I like lesson plans that are rugged and tough and yet that have lots of flex in them so that if something is working we can stay with it as long as we like. It’s a big order to get a lesson plan like that, one that gets and keeps the kids’ attention during an entire 85 minute block. Of course, it can be applied to a normal schedule as well.
This is really a newer version of the old “Two Weeks Lesson Plan” that started forming up about four years ago here – a bad boy itself. It was designed to bring power and flexibility to our weekly schedules. It has evolved considerably since then and here is the current version, updated today with five additional activities that we have always done but that really fit well here (in green). All I do is print the last page and hold it during class. (Note to anyone like me who needs to have a general plan to guide them through a class – which ironically allows mega amounts of freedom to improvise – all you have to do is put this bad boy on cruise control and enjoy the ride, and then repeat it after the sequence is over. It’s like driving a Mercedes (not that I’ve ever driven a Mercedes).
Block 1:
1. FVR – 10′
2. Grammar – 5′
The first words after the mellow and restful FVR period of silent and soft reading will be something like, “Class, are they meeting their friends?” in English. Of course, the kids will look up wanting to know whom I am talking about. I will repeat the sentence. They will then realize that I want them to go get their composition books and go translate that sentence.
I give them the infinitive on the board and that’s all. They try to write it out in their comp books. Then I write the correct version on the board, they correct their work and go put their composition books back in the right stack in the proper place in the back of the room. Five minutes.
Benefits of this activity:
It allows us to claim that “we teach grammar” in TPRS classes, thus placating those people who, very oddly, seem in need of being placated. (Of course, we know that they learn the grammar in other much more authentic three dimensional ways, esp. via reading, but let’s not try to convince people who just don’t get that concept of it.)
Satisfy our inner grammar nerds.
Give the students a little break from all the input.
Eats up time. Five classes a day is too much. With this plan, we have to teach (and our students get a break from us) for 25 minutes a day, or if you are James or Paul 35 minutes.
You may even want to do two sentences. Ten minutes. Hey, live a little.
3. Word Associations/Word Wall – 10′ – see Big CI book or site
4. Greetings Reps see Big CI Book or site
5. Steps 1 and 2 of TPRS as usual – PQA/Story
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Subsequent Blocks: This is really just a glorified version of ROA that contains many of our best strategies that we have collected here over the years and puts them in a nice sequence.
Depending on how many of the (18) activities you use from it, this could be from 1 block period to up to seven or eight, depending on how you roll:
Step 3 of TPRS, using ROA and embellished greatly:
[Important note: when preparing this class by translating the story received from the Story Writer into the TL, I try to embed about 10-15% new vocabulary. The amount of newly embedded vocabulary depends on the class. Sometimes I put the newly embedded vocabulary up in bold letters and in the color green. One can also put the newly embedded structures up on the board before starting the class, and work with them a bit, before starting in with all the steps of ROA.]
Steps indicated with an asterisk are the heavy hitters:
*1. Silent reading of the projected story.
*2. Instructor reads aloud in L2 – this allows the student to make the necessary connection between the sound of the story with, now for the first time, what those sounds look like on paper. (credit: Diana Noonan)
- Pair work to translate. (I only do this if being observed, to get the box checked.)
*4. Choral translation using laser pointer. This must be done with loud voices. Usually a student steps up – the Reader Leader – to guide the class along with their strong measure voice.
*5. Discussion of grammar in L1 (6 and 7 may interweave) Finally, this is when closet grammar teachers get to do what they want. They can point out spellings on verb endings, comparing, for example, a first person singular ending with a plural form, whether it can be seen in the reading or not. They can laser point to their favorite grammatical details and share them with the four percenters in the classroom who also love grammar. They can ask students what certain words mean. They can even point out adjective agreement and even spelling changes in boot verbs! This is the time to go for the grammar! What a great way to explain possessive adjectives! Use English! Just keep the grammar explanations down to under four seconds and never mention the actual grammar terms – the kids don’t want to even hear terms like adverbs. Most kids intensely dislike grammar terminology. They just want to know what it means.
*6. Dialogic Reading – It is clear so far that each of these steps in ROA have significant pedagogical value. But this step has the most. This is where you get the most bang for your buck from the reading. In this Step 8 work, we keep the story projected but physically turn the kids away from it. I just go sit in an armchair in my classroom so that they have to turn away from the text. Their bodies and eyes are facing me. Then, starting from the first paragraph of the reading, I start an in depth repetition of the entire story (i.e. intensely circled with very clear and slow yes/no questioning of individual students during the group discussion). This can take 90 min. itself. But it works! It piles repetition upon repetition. We can play with each line in many ways, asking direct content questions about the text but also creating parallel questions by bringing in discussion of how a student in our class may compare or not with the characters in the story. Slowly we work our way through the text. This is big work, a great new addition to ROA. I find that when I am doing this step of ROA I am really teaching. They are looking at me answering largely in yes/no answers what are some very sophisticated questions in the TL. I am doing what I want to do as a CI teacher in this step more than in any other activity I do in my CI classroom. I hold each kid accountable and have super contact with my barometers. Bam!
