You’ve probably been thinking about the start of the 2015 school year since somewhere around October of 2014: you know, about when you started to think, “Man! If only I had done [x], we would be doing amazing right now! Can’t wait to start off the school year right next year…”
So you may already have grandiose plans for the first few days and weeks of school–plans that involve using the target language at least 90 percent of the time, distributing a really cool and student-friendly syllabus, establishing procedures and systems that will make teaching a breeze and learning a joy, and language acquisition! Like, your students are really going to learn the language this year!!
But maybe you don’t. Maybe you just got back from a summer TCI conference like iFLT or NTPRS, or maybe you stumbled across this blog or another in the last few weeks as you frantically searched the Internet for fresh ideas and whatever you learned or read has you feeling like you need to make a last-minute switch, but you’ve no idea what to do!
There is good news. Many others have done the work for you!! All you need to do is sit down at your computer for a few hours this week and read through all of the lesson plans that are already out there to decide what will work best for you. To compile this list, I searched this list of blogs and websites of trained TPRS®/CI teachers. If you’d like your name and info to be added to the list, please complete this form.
- 2-week back to school lesson plan from Carol Gaab
- Powerful activities to start the school year FREE webinar from Carol Gaab
- Using TPR in the first week of school by Keith Toda
- How I start the year with TPRS by Chris Stolz
- How I start the first week by Mike Coxon
- 10 first day of school ideas from Cynthia Hitz
- 7 things to plan for the first day by Me
- Syllabi from Carrie Toth
- First day of school ice breaker from Kristy Placido
- La persona especial from Bryce Hedstrom (pertinent links under ‘student engagement’ heading)
- Lesson plan and reflections from Elizabeth Dentlinger
- First day plans (bingo and language acquisition) from Haiyun Lu
- Plans for Levels 1-4 by Dustin Williamson
- Chinese resources from the first several days by Annick Chen
- Establish classroom jobs for students using Ben Slavic’s list
If you know of any other TPRS®/CI teachers that have posted about what they do in the first days of school, please share the links in the comments!!
Here’s mine for the first 5 days of Latin 1
http://todallycomprehensiblelatin.blogspot.com/2014/08/tpr-total-physical-response-for-first.html
Adding it to the list now! Thanks Keith!!!
I use the textbook avancemos 1. Is there any TPRS stuff for avancemos available?
Not anything exhaustive, but I do have this post http://martinabex.com/2013/07/16/tprs-avancemos/ and general tips for textbook teachers here http://martinabex.com/2012/12/08/textbooks-and-tprs/ . I presented some more ideas at NTPRS and will be uploading that presentation soon, and Keith Toda REALLY had an awesome Textbook adaptation presentation at NTPRS…which I will locate and add when I get the link from Keith!
Thank you for sharing this! I am going into my 2nd year of teaching, and definitely want to spruce up what I did last year!
Hi Martina! I struggle with how to effectively review with Spanish 2 and 3 students. Any ideas? Hope you’ve had a great summer!
Hey Kim! I’ve had a wonderful summer, and I hope the same for you 🙂 The best review is natural review: find a topic or question to discuss, and let students ‘choose’ the content by the language that they use in their responses. It could be as simple as having students illustrate a scene from their summer, and then you can share and discuss the illustrations one by one with the class. Or, you could ask what interesting or important things happened over the summer in the US/the world/their personal lives? You will probably come up some current events (marriage equality), some pop culture events (Ariana Grande licking donuts), and some personal happenings. This will allow you to informally assess what your students have learned in the past/retained, it will get their Spanish juices flowing, and it will begin the process of community building as students learn about each other.
Thanks for the ideas! I definitely appreciate it, and I had a fantastic summer!
Hi Martina, I was curious, did your students freely speak the TL with you? I have a few who will, but the majority don’t.
Thank you for this! I have procrastinated and after spending a few hours reading through these resources I believe that I have some fresh ideas for the first few days of school. Thank you!
This list is awesome! Thank you! I am contemplating doing TPRS this year and this helps a lot.
Thank you for this! I am contemplating using TPRS this year and this list helps a lot!
Love this list! I posted a few simple ideas of how I start the year at my blog Mejor Dicho http://www.nikitottingham.com/