20 Time with Profa Baros

This was written as my inaugural post on 20 Time In Education.  It includes a thorough introduction of who I am, what I teach, my goals for using 20 Time in my classroom, and my initial plans for what it will look like.

Teach to the Top

A product of the misguided "No Child Left Behind" act is the notion that we must teach to the bottom. The students who simply don't understand, whether or not by choice (referring to behaviors here), set the pace of the classroom, forcing higher-achieving students to wait for them.  This drags the pace of the entire course down, ending in frustration for the higher students who want to learn, the lower students who are constantly nagged, and the teacher who simply cannot get her job done.

The other day, I read about a simple notion that changes this paradigm:  Teach to the top. For example, when you notice that a few of your students are done working, move on to the next activity. Don't make those students sit and waste their valuable education time waiting for everyone else to catch up.  Don't get after the students taking forever to hurry up so you can finish teaching what you need to.  Simply inform students that it's time to move on.  Time is valuable - we're not going to wait.

At first, this sounds cruel and unusual.  While it is unusual, I'm beginning to believe that it's far less cruel - and much more effective - than teaching to the bottom.  By raising the standard, you create a sense of urgency.  People are learning in here - I need to pick up the pace!  Students aren't going to be rewarded or accommodated for not paying attention or dragging their feet.  It's time to get those gears turning and get to work!  By approaching their classrooms this way, other teachers have seen overall level of the class improve as students become focused and attentive.

Thoughts worth considering...

Flipping with Udemy and Edmodo

This is just a little teaser about a pet project I'm currently working on.  I've finally identified the resources and format I want to use for flipping my classroom and am working on getting the first quarter uploaded and organized.  For now, suffice it to say I'm using Udemy.com and Edmodo.com as my primary means of flipping.  Udemy is a platform allowing anyone to create an online course complete with a curriculum, lessons and modules, media, etc.  I think it'll work perfectly with the lessons I want my students to complete at home.  The drawback is that these courses are currently designed for independent, self-motivated, and self-assessing students, and so it doesn't provide a lot of feedback about student achievement and mastery.  Here's where Edmodo comes in on multiple fronts.  Edmodo is my means of communication both ways:  I'll post the assignment I want students to complete - including which lesson to view and instructions for submitting their work.  Once students view the lesson, they will follow the initial instructions to complete an assignment turned in via edmodo.  Finally, I can provide feedback on their assignment through Edmodo.  This gives me (and students!) real-time feedback about how well the students are learning the material through the lessons, which I can also evaluate instantly at the beginning of the next class via a pop quiz with clickers.  Using Edmodo assignments along with the clicker evaluations allows me to determine whether students are ready to move on and apply the information they learned, need some review, or simply didn't do the work.

Anyway, stay tuned for an update with more details!  The more I work on it and fine-tune everything, the more possibilities I discover and the cooler it gets!

Proficiency Scale as Decor

Way cool!  Didn't want to forget :)

http://creativelanguageclass.wordpress.com/2012/11/07/bring-the-rubric-to-life/

What do I want my classroom to look like?

OK, so in interviews, this has more to do with the environment and activities rather than physical appearance.  However, as I'm hearing more and more about our new campus and thinking of things that I'd like to have readily available to help students, I'd like to touch on the actual physical appearance of my room.  Like many of my posts, this will be one that gets updated over time :)

• Materials and resources
• "Store" - all of our props and costumes
• student library
• teacher library
• Common objects (door, clock, window, etc.)
• Spare items (golf pencils, loose-leaf-papers)
• Spanish support
• Labels for objects and areas
• Conjugation charts (not for focus, but support)
• Decorations
• window curtains
• cultural artifacts
• posters/pictures of other countries

Class Dojo

I was just reading an article about Making Time for Genius Hour in the Classroom, which led me to discover Class Dojo, free classroom management software.  It's so simple and easy to use, and this would be great to give feedback and track data!  I think it would be especially effective during all our activities, particularly asking stories to keep the flow of the story and helping students tune back in.  I especially liked the idea of letting a good student run the points - as he said, never do what you can have a student do!

20% TIme Inspiration

Need some inspiration and motivation about 20% Time that shows just how amazing our students and their ideas can be?  Check this out!

Story Format

The format for presenting my stories is similar how I prepare my lesson plans.  An example is given below with highlighted annotations explaining each component and how I implement it in my classroom.

Structures: These are in past tense in order to facilitate more "natural" storytelling and exposure to a variety of verb tenses.

• New Structures: Structures that will be introduced in this story.  I intended these to be the "notes" for the day as students copy them down as well as their translations.  I limit these to three per story.  If more are necessary, I create a new story with those.
• había [un(a)]- There was/were (a)
• quería - wanted
• fue a - went to
• Recent Structures: Structures that have been introduced in previous stories, but will likely need to be reviewed.  These will be included in the actual storytelling to build upon vocabulary and structures that have already been acquired and/or need more repetitions.
• se llamaba - him/erself called s/he (he called himself)
• era - (S/he) was
• tenía - had

PQA:These are in present tense to facilitate normal conversation.

