No prep? No prob! 😄😄

There are teachers who carefully plan every detail of a lesson, from circling questions to the story plot. Some people even write Movietalk scripts!

I’m more like this:

Since beer, climbing, reading, my other classes (Social Justice and English), friends, ladies, bicycles, Go, writing, family and other fun things take up so much time (and I’m lazy and disorganised), I generally don’t plan much in Spanish beyond thinking uhh we should probably work on quiere impresionar and is there a Youtube video where a dog goes shopping? (yes there is).

Luckily for people like me we have things like Slavic and Hargaden’s OWIs, untargeted stories etc. And thanks to a combination of my laziness and the epic powers of caffeine, we have some zero prep activities. These are easy on the teacher, they let us deliver loads of comprehensible input, and they personalise the class: we link kids to vocab.

Most importantly, these activities build community through tasks. Community– sharing a purpose, and feeling good about oneself and others in the group– is crucial for everyone. Language-class tasks, as Bill VanPatten notes, have two properties:

1. They use but do not focus on the language.

2. They have a meaningful, non-linguistic and communicative purpose (to entertain, to sort, to rank, to persuade, etc).

For Class Team, Funky Venn, Comic Panel and Partner Diagram, we do the following:

1. We solicit details from students.
2. We draw– quickly— on the board, overhead or doc camera.
3. We write key vocab.
4.  We ask and answer questions, circling style, but don’t beat things to death.
5. We don’t introduce too much new vocab. 5-10 items for a 30-min session is lots.

The Class Team (or whatever)

For this, all we do is make some ridiculous drawings of various kids and group them into a team. Here, we made two soccer teams: No Lo Sé and La Mezcla. The players had superpowers. Saveena’s was that she could text at the same time as she played. El Chongo has only one leg but luckily has wings.

Q&A here would be things like who has five legs? That’s right, Jasraj has five legs. Whose superpower is being invisible?  No, not Chongo: Hamza Dos is invisible! We would also personalise this by asking students these questions: Ravneet, do you have five legs, or three, or two? Sukhman, are you invisible? etc.

The Funky Venn

One day we were talking about dogs (I talk about dogs constantly), and I asked the class what do dogs like to do? and they said dogs eat, sleep and play, and then El Chongo said sounds like me! 😜

So I made a Venn diagram comparing El Chongo with dogs. Here it is:

Both sleep, run, play and eat.  But El Chongo uses the bathroom while dogs use the ground, and dogs don’t comb their hair, while El Chongo (Mexican Spanish for “man bun”) does, etc.

My student Manjot (who goes by Muffin Princess in Spanish class) said I’m like cats, so we drew a Venn for her.

The Partner Diagram

My beginner student Khushi, taking a cue from her Spanish teacher, said yo tengo seis novios (“I have six boyfriends”). So of course we had to draw and discuss them.  For this, we first drew Khushi, taking some liberties (she is hideous, has three eyes, and two noses). Then we added five boyfriends and one girlfriend. Then we invented weird characteristics for each (Hairie has no mouth; Alberto has short legs, etc).

The Q&A here involves tiene, body parts, and the relationships between them.  So Adam is scared of Khushi (even though they are dating) and Atam is scared of Alberto.

The Personal Story (with picture)

This was inspired by Beniko Mason’s Story Listening method, which is “pure C.I.”– no “activities” after input. Basically, you tell a short story about yourself (or somebody famous), and you use 1-3 drawings to illustrate

Here, we have vocab on the left and my Grade 8 math teacher, Mr McKay, on the left.  I started by describing 13 year-old me, and school, and math class.  Then I drew Mr McKay. Then I told how he both looooooved coffee and cigars and was blissfully unaware of the existence of dental hygiene.  As a result, we didn’t ask him questions– he could kill bacteria from ten feet away with that dragon’s breath– so as a result I got a C minus.

Here, we just tell a one-scene story and we do Q&A about both the story and the pictures.

(By the way the art was inspired by Stephen Krashen’s famous C.I. demo.)

Comic Panel

Here, we draw a one-panel comic and include basic dialogue. Khushi said I’m getting 90% or more in Spanish and we argued a bit and I drew this. Note that my art is so staggeringly bad that I had to label Khushi and me.

Again we will do Q&A here.  We can also recycle by erasing dialogue and adding other words.

When I finished with these, I took these photos.  They will be added to the class soap opera (pasted into an MS-Word document) and printed.

Una Encuesta (a survey)

This is an old idea from textbooks. We take any subject– here, how kids feel about classes– and survey them. So I said raise your hand if you find Spanish interesting and then raise your hand if you find Spanish boring 😜.

I then talked about what were overall favorite/least favorite subjects etc. I was also able to ask a lot of comparison questions such as which class is more boring, Math or Spanish? and what is the most/least boring/interesting class?

This emerged organically out of me asking Justin ¿cómo son las matemáticas: interesantes o aburridas? during opening routine. You could make this waaaaay more interesting: who’s the most/least _____ celebrity? You could survey class members and (treading with emotional care), find out what 4-6 kids like, whether they like ____ etc.

The basic system is, value judgements go across the top (eg good idea or bad idea, fun or boring, useful or pointless). Things being evaluated go down the side (eg swimming with shoes on, doing hwk in the bathtub, etc).

Picturetalk Plus Survey is another fun thing. Today Abdullah drew this:

So we Picturetalked talked this dragon. Then, we did a survey: if you had your own dragon, what would you do with it? Here is what the 1s came up with.

ANYWAY…I hope you can use and enjoy these zero-prep activities.  Got any more ideas? Email me or leave a comment.

How Do I Teach Family Vocabulary?

A nice normal family ❤️❤️

One of the first questions I was asked in any conversation in India was kya aapake bache hain? (“do you have children?”) and, pre-stepfatherhood, I quickly learned to say mujhe koee bache nahin hai. This happens anywhere.

Now, although family vocabulary is relatively low-frequency, it is still a reauired part of most curricula, and it’s useful for travelers. So, today’s question: how do I teach family vocabulary?

As with any vocabulary “topic,” family words are best taught contextually— in stories— a word at a time. In C.I., we will simply give each character a relative, and then ask them questions about that relative (and add a different relative per story). However, if you must teach this vocabulary in a “unit” by Nov 27th because your Headz and Adminz think Languagez can be learned on strict Timelinez, this is how you do it.

What we’re going to do is build a famly tree on the board/OH/document camera. We will include some kids from class, plus the famous people they choose, and we are going to make it as wacky as possible.

