Using Volunteers in Class

I'll take a break from writing stories for Pobre Ana to mention an insight I had last week while preparing/doing my interview for my new job.  One of the things I'll need to integrate into my classroom is parent volunteering.  Parents at Somerset are required to volunteer 30 hours per year...  But I have to admit, I was at a bit of a loss as to how to use them!  Without being fluent speakers nor having an understanding of TPRS methodology and how it differs from what they experienced in most (all) of their classes, it's hard to find something parents can do.

I came up with the easy ideas of decorating the classroom and making copies, but I really wanted to think of something concrete and meaningful for parents to do.  A slightly better idea was for parents to chaperone/host cultural activities like field trips or after-school experiences, such as going to a Mexican restaurant.

Then, finally, it dawned on me: Speaking!  This is the one area that I found is difficult for students to get sufficient practice in doing.  They're to embarrassed to do it with someone outside of class, I don't have the time to monitor or do formative assessments, and very few students (particularly in Spanish 1) take full advantage of the opportunities I give them to speak with one another because it's still uncomfortable for them.  However.... what if, during certain activities that students are able to pick right back up where they left off (reading!), I had a parent volunteer or two pulling students aside and simply listening to them talk for 30 seconds (or whatever the time requirement is).  I think this would have many beneficial outcomes:

• Under the specific supervision of an adult, students are able to simulate what they will have to do for the speaking section on the final, so they won't be as unfamiliar or nervous about it when the final actually rolls around.  During my student teaching experience, many students did poorly on the speaking section because it was simply a new situation to them (even though I had asked them to practice with each other multiple times and given them opportunities to do so in class).  Upon being given a second chance and knowing what to expect - usually in the same class period - most students who did poorly improved their grade drastically. 
• The fear of making mistakes or saying things in a funny way is minimized because the person can't understand what they're saying anyway!  It's the attitude of "At least I can speak more Spanish they can!" 
• Even if they don't understand any of it, parents are likely able to give me a good idea of how students will perform on the final with a basic rubric: continues talking, frequent pases, talked very little, using made-up words.  I'm fairly positive that if the student sounds like they're saying something comprehensible in real Spanish to a parent, they probably are.  Parents can give them this simple feedback (graphed in their interactive notebook!) - but of course, students will have the most insights into how they are doing and whether they'll need to improve their performance before I listen to them talk.

Input Modes v. Output Modes: An interesting Observation

During my first semester using TPRS, I made an interesting observation.  Because it exposes students to more "natural" language and grammatical forms (whether or not they know it), I decided to go ahead and tell my stories in past tense.  However, I didn't feel like I was working enough present tense situations into my input for students to acquire that part of the language.  So, at some point during the semester, I decided to have students read in present tense to get a nice balance.  This produced an interesting result when it came to their output....

The students spoke in past tense.  However, they wrote in present tense.

Hindsight is 20/20 and this only seems logical now.  Still, I'm only just beginning to understand what the implications of such a phenomenon might be.

First, it showed me just how much output that is heard (speaking) is learned by input that is heard (listening).  Similarily, output that can be seen (writing) is learned by input that can be seen (reading).  Again, it only seems logical, but it's easy to forget we're fluent in the language - to me, it all goes together, especially since Spanish is generally written exactly how it sounds (unlike English).  Maybe I never noticed because English is my native language and doesn't seem to follow any rhyme or reason when it comes to spelling, though I never experienced this when I was learning Spanish (probably because I was more focused on the grammar-based curriculum that was used to teach me).

Second, I realized that something is just not clicking when it comes to the way words sound and the letters used to spell them.  They must be just writing what looks familiar without thinking about the way they sound - we touch on this idea when we refer to speakers speaking based on what feels and sounds right- from this experience, I have to assume that students also write what looks right.  Again, it only seems logical!  I have to assume that students are "saying" the words in their head as well, but there was still a disconnect between the spelling and the way it sounds, so looking right must be more important at this stage whether or not they realize it.  I'm not sure that this is really a problem at the moment because students will learn with time how the sounds match the spellings, but it does have one more critical implication for when we do read: students need to hear what they are seeing, and they need to hear it correctly.  It's tempting to allow students to read silently and independently, especially if they're understanding what they're reading, but this prevents them from connecting the correct sounds to the letters.  Think about how often we were read out loud to as children by parents, teachers, librarians - I'm sure the list goes on.  Then, as we advanced, we were asked to read out loud as well.  Whether or not this actually fostered comprehension is a different argument that I won't get into here, but it did give educators the opportunity to double check that what we hear is truly connected to what we read.

In the true spirit of TPRS, it only seems logical at this point to be sure we're following a pattern of "natural" acquisition through read-alouds (first by me to model correct pronunciation, then by students ready and comfortable enough to read to their peers) and ensuring that students are continually exposed to all forms of the language in through both listening and reading.  I'm sure most of my students had no idea what they were doing, but the insights it gave me were priceless.