• Hay un(a): Structures that do not lend themselves to the various forms listed below are worked into personalized questions in other ways which are noted.
• action - hand over eye and point to something An action is added to most important words through the TPR method and used throughout stories and communication to facilitate comprehensible input
• Have students stand up and tell them "Hay un(a) chic@."
• After this is done a few times, ask it as a question: "¿Hay un(a) chic@?" and students reply with "Sí" or "No."  Model correct answer in a complete sentence.
• Expand to ask ¿Qué hay? and have students respond with "chic@" or "Hay un(a) chic@."  Model correct response.
• Expand to other easy objects (cognates/basic words) with props or pictures (dog, cat, elephant, banana, etc., first asking yes or no questions and progressing to open-ended questions.
• Quiere: 
• Action - palms up wiggling fingers
• Question/responses:Most structures are manipulated into a present tense question (you form), a correct response pattern (I form), and how I will report student responses to the class (3rd person).  I write the following on the board, model them, and translate them briefly with the class.
• ¿Qué / quier/es? = What/want/you? (What do you want?)
• Shouting/calling to someone I add a chant or song to the question so that the entire class can ask it together.  I recommend repeating the phrase at least twice so students can join in on the second one if they miss the first time.
• Quier/o________. = Want/I _______. (I want...)
• Quier/e_______. = Wants/ s/he ______. (S/he wants...)
• Through a process of adding a chant/song to the question and allowing the entire class to participate, students are asked the question, allowed to create a personalized response, and the response is then reported to the class.  The class responds chorally to what the person said.  For example:
• Chant the question (¿Qué quieres?) two times, and point to a student.  Ask "¿Qué quieres?"
• Student responds: "Quiero...."
• Report to the class: "(name) quiere...."
• Class responds
• Va a:
• Action: sweep hand away with "V" fingers
• Question/response
• ¿Adónde vas? = To where go you?
• Watch Señor Wooly's "¿Adónde vas?" Occasionally, I will include resources I find helpful for teaching these phrases.
• Sing (like Señor Wooly video): "¿Adónde vas? ¿Adónde, adónde vas?"
• Voy a_____. = I go to...
• Prompts: "Voy a WalMart/McDonald's/Disneylandia." For when students get stuck trying to respond, I model "sample" answers they can either copy or manipulate
• Va a______. = S/he goes to...

Story: This is a story template limited to only the structures students have already learned.  Feel free to change and add details as you like.  In planning, I'll stick to using mostly the new and most recent structures, but keep the older structures in front of me for adding details about the characters and what's happening.  When I want more details, I'll look at the recent/old structures and ask for a new detail using those structures (hint: if you're using the "structure cards" on my tips page, the students often do this for you!).  I may add a few of these detail here, but it'll really be up to you and your class which details are added.  English translations are in red after each paragraph.  When I have my own class, I will also provide examples of how my students personalized the story.  Again, these stories are in past tense so that students are exposed to all verb tenses.  Shelter vocabulary, not grammar!

Había un elefante.  El elefante se llamaba Tiny.  Tiny era un elefante muy, muy grande.  Había un problema.  Tenía dos bikinis azules, pero quería un bikini rosado.  No tenía un bikini rosado.  Era un problema grande.

There was an elephant.  The elephant called himself Tiny. Tiny was an elephant that was very, very big.  There was a problem.  He had two blue bikinis, but he wanted a pink bikini.  He didn't have a pink bikini.  It was a big problem.

After setting up the story, the remaining paragraphs can repeat as many times as you'd like.  I design my stories so you can copy and paste and then change the details.  If students are getting it and you want to complete the story, limit the number of paragraphs.  If students need more practice, keep adding the paragraphs to include the structures!

Tiny fue a Alaska.  En Alaska, había un gato.  El gato se llamaba Whiskers y era un gato pequeño.  Whiskers no tenía un bikini porque no había bikinis en Alaska.  Tiny quería un bikini.  Había un problema.

Tiny went to Alaska.  In Alaska, there was a cat.  The cat called himself Whiskers and was a little cat.  Whiskers didn't have a bikini because there weren't bikinis in Alaska.  Tiny wanted a bikini.  There was a problem.

Fue a California.  En California, había un perro.  El perro se llamaba Clifford y era un perro grande y rojo.  Clifford tenía bikinis, pero no tenía bikinis rosadas.  Tenía bikinis negras.  Tiny quería un bikini rosado.  Había un problema.
He went to California.  In California, there was a dog that calls himself Clifford.  Clifford was a big, red dog.  Clifford had bikinis, but he didn't have pink bikinis.  He had black bikinis.  Tiny wanted a pink bikini.  There was a problem.

