When the story script we are using is too busy in the first location, time keeps us from getting to the other locations and we lose all that chance for lots of repetition of the target structures. Many people take this as a matter of course, but the second and third locations do for us what we can’t do ourselves – they keep us in bounds. By going straight to a second and maybe even a third location, there is a natural muzzling of our tendency to bring in too many new words and thereby go too wide, losing our audience.
We should be able to at least get to a second location. Our script, our questioning technique, our pacing, all of that should at least give us the possibility of a second location to happen around 20 minutes before the end of class at the latest.
The story below from Jim Tripp, published here in 2009, provides a good example of the simple kind of locations that I am talking about:
too expensive
each
exclaims
Dakotah goes to Mankato for a college visit. He goes with his mom, aunt, two cousins, and dog. The president of the college presents him with the bill for tuition. It costs $5 each year. Dakotah exclaims, “College is too expensive!”
Later Dakotah goes to eat in a café. He orders 3 pizzas with carrots and spinach. The waiter presents him with the bill. The pizza costs $28.50 each. Dakotah exclaims, “This pizza is too expensive!”
Dakotah rides his dog to the bookstore. Dakotah buys 2 books called ________ and _________. Tom Hanks (in You’ve Got Mail) gives the dog the bill. The books don’t cost anything. The dog exclaims, “These books are too cheap!”
Here is the link if you want the variables: https://benslavic.com/blog/2009/04/22/too-expensive/
In one of my classes, this story took the form of two simple locations, given below. Note the simple text. The story wasn’t extremely funny or personalized, but I don’t care – if my story is not comprehensible, then what do I care about funny and personalized?
(meets)*
(university tuition/fees)*
per year
that’s too expensive!
exclaims
*I added a few extra target structures (in parantheses) because I knew that my students didn’t know them.
Ronald McDonald goes to Louisiana State University in a tiny airplane and meets the president who gives him a paper with the costs for college on it of $8.95 per year. He yells, “That’s too expensive!”
Then he goes to a Black Eyed Peas for lunch and eats five peas, six carrots and seven potatoes. The waiter gives him the bill. He yells, “That’s too expensive!”
We never got to a third location.
The questions I got from my Quiz Writer were:
1. Ronald McDonald goes to LSU? yes
2. Ronald McDonald goes to LSU by plane? yes
3. Ronald McDonald goes to LSU by foot? no
4. The president of LSU gives him a paper with the costs on it? yes
5. The costs for LSU are $8.95. yes
6. Ronald McDonald goes to a restaurant? yes
7. He eats four peas? no
8. He east five carrots? no
9. The bill gives him the waiter? no
10. Ronald McDonald is happy? no
(Speaking of quizzes, here is a quick quiz question for the group. Having tried to make the point about the value of a simple script keeping us from going out of bounds by allowing us to go to a second location for more reps, what did I do wrong above that could have easily derailed this story? People who get this wrong will be kicked off the blog. The second part of the quiz question is, “What does this tell us about planning stories in our classes?)