Elephants, donkeys and moose

My students are very aware of the political process, and I have several students who wear shirts DAILY supporting their favorite presidential candidate. Without going into politics I wanted to honor these kids. I also wanted to get some more reps in with se llamaba (was named), fue (went) and había (there was)

I wrote a story about a student who wanted cats (blue walruses in one class). The student went to Washington DC to the white house. A man named George opened the door. The student asked George for cats. George said to him, " I don't have cats. I have elephants. I have lots of elephants." There were no cats in the white house. There were only elephants. There were no cats in Washington.

The student went to Illinois and talked to a man. The man was named Barack. The student asked Barack for cats. Barack said, " I don't have cats. I have donkeys. I have a lot of donkeys." There were no cats in Illinois. There were lots of donkeys in Illinois. Poor student. The student wanted to cry.

The student went to Alaska. The student talked to a woman. The woman's name was Sarah. The student asked Sarah for cats. Sarah said, "I don't have cats. I have moose. I have lots of moose." Poor student. There were lots of moose in Alaska, but there were no cats.

The student went to our school. There were cats on the roof of our school. The student was happy.

My kids loved it. They all wanted to be actors, and they laughed at the elephant and donkey joke.

student responsibility for missing work

This year I told the students that if they are absent they will need to write an essay in Spanish for each day's work they missed. Their essays will need to incorporate the vocabulary they missed why they were out. Because of that I have given them extra days over the stated policy (1 day + number of days absent = due date) in order to learn the new words.

Well, I received an email arguing that I am punishing a student because this student has an illness which requires day-time doctor's appointments and involves time spent out of school. The parents are asking if I am perhaps breaking the student's 504 by requiring "extra work" for absences.

The school nurse defended my position and told the parents that I am in compliance with the 504. I also responded to the parents by explaining that the essay is really the same as doing the problems she misses in math class or the work for lit, etc. Writing an essay is the closest that I can approximate making up all the work we do in class. For the most part we are talking for an hour, which perhaps does not seem as intensive as other classes, but it's also much more difficult to make up. The students cannot possibly recreate the environment of hearing and speaking Spanish for an hour.

Really, I am just flabbergasted by the whole thing. I cannot fathom that asking a student to make up work from an absence can be conceived of as punishing the student for being sick. Is there any such thing as personal accountability anymore?

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.

Free writing

I taught most of this year using TPR only in my class. Since early spring I have been trying to add elements of storytelling and other strategies I have picked up from some TPRS teachers. One of the strategies I have added is two days of free reading. I have built up my classroom library with some left over classroom budget and from my own pocket. (Gotta love ebay!)

The students select any book they wish to read from the library, and they read for 7 minutes. We started at 5 and are working our way up. After they finish reading, I ask them to fill out a brief reading log, mostly so that I can have some documentation that this thing actually works.


Another strategy I have just started adding is a free write. Students have 10 minutes to write as much as they can in the target language on a topic of their choosing. I was just sitting here reading some of their papers, and I noticed that some of the students were using the preterit! (And they were using it correctly!)


I am assuming that this is coming from the free reading they do twice a week because I have not taught the past tense at all this year, and it has not spontaneously shown up in any student work (aside from my two native speakers) until now.


I am impressed.