Characters Development and "Real" TPRS

Earlier today I read an interesting post by Ben Slavic earlier this morning that made me really analyze how I'm doing this year with my professional development of TPRS.  I know that my TPRS is nowhere near perfect and likely it won't be for a very long time.  I do know that I'm doing the best that I can with the support that I have.  I know that "Bad TPRS is better than no TPRS." But I don't want to practice "bad" TPRS. 
At the beginning of the year I did it.  I made the "switch".  I'm happy with that decision.  I am passionate about students, Spanish, and this method.  It's a powerful mix.  Thus I bought a couple of books on TPRS to help my development.  The problem has been, however, that I'm also going to graduate school full time; so I've had little time to reflect or put as much effort into developing my skills. 
I do know that my students are progressing.  Just yesterday they surprised me and powerfully translated "¿Qué te gusta hacer?" for me when my students last year couldn't remember that question for the life of them while it was a "vocab term" let alone months later as my students this year did.  I know that what they are learning is long term.  Thank goodness.
So today I had a break through (for me). I've been struggling with creating interesting details and parallel characters.  My students loose interest.  Today I realized two important things: I need to refocus on PERSONALIZATION and GOING SLOW.  We also successfully added a detail to a written story, which we haven't done before.  We added that Alicia is in fact 103 years old.  It's not as exciting for others.  But it's a step for me.  We also had a good PQA in my 6th period Spanish 1 class.  We saw spirits/ghosts in our classroom today.  And we wanted them there! :) We also learned that myself and one other boy are the only ones scared of ghosts.  It was a great class.  Why can't all classes be like that?

Unreal.

Today was an unreal day.  It was unreal because everything went so well.  I tried a couple new things today.  They're from Ben Slavic's site, and boy did I have great success.  In my third year class, we finished our ask a story with the subjunctive then started a dictation with the story.  The students were really engaged and said that they understood almost 100% of the story.  Success! 
During my first year class, I switched up the format in which we are reading Pobre Ana.  It's been going painfully slow (actually with the third year novel too!), so I tried having them read to the end of the chapter themselves.  We then translated the rest of the chapter together and had a great class discussion.  One boy in my fourth period said his mother stole clothes for him from his dad.  Another boy in my sixth period was like Robin Hood and stole clothes from the mall and gave them to people without clothes.  It was a great discussion.  Then I read the passage again while students followed along or sub-vocalized.  I think that was a really powerful portion of class because the students were able to feel completely relaxed but were completely focused. 
I'm going to use these methods again!  Thanks to Ben Slavic!

You want to play for the Rockies but don't ever practice?

Today we had another year 2 mentor/mentee meeting.  The principal came to talk to us about relationships.  Usually he focuses on teacher-student relationships, but today he focused more on collegial relationships.  I've definitely found out how important those are this year.  Amen, Mr. Booth.

The main point I have to discuss tonight, however, has to do with the title of this post (Imagine that right?).  During the discussion with Mr. Booth, he told us to continue to challenge the students and to make sure we are rigorous because these students aren't going to play for the Rockies if they don't practice.  BINGO!  So much of what he says is TPRS/CI relevant.  It's plain and simple; if we want our students to be able to read, write, listen and speak in the TL, we must practice.  We must practice with the skills more than we talk about the language.  I was really happy to hear him make that comment because it reaffirms a post by Ben Slavic awhile back, and it's still so true today.

I hope I'm able to help my kids practice their Spanish instead of think about Spanish.  Play ball!

5 minutes a day...

All the stress and responsibilities I've been juggling the past 10 weeks finally hit me like a wall about a week and a half ago.  I got sick, Gus was out of town, and it was a long weekend.  That proved to be a hard hurdle to move on from.  I'm still trying to move on after getting bogged down.
This weekend, I still was feeling overwhelmed by everything that I have to do.  It was a difficult weekend.  Gus and I sat down and talked about it, and he suggested finding five minutes a day to reflect on what I did, and what went well each day.  When I thought about it, that sounded like a simple way to remind myself that I am doing good each day.  I also realized that it would be a way to reflect on here in an albeit short way.

So... my five minutes today:

Let's start with my biggest accomplishment - yesterday, I ran my first 5K race and finished 2 minutes quicker than my "goal" time.  I'm still so satisfied about that.
But today, things were rough to get started, but things started to click once first period started.  My third year story really developed with student input in 1st and 2nd hour.  In all of my third year classes, my students were really focused and on task.  It was true learning to be experienced.  I really feel like they're going to kick this "subjunctive" in the behind.
I presented my new warm-up/notes sheet page to my first years today, we worked with some descriptions and vocab and started a new story.  We'll see how well they did tomorrow.
There.  My third years really impressed me today.  They were my saving grace.  Now to tackle this HUGE first homework assignment for grad school... no exactly looking forward to this, but here's to becoming a master teacher.