Step 6 is best interwoven with Step 7:
*7. Students go into acting mode and act out the story while the instructor is doing the dialogic reading step above. The instructor directs the action. This is the very best part of ROA and will make you glad you are a teacher. Classroom Rule #8 must be fully observed in this step. How to do it? Each time a dialogue from the story comes up during Step 7 above, simply tell the original characters to get up and mime the lines and say the dialogue. This is your chance to use the Director’s Cut techniqueI leave the story projected on this because the kids refer to it when acting. The kids like to try to outdo each other with their lines. So if Marc has a line where he says, “You are fired! Leave this place. NOW!”, tell them, just like a director of a play would, to say their line using different adverbs that you can remember if you put them up on the wall. After a student delivers a line, see if anyone else can say the line with more gusto, more romantically, more quietly, more to the left, more to the right, more with one foot off the ground, with head more forward, with head more back, whispering, etc.” Even the shiest kids want in on this and it can be marvelously entertaining.** It can get a little loud, though, so you have to be the one in charge. I like to sit in one of the big armchairs in my room and pretend I am a director. Once, a student next to me said, “Now that is going to be going around in my head all day!” So this is a Din-creator! So what if it’s output? It’s output with a purpose (building fun and a culture of fun in the classroom, not to mention the reps.) Badass. All you have to do in this step is read the story out loud, pausing to allow the actor to do an action or say a line. That’s how simple this step is!
Step 8 is best interwoven with steps 6 and 7:
8. Jump into the Space! – this is another technique for encouraging speech output to be used when you are in Steps 7 and but is recommended to be used with only upper level students. Here is a good way to encourage speech output in upper level classes without forcing it:
With the story up, instead of accepting one word answers, largely the rule in levels 1 and 2, with third year kids or above (could maybe be used in level two as well), invite them to answer in full sentences. For example, in the text written by the kid it says that Ann has a very small light blue castle in Italy, in the suburbs of Rome. We have been working with the text following the ROA sequence and arrived at this optional step in the sequence. If I feel like it, I ask the kids to respond with good mimicking sentences in the TL as per:
Teacher: Class, does Ann have a very small light blue castle in Italy, in the suburbs of Rome?
Student: Yes, sir! Ann has a very small light blue castle in Italy!
Just keep processing information via circling but inviting them to speak as per the above example. They only jump into the space if they want to. How to do that? I just use the expression, said in English, “Jump into the space!” and I hold out my hands to the space in front of me there in class and invite them to fill it and then I wait. Some play, some don’t. Those who do rock the house. I ask them to put style and swagger into their sentences and feel as if they are French and make that pout thing with their mouth and spit R’s from the back of their throats all over the place. The kids like it because they finally see the payoff of the first two years of listening.
9. Running Dictation –
Here’s the process:
Take five sentences from the completed story and cut them into strips, putting each sentence up around the room in random places on the walls. The font should be fairly large to make them easy to read.
Next, pair up the students. One student writes and one runs. The runner finds a sentence on the wall and runs back to tell the writer what the sentence is, who then writes it.
Once the students have found and recorded all the sentences, they try to arrange them in the proper order. The first team to do that wins the game.
(Drawing Dictation is similar. A copy of a simple drawing is handed out to each student. An artist goes to the whiteboard. The students as a class describe the drawing to the artist. When done, the students and artist compare notes. This is a good activity to teach prepositions. Since this drawing activity, and running dictation as well, require some degree of output, it is best to avoid using them too much in first year classes.)
10. French choral and individual work on accent –this can be a very special time as we finally are able to hear, after a lot of constant input and relatively little verbal output, how our students’ brains have organized the language in the now emergent output. We notice how well they pronounce the language IF the output wasn’t too early. It is too early to expect anything exact in terms of their accents, but they love reading a text that they already know aloud in the TL so that is enough reason to do it. Be sure to not make this feel like a forced activity.
*11. 5 minute write of the story, in which the students answer the questions: title, who, where, what happens, what is the problem. I give them the following template in the TL to fill in each time:
This is the ________ story (fourth, tenth, etc. – teaches them to write ordinal numbers). The name of the story is ________. The main character is ________. The story takes place ________. What happens in this story? ________________________________________. At the end of the story, ________________.
*12. Process the work of the class artist. This does not require much time. We pretty much just enjoy the drawings and I use this time to get more reps on the structures, but in a different context. Fun!