So we ask for a volunteer— say, Jameel— and we ask him who’s your brother? Jameel can use his actual brother, or another kid in class, or someone famous, eg Kobe Bryant. Then, we ask about, say his Dad. Jameel or another student can answer the question who is Jameel’s father?

We will keep going, and then we might get this:

Now, note the labeling. The arrows’ directionality indicates the relationship. In Spanish, we can’t say “Jameel’s brother.” We have to say “the brother of Jameel,” so the arrow points and is labeled the way it is.

Once we have eight or ten people in our family tree, we are going to Q&A the crap out of it. For beginners, the questions will be things like

• who is _______’s sister?

• how old is _____’s aunt?

• is ____ Jameel’s brother or boyfriend?

• how many wives does Señor Stolz have?

For more advanced students (those acquiring lower-frequency grammar), questions (thanks Carol Gaab) will include things like

• who would you like your brother to be?

• if Barack had another kid, how many aunts would Michelle have?

The idea is to generate something student focused, and to provide input (via questions) about people’s relationships, ages, pets, possessions and really anything else you can fit into your picture.

If we want to talk about age, we will have something like this:

This is also a great bail-out activity for dead stories or a time-filler. Kids always remember these: “Sr Stolz, Manmeet was Trey Songz’s girlfriend not his sister!” etc.

Basically, we are inventing and and then Picturetalking a family tree. REMEMBER THIS ABOVE ALL ELSE: this is not an “output activity.” Kids supply details, but 95% of talk is the teacher asking y/n or e/o questions and making statements. We do this to deliver comprehensible input.

VARIATIONS

1. If we/class don’t like wacky, we can do this á la Bryce Hedstrom’s persona especial and just ask a kid straight-up factual questions about their family. This often works because there’s always someone interesting in any family, and because, well, we are always curious about others. Doing this– if your kids are cool with it, and nice about it– will also build classroom community.

2. The “famous family” is a great hook. For this, we just draw a family tree of the Simpsons, Griffins, Star Wars characters etc. Kids will find this quite compelling and will argue details.

3. If we are doing a novel– especially a simple one like my own Berto y sus Buenos Amigos or the more advanced El Nuevo Houdini— we just make a family tree based on the novel.

Anyway. Easy and fun– enjoy!

Clarifications: A.I.M.’s claims about T.P.R.S. and reality.

The Accelerated Integrative Method— AIM– is a comprehensible-input second-languages method which was developed by Wendy Maxwell in Canada.  I havn’t used AIM (but have posted some comments about it from practitioners here).  AIM is better than any standard text:  they use stories, lots of repeated (and sheltered) vocab, etc, which are practices in line with what we know about what the brain needs to acquire languages.

AIM makes some claims about TPRS here, claims which I don’t think are always accurate.  Mainly I want to clarify TPRS (as I understand it).  I’ll quote AIM’s claims about TPRS and then clarify each in turn.  What is in the text boxes is all AIM’s words.

 

Claim: 

AIM	TPRS
Students speak primarily in sentences.	Students respond primarily with one-word responses.

Reality: in TPRS, students say whatever they are developmentally ready to say.  In a beginner class, students’ initial output will be one-word and yes/no responses to questions.  As input builds mental representation of language, their output grows longer and more complex.  TPRS is built on research, which shows that forcing output beyond what students are developmentally ready for does nothing for acquisition and makes many students uncomfortable.

 

Claim:

AIM The teacher uses a variety of strategies when students don’t understand.

TPRS Translation is the primary method used when students don’t understand.

Reality: a TPRS practitioner will establish meaning using direct translation, and use translation to clarify, but will also use gestures, props, actors etc to clarify what is happening.  What TPRS does not do: make students guess (or, in edubabble,  “use metacognitive strategies to decode meaning”).  Why?  Because there is no substantiation in research that language acquisition gets easier and/or speeds up when people have to guess at meaning, and because how effective decoding strategies are depends on how much the learner already knows (and on the language being taught– good luck using cognates and “sounding out” when acquiring Mandarin).  While babies and first language learners must guess, they have unlimited time to do so, while a classroom teacher has about 100 hrs/year max.

Claim:

AIM Offers a full online teacher training and certification program.

TPRS Offers webinars online.

Reality: both AIM and TPRS offer live training, and both offer online training, DVDs, etc.

 

Claim:

AIM Supported by a variety of research. (See attached)

TPRS Based on research of comprehensible input (CI) by Krashen.

Reality: the research into language acquisition supporting what TPRS does has been done by Krashen, Bill VanPatten, Ashley Hastings, Wynne Wong, James Asher, Beniko Mason and many others.  See this for a summary. A.I.M. is built around most of the same ideas.

There is some good data from the Netherlands which suggests that A.I.M. works somewhat better than a traditional “skill-buuilding” approach.  However, most of what is on the research portion of their page does not qualify as good science:  small sample sizes, lack of control groups, etc, mean that AIM claims must be taken with a grain of salt.

 

Claim:

AIM Yes/no questions are rarely used. The teacher focuses on total and partial questions with complete sentence answers.

TPRS Questioning is done by circling (asking the same question in many ways) that includes yes/no questions, QT and QP as well as PQA (personalized questions and answers). Answers are usually one word. PQA = teacher talk

Reality:

1.  PQA is not teacher talk.  It is teacher-initiated and teacher guided, because the teacher is the one who knows the target language.
2. Answers are whatever the student is developmentally ready for.  For beginners, this means one-word and/or y/n answers.  Later, output will become more complex and longer.  We know from research that asking people to output beyond what they can do– eg complete sentences for beginners– is not really language use; it is memorised performance.
3. Not all questioning is circling.  In reality, TPRS practitioners circle some new vocabulary, but prefer to use parallel characters (or students) for vocab repetition rather than focusing on questioning one sentence (though one-sentence focus is appropriate at times).

 

Claim:

AIM The students and teacher write very long, detailed stories together, which are generally based on the play being studied. This happens twice as a whole class activity and twice as a partner activity per 50 hours of instruction. The play, vocabulary and language manipulation activities/creative writing are systematically integrated for success, predictability

TPRS The student and teacher build a series of short stories (including 3 new words or phrases) called PMS (personalized mini-situation) by having the teacher “ask” the story. This oral activity happens frequently. Written exercises become more of a focus in the 3rd and 4th year.

Reality: TPRS includes writing right from the get-go.  However, writing (and speech) in TPRS are indicators, not causes, of acquisition.  In TPRS, students begin simple re-writes of stories after first co-creating one, and then reading various versions of it.