Fue a Hawaii.  En Hawaii, había una chica.  La chica se llamaba Suzie y era una chica baja, pero muy bonita.  Tenía muchos bikinis.  Tenía bikinis negros, azules, rojos, y rosados.  Tiny quería un bikini rosado.  No había un problema.  El fin.
He went to Hawaii.  In Hawaii, there was a girl that called herself Suzie.  Suzie was short, but very pretty.  She had many bikinis.  She had black, blue, red, and pink bikinis.  Tiny wanted a pink bikini.  There was not a problem.  The end.

Resources

Here's a compilation of resources I'd like to keep track of :)

General Professional Development resources
Twitter
Google+

TPRS
MoreTPRS Yahoo! Group

General Spanish
Pinterested board with resources

Genius Hour/20 Time
The Global Genius Hour Project
Genius Hour Wiki Space
20 Time in Education
20% Time Google Plus Group
20% Time in Education Google Plus Group
Genius Hour Collaboration
Genius Hour

Flipped Classroom
Free resources for the flipped classroom
27 Simple ways to flip your classroom

Technology Resources
Most used education Apps

Shopping List

I am compiling a list of resources and materials I'd like to gather for my classroom.  As I come across items I want, I'll list them here!

• Reading Materials
• Class library
• Children's books
• Popular books in Spanish
• Readers
• Class story collections
• Articles in Spanish
• Class sets of curriculum novels
• LICT Extended Stories
• Storytelling
• Stuffed animals
• Clothing
• Wigs
• Misc. Props
• Ben Slavic Posters
• References
• The Power of Cognates
• Songs for Spanish Class
• TPRS in a Year
• Story Scripts, Volume 1
• Story Scripts, Volume 2
• PQA in a Wink
• Stuff for Spanish Class
• Decorations
• Verb endings posters
• Rejoinder Poster
• Maps
• Cultural Artifacts
• Other
• Sr. Wooly Subscription
• Singing the Basics: Beginning Spanish
• Singing the Basics: Intermediate Spanish

20 Time Featured Teacher!

I haven't posted in a while, but I've been hard at work!  Remember that 20 Time website I posted (20 Time in Education)?  Well, I've been asked to become their featured "emerging teacher" as I integrate 20 Time into my classroom this summer and fall!  I'll be added to their "contact us" page and periodically write posts (which will also be posted here) describing our 20 Time experience.  I'm very honored to have this privilege and simply cannot wait to get started!

My first post (which will be on May 31st) will provide some essential information before we get started: A brief introduction (who am I and what am I teaching?), my goals, and how this is all going to look.  I've gotten a good start on this post and am going to continue working on it until the 31st when it'll be posted here as well as on the 20 Time website.  Stay tuned!

Getting Organized

I have so many ideas and things I want to do or need to prepare running through my brain!  I'm going to take a moment to get organized:

Most urgently, I need to focus on my Latino Culture class.  I need to figure out the details of our schedule, what resources we'll need, assessment, and coordinate with guests.  I also need to solidify my ideas about Genius Hour now that it's approved!

On a related note, I was invited to post about my experiences implementing genius hour on 20TimeinEducation.com, so I definitely want to be organized and make sure I keep everyone updated on our progress!

For my class this fall, I need to:

1. adjust my curriculum to reflect our Genius Hour time and 20 Time projects.
2. double check that my structures are reflected by the embedded readings that Blaine just sent me for the LICT stories.  If they don't, I'll probably either need to edit the stories or my structures.
3. write PQA questions for my structures.
4. write skeleton stories using my structures.
5. set up my "flipped classroom" pages that students can use to prepare for class and study from.
6. write basic lesson plans.
7. create resources including:
• Culture resources (going to be created with the help of my summer class)
• Inklewriter stories
• Fine-tuning embedded readings, including how I'm going to use them and making sure the ones students prepare with are easy enough in both content and supportive materials (i.e. glossary)
• Videos (I really want to use the animation program I bought last fall to go with storytelling!)
• QR codes for students to listen to as they read along
• embedded readings for novels??  (maybe someday...)

Whew! I'm so glad I'll have plenty of free time this summer to get my class ready.  This is going to be one awesome year :)

A classroom like none other

Sometimes I have to smile to myself wondering about my students' reaction this fall when the walk into my classroom.  It's going to be like nothing they've ever experienced before.  And, I'm glad it's my own and I have a lot of freedom with a supportive administration because I'm sure it'd give many teachers a heart attack.  Who in their right mind would have a Flipped TPRS classroom with Genius Hour?

• Though it's a language class, we will not focus on grammar.
• We will be telling and acting out stories in a chaotic manner.
• My class decorations include many toys and costumes you'd expect in a child's bedroom.
• Students will learn the most important material at home, and then come to school to talk and interact.
• Then, once a week, they get free reign to learn about whatever they want to.

Maybe I've gone off the deep end.  But doesn't it take just a little bit of crazy for progress and innovation to occur?

