textbook vocabulary

I'm wondering exactly who it was that decided what was "essential" vocabulary for a Spanish I student to be exposed to. Amazingly, this list is almost identical from book to book and publisher to publisher.

I created a spreadsheet with the top 100 words in Spanish, a list of good TPR words, and the vocabulary from various textbooks I have used. Now I am adding the words from my new textbook, and there are very few words that I have to add to the list, mostly I am just noting where in this book they are found.

And who figured out it is vital to teach the word autito chocador???? (bumper car)

order of acquisition

More thoughts on Susan Gross' article "Order of Acquisition"

First to give credit where it is due, "order of acquisition" is one of Krashen's hypotheses. The article is explaining the hypothesis and talking about its practical implications.

Grammatical features of a language are acquired in a predictable pattern, although there is no way to list all the grammatical features of any language - there are too many!

In English, the order of acquisition for verb morphemes is -ing, regular past tense, irregular past tense, 3rd person present tense -s.

In Spanish, some uses of the subjunctive are acquired before some uses of gender.

The problem with this, as I see it, is that traditional classes don't allow for this natural acquisition process. We teach specific grammatical features each year, and expect students to learn and internalize these structures, even when they aren't in the natural order! For instance, we teach present tense in first year, but past tense is not until second year. Or, although we all know that young children tend to drop the verb in sentences, we fault our students heavily for doing the same thing.

The examples in the article are that first children do not use the copular verb at all. Sentences will be similar to "Tommy tall."

Second, there is a gerneralization of the verb. In English students will use the verb "is" for everything, in Spanish they use the verb "es" whether the sentence is in first, second or third person is irrelevant.

Although there is a natural order for acquisition, Susan reaffirms the fact that we should not shelter the grammar input from students. Which is, of course, what we traditionally do. We only speak or provide reading materials in the present tense for the entire first year. Only when students have mastered this concept do we begin to think about other tenses, and even then we stay in the shadow of the land of present tense, using complex verbs for future tense and recent past.

She points out the fallacy of waiting to provide input until a child is ready for the next stage. Young children would never acquire their first language - or at least not as quickly - if parents waited to provide input until their children were ready to progress.

In TPRS, we are urged to shelter vocabulary, not grammar. Although even that isn't as sheltered as in a traditional class. Or, rather, it's sheltered in a different way. In a TPRS classroom, students are not expected to memorize long lists of vocabulary words, but vocabulary is presented in the class through comprehensible stories. For the most part, we focus on the high frequency words of the language (duh!) but we also allow for student interest (like erizo - hedgehog, I never would have learned that one if a student had not wanted to talk about his pet in class.) Students are also exposed to many vocabulary words through their reading. I think the sheltering of vocabulary is more in what we repeat, and what we expect students to be able to learn.

final exams

I have now finished grading the essay portion of the exam for all of my 8th graders, and I see even more anecdotal evidence for the strengths of the reading program, and perhaps the dictations and free writes.

1. The essays were longer than in previous years. Even students who struggle with Spanish were easily writing more than 80 words. The minimum is 70 although I tell the students 80 so that in case they balk they have hopefully still met the minimum. I have not run across a single essay that didn't meet the 80 word limit, and most have surpassed 100. Yay!

2. Students are using complex grammatical structures and verb tenses. One student wrote "Yo nací en ______" Other students have used the hace verb structure. I am finding far fewer errors with gustar and the future tense than in previous years. The use of transitions has also improved, and the essays are flowing more smoothly.

3. Students are using impressive vocabulary words, but I can tell that the words they are using are words of high-interest to each individual student. They aren't necessarily words I have taught or used in class, but words students have latched on to through their readings. Students are writing about the patas on their pets! (That means paw, but it's a word it took me years to master, if I have yet. I just ran across a new use of the word in one of our class readings last week.)

4. The variety of the essays is impressive. They each had the same topic, but the writing is far less formulaic than I am accustomed to. Students have branched out from the typical first year essay and are including areas I had not thought would juxtapose with the topic. (I'm not allowed to talk about the topic, in case the exam is compromised, so you just have to take my word for it.)