TPRS uses minimally-targeted (focused or chosen) vocabulary to build stories.  Aside from a few basic verbs, nouns etc, the stories go more or less in the direction that students want them to.

TPRS stories vary in length, generally getting longer as students acquire more L2.  Student written output (at the end of say Level 1) will be 600-1,000 words in one hour.

 

Claim:

AIM Believe in a balanced literacy approach.

TPRS High emphasis on the importance of reading (every second day) for language development. Students read early on. Students translate all readings out loud in a whole-class setting

Reality:

1. I have no idea what a “balanced literacy approach” is.
2. No, TPRS practitioners don’t necessarily translate all readings out loud, OR in a whole class setting.  Sometimes…but we do partner translation, story illustration (comics), free voluntary reading, etc as well.

 

Claim:

AIM The number of structures per lesson varies significantly.

TPRS In a typical lesson, the teacher introduces and focuses on three target language structures.

Reality:

There is no pre-set number of structures in TPRS.  An initial story will use a lot (because you need the “super 7” verbs to start storyasking with beginners).  Later ones will use more, or fewer.

 

Claim:

AIM All words and grammatical structures are associated with a gesture. The gestures are standardized. Gestures accelerate comprehension – no need to translate – the gestures allow the teacher to teach words as each represents clearly [sic] the meaning

TPRS Gestures are sometimes used in conjunction with new vocabulary, however teacher and/or students can create his/her own gestures. Gestures or a physical response (TPR) from the body (limits to imperative form) and are used mostly with younger students (under Gr. 5) when needed only.

Reality: 

1. In TPRS, TPR is not limited to third-person imperative.  As a matter of fact, Ray and Seely (2015) advocate using third-person singular (and other) forms when doing TPR.
2. TPR is suggested for younger learners, but also works well (albeit with limited effectiveness) for older learners.

 

Claim: 

TPRS has a “Five-day lesson plan which includes only three activities: PMS or mini-story, reading the extension, timed free writing and reading”

Reality: umm…TPRS practitioners also do any of the following activities:

• Movietalk
• novel reading
• translation (in various formats)
• la persona especial
• Picturetalk
• reading/listening to developmentally appropriate cultural texts and/or songs
• other games, such as Mafia, paper airplane translation, running dictation, etc.

 

Claim: 

AIM Teachers are encouraged to “flood” the student with vocabulary in the target language.

TPRS Teachers are encouraged to limit the amount of vocabulary introduced at one time.

Reality:  This is true.  Why do TPRS practitioners carefully restrict vocabulary?  Because of the “bandwidth” issue, or what Bill VanPatten calls “working memory constraints.”  Basically, the less variety of info the brain has to process, the more in-depth the processing of each item (and the sounds, grammar “rules,” etc with which it is implicitly associated) can be.  If we can recycle a limited vocab set over and over, the vocab will be easy to pick up.  In addition, when we have limited vocab– and so are not constantly guessing at/trying to recall meaning, because the working mind can have about 7 items in its awareness at a time– our brain can devote mental energy to soaking up grammar, pronunciation and other properties.

In TPRS, we “practice” language– by processing input– much like musicians practice pieces they are learning: we go over limited parts of tunes/songs to really nail them, rather than trying to soak up an entire piece in one go.

 

Claim:

AIM Provides everything for the teacher in terms of outlining in detail and with scripted teacher talk for teachers to model what they might say during whole-class activities.

TPRS The teacher asks many questions using the new vocabulary (5-6 questions) being taught. These questions are created ‘on the spot’. No teacher’s guide is provided since questions depend on student answers and reactions. A PMS (personalized mini-situation) is created by the teacher with the help of students, but all of this depends highly on teacher’s knowledge of the L2.

Reality: this is one of the alleged strengths (and to my mind) weaknesses of AIM.  The AIM curriculum is massively structured, which means that– provided they know the routines– any teacher can, in theory, start AIM with very little planning.  However, the rigid structure– this is what your play will be, these are your questions and answers– will inhibit personalisation possibilities, and also raises the question,  what if the students do not find the story interesting?

 

Claim:

AIM All students participate by speaking chorally, gesturing or reading the gestures. There is never silence in an AIM classroom – all students speak 30 minutes of a 30 minute class

TPRS One or a few students are responding to commands at once. The teacher does most of the speaking. Students only start producing the L2 when enough comprehensible input has been provided (called the silent period – several hours to several weeks)

Reality:

1. Nobody at AIM has ever explained why it is necessary for students to speak.  We know from research that input, not output, drives acquisition, and that forced output is not language, but what VanPatten calls “language-like behavior” which does not develop acquisition.
2. TPRS– outside of during bursts of TPR– does not use “commands.”
3. Students produce developmentally-appropriate L2 from Day 1.  Initially, this will be y/n and then then one-word answers, and later sentences.

 

Claim:

AIM Syntax and grammar are visualized, produced and embedded kinesthetically in this multi-modal approach AIM’s three-stage inductive grammar approach ensures a Natural Approach (Krashen) to the understanding of grammar

TPRS Teacher uses translation to clarify grammar and structures. They use pop-up grammar and one-second grammar explanations. For example, during the translation of a reading it is used every 20 second or so and always in the L1.

Reality: there is no need to “visualize” syntax or grammar.  Since acquisition of L1 (and L2, L3 etc) follow the same processes, and since nobody “teaches” their own kids grammar, vocab etc, it is not clear why one must “visualize” syntax.  If one understands the input, the brain will build mental representation of grammar.  This is not a problem in AIM, however– there is nothing wrong with grammar visuals– but they are unnecessary.

TPRS uses direct translation in order to waste as little time as possible and to stay in L2 as much as possible.

 

Claim:

AIM Specific language manipulation activities to scaffold the ability for language use

TPRS Does not contain specific language manipulation activities to scaffold the ability for language use

Reality:

1. “Manipulation” of language is not necessary to acquire it.  As Bill VanPatten notes, processing of comprehensible input alone “appears to be sufficient” to develop mental representation of L2.  In other words, reading and listening to what students understand is all they need to acquire the language.
2. TPRS does scaffold.  This fancy word means “make things progressively  more complex while keeping them comprehensible.”  TPRS practitioners go sentence-at-a-time with narration, use embedded readings, recycle previous vocab, do comprehension checks, etc.

 

Reality:

AIM Cooperative learning is emphasized – all written language skills are developed orally in conjunction/discussion/interaction with a partner

TPRS Students mostly work individually when it comes to written activities and frequently assigned as homework. Oral work is mostly presented as a whole-class activity

Reality: true.  Why does TPRS avoid “partner” or “communicative pair” activities?