20 Time in Latino Culture Epiphany

Though most of my posts and thoughts have to do with my Spanish 1 classes that I'll be teaching full time during the 2013-14 school year, I still have to plan for my Latino Culture elective class I'm teaching this summer!  I already had a basic syllabus and outline that I was planning on fine-tuning once school gets out, but now that I've learned about 20 Time, I've been wrestling with whether I could work it into my summer class.  I believe it should be a part of this program in some way given he particular nature and goals of the Upward Bound program, but I can only control my class and have such limited time...

And then, I had an epiphany.  Another hurdle I was pondering in my head was how to get students jump-started in exploring the culture of the Spanish-speaking world and how they might connect their passions to culture in some way.  I thought that some sort of website with interesting links would be great, but how could I possibly manage to think of enough of a variety of resources that might spark an interest in my students?  Then I realized - I have the opportunity to let my students this summer put together a resource for me.  What could be better than a resource for students by students?  And I'd be killing two birds with one stone!

20 Time and Genius Hour

As I'm letting 20 Time "swirl around" my brain, there are a few distinctions and insights I'm having.  There is a wonderful website - 20 Time in Education - which I was introduced to this morning.  It is getting finishing touches done and will be "officially" launched in the next few weeks. I'm reading through and am excited to use as a resource. I'm just jotting these thoughts down as they occur and how I understand them, so adjustments and corrections will be made as necessary.

20% Time

Just read about this and want to bookmark it to ponder later!

http://edudemic.com/2013/05/10-reasons-to-try-20-time-in-the-classroom/

UPDATE:  OK, I'm reading mroe about this, and I'm getting that giddy "I'm SO excited!" feeling for doing this with my students.  I'm sold.  But, I need to ponder this more before I can clearly articulate the ideas my brain is forming.  Here are a few more websites of inspiration!

http://educationismylife.com/designing-20-time-in-education/

http://www.iteachithink.com/2012/07/give-your-students-20-time-to-do.html

http://stumpteacher.blogspot.com/2011/03/innovation-day-2011.html

http://www.geniushour.com/2013/03/29/approching-your-administration-about-genius-hour/

http://geniushour.wikispaces.com/Testimonials

http://www.geniushour.com/2013/03/29/approching-your-administration-about-genius-hour/

UPDATE:  I'm ready to write down the ideas running around my mind!

Embedded Reading

In my efforts to flip my classroom, I've been trying to think of an effective way to prepare my students for the reading days.  I wanted to find something that they could read (since that's what they're preparing to do), but that would be easy enough that they could be successful on their own.  I was having some trouble until....

I discovered embedded reading!  This is something that I've been hearing about every now and then without actually understanding what it was.  Initially, I thought it was something like supplemental reading - different texts that would support the themes and concepts in a main text, much like was done in both my US and Latin American history and literature classes.  I decided to finally take a look and see what all the fuss was about.  I found this wonderful blog, Embedded Reading, that set me straight (it's now added to my blog list on the side panel of this page).

The blog is very thorough about them and I highly recommend heading on over to it, but I'll write a brief explanation here.  Rather than different texts focusing on a particular theme, embedded readings are essentially the same text, but with various levels created for it that are embedded in one another.  The first level is easy enough for anyone in the class to read and understand without effort.  Then, each of the following levels has more detail and elaboration, making the text more complex and difficult, until students are reading a text that would generally be difficult, but not impossible for them.  However, because students already have background knowledge about the text that was easily understood at previous levels, students are better able to understand the more complex levels o the text.  It's scaffolding!

This is the answer to my reading preparation days :)  I want to use these in two ways:

Extended Reading - This will be pretty straightforward as I take the Look, I Can Talk! extended stories and create easier levels for them.  I imagine I'll probably make 3 levels for each story using the "top down" approach (starting with the hardest text and simplifying it):  The hardest will be what is actually written in the Look, I can talk! textbook, while the easiest will be what I have students read at home as part of my "flipped" classroom.  I can see various activities we could do in class to read both the "middle" and "highest" levels.  Since I'll be scaffolding them appropriately, I can easily see us being able to read the stories as a whole class, in groups, and even individually with me there to support them.  One thing I do enjoy doing - especially for independent and group reading - is to have students ask me what unknown words mean and I can write them on the board with their definitions in order to support the entire class at once.

Storytelling/writing - I like this idea to support both reading and writing.  After we tell a story, the students' homework and preparation for the next day is to rewrite the story told in class.  From the stories submitted, I can choose three to edit and type for students to read the next day - one that's basic, another that's a little more difficult, and one that's advanced.  (Another idea I have to support students' writing, especially at first, is to provide a "skeleton story" where students can just fill in the blank to re-write their story, which would be at the basic level).  Then, students can read and re-read the stories they and their peers wrote!

TPRS Post - Judy Debois

Great post on the MoreTPRS goup from Judy Debois that I didn't want to forget!

Interesting questions, Deb. Here are some of my thoughts, for whatever they're
worth.


