We must remember that, when we do PQA, we are trying to personalize the story that is waiting to be developed when the PQA is over. Therefore, we direct each PQA question directly at a student.
This means that, if one of the three structures is “drinks”, after we have explained what it means and gestured it, then we look at Laura and ask her what she likes to drink.
We then develop that fact to the extent that it has energy with Laura. Sometimes, actually very often, if the kids have been trained in supplying cute answers, we can get a lot of cute imagined facts built around what Laura drinks. Each fact is a seed that can potentially blossom in the story.
So, if we learn in the PQA that Laura drinks Raspberry Mocha Chip Frappuccinos, and the first line of the story script is “Chip likes to drink water”, then, if Laura is open to acting, Chip in the story script becomes Laura in our class who drinks Raspberry Mocha Chip Frappuccinos (I would say that in English), then we have wedded the PQA with the story. (If Laura doesn’t want to act, there are usually lots of other kids who want to get up there in her place.)
PQA, then, can be said to be a sort of laying down of lighthearted and largely imagined personalized facts from the PQA session right on top of the story script, transposing the story script into a highly personalized story that therefore grabs the kids’ attention for the entire class period. We superimpose the PQA onto the story script, as it were.
Now, the second big objective of PQA is to get as many repetitions of the target structures as possible so that the story flows that much more easily. Personally, I have recently chosen to do PQA all day Monday and only start the story on Tuesday because I found that I couldn’t get over 60 or 70 reps (minimal in my opinion) in 10 or 15 minutes – I just couldn’t do PQA and a story in one 50 minutes classe period.
For more on that please see:
https://benslavic.com/blog/2011/04/13/the-three-steps-and-bloom%e2%80%99s-taxonomy-of-learning/
A few other details that I would add to the above about PQA are:
1. Each question directed at the kids should include at least one target structure. Often, we can phrase each question to include two structures, and sometimes all three. We cannot just talk about anything in PQA and go all over the place. In the back of our minds should be a kind of hammer action on each target structure, because when they really know the target structures then the magic of CI can happen. So we do all the personalization using only the three structures. So if you find yourself asking a question of a student that is merely tangiential to the structures, don’t.
2. As the PQA unfolds, you can crush it or let it bloom into funny extended PQA. This is called allowing the thread of the PQA to develop. So if Laura drinks coffee, you stay with that, asking her more and more questions about that specific fact. If the class is trained in playing the game by supplying cute answers to each question, you may end up with the fact that Laura drinks coffee out of tiny red cups with her pinky up in the air on Mondays. Establishing that could be a 30 minute or more conversation with the kids. In general, we follow the thread that is established by the class’ cute answers. We follow the energy that each successive question generates. The way to crush the PQA is to not stay with Laura but to ask each kid the same question. Going shallow and wide with the PQA ruins the party. PQA is all about going narrow and deep with each structure.
3. There is usually a moment when the story script, waiting its turn to become real to the kids in the room, begs to start. Some sentences in the PQA just lead straight to the story script. It’s like those little icons in the dock of imacs when they bounce up and down trying to get out of the dock. In that interest, since I always want a natural start to the story, I keep the script on a stool right in front of me and when that magical link moment occurs, when the icons are bobbing up and down, all I have to do is grab the script and ask the actor to sit on the stool and begin the story. So watch for that right moment to transition into the story.
4. The use of emotion in PQA is the last thing I wanted to share today. Many target structures contain a lot of potential for emotion – especially, of course, verbs. Today, which I have on film, the structure was “I warn you”. You can really launch into some cool stuff with that one! I may have overdone it with one kid when I shook my finger at him and told him with perhaps a bit too much theatre that I had warned him to not eat spaghetti last night but he did anyway. For a moment, this kid’s eyes got real big, which told me that he was not getting a clear difference between me teaching and me being pissed because he ate spaghetti last night. But, in general, if the kids know what you are doing and why, then they go along. Emotion in PQA and stories really helps to “stick” the expression in their deeper minds.
Anyway, the “Six Pack” of PQA, in my opinion, contains:
- repetitions.
- personalization.
- at least one structure in each question.
- follow and allow the thread of the PQA to develop on its own.
- watch for that right moment to transition into the story.
- use emotion as much as possible. (can lead to chanting)