This is the fourth post in the series “TPRS® 101: Teaching Proficiency is Really Simple“. STEP FOUR: DEBRIEF By now, the acronyms TPRS®, CI, and TCI are rolling off your lips without a second thought. You understand the goal of a TPRS® lesson, and you’ve seen one in action. Maybe you used this list to…
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For the first time since learning about TPRS® and Comprehensible Input, I am not teaching through CI, but learning through CI. I’ve of course participated as a student in demonstrations and coaching sessions in languages that I don’t know, but I’ve never “studied” a language for an extended period of time. (I say “studied” with quotation marks because I…
Read MoreI asked my Facebook followers what I blog about on this, my 500th blog post since switching to WordPress in March of 2011. The consensus was to do something reflective…so here it is! When I dove head-first into TPRS® in early 2010, the only materials that I had to work with were those that I…
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Freeze Frame is a fun, interactive way to review a story by assigning to students to groups that create physical depictions of scenes from a story (short film, class story, novel, etc.) in ‘freeze frame’ vignettes. If you’ve been to a TPRS training in the last few years, it’s likely that you are familiar with the…
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I just put the finishing touches on the re-vamped Unit 18 of my Spanish 1 curriculum map. It is based on an adaptation from the second TPRS® story that I ever asked, and it targets the structures “oye algo”, “se despierta”, “se duerme”, and “durante la noche”. I use it to prepare my students to view and…
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Oh yeah, crossing another Spanish 1 unit off the list! Well..the story script anyway. I used this story in my Spanish 1 classes several times, but I needed to fix some glitches before posting it. As I was finishing it up, I couldn’t help but think how EASY life becomes when you write your curriculum based on…
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It is important for all teachers to informally assess students’ comprehension throughout any lesson in any content area. When we ask a comprehension question, we use students’ response to determine whether it’s time to move on to the next topic, or if we must spend more time on whatever we are studying at the moment.…
Read MoreThis is a script to give targeted practice with -ER/-IR imperfect regular verbs. It was inspired by Crystal Barragán’s “La chica ideal” script, which I adapted to target a specific grammatical pattern. TARGET STRUCTURES quería – s/he, I wanted tenía – s/he, I had olía a – s/he, I smelled like ADDITIONAL TARGET PATTERN VERBS comía…
Read MoreThis script focuses on verbs with irregular stems and endings in the preterite tense. TARGET STRUCTURES no pudo – s/he tried to but couldn’t (no pude – I couldn’t) trajo – s/he brought (traje – I brought) supo la verdad – /she found out la verdad (supe – I found out) PRACTICE SENTENCES Mi amigo…
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Did you know that children in Bolivia can live in jail with their imprisoned parents? How’s THAT for a hook?? I am slowly but surely working on filling in the blank places on my Spanish 1 curriculum map. To create my Spanish 1 curriculum, I pulled vocabulary from the novels I wanted to read at…
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