The more I do C.I., the more I am convinced that the basics– use as little vocabulary as possible, and recycle the crap out of it– are the most important. Here are some suggestions about doing more with less. Remember what Blaine Ray says: you will get back out what you put in. I do all the following.
I’m adding a disclaimer: not all of these recommendations are 100% organic free-range communicative. Rather, they are designed to optimise input for students. When I ask “did you do your homework?” and a kid answers with “yeah,” this is an authentic and 100% appropriate communicative event…for the kid and I. For the rest of the class, not so much. It would be better if the kids heard “I did my homework” or “No, I partied with my boyfriend” instead. More language, and more whole language. So…
1. All output should be in complete sentences. Yes, from Day 1.
If we are story-asking, we can
1. write the response on the board
2. use an actor who can answer
3. model the response. This we do with teacher as parallel character.
If we are doing PQA, Movietalk, Picturetalk etc, we ask either/or questions and we model both possible answers, and ideally we ask kids who can answer in complete sentences. For example, I’m showing a film where a cat hunts a mouse.
Clase, el gato caza el ratón. What does that mean?
— The cat hunts the mouse.
Correcto, clase: the cat hunts the mouse. Johnny, el gato caza. ¿Caza el ratón, o caza al Sr Stolz?
–Caza el ratón.
This takes a bit of practice, but it is effective: the class hears complete output, and the student has to process two whole sentences in order to answer. The trick here is to keep a really tight lid on the vocab (yes, you must target).
2. Have students– ideally, your fastest processors–“describe the situation.”
This is where a kid describes what is happening so far in the story. They can describe either what is happening to the main character, or if they are a character, what is happening to themselves. This is a good way for another rep, and lets the egg-heads shine.
I pick my fast processors to do this. It seems like the kids listen more to an actor/class member doing a retell than they do to me 😂😂
This is a Blaine Ray idea and I love it.
3. For non-personal questions, model both possible answers in complete sentences in the question. Eg:
Ayer, ¿llovió mucho, o hizo sol? (yesterday, did it rain, or was it sunny?)
— Ayer, hizo sol. (It was sunny)
This provides good input for everyone, and when the kid answers, we get quality output again which again is good input for others.
4. For personal questions, ask the question, and model an answer using yourself first. Example:
¿Dónde comiste ayer, John? (Where did you eat yesterday, John?) This sets us up. Then we say
Yo comí en DcMonalds. ¿Comiste en DcMonalds? (I ate in DcMonalds. Did you eat in DcMonalds?) Here, John has an answer. He can say Sí comí en DcMonalds, or No, no comí en DcMonalds.
5. Ask me! This is another Blaine Ray idea. When doing PQA or talking to a character in a story, ask the actor/any student a question. Have them answer….then have them ask you back, then you answer. “Teacher-as-parallel-character” (another Blaine Ray idea) demands this. We do much as in #4, above, but the actor has to ask us also, thus:
Ayer, ¿tenías una cita con Miley Cyrus o con Selena Gómez?
— Tenía una cita con Selena. ¿Y tú?
Tenía una cita con Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
6. Teacher as parallel character. If you are using a TPRS-style story, you are in the story too. If you are doing something more free-range (eg Draw and Discuss), whatever happens to the main character also happens to you. For example, here is a DrAnDi from yesterday:
For this, the basic story is “___ did not have any ____. He went to the Extremities Store and bought arms, legs, a face and a name. Now his name is Pasta Doodles.”
When I am discussing this, I put myself in the story too (I could just draw a stick figure): class, yesterday I lost my nose. So I went to the extremities store…
7. Puppets. I took an old sock, glued some googly eyes on, and presto! I have another character who is in every story and who speaks in a weird voice. Yet another set of reps. Sock can do silly stuff with really small props eg a toy car. Easy, and you can practice your ventriloquism. Hint: a puppet’s mouth must open and close for each syllable it says.
UPDATE May 6, 2022. Here is an update from Blaine Ray, whose “describe the situation” (see above) is very helpful.
Blaine: I’ve been working with describe the situation [DTS]. I think there are five keys.
A) Manageable chunk. Some teachers make the chunk too big. It has to be limited. We want our students to be able to DTS easily.
B) Perspective. Students need to DTS from perspective. Usually they speak from the perspective of the main character. Have several students be the main character. The best students speak first. They are always talking in their own words. We encourage them to give their opinions when they talk. Hearing this over and over is like magic for students learning a language.
C) Compare. Add a short parallel story about you. Colton had a horse that falls a lot. He bought him at a horse convention. The horse falls too much. I bought a cat. He falls a little bit. I bought the cat at Petsmart. ” Now the DTS is having the student be the character (Colton). You say, “You are Colton. Compare your situation with my situation.”
D) Have several students DTS each time. If you want, you can verify the DTS. You say, “yes, you are Colton. You bought a horse at a horse convention. It wasn’t a good horse. He falls a lot. He falls too much. I bought a cat. My cat isn’t a good cat because he falls too much.” This lets the students compare the teacher’s language to the students’ language.
This process is amazingly powerful. It also has the added benefit of requiring almost no teacher preparation. The class is spent having the students talk. It is wonderful.
These are very simple, but hugely boost the quality of language in the classroom or on your Zoom meeting :-).
t.p.r.s. q&a 