1. Learners inevitably produce junky output, which becomes junky input for other learners.  If we accquire language through input, the purpose of generating bad output and having that bad output become bad input is, well, something I have not heard explained by AIM.
2. Learners need only comprehensible input to acquire a language.  If they want to talk, great…but they don’t have to talk, and the lack of forced output means many kids are more comfortable in class.

 

Claim:

AIM Carefully sequenced partner/group activities

TPRS Various random activities for ‘partner vocabulary practice’

Reality:

TPRS does not require or suggest that teachers to do “partner vocabulary practice.”  What “vocabulary practice” would be is not mentioned.  I am not sure where AIM got this idea.

 

Claim:

AIM Each activity of one type lasts a maximum of ten minutes to ensure the highest level of focus and learning potential

TPRS One mini-story/PMS is taught per 50-minute daily class

Reality:

1. There is no defined max/min length for any TPRS story.  Blaine Ray has famously told of spending four months on one story.  Sometimes a story doesn’t work, so a TPRS practitioner ends it quickly and moves on to other activities.  Some TPRS practitioners advocate what Mike Peto and Ben Slavic have called “quick takeoffs and landings,” i.e. stories that last 25-40 min.
2. How long an activity in a TPRS class lasts depends on how interesting the students find it. 
3. A TPRS class is not just story-asking.  TPRS practitioners also do Movietalk, Picturetalk, reading, persona especial, C.I. games, translation, skits, etc.

 

Claim:

AIM Students visualize every single word as the teacher gestures delaying showing the written word.

TPRS Students visualize the written word/translated written word very early on…

Reality: there is no requirement/suggestion that students in a TPRS class “visualize” the written word.  A TPRS practitioner will write whatever words are used (with translation) on board.  This is to help “anchor” and clarify the meaning of words, as we know that comprehensible– and not ambiguous– input is what leads to acquisition.

 

Anyway, that’s what AIM claims and what (my understanding of) TPRS actually is.  Be good to hear from AIM what they think, or if they can clarify.  Also be nice to hear from TPRS practitioners re: what they think.

 

 

Selfietalk!

The selfie is everywhere.  Even I have taken a few and I am the ugliest guy in the world and don’t much like looking at myself.

BUT selfies are loads of fun especially when the kids come up with them.  So how do we do selfietalk?

a. Get the kids to take a selfie.  Ideally, this will be taken somewhere there’s background that’s identifiable, and also ideally there will be two students from class in it.  Oh and it’s gotta be appropriate.

b. They email you the selfie.

c. Project it, and then Picturetalk it.  You make statements, and ask questions about it, and here, you ask the person(s) in the selfie to talk (in first person) about what was happening.

So the other day the foods teacher was teaching pancake-making to her grade 8s and brought me a plate of pancakes.  I couldn’t eat ’em but Neha– who had rolled out of bed late and had forgotten to eat breakfast WAS ALL OVER THESE and her pal took a photo which got sent to me.

So here’s some sample Q&A about the photo that I did:

Who’s eating? –Neha is eating.

What is Neha eating? –She is eating pancakes.

What is Neha wearing? –She is wearing a bunny hug.

Is her bunny hug blue or black? –Her bunny hug is blue

Is Drake or Neha eating pancakes? — Neha is eating pancakes.  Drake is not eating pancakes.

 

Then, I asked Neha some questions:

Did you like the pancakes?  — Yes I liked the pancakes

Why did you like the pancakes? — I liked the panckaes bc they were delicious.

What were you eating? –I was eating pancakes.

Was SpongeBob eating pancakes? — No, *I* was eating pancakes.

That evening I made a crude meme out of this with a simple  sentence (“I like pancakes a lot”)

The next day, we spent a few minutes talking about the photo.  The cool thing here: the photo and Spanish were 100% comprehensible, and the writing 100% supported the picture.  I was able to ask the kids questions like ¿te gustan los pancqueques? and ¿te gustan los panqueques un poquito, o te gustan mucho? (do you like pancakes, and do you like panckaes a bit or a lot?) and they could easily answer from reading.

Here’s another: Max the Samoyed and me going climbing. 

The question reads “why are they happy?” and of course this is tailor-made for Sr Stolz to make fun of himself and the kids to go AWWWWWIEEE at Max. 

Anyway…happy selfietalk!

 

 

 

 

 

Tech Done Wrong…and Right.

“Techmology,” as Ali G. says, “is everywhere,” and we feel forced to use it.  E-learning! i-Tech! Online portfoli-oli-olios! Quizkamodo!  Boogle!  Anyway, the litmus test for tech in the language classroom is the same as it is for anything else:  does it deliver compelling, vocab-restricted comprehensible input?

Today, a look at two ways to play with tech.

Here is a recent #langchat tweet from a new-waveish language teacher:
What’s the problem here?

1.  As Alfie Kohn has noted, using rewards to encourage ____ behaviour turns teaching & learning into a payment & reward system: kids buy a pizza by doing ____.  But we really want to get kids to acquire languages because the process itself is interesting.  If we have to pizza-bribe kids, we are doing something wrong.

2.  The kids get a pizza party…during class time? Is this a good way to deliver the target language to kids? What about the kids who don’t write une carte?  Do they not get to be part of the pizza party?  Do they sit there and do worksheets or CPAs or whatever while their peers gleefully yap in English, chat and cram junk food into their mouths?  What if kids are good at French, but can’t be bothered to write “une carte”?  What if they are working, or lack digital access?

3.  Output, as the research shows, does not improve acquisition…unless it provokes a TON of target-language response which meets all the following criteria:

• it’s comprehensible
• it’s quality and not student-made (ie impoverished)
• it actually gets read/listened to

So if the teacher responds, and if the student reads/listens to the response…it might help.

4. Workload.  Kids don’t benefit from creating output.  The teacher also has to spend time wading through bad voicemails, tweets and what have you.  Do you want to spend another 30 minutes/day looking at well-intentioned– though bad– “homework” that doesn’t do much good?

5. What do kids do when they compete?  They try to win.  So the kid who really wants pizza is going to do the simplest easiest thing in French every day just so s/he can get the pizza.

 

Now, while the “tweet/talk for pizza” idea is a non-starter, there are much better uses for tech out here…here is one, from powerhouse Spanish teacher Meredith McDonald White.

The Señora uses every tech platform I’ve ever heard of, among them Snapchat (a free smartphone app).  You get it, make a user profile, and add people à la Facebook. Once people “follow” you, you can exchange images and short video with text added, and you can do hilarious things with images (eg face swap, add extra eyeballs, etc).