Even the students who are struggling have been able to put twists on their essays, and to write beyond what I thought their capabilities - especially in a timed exam - were.

what's the point?

In analyzing my student survey last week, I realized that I never explained to the kids why we were doing all these new activities in the beginning of class. I had set up a routine. On Monday and Friday we have Free reading, on Tuesday we have Free writing, and on Thursday we have Dictation. (We don't have normal classes on Wednesdays.) The students were doing the activities, and they had learned our new routines, but because they didn't understand the purpose behind them they were not getting the full benefit of the activities.

So, here's what I boiled down for them:

Free reading: We do this to improve our vocabulary in the language. We learn most of our vocabulary in our native tongue through reading. We also learn words much quicker through reading than through hearing them used. Another reason to read in the target language is because students begin to absorb the correct syntax and grammar as they see it in use. By reading for a set time without stopping to look words up or write anything down, we allow the brain to start absorbing the new language, without relying on the first language as that permanent crutch.

Free writing: Mostly, my purpose behind the free writes is to reduce anxiety and to get students in the habit of writing. There are several graded essays I have to give throughout the year. These are graded on length, grammar & conventions, verb conjugations, vocabulary usage, Organization (including using introducitons, transitions, conclusions and proper paragraphing), and content. If students are already used to writing in Spanish for a specific length of time, that is one less hurdle to jump when it comes time for these essays. Now they can focus specifically on the task at hand. Another minor point is that Free writes also give students something concrete to look at and measure their own growth. A student who began the year writing barely 13 words can look back at his or her portfolio and see that now he/she is writing 50 words in the same time frame.

Dictation: This is mostly to practice spelling, grammar and punctuation. The affective filter is low because students are not graded on what they do not know - they are graded on being able to correctly copy from the board. But because they have to first listen and write what they hear, it focuses their attention on the specifics of what they do know and what they need to learn in a very non-threatening way. I find that it is working much better than me trying to lecture students, or constantly correcting their spelling in an essay. Some of my lower students are now spelling words like "hay" correctly, even though a few months/weeks ago they may have spelled it "I."

I am taking away two points for me to learn from this activity: first I am reminded to explain my logic to the students - they need to know why we are doing something in order to fully buy into it and get the most benefit from it. Second I was forced to really look at my logic and why I was doing these activities. Yes, I had read about them on the TPRS listserv, or heard about them from colleagues, but that isn't why I was incorporating them into my class.

Circling

Circling is a technique where the teacher asks a series of questions about the same structure. For instance if the sentence we are looking at is Sally danced in the park, circling questions could be focusing on danced. I could ask, Who danced? Where did Sally dance? What did Sally do? Did Sally or Martha dance? etc. It's great. It gets lots of comprehensible input in, but it is really boring. My students, abhor anything that resembles boring, so although I keep trying to circle, and I think I understand the concept, it flops each and every time.

learn something new...

Here I am "grading" students' reading logs from last week. The logs are just to show me that students were engaged for that time, and attempting to read in Spanish. At the end of each log I ask for students to write down words they learned today while reading. They can be words they learned through context, words they had "learned" once before but never stuck, or words they got stuck on and had to look up after the reading time was over. And more than anything? I'm learning new words, just from reading their logs.

Setting our kids up for failure

It surprises me what students are expected to have *MASTERED* in the course of a year!

No wonder student retention in language programs is such a problem. They are set up to fail from the very beginning.

In my district, by the end of the first year, a student is expected to be able to write an unplanned essay within one hour. The essay must be one page long on a specific topic. There can be no pattern of verb conjugation errors. The same goes for grammar and spelling - there can be no pattern of errors. Furthermore, they are expected to correctly and accurately use transitions, proper paragraphing, introductions and conclusions. And that's just the writing portion of the test!

There are four exams to be given and each exam allows for little to no mistakes.

The really depressing part of that is that the first year exam is easy compared to the second year exam.