Guy sent this:
Hi Ben,
I started my first story the day before yesterday. This is after 3 weeks of solid, fun PQA in my Spanish 2 class. It’s half filled with Native Speakers who did not “make the cut” for our Native Speaker classes. They (and my non natives) are great kids. Seriously, half of them had me last year and like the class. We dance and cut up with tpr at brain breaks. We have an artist, quiz and story writers, rep counters, a badass English alarm and fistful of Matava scripts. I am not so great yet speaking to my actors in present and my class in the past. But I am working on it. I stumbled on an idea that I hope will help with that.
I am using the Matava script entitled “An Important Test”. After PQA, story asking, reading (pres and past versions) and more PQA, I was not sure what else I should do. As we were wrapping up a retell today at the end of class, my “star” asked a question that begged an answer. “Why was the dad with his son at Chuck E Cheese during school hours?” Bam! Some intrigue arose in the class and kids started speculating (Mostly NOT in TL!) as the bell rang and they left.
So, back to “my” idea about present and past. I am going to introduce a character in order to give students a chance to experience and acquire more past tense language. The character (perhaps “Clase, un secreto… el Sr. Hanson, el director de RHS!” if they don’t come up with something better) will interview dad and son. Why? Because if my character is truant he can’t play football the next night! We can turn the interviews into written statements for reading. We dramatize his entrance, the interviews and the culmination.
I would love to hear some feedback and suggestions from other members on this subject.
Peace,
Guy