Her idea is simple and awesome:

1. She sends her followers (students) a sentence from a story or from PQA.
2. The kids create or find an image for which the sentence becomes a caption.
3. They send her the captioned image.
4. She uses these by projecting them and then doing Picturetalk about them.

You can also do the same thing with a meme generator program (loads free online):  write sentence on the board, kids copy, and they email you their captioned pics.

Here is a crude example:

1. Teacher sends out/writes on board a line from a story, e.g. La chica tiene un gran problema (the girl has a big problem).
2. Kids use sentence as a caption & send back to teacher, e.g.

3.  This serves for Picturetalk:  Is there a girl/boy?  Does she have a problem?  What problem?  What is her hair like?  Is she happy?  Why is she unhappy?  Where is she?  What is her name? etc…there are a hundred questions you can ask about this.

Not all the kids will chat/email back, and not all images will work, but over a few months they should all come up with some cool stuff.  You can get them illustrating stories (4-6 images) using memes…

This is excellent practice (for outside class). Why?  Because the kids are

• getting quality comprehensible input
• personalising the input without having to make or process junky language
• building a community of their own ideas/images
• generating kid-interesting stuff which becomes an in-class platform for generating more comprehensible input

And– equally as importantly– the teacher can read these things in like 3 seconds each, and they are fun to read.  #eduwin, or what?

Here’s a few examples done by Meredith and her kids.

 

Trump in the Closet

So today we started Level 2 with the usual:  weather, date, what did you do last night? etc.  During a bit of PQA I asked one kid if he had a girlfriend.  When he said no, and I asked why, his friend said “because he has lice” and they both giggled.  And…we were off and running.  What follows is a totally improvised, on the spot, story.  THIS is why I love love love T.P.R.S..  As Mike Coxon said, “when I get off-track, I get the most done.”

• piojos lice (although we could have started with any living thing)
• quería besar a wanted to kiss
• estaba solitario was lonely
• tenía tantos ____ como ___ had as many ___ as ___
• estaba tan ___ como ___ was/felt as ____ as ___

Señor Stolz and Animalak had lice.  So did Dhaniyal.  Dhaniyal’s lice were few and blue.  Animalak’s lice were red and small. Dhaniyal had as many lice as Animalak. Señor Stolz’s lice were huge and yellow.

Animalak’s lice were lonely.  They wanted to kiss someone.  There was no-one to kiss!  They were very sad.

Sr Stolz:  Louse, are you happy?

Louse: No, I am not happy.

Sr Stolz:  What do you want?

Louse:  I want to kiss a pretty girl!

Sr Stolz: Are there girls in Animalak’s hair?

Louse: No, there are no girls in Animalak’s hair.

Sr Stolz also had lice.  Sr Stolz lived in the closet with Donald Trump.  Sr Stolz did not like Donald Trump, because Donald Trump was racist and an idiot.  Donald Trump had magnificent hair.  Sr Stolz was as lonely as his lice.

Donald Trump:  I’m an idiot.  Do you want to kiss someone?

Sr Stolz:  Yes, I want to kiss Sofia Vergara.

Donald Trump (to louse): I’m an idiot.  Who do you want to kiss?

Louse: I want to kiss a pretty girl.

There were no pretty girls in Sr Stolz’s closet.  Sofia Vergara also was not in Sr Stolz’s closet.  There were only ugly zombie women in Sr Stolz’s closet.

Sr Stolz and his lice left the closet and went to North Korea.  In North Korea there were as many pretty girls as lice.  The lice were very happy.  Sofia Vergara was in North Korea also.  But she did not want to kiss Sr Stolz.  She wanted to kiss Kim Jong Un.  K.J.U. was happy but Sr Stolz was very sad.  Sr Stolz went back to his closet.  Donald Trump was happy!

 

What Is Personalisation? Two Approaches.

What is “personalisation”?  We all agree it matters.  My definition: personalisation is any connection between subject matter and individuals’ interests and characteristics.

A very talented District colleague recently did me the favour of Twarguing with me.  She posted a picture of a bicycle with some Spanish sentences explaining the value of riding a bike, thus: 

For the non-Spanish-speakers, the sentences include “puts a big smile on your face” and “reduces the risks of heart attack,” etc.  These are all about the advantages of riding a bicycle regularly.  I would never use this with kids, cos like O.M.G. it’s boring, LULZ but anyway.

When I saw this, I looked at a few words from the picture Wiktionary’s Spanish frequency lists.  Most of that picture is low-frequency vocabulary (i.e. not in the top 1500 most-used Spanish words).  So, I responded with the following question:

“How is low-frequency vocabulary “important”? If your reference is to grammar (e.g. 3rd person verbs), this better taught w/ high-frequency vocab.”

 

Shauna here is suggesting that students investigate their own interests and use language pertaining thereto.  In other areas, we have suggestions about using project based learning and genius hour in the language classroom (with excellent rebuttals (especially for genius hour proposals) from Sarah E. Cottrell).

We are here getting into a classic traditional-methods-vs-comprehensible-input teachers’ argument:  do we make language class interesting– and personalised– for students by

a) recycling high-frequency vocabulary, or

b) by allowing students to choose their own vocabulary for activities?

A general note: while we all take some interest in what others do/like etc, there are limits.  Walk into a Joshua Tree fire circle, and if you’re not a rock-climber, you’ll be baffled and bored within minutes, because “it’s slammer left-facing hands on 2s to a sidepull and then a mantle over a crappy blue Alien and a slab runout” is basically irrelevant to you.  In any social situation, there is a balancing act between interest in others’ stuff and being bored.  So it is in a classroom.

Textbook personalisation suggestions have a number of basic problems, one of which is keeping kids interested.  Why should Johnny want to listen to/read the vocab about ordering dinner, or recycling, or bargaining for fruit in a French market, over and over?  It’s not that these activities and words are boring per se, but when was the last time you spent three weeks using forty words and one grammar device to discuss the same topic? Never– because that’s boring. So the simple answer– for teachers who do not use stories– is, let the kids pick and choose their vocab.   T.P.R.S. and A.I.M. teachers, as we shall see, don’t have many challenges keeping kids interested.

But if students choose their own vocab for class activities or projects, there are five big problems.

First, there is the problem of usable frequency.  If we want to build functional fluency in any language, our first priority is make sure students acquire the most-used words before the less-used.  Obviously, there will be exceptions: “communicative” teachers typically like to make sure kids know all the words for school things such as pencil, desk etc, while we comprehensible input people like animals etc for our stories.  Now, a student may be into activities that use high-frequency words.  But much more often, the opposite is the case.