Facilitating change can be a lonely journey.

In light of recent conversations with colleagues and peers, I've really done some thinking.  I'm realizing many things about creating change, even if it's only in my classroom.  This week I've realized how isolated creating change can feel sometimes, but in a moment's time, people can really see you as a beacon of light.

This week we had a PLC meeting, I took a personal day to go to a TPRS workshop, and we started talk about creating change in my master's class.  These three events combined challenged me along with some discussions with my peers and colleagues.  I was challenged to defend my beliefs that CI will produce ANY gains in language acquisition and grammar for all learners.  I know this is true because the majority of my students have As and Bs along with some Cs and very few Ds or Fs.  At the TPRS workshop, the other extreme was clear.  I was seen as a beacon of light and hope and a valued source of information.  Teachers from all backgrounds and levels approached me to pick my brain about this method.  It felt exhilarating to be part of this grassroots change in language teaching.  Later that day in my graduate class, we began discussing facilitating change in a school.  Something resonated with me: "Just because you think something needs to change, doesn't mean that your way of changing is the way that things should or will change."  Wow. I know that I truly believe in CI as a means for learning and acquiring long term language, but that doesn't mean that this is the way it is going to happen.  However, I do know that sustainable change does occur from the bottom-up, and this is definitely the way that this change is occurring, so I hope this is the way things will change.

A lot of times throughout this past week, I've felt alone.  I've felt alone, but it's not a negative feeling because I truly believe this is the way language should be taught.  I know that I must be the change I wish to see, and this is the first step in that direction.  I also know that brain and language acquisition research support my stanch on language learning, so I'm confident that I cannot be doing harm to my students' language learning.  I'm also excited every day to go to school, so I know that I can pass the "straight face test" in knowing this is where I should be right now. 

What types of changes are you trying this year?  How is it going?  Are these changes sustainable and are they transferable to other teachers?

End of the first 6 weeks...

As the first six weeks comes to an end, I've been doing a lot of reflecting.  I'm really excited and proud that I'm making such a huge positive change this year with using TPRS.  I can't believe how much confidence my first years have.  But I'm also doing some serious reflection on how to teach my third years because they seem to be lacking confidence. 
It's as if I've yanked the rug out from beneath some of my students in third year.  I asked them for feedback the other day (1 thing they enjoy, 1 concern) about my class.  EVERYONE had something they enjoyed and not everyone had a concern.  That was a good reinforcement for me.  However, looking at the concerns, I noticed that many students were worried that they weren't learning nor being challenged.  This was a MAJOR red flag for me.
So I've been reading and re-reading their feedback and formulating my response to their concerns.  I want them to know that they're in great hands and that I won't let them down by "not teaching" them anything.  I've given them a list of vocabulary for the semester, a comprehensive grammar review sheet, and a verb synopsis for us to complete.  The students with concerns about "not learning" felt that we need to spend more time conjugating verbs and focusing on the endings. 
This has lead me to question how I am teaching.  I've explored the idea of if we should do more of that.  I've also explored why we're not doing more of that.  I keep coming up at the same place.  They don't realize they're learning because it makes more sense this year: 1) there's context to what they're learning, 2) I try to make them always feel confident and smart, so they're not focusing on how stupid they feel for not knowing something, 3) we're constantly reviewing and getting exposed to new things which evens it out.
So, I've really started to take this reflection piece and put it to work.  I just hope that I can prove to them that they are learning.  I know they are.  I check in with them 100s of times an hour.

Apology accepted.

Yesterday during class, I had a young man who couldn't stop chatting.  He has been a little chatty since the beginning of the year, and I reminded him to "págame" (just a cue word to help him realize he's off task and loosing participation points) yesterday.  He immediately stopped talking and resumed focus.  It was great to watch that this simple gesture works so well.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, I think my classroom management issues from last year have declined.  This is due to the fact that I know my students better and they know I care and center the class around them.  I'm still all warm and fuzzy when I realize this has happened because it reminds me that I really am a teacher because of the students.  They make my job enjoyable and worthwhile.
The most "warm and fuzzy" moment of this story came after class that day.  The chatty student came up to me and apologized all in the TL!  It was an almost flawless apology, and then we had a short chat in Spanish about talking in class and whether he needed to switch seats.  ¡Qué fantástico!
Needless to say, I was both proud, amazed, and impressed by the confidence, responsibility and ability of this first year student in the 3rd week of class.
What have your students done lately to remind you that they're the reason we teach?