IMHO vocabulary lists will help some students, those who as you say have visual
memories and those who are interested in languages, as Dr. Krashen says. I
don't see how they can hurt the others, who will ignore them anyway, right? 
Unless you tell them to memorize them, in which case they will waste a lot of
time and effort that will not be very productive. Memorization is by definition
short term. I prefer to give my students a story, maybe a new story, that uses
the vocabulary in question. If they read it through they'll get revision in
context, which will give them new associations to help them remember the
structures. Once they have enough associations, the word/structure will be in
their long term memory. You might ask students who are artistic to illustrate
the new story, which will give even more associations, visual ones, with the
structures. So basically, you have to decide whether your limited time is better
spent making up three categories of vocabulary lists or making up a new story
for the most important vocabulary. (And you can cheat by giving them a story by
a student/students in another class using the same vocabulary.)


Illustrated student stories, written and illustrated by students, are a good way
to build up a library for FVR. It's a struggle for us to make the language
simple enough, but they do it automatically with the limited language they have.
In a small school like yours I'm sure they'll recognize the author's name and
will find it "compelling".


I think you're doing it exactly right when you "echo" what a student has said. 
This is what "caretaker speech" does all the time. Baby says "peas" and you
echo back "please". Student says "la verte voiture" and you smile and nod and
say "Oui! La voiture verte!" The student may catch what you changed and take
note or they may not catch it, in which case it means that they're not ready for
that yet. But they won't feel humiliated because you pointed out that they had
made a mistake, which will make them think twice before speaking up again.


As for "correcting" written work, I prefer to "edit" it. I've explained this on
my blog, but my examples are from small groups of students. With a class I
would choose three papers, one very basic, one more complex and the best paper
of the lot. Then I would "edit" them so that there are no mistakes. I type the
three papers up, and bingo! You have an embedded reading. (I understand that
this is how Laurie Clarq first started doing embedded reading.) When you return
their papers where you have underlined in green everything that is correct, you
also give your students the three edited versions, telling them that they were
written by students in the class but not giving the names. You will see them
reading them closely. Each time I'm amazed at how attentively students read
texts written by their classmates and how willing they are to read the same
story three or four times. I call that compelling comprehensible input. I
answer any questions about structures and vocabulary, smiling like the cat that
ate the cream because I know that they're going to retain my answers to their
questions. If there were frequent mistakes that you corrected and no one asks
why, it means they're just not seeing them yet. You may want to target those
structures in your next lesson.


Basically, one thing that I have learned from horse riding is that it's much
more effective to teach a horse how to do something right than to spend time
teaching it not to do something wrong. Pointing out mistakes is teaching
students not to do something wrong. Giving them correct models is teaching them
to do it right.

Spanish 1 Curriculum

I finally have a draft of my curriculum with general year-long ans weekly plans.  I've updated the "curriculum" tab above to link to this curriculum.  Now, I'm going to go back and work on resources and individual lesson plans.  I'll update here when I make progress!

Latino Culture: Holidays and Celebrations

Students google holidays and celebrations in Latin America.  We discuss them and any interesting things students found.

Students get in groups and research a specific holiday.  Then, they present their holiday to the class.

• La Semana Santa y Pascua
• La Nochebuena y la Navidad/Día de los Reyes Magos
• Día de los Muertos
• Día de la Independencia - many countries (contrast with Cince de Mayo)

Latino Culture: History of Latin America

Who are the ancient civilizations of Latin America?
How was Latin America conquered?
How did Latin American countries gain their independence?

1. Split into three groups, each with one question to answer
2. Spend the first half of class researching and preparing presentations
3. Walk back to class/take a break.
4. Groups present information (10 minutes each).

Latino Culture: Genius Hour Introduction

Coming soon!

Latino Culture: Who are the Latinos?

This lesson plan is designed for students to learn exactly what and where Latin America is.
Essential questions:

• Who are the Latinos?
• Where is Latin America?

Latino Culture: What is culture?

As I'm gearing up for my Latino Culture class, I'm writing my lesson plans and getting a clear idea about how this is all going to work.  I've written my lesson plan for day one, where I'm going to introduce students to the class and get them thinking about what culture is!  Read more to see my entire lesson plan.

Tips, Tricks, and Ideas

Here are various tips and tricks I use to create a classroom,  curriculum, and individual lessons centered on TPRS.  Click the links for more information and practical applications!

Story Writing 101

There is a common theme and pattern to every story in TPRS:  There is someone and they want something.  They go somewhere to get it, but they are unsuccessful.  So, they go somewhere else and resolve their problem.  Once you understand this structure, writing your stories are simple.  Here's how...

Class Story Books
Have your students create a wonderful resource for your classroom that can be used to review the next day as will be a keepsake and reading material for years to come!

Inter-class Pen Pals
Get students reading, writing, and building a class community all at once!