If Johnny is into, say, bicycle racing, and Sheila likes wrestling, great.  But how often is Johnny going to hear/read cycling-related– and Sheila wrestling-related– words?  The answer:  in most language communities, especially ones to which people in their first five years of language acquisition belong, not very often.  This means they are putting effort into something which has limited communicative value for them and for others in their class.

Second, we have the problem of shared interest.  As I noted above, if Baninder likes Call of Duty and Maricela likes chess, what– as relative beginners– are they going to talk about?  Maricela is probably not going to be especially interested in hearing about shooting people, team missions, ammunition etc, and Baninder is not going to want to hear about endgame strategies and Sicilian openings, etc.

In the “real” world (probably online), Baninder can find his own C.o.D. crew in French and Maricela can play chess with French speakers, but in class– where realistically 95% of language acquisition happens for our students– how are we going to get each kid– not to mention the rest of the class– to “buy into” hearing and reading others’ specialist vocab?

(As an English teacher, my first great reading realisation years ago came from my brilliant colleague Louise Hazemi, who in Surrey pioneered the use of literature circles for novel reading.  We used to have a “novel a year” system, where kids were assigned To Kill A Mockingbird in 10th grade, Lord of the Flies in 11th, etc.  The problem?  Most kids hated these books (either because they were “too hard,” or simply because they had been assigned), didn’t read them, cheated on tests and essays, etc.  So, at our school, we asked the kids what books they would like (and asked teachers) and for each grade bought 10 copies of 8 novels.  Now, the kids in each grade pick a novel to read (yes; we still offer Mockingbird and L.o.t.F.) and BOOM! all the kids read at least one novel, and all the kids report enjoying their reading (they still do essays, discussions etc about their chosen novel).

It is much the same with silent reading.  I start each English and Social Justice class with 20 minutes of silent reading.  There are three silent reading rules:

1. You must read a book (no newspapers or magazines) and not talk, listen to music, or use your phone.
2. You must not read anything from any class during silent reading.
3. Your book must not suck.  If it does, get another one.

How does it work?  Brilliantly.  While my less-literate boys grumble at the start of the year, after a week every kid reads and every kid likes reading.  Probably two-thirds of kids read young adult novels, while another third prefer things like biographies, how-to books, various factual genres, self-help, etc.  This is because they choose things that are interesting (and readable) to them and because there is no “accountability piece.”  No “book report” marks, reading logs, etc.  As long as they are reading and enjoying their reading, I am happy.

Now at this point I can see Madame Nero (and any other person who shares her view about how to personalise the language class) saying “Exactly!  Let language kids do the same thing! Let them decide!” However, the key here is that nobody is forcing the kids to learn/acquire things which they are not interested in.  Kids like free reading because it’s free:  they aren’t forced into something they don’t care about.)

Third, there is the quantity of input problem.  We know that what people acquire is a function of how much comprehensible input they get.  They need to hear the words or structures a lot to first recognise them automatically, and even more to be able to automatically say them.  So if we are going to run our class around student-identified student interests, how do we deliver 30 different sets of vocab often enough that the kids– even if they want to, which we are not guaranteed– pick them up?

Say each kid gets to decide 5 words germane to their interests which they want to have incorporated into class activities.  That’s 150 words.  That’s half of a year’s recommended vocab load right there!  As we very well know, it’s simple math:  the greater a variety of vocab we use, the less time we have on each word which means poorer acquisition of each word. As the great Terry Waltz recently noted, if you want the kids to acquire more words, teach fewer words. There is also the challenge of integrating specialist vocabulary into teacher-planned activity.

Fourth, we have the output problem.  In many traditional classes, it is assumed– wrongly– that if kids “learn” vocab (and grammar) and present it in some way, they are picking it up.  This is simply wrong, as the research shows.  And, learners by definition generate error-filled and impoverished (two-dimensional) output.  I do not see the point of making other learners listen to that.  As Terry Waltz has famously said– with Stephen Krashen agreeing– “peer to peer communication is the McDonalds of language teaching.”

This is what is supposed to happen in a “communicative classroom (here, two Vietnamese speakers are learning English):

Thanh: Where Michael today? He here?

Vien: Where is Michael today?  He is not here.

Thanh: Ahh, yes, where is Michael today?  He is not here.

Here, Vien– who is also learning English– is supposed to notice Thanh’s error, “remodel it” properly, so Thanh can fix his output.  Now, here is what would actually happen:

Thanh: Where Michael today?  He here?

Vien: Michael home.  He not here.

Thanh: Ah, yes, Michael home.

Even though Vien and Thanh want to learn English, and are working away at it, they will inevitably produce poor output (for a variety of reasons).  So the ideal situation described above generally does not happen with two learners.  If Thanh’s interlocutor was a native (or very competent) English speaker, this communicative activity would probably work.

Fifth, there is the dictionary/Internet problem.   As soon as the kids want to generate their own vocab, we know what they do:  they fire it into Google translate, and we know the results.  So it becomes the teacher’s job to edit word lists, activities, presentations, rehearsed dialogues, etc.  I don’t know about you, but that’s boring and often I am myself scrambling to figure out how to say _____ in Spanish.

So, if our goal is to deliver a ton of compelling and multidimensional high-frequency language, and to repeat that language over and over so students hear it often enough that it gets wired in, the “choose your own topic” idea won’t work.   But the question remains, how do we personalise vocabulary and maintain student interest? 

One answer involves using the world’s oldest and most-proven teaching method;  stories.  Everybody likes a story, because we naturally find people and their hopes, problems etc more interesting than things or ideas, and because suspense– what happens to ____?— is another universal hook.  Stories are always more interesting than any other kind of input.  Everyone can relate to basic human questions such as wanting to have ___, being scared of ____, liking/disliking someone, etc.

In T.P.R.S., our use of parallel characters and parallel problems allows us tremendous room for personalisation.  If we’re working on esperaba que ____ le explicara… (“s/he hoped that _____ would explain…”), say, I can have a boy who wants to have the mysteries of talking to girls explained to him (great topic for all teens: boys want info, girls will think it’s hilarious) and a girl who wants to have say Call of Duty explained to her.  (Stereotypes are great to play around with).  This works even better when we know students, and we can throw a kid (and their interests, from say our start-of-year questionnaire) into a story.   If we know Breleigh likes dogs, hates cats and looooves Ashton Kutcher, well, Breleigh eseperaba que Ashton Kutcher le explicara por qué no le gustaban los gatos.  Any half-decent storyteller can get the audience to empathise with or at least be interested in a character who is a bit different than they are.