13. Dictée –
Here is the dictée process:
First, I give the students a half sheet of paper with groupings of three blank lines on them. Then:
On line 1, I read chunks of sentences and give the students time to write each chunk. I read each sentence chunk three times. The first time I read at a normal pace and they listen. The second time I read very slowly as they write. The third time I read at a normal pace while they check what they have written. I do not read it a fourth time. You will learn how to pace this. I simply do not allow a student to ask for a repetition of anything at any time.
Next, I show the students the correct version of the text, phrase by phrase, or chunk by chunk, and not sentence by sentence, which is too complex. They look at it and make their corrections on line 2 as I successively reveal each new correctly written chunk on the LCD or document camera.
The students bring down onto line 2 any corrections of the text only if any are needed, but the teacher may want to require that they copy the entire correct text on the second line. I grade both lines, whatever is correct from line 1 as well as any corrections made on line 2. In this way, the students are graded on what is correct, and not on what is wrong. They are graded on how well they can copy!
Line 3 is just a line space to make everything clearer and easier to read, but the teacher can opt to make them write the English version of the text on that third line as well.
The dictated version of the story doesn’t have to align perfectly with the story passage it came from. In fact, intentional inaccuracies as you recreate the story force deeper thinking by the students, and allow you to perhaps introduce a limited amount of new vocabulary.
*14. Textivate. Download this program for $40 – it’s worth it – from the internet to work more deeply with the written story – it plugs right in from Word and you can eat up lots of class minutes with the cute things Textivate offers for us to do with any reading we create from a story. http://www.textivate.com/
*15. Sacred reading of the text. After all the opportunities they have had to both listen to and now read the same basic text, the students know the material. So, to conclude the Reading Option A process, and this is a most special time with your students in class, I read it to them slowly with meaning, dramatic tone, artistry, in a quiet, sacred kind of setting, as if I am gently reciting poetry. I was told by one teacher that one day she read with such drama and emotion that her students told her that she should have been an actress. I generally do this step without the text in front of the students, turning off the LCD or document camera so that they can just listen and not be distracted by the words on the screen. The students are really pleased when they can understand a foreign language read to them in this way. (highly recommended because you and the students will enjoy it so much)
*16. Translation quiz – pick any paragraph from the reading and have the students translate it into English for a quick and easy grade.
*17. Content quiz – have ten yes/no questions prepared before class. I no longer employ quiz writers. They just couldn’t make good enough tests.
*18. Free Write based on completed story – student write for ten minutes for ten minutes as per the Free Write Rules posted on this site. They enjoy making up their own stories based on the structures and plot of the story just completed.
**French:
avec enthousiasme
d’une façon romantique
en play-back
à droite
à gauche
en haut
en bas
en riant
en hochant la tête
avec pudeur
un pied dans l’air
la tête an avant
la tête an arrière
les bras dans l’air
en chuchotant
à haute voix
à voix basse
avec de grandes dents
les yeux fermés
le nez fermé
d’un ton sévère
tout à coup
rapidement
lentement
très rapidement
très lentement
en mangeant
en buvant
en se tournant
les mains sur les genoux
les mains sur la tête
comme un roi
comme une mitrailleuse
comme un robot
dans une voix élevée
dans une voix profonde
legato
six fois
quinze fois, etc.
en touchant la couleur jaune, etc.
en courant sur place
avec peur
fier
soulagé
avec remerciements et inclinations
victorieux
d’une façon embarrassée
grincheux
qui gratte
d’une façon mystérieuse
épuisé
fatigue
en train de s’endormir
vexé
avec du calme
marrant
avec douceur
câlin
avec de petites mains
à petite bouche mais les yeux grands
comme un lapin, une vache, un serpent, etc.
les mains sure les épaules
**English:
with gusto
romantically
quietly
like a Munchkin
to the left
to the right
looking above
looking below
laughingly
sheepishly
with one foot off the ground
with head forward
with head back
with arms in the air
while whispering
loudly
with face scrunched
with eyes closed
severely
suddenly
fast/slow
really fast
really slow
while eating
while drinking
whiile turning around
with hands on hips
with hands on head
like a king
like a clown
with certainty
in a staccato voice
in a high voice
in a low voice
in a legato voice
six times
fifteen times, etc.
while touching something yellow, etc.
unevenly
nervously
obediently
proudly
relieved
thankfully
victoriously
in an embarrassed way
grumpy
itchy
mysteriously
worried
calmly
happily
proudly
relieved
in a silly way
thankfully
victoriously
sweetly
cuddly
with tiny hands
ç Block 2:
- FVR
- Silent Reading of the Text
- Instructor Reads Aloud
- Pair work
- Choral translation using laser pointer
- Discussion of grammar in L1
- Dialogic Reading
- Acting mode
- Jump into the Space!
- Running Dictation
- Work on accent
- 5 minute write
- Class artist
- Dictée
- Textivate
- Sacred reading
- Translation quiz
- Content quiz
- Free Write