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Before/After Cooperative Learning

December 1, 2011

We had our first Cooperative Learning class meeting last night, and thanks to some high-quality 'Think-Pair-Sharing' with the lovely, hilarious, and supremely talented Ms. Diana Painter, I left with some great ideas about how to use Cooperative Learning structures with TPRS. This was one of her ideas for using the Kagan structure 'Hands-Up, Stand-Up, Pair-Up' (students stand up with a hand in the air and find someone to high-five and partner with, complete the activity, and then repeat the process). It's a great variation on the Before/After activity that I've been working with lately. Gotta keep it fresh!

  1. Students illustrate four scenes, or 'moments', from a story--this could be from an oral or written story.
  2. Students find a partner using Hands-Up, Stand-Up, Pair-Up.
  3. Students describe one of the four scenes in the target language to the partner.
  4. In the target language, the partner writes down what happened immediately before or after that scene in the space provided on the form (linked below), and he or she signs his or her name below it.
  5. Students find a new partner and repeat the process.

The first page of the document is in Spanish, and the second page is in English. If you'd like an editable version of the document, please email me. Find someone who before:after

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