Another answer involves recycling high-frequency vocabulary in a way that ackowledges student interests and preferences.  For a rank beginner, something like owning a specific kind of pet, or liking or disliking any kind of thing or activity is a great start.  In my first story, Los Gatos Azules, a boy wants to own ten blue cats.  So, we personalise by asking the students the same questions we ask our actors:

Here’s an example from my Level 1 class:

Me: Ace, ¿tienes un perro?  Do you have a dog?

Ace: No.

Me: ¿Tienes un gato? Do you have a cat?

Ace: No tengo gato. I don’t have a cat.

Me: ¿Te gustan los gatos o los perros? A mí (pointing at myself), me gustan MUCHO los gatos. Do you like cats or dogs?  Me, I REALLY like cats.

Ace: Me gustan los gatos. I like cats.

Me: Clase, levanta las manos si te gustan los gatos. (half of class raises hands, so I point at a kid who didn’t). Mandeep, ¿te gustan los gatos? Mandeep, do you like cats?

Mandeep: No.

Me: What did I just ask you?

Mandeep: Do you like cats?

Me:  Mandeep, los gatos– ¿Son simpáticos, o no son simpáticos? Cats– are they nice, or not nice?

Mandeep: No.

Me:  ¿Los gatos no son simpáticos? Cats aren’t nice?

Mandeep:  No.

Me: Class, what did Mandeep just say?

Class: Cats aren’t nice.

So, here we have some personalisation: the kids are explaining their opinion about cats and dogs.  This is basic stuff.  (Note:  I am not expecting any output other than y/n here (though if the students want to say more, they can).  My only aims are that they understand what is being said and that they can connect the vocab to their selves or interests.

Here is a level 2 example of personalisation. In the story we are doing, a Dad is chewing his kids out for not having done homework and chores.  So we are acquiring what did you do? and I prefered, etc.  In the story, Dad asks his kid “What did you do last night?” and she says “I went to Cabo San Lucas and talked for 9 hours with Dave Franco.”  Dad asks “Did you do your homework?” and she says “No, I didn’t, Dave did it.”

All we have to do in P.Q.A.– personalised questions and answers– is ask kids in class the same questions we ask our actors.

Me: Breleigh, ¿que hiciste anoche?  What did you do last night?

Breleigh: No hice nada porque tenía que estudiar. I didn’t do anything cos I had to study

M: ¿Qué estudiaste anoche? What did you study last night?

B: Estudié la biología. I studied bio.

M: ¿Qué querías hacer anoche: estudiar, o bailar? What did you want to do last night: study, or dance?

B: Quería bailar. I wanted to dance.

M: John, ¿qué prefieres hacer tú– bailar, o jugar Call of Duty?  What do you prefer to do: dance, or play C.o.D.?

J: Prefiero jugar C.o.D. porque es más interesante. I prefer to play C.o.D. cos it’s more interesting.

We can get an immense amount of mileage out of a fairly limited range of vocab, as you can see.  If we throw in some weird stuff, we can get a zillion more miles.  For example, I could ask Breleigh if she likes elephants (free cognate) more than cats.  If she says yes, we’re off: do you own an elephant?  what is a good name for an elephant?  etc etc. These details can serve in stories, and they are great for random “review” P.Q.A.

Now, these are simple examples, and I hope you’re seeing the point:  we can personalise without getting into specialist vocab.  Not every kid is into Call of Duty (or chess, or ballet, or gangster rap, or Peruvian food, or French culture), but a teacher who is willing to listen to kids will figure out what people have opinions about and get them to express those.

The teacher’s job in part is to explore student interests, but also to make the language classroom functional (comprehensible and interesting) for everyone, so sometimes you have to say “sorry, Johnny, that’s too complicated” or “nobody else is interested in that, sorry.”

Personalisation: people basically want their interests and selves acknowledged.  If Johnny says “I prefer C.o.D. to ballet” and Suzy “God, I hate cats,” that is good personalisation.  We acknowledge their interests and views, and we give them what they need: an ocean of repetition on limited vocab, varied by context, cognates and sometimes wacky fun stuff.

So, in a nutshell, to personalise properly:

• avoid having students generate lists of words
• avoid making students listen to/read low-frequency specialist vocabulary
• connect students with high-frequency vocab by soliciting their opinions, or info about them
• use stories and ask students the same questions as you ask actors
• integrate students– or info about their real (or imagined) selves– into stories

NOTE: Teachers in an immersion environment are going to be able to use more vocab than the rest of us, and there is therefore going to be more finely-tuned personalisation, and at serior Immersion levels there will be way more room for vocab personalisation.  But for most of us…keep it simple is the way to go.

What does conversation in a Level 1 & 2 split class look like?

Week 8 of fully unsheltered grammar, Level 1&2 Spanish.  What does PQA (personalised questions and answers) look like? 

I’m posting this to show that– as long as you keep the language 100% comprehensible– you can easily operate with two levels at once.  You can see that the 2s and I are providing input for the 1s and there is no real output pressure.  I check for understanding, I provide a chance for y/n and/or one-word answers, and I let the kids say as much or as little as they want.

Also note what we are doing re: grammar.  The beginners can easily operate in 3 verb tenses.  Traditionally you would see pretérito (passé composé) in level 2 and imperfecto (imparfait) in level 3. Now, a lot of the beginners won’t be able to say everything, but after awhile it will kick in. As Susan Gross points out, if the input has everything we need from Day 1, and it’s comprehensible, kids will pick it up when they have heard it a ton and are ready for it.

The main rule: if it is said or read,nit must be 100% comprehensible.  I also do a lot of gesturing for verbs, nouns and past tense.  Here is what we did for a bit today.

Me: Fahim, ¿qué hiciste anoche?

Fahim (level 2): Fui al gimnasio con Danny.

Me: Class, what did he just say?

Class: I went to the gym with Danny.

Me: ¿Te gustó? ¿Fue divertido?

Fahim: Sí, fue muy divertido. Me gustó mucho.

Me: Clase, ¿adónde fueron Fahim y Danny anoche– al gimnasio, o al cine?

Class: al gimnasio

Me: Sí, clase, los chicos fueron al gimnasio.

Me: Clase, a Fahim y Danny, ¿les gustó o no les gustó el gimnasio?

Class: Les gustó.