Spanish Nicknames
During the first week of school, students choose nicknames that they will use throughout the year.  I provide a list of nicknames, but students are also allowed to create their own as long as it's school-appropriate.  I love this activity!  It achieves many things that are critical in my classroom.  First and foremost, the students learn to "play" and develop a unique relationship in my classroom with me and their peers.  Another perk is that students have a jump-start to their vocabulary as they're already interested in what the names mean and will get many repetitions of these words throughout the year! Rather than real Spanish names, I use nicknames such as "Pato" (duck) or "Vato" (dude).

TPRS in a Week
This is an example of how I would structure my week.  Each "day" is a 45-minute period.  Because most schools in my area are on various types of block scheduling, I have combined the days into 90-minute periods, with one flexible half-day.

Structure/Word Cards
I got this idea from a fellow TPRS teacher and added my own ideas and adaptations to it.  I'd love to hear what you would do with something like this!  For me, it makes me more intentional about what I'm teaching without a lot of effort on my part as well as helps students become more engaged and focused.  Plus, we keep track of the things we've already learned and are able to continually review them as we progress!

Interactive Notebooks

Interactive notebooks are a note-taking method I plan to utilize in my classroom.  Students create their own interactive notebook out of a composition notebook.  Tabs are added to create sections, and students fill in the contents of the notebook throughout the year.  In general, students take notes (teacher input) on the right-hand page, and personalize the information on the left-hand side of the page.  At the end of the year, they will have created a comprehensive record of their classroom experience.

Teaching through Novels
There has recently been a discussion in the MoreTPRS yahoo group about doing novel-based classes, and I am very excited about it!  Similar to how I am pulling structures from the LICT extended reading stories, I would take them from the novels themselves.  It may take a week or a few weeks to complete a chapter as we ask stories in class that circle the structures and vocabulary students need to know in order to comprehend what they are reading.  In addition, I would want to choose books with which I could integrate other activities for students to explore and describe themselves and the world around them.

Games
TPRS-friendly games to play with the class!

Shopping List
The list of items I'd like for my TPRS classroom!

Positive Reinforcement (Rewarding Great Behavior!)

Kindergarten and Movie Days

Syllabus

This is a sample syllabus for a Spanish 1 class.  The main changes for different levels would be to raise the expectations listed in the "Course Objectives" section as appropriate to include speaking for a longer period of time and writing more words in a given time.  In addition, should a grammar requirement be necessary due to curriculum requirements, I would create an additional standard addressing this goal.

¡Bienvenidos a la clase de español!

Welcome to Spanish Class!

Class Description: Spanish I is an introductory class stressing basic language skills and acquisition. The method we will be using is called Teaching Proficiency through Reading and Storytelling, TPRS®. Be prepared to listen, read, write, speak, sing, dance, and act in Spanish to learn the language effectively! In addition, we will be learning about other cultures that speak Spanish.

Classroom Rules:

1. Follow directions.
2. Be ready to begin when the tardy bell rings.
3. No put downs, name calling, or hate speech.
4. No swearing.
5. Bring pen, pencil, and notebook everyday.
6. Be respectful in the classroom.
7. No electronic devices unless I permit it.

Your Role During Class: LISTEN

• Look me in the eyes
• Involve yourself
• Show me when you get it and when you don’t
• Tune back in if you tune out
• Español
• No talking over others

Homework: In addition to nightly study and review (about 15 minutes/night) from their Interactive Notebooks, students are required to read in Spanish for a total of 30 minutes each week and record what they read in their Interactive Notebooks.  Students may split this time up and read whenever works best, and students may occasionally get to apply class time toward their weekly reading.  This can be completed independently or with others.  In addition, they may choose from a variety of sources, such as books, magazines, articles, and the internet and I have a class library for students to check out materials.  Anything read online must be printed out and included in the IN, and at least 20 minutes of reading must come from non-electronic sources. 

Class Materials: Every day you need to bring the following:

• 3-ring binder notebook with a pocket with 5 dividers
• Loose-leaf Paper
• Pencil and a colored pen
• Other supplies may be needed and will be announced.

Course Objectives: You will be evaluated based upon the following standards and each is worth 20% of your grade:

1. Comprehend spoken Spanish.
2. Comprehend written Spanish.
3. Write 100 words in comprehensible Spanish within 10 minutes.
4. Speak in Spanish for 30 seconds.
5. Be an excellent member of our class, including
• Regular attendance and participation
• Keeping an organized and complete notebook
• Completing practice and homework activities
• Enhancing your cultural knowledge

Absences and Tardies: You are responsible for the notes, vocabulary, work, quizzes and tests that you miss when you are gone. ALSO, you will need to write a 100-word story (200 for Spanish 2-4) in Spanish for each day that you are absent. The absence stories need to be handwritten on the story form and they are due by the end of the quarter. You will not be able to make up work for unexcused absences or tardies.

