and in the spring semester, another different section of Spanish 4.  My 2nd block class will be AP Spanish Literature & Culture on A days, and Spanish 1 on B days, both of those lasting all year.  I only teach 2 classes per day because I’m department chair, so I’ve got extra administrative time rather than an 3rd block.

So how DO we plan for a block class as TPRS teachers?  My first answer is that you cannot sustain PURE TPRS for the entire period, unless you are a superhuman individual.  Blaine Ray can probably do this.  Katya Paukova can probably do this.  On a rare day, I could maybe do this.  Most people will never be able to make a TPRS story last a full 90 minutes and hold student attention.  Yes, I mean all 3 steps.  Establish meaning, ask the story, read.  This is really hard to do ALL of these things about the same structures and same plots for 90 minutes.  Does this mean we shouldn’t try? No…the more you can go slowly and make the circling of target structures last, the better those will be acquired by your students.  But it will not happen every day.  It likely won’t happen regularly or even often.  You might never have a story that lasts that long.  I don’t think I have.  And that is fine.

What I find more helpful is to have a variety of activities that provide students with comprehensible input, even if they are not truly TPRS activities.  This is why I make the distinction between TPRS and CI.  LET ME BE CLEAR:  CI or TCI is NOT a method.  TPRS is a method.  Teaching with Comprehensible Input is more of a philosophy that says we believe students acquire language when they receive comprehensible input.  Most TPRS teachers will add in “repetitive” and “compelling” to that description.  But CI-based teaching does not necessarily rely upon the repetitive (circling) and compelling (personalized) input that TPRS relies upon in instruction. When planning my lessons, I consider all of the CI activities I can think of and try to rotate those through my week to give students the variety their brains crave.  Here is a (not complete) list, in no particular order) of CI-based activities that I often draw from.

• Ask a TPRS story
• Watch/talk about a Sr. Wooly video
• Movie Talk
• Read a novel
• Listen to some sort of listening activity (textbook activity that I’ve probably changed the directions of, podcast, news in slow Spanish, University of Texas/Austin listening proficiency exercises)
• Read & then study a song
• Read yesterday’s TPRS story
• TPR activity
• Game (Kahoot, Quizlet Live, Mafia, Verba, Apples to Apples, whatever!) Okay, some of my games aren’t really that CI-based.  But they are fun, in Spanish, and give my kids a break during our long class. So sue me.
• Free Voluntary Reading
• PQA/Conversation
• The circumlocution game—okay, another confession. This is TOTALLY output.  But my kids like it and does give them practice of a vital skill.  I play this with my upper level kids only.  They can use any gestures and/or Spanish words they want to in an effort to convey the meaning of a word or phrase they probably don’t know how to say, to their team.
• Class yoga (think Simon Says, but more stretching-based, and nobody gets “out”)
• Mindfulness practice—a guided relaxation activity or breathing exercise to focus students or energize them.

So what might a week in my class look like?  The key is to divide and conquer.  You cannot simply do 2 TPRS stories, each 45-minutes long.  That is too overwhelming to students and draining for you.  My advice is to think of your class period as 2 or 3 different segments and to draw out a longer activity over multiple days.  This allows things to “marinade” in the students’ brains and will allow them to process the material they learn, even subconsciously, to allow for deeper acquisition.  So here is a chart of what my first two weeks of my Spanish 1 class might look like.  My class times might be different than yours, but this is one way you can go about structuring your life.  (Note: My class is on an A/B day schedule, so really, to get 10 days for me it’s 4 weeks…but this is easier to visualize, so while it won’t match exactly what my life is like, it’s completely representative of my teaching.)

Okay, I know what you’re all thinking, especially if you’re new to TPRS—no homework?  I might give homework during these 2 weeks.  I might not.  Depends on the kids.  Maybe reading a story will happen at home.  Maybe they’ll do a Sr. Wooly worksheet or one of the “nuggets” on the site.  Maybe they will draw pictures to illustrate one of our TPRS Stories and we’ll do a quick picture-talk or retell of the story from those.  I don’t know usually much beforehand what my students will be ready for as far as homework until I meet them.  The rest of this plan is pretty realistically what I will do this year (and I’ll actually update it as this year goes along…so you’ll see what I really do.  But as I write this now in the middle of August, this is the best I can do.  Check back in mid-September and you’ll see more accurately what I did and what I assigned.

So, what about upper levels?  What do I do in Spanish 4?  There is no shortage of resources and curricula for a level 1 or 2 class.  But how on earth do you structure level 4?

Basically, the same.  As a matter of fact, you’ll see very similar activities between my 2 very different levels.  The idea of “work smarter not harder” is my mantra.  When I do a Sr. Wooly song in level 1, I do the same song in level 4.  When I movietalk in level 1, I will show the same movie in level 4.  What changes?  The complexity of language I use to discuss these things.  For example, in Sr. Wooly’s “Puedo ir al baño”, I might ask my level 1 kids “¿Quiere Justin ir al baño?” (Does Justin want to go to the bathroom?) and ask my level 4 kids “¿Quiere Justin que Carlos vaya al baño?” (Does Justin want Carlos to go to the bathroom?).

So, here is week 1 Level 4 (again, check back after I’ve been in school and I’ll show exactly what I really did)

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