Me: Sí, les gustó el gimnasio.  Class, what does that mean?

Class: He likes the gym.

Me: Whoa! Les gustó means “they liked.”  So when I ask ¿les gustó el gimnasio? what am I asking?

Class: Did they like the gym.

Me to Marya (level 1): Marya, ¿fuiste al gimnasio anoche?

Marya: No.

Me: ¿Te gusta ir al gimnasio, o te gusta ir al cine?

Marya: al cine

Me: ¿Tenías mucha tarea anoche?

Marya: Sí

Me: Class, what did I just ask Marya?

Class: Did you have a lot of homework last night?

Me to Ace (level 2): ¿Qué hiciste anoche tú?

Ace: tenía mucha tarea en inglés, y ví la televisión.

Me: ¿Ves mucha televisión, o ves poca televisión?

Ace: Poca televisión.

Me: ¿Por qué no ves mucha televisión?

Ace: No me gusta mucho la televisión. Es aburrido.

Me: ¿Qué prefieres: ver la televisión o textear con tus amigos?

Ace: Prefiero textear con tus amigos. (“I prefer to text with your friends”– an error)

Me (adding a bunch of emphasis): ¿TÚ prefieres textear con MIS amigos? (I point at Ace then at me)

Ace (laughs): yo prefiero textear con MIS amigos.

Me to class: Class, what did Ace just say?

Class: I prefer texting with my friends.

Me to Manisha (level 1): Manisha, ¿prefieres textear con tus amigas, o hacer la tarea?

Manisha: textear

Me: Hacer la tarea– ¿es interesante o aburrido? 

Manisha: Es aburrido.

Me: Textear con tus amigas: ¿cómo es? ¿Es divertido o es aburrido textear?

Manisha: Divertido.

How should I teach SER and ESTAR?

Spanish teacher conundrum, recently brought up on the Yahoo moretprs listserv by teacher Marji:

How do I teach the difference between ser and estar? Marji is asking this question because the kids are making errors, and also she only sees them infrequently, so they seem “slow” in picking this up.

Ser = to be, for permament, inherent qualities
Estar = to be, for location and feelings

The essence of the question– like the French teachers’ eternal How do I get them to remember the difference between être and avoir passé composé verbs?— is this: how do I teach a “non-English” grammatical structure to English speakers?. The answer is simple! I’ve written about this before, so here is a Spanish and French-focused refresher.

First, I translate only meaning. So on the board, I write

era = was
estaba = felt, was located in _____

es = is
está = feels, is located in ______

Now, note here.  The kids do not get an explanation of the inherwnt essential aspects and differences of/between these verbs.  All they get is the meaning.

They also have the I/you forms in my simple PQA/direct questions chart:

I narrate our first story– Adriana Ramírez’ Los Gatos Azules— in past tense but I question actors and do PQA (personalised questions and answers) in present tense.

Second, I keep it all comprehensible. I say el chico estaba en Watts and ask “what did I just say?” to make sure the students understand. I then say something like el chico era alto, going slowly, pointing and pausing, doing comprehension checks.

Now, they have not had the grammatical difference between ser and estar explained, but I will keep on using these appropriately. All they need to do is

A) clearly hear the difference
B) understand the meaning(s)

Because, as Blaine Ray points out, ser and estar are the most-used verbs in Spanish, we want to start using them on Day 1 and keep using them always.

Third, I will use these expressions in both past and present. For past tense, as noted above, I narrate (and ask class questions about the narration) in past tense. For present tense, I will direct-question the actors. ¿Eres un chico? — Sí, soy un chico. ¿Estás en California? — Sí, estoy en California. Then, I will do PQA by asking class members the same question(s) I have just asked the actors. If they can answer, great; if not, they can read off the PQA/direct questions chart.

(New trick: this year, to get more reps on 3rd person present, I ask the actors about each other in the present tense. So if I narrate había un chico en Brooklyn and circle that, I still want some present-tense reps on hay, so I will ask my main character about another character in the story. E.g. I introduce my parallel character by saying Había una chica en San Francisco. Then, I ask my boy in Brooklyn ¿Hay una chica en San Francisco? and he says Sí, hay una chica en S.F.)

The aim is for them to hear it a zillion times in proper context, in all necessary tenses, and slowly their “language acquisition devices,” as Chomsky calls them, will start developing subconscious pattern awareness and then performative competence.

Fourth, I will not lecture about grammar. As Laurie Clarq and Susan Gross have said (I am paraphrasing), “if they ask for an explanation, they can have a five-second one.”

I taught French last year for a colleague for two periods and we did a story where I used il est arrivé, il a oublié, and il/elle etait faché (this is two different passé composé verbs, and two past tenses).

The kids did not need to know that there are “Dr and Mrs Vandertramp” verbs, or the house-movement mnemonic, or the camera/video metaphors for p-c and imparfait, bla bla. All they needed to know was the meaning. Now, I suck at French, but the teacher was impressed because these Level 2s were getting “fourth year grammar,” and understanding it. The method generally works even when a hack like me uses it 😉.

BTW the story idea, improvised by student teacher Nicole Kunkel and I, was
— Jean est arrivé en retard à la classe
— La prof etait trés fachée avec lui.
— Il a cherché dans son sac pour ses devoirs.

— Dans son sac, il n’y avait pas ses devoirs!  Mais, il y’avait des autres choses…
— C’etait dommage– il a oublié ses devors! Madame Prof etait trés fachée!

(Jean had a backpack which we put random things into, and every time Jean looked in it for his hwk, a pencil, etc, he’d pull out something funny and Madame Prof would get more mad (and we got a zillion reps on both present and past forms of all 3 structures).

We also wrote up embedded (progressively more complex) readings of our story, and then did the usual with that, for even more reps.

It doesn’t matter what first or second language people have. We know that everyone can– and does– learn at least one language without any formal instuction at all. Any baby of any race or either gender can learn any language. We teachers can use this amazing potential. All we have to do is

— restrict vocab (to not confuse and overload people)
— use all grammar (so people can “pick up” what they’re ready for)
— keep it all 100% comprehensible
— provide a ton of listening and reading repetitions

In Hindi, we have “postpositions” as opposed to prepositions. Chinese has tones, and no verb “to be.” German has complex word-order rules invented by a sadistic language demon. Try explaining the difference between “some” and “any” questions to a non-native speaker of English. French and German have two past tense auxiliaries. Russian has cases. But whatever it is, people can pick it up.

The point? They don’t need to know anything other than meaning, and the brain– given enough input– will take over and start figuring the patterns out.