Bathroom Privileges: Please use the restroom before you come to class. However, if you need to use the restroom during class, you may ask permission and sign out on the clipboard to leave class.  Keep in mind that trips outside the class will be reviewed when assigning participation grades.

¡Buena suerte en la clase de español!

For information on the class, check out the class website at profabaros.blogspot.com

Assessments and Grading

These standards-based assessments correspond with my five course objectives for my classroom.  These objectives address the major components of communication and aim to develop students' abilities to effectively communicate others in Spanish.  Thus, their grades will depend on what students can actually do.  Each will be assessed independently, enabling students to identify where their strengths and weaknesses lie.

Moreover, learning is a journey that students complete on their own terms and at their own pace.  As such, the final product is the most critical subject for evaluation.  In my classroom, students will be provided numerous opportunities for formative self-evaluations as well as those I complete.  Students will keep track of their progress in their notebooks and should have a fairly good idea about how they will perform on the summative assessment.

I will conduct summative assessments collected for a grade at a few points throughout the semester.  These assessments will be unannounced as I want to evaluate what students are actually capable of rather than what they studied for.  Because students will be evaluated based on the final goal, initial check-point evaluations may appear to be "basic" or even "poor", but students will be given a realistic expectations as to what they should be achieving at these checkpoints and will be able to evaluate whether or not they are "on track" and temporary grades will be entered based on whether students are meeting these check-point goals.  However, as grades are a reflection of what students can actually do at that point in time, they will be replaced and updated after each summative evaluation to reflect the most recent data.  Thus, at the end of the semester, the only grade that will count will be their performance on the final assessments (with the exception of the "Citizenship" grade).  In addition, these "final" grades will be completed with enough time prior to the end of the semester so that students who wish to try again may have the opportunity to do so.

Objective 1: Comprehend spoken Spanish.

• According to level, students will listen to a word, phrase, or passage using the words and structures they are familiar with and indicate what they understood.
• I try to avoid words in isolation as they are generally presented, practiced, and used in meaningful context both in class and real-life situations.
• Students indicate what they understood in English as this is a clear indication of full comprehension.  Partial credit may be given for the correct Spanish answer as this is evidence of partial comprehension.
• Formative Assessments: I will use a variety of assessment techniques, including self-evaluations using rubrics for translations and summaries, so that students and I can get a feel for their comprehension level.
• Summative Assessments: I prefer exact evaluations with right and wrong answers so that they are not open to interpretation or bias.
• Examples:
• Students may hear a sentence and indicate which picture matches the sentence they heard.
• Students may hear a story and put pictures or English sentences in order to match the story.
• Students may hear a story.  Then, they may write a summary or answer questions written in English about who the main character was, what problem they had, and how they solved it.

Objective 2: Comprehend written Spanish.

• Very similar to assessments for Objective 1, but with written Spanish!
• According to level, students will read a word, phrase, or passage using the words and structures they are familiar with and indicate what they understood.
• I try to avoid words in isolation as they are generally presented, practiced, and used in meaningful context both in class and real-life situations.
• Students indicate what they understood in English as this is a clear indication of full comprehension.  Partial credit may be given for the correct Spanish answer as this is evidence of partial comprehension.
• Formative Assessments: I will use a variety of assessment techniques, including self-evaluations using rubrics for translations and summaries, so that students and I can get a feel for their comprehension level. 
• Summative assessments: I prefer exact evaluations with right and wrong answers so that they are not open to interpretation or bias.
• Examples:
• Students may read a sentence and indicate which picture matches the sentence they read.
• Students may read a story and put pictures or English sentences in order to match the story.
• Students may read a story.  Then, they may write a summary or answer questions written in English about who the main character was, what problem they had, and how they solved it.

Objective 3: Write 100 words in comprehensible Spanish within 10 minutes.  (Note: As level increases, so does the word count requirement.)

• Formative assessment: I do not ask students to do free-writes until about halfway through the first semester.  This is the first time their output is assessed.  By this point, they have generally acquired enough language that most students surprise themselves with what they are able to write, setting them up to have a positive attitude toward writing.  Students are asked to do 5-minute free-writes or re-writes of stories told in class on a regular basis.  Though this is only half of the time they will be given for the summative assessment, it is not such a huge task and they generally have a pretty good idea of how they will do based on their 5-minute writes and students are usually.  However, these are not collected and it is usually the student's responsibility to ask me if they would like me to read and review their writing, particularly to evaluate comprehensibility.  I may, on occasion, review their writing without being requested to do so.
• Summative assessment: The only summative writing assessment that students complete is at the end of the semester for a final grade.  However, this "final" is completed early enough that students have the opportunity to do a re-take if needed.
• Evaluation:  When the timer goes off, students put an X after their last word and count all of their Spanish words.  They write the number of words at the top of the page, circle it, and turn their writing in if you are collecting it.
• Grading: 
• Words: The number of words they wrote represents the percentage grade they earned up to 100 (If a student wrote 120 words, they would still just receive 100% and pride that they went beyond the expectation).  If the student wrote any English or completely made-up words, five percent is subtracted off their final writing grade for each English word.  (For instance, if the student with 120 words wrote 2 English words, their score would be 100%-2*5%=90%)
• Comprehensibility: The goal is for students to be comprehensible to a native speaker.  Even broken and basic Spanish with incorrect spelling and grammar can be understood by native speakers, so comprehensibility is evaluated on a fairly lenient rubric.  With time and more exposure to Spanish, correct grammar and more complete and complex sentences will emerge.
• I also like the way Scott Benedict does his grading and would like to look into it more in the future: How to Assess Writing Effectively

Objective 4: Speak in Spanish for 30 seconds.  (Note: as level increases, so does the time requirement.)

• Students are not formally assessed on speaking until the end of their first semester.  Rather, they are encouraged to focus on comprehension and respond with at least one-word answers.  Their answers become more complete and complicated as they are exposed to Spanish throughout the class.  After their first semester, however, students can be assessed regularly to keep track of growth and improvement as well as their progress toward increasingly difficult goals, such as speaking for a longer amount of time.
• The goal is for students to be comprehensible to a native speaker.  Even broken and basic Spanish with incorrect grammar and in a heavy accent can be understood by native speakers, so speaking is comprehensibility on a fairly lenient rubric.  With time and more exposure to Spanish, correct grammar and more complete and complex sentences will emerge.
• Scores are given out of 25.  As long as the students are comprehensible and continue speaking with a moderate pausing, they will earn 20 points ("B").  Fewer pauses, more complex language, better comprehensibility, creativity, and personalization will increase the grade.  More pauses, minimal to no comprehensibility, and the use of English will decrease the grade.

Objective 5: Be an excellent citizen of our class.

• This is the "everything else" grade.  Various aspects of this grade can be weighted differently, but each on its own will not overpower any of the standards-based grade.  In addition, it sets a clear expectation for students to grow and develop as a citizen.
• Participation and attendance is worth an arbitrary 100 points within the grade book, which I generally weight to be 5% of the total grade.  Students loose participation points when they are absent or do not comply with the rules and expectations for the class.  They keep participation points by meeting class rules and expectations.  Finally, they may (re)gain participation points by completing make-up work for absences and completing any extra credit activities that are offered to the entire class.
• Interactive Notebooks will be central to our class and will help students stay organized as well as provide evidence of their work and achievements.  Moreover, students will develop organizational skills that will assist them later in life.  Thus, they deserve a place in the grade book and are worth half of the "Citizenship" grade, or 10% of the total grade.
• I will check spot-check notebooks for timely completion on a regular basis by asking students to open to a specific page and award a stamp on that page to students who have completed it to my expectations.
• I will only collect notebooks twice: first at mid-semester and again after finals.  Mid-semester checks will only be a quarter of the notebook grade (2.5% of the overall grade) and serve as a check-up to make sure students are on the right track.  Final notebook checks will encompass the remaining portion of the notebook grade (7.5% of the overall grade).
• Notebooks will be graded on a rubric that evaluates how neat the notebook is, how well it is organized, how complete it is, and how many stamps the student received from the regular notebook checks.
• Though cultural knowledge is important, the focus of this class is to learn to communicate in Spanish.  Thus, culture is only worth 5% of the overall grade.  Students will be assessed on important cultural aspects of the Spanish-speaking world as we discuss them.  These will be very minor assessments which require students to write about a cultural aspect, apply it to themselves and compare/contrast it with their culture, and/or answer various styles of short questions (i.e. multiple choice, short answer, matching, etc.)

Stories

I highly recommend first visiting My Story Format to understand how I have formatted my stories and lesson plans.

Look!  I can Talk! (LICT) Series - Blaine Ray
This story series matches the phrases used in Blaine Ray's "NEW Mini-stories for Look, I Can Talk!" Extended Reading and Exercises for Look, I Can Talk! for Spanish 1.  While there is a teachers guide intended to be used with this book, these particular structures and corresponding stories are pulled directly from the extended reading so that the stories and reading would support one another more closely.  Occasionally, it seemed that more than one story would be necessary to cover the important new phrases used in the extended reading.

While I've decided to start fresh now that I have a new list of structures that I like better, you can still find my initial attempt and creating stories for the LICT series here.

Novels

For a while, I thought I would pull my structures directly from novels, teach them for a quarter, and then finish the quarter reading the novel.  However, I found that there wasn't enough

We will be doing a novel-based curriculum, so I plan to pull my structures from the novels we are reading.  I ordered all of Blaine Ray's middle school and Spanish 1 novels ordered, so I'm currently reading them and pulling out structures as well as culture topics to discuss.  Upon receiving my order, I've tentatively decided to center my curriculum around the Pobre Ana series and use the other novels as part of my class library (I discussed this in this post).  Click below for my stories and ideas!

• Pobre Ana