cURL error 28: Failed to connect to api.patreon.com port 443 after 3852 ms: Couldn't connect to server
To view this content, you must be a member of Ben's Patreon at $10 or more
Unlock with PatreonAlready a qualifying Patreon member? Refresh to access this content.
The Problem with CI
cURL error 28: Failed to connect to api.patreon.com port 443 after 3852 ms: Couldn’t connect to serverTo view this content, you must be a member
26 thoughts on “Help Wanted”
Hi, Leigh Anne. My books are at school so I will not get a chance to look at the structures til next week, but I’ll be happy to take a shot at it!
Carol
Leigh Anne,
Stop it already! I can’t believe you think you are burdening me.
Call me/text me/ email me whichever you prefer and I’ll always be there to help you my friend.
Hey, Sabrina!
How are you, my friend? How are your new classes?
Listen, I really appreciate everything you’ve done to make storytelling successful for me. Your help has been invaluable!
I will e-mail you some stuff, ok?
Thanks again, 1000 times!
Leigh Anne
Thanks, babe!
Hi y’all,
Wondering if I could scam in on some of this. I am in a similar situation, although not teaching the upper levels, but sometimes I spend way too much time trying to figure out the structures bc I just don’t know “what someone would really say.” So I go to the wordreference forums and stuff like that, but it takes a chunk of time. Like, I can usually come up with something but my gut tells me in some cases that it would sound stilted, not really how you would speak in real life. Or else i Spanify it, making up some expression that is colloquial Spanish but with French words. Yikes!
So anyone who teaches French and uses the Matava / Tripp scripts it would be awesome to get a list of the main structures you use for those. Doesn’t even have to be for the whole book, but whichever stories are your personal faves!
Merci 🙂
Hi, Jen,
Wait, you went from Spanish to French too?
This could be a classic case of the blind leading the blind, but…the first half of Anne’s first book is on my blog. Sabrina helped me with many of them, but who knows if some uncorrected versions made it into publication. So, maybe someone here can follow the below link to give a quick edit.
I went in order for the first 12 stories, and then I mixed up the order a bit. You’ll see.
Here’s the link:
http://munoz.chinohills.groupfusion.net/modules/blog/multi.phtml?profile_id=75981&sessionid=cc76fa214e0efa948850f4c6cf5cfde1
I only maintain one paragraph from each story.
Jen, let me know if you use the link, ok? Good luck!
That would be awesome to have – I feel the same way, Jen. In order not to feel like a mooch, I would be happy to translate some (maybe even all, if you give me some time) of the Matava story structures into German 🙂
I would love to see these stories in German. Wow! Please include me if you do decide to write them in German.
Weren’t these stories originally in German? Anne Matava might have them already somewhere.
I’ll ask her. And in terms of the other languages, do we need the whole script in L2 or just the targets? I think a list of the targets from Sabrina for the French for example would suffice. We should make it a goal to have targets for those scripts here in a category at some point, for Latin, French, Spanish and German. Anybody want to take that on? If we work as a team it should be easy to get it done by the winter break.
Count me in for the German part (unless, like you said, Anne has that covered already).
I’ll see some of my guys are interested.
Jeff
Ben I sent you all the scripts in their entirety that I translated for Leigh Ann last year.
Do you still have them?
Never mind, I just remember you asked me to keep them in a safe place would we need them. And now we do. Luckily I won’t have to redo those as I know exactly where I put them on my laptop.
So I have those and I can resend them to you.
As for the other ones, no biggie, just tell me which one we need, either in their full script version or just target structures and I ‘ll quickly translate them and send them to you . Then you can publish them on the blog for all the french teachers.
Dis-moi ce que tu veux faire OK?
Te verrai-je le 13 Septembre pour la correction des DPS pre-assessments?
Good point! Why reinvent the wheel.
Just wondering what became of this idea of posting the target structures in different languages. Did it happen?
Ruth I think what happened was that Anne got going on a set of ten scripts for Houdini, to help set that book up. And then she is also working on a Vol. 3 scripts book. But I do know that if we have Brigitte and Sabrina in German and French, at some point we can publish language specific Matava books. But I think Anne wants to get these other two books out first. Maybe in the next year or year and a half. Let’s not forget this one.
I’m in 🙂
OK thank you Brigitte I will email you both privately to address the details.
We want all of Anne’s stories, if possible, to be in as many languages as possible. This includes Vol. 3, the one she is currently working on, planned for next summer.
(For those interested, we should have the Houdini – only published by Carol in French and Spanish currently – available for purchase in a few weeks as an ebook only.)
I’ve read over Anne’s scripts (Vol. 1 I think it is) that I have… I think they are too advanced for Chinese year 1 or 2. I would have to go back and look again now that I have more experience with stories. I’m drawn to the idea of using these tested & well-loved scripts but haven’t yet done so.
I haven’t used them either, Diane, for the same reason. It seems like they require the kids to already have a lot of other vocabulary and structures besides the targets. What I have done with some stories (from whomever) is to use the general idea and one or two of the target structures but ask quite a different story that fits with what my kids know. I did that with the Halloween story (not Anne’s I know), for instance. That way we get to enjoy them at least in some form. So far that’s worked for me.
It makes me wonder, though, if I’m not introducing enough new stuff, so they do have more to work with.
I don’t mean introducing enough new stuff in a given story. I know that needs to be limited to the targets. I mean as the weeks go by, am I giving them enough new or reworking the old too much.
Anne is very strong on that point in describing her books. She stresses that her scripts can only be used after months of TPR, of working with the questionnaires (her idea and what she does) and/or of CWB/OWI (my ideas and what I do) or some combination of the two.
Why do I prefer her scripts?
1. They are all proven, and some are genius.
2. She hits the hearts and minds of teenagers.
3. They are not part of a program where you have to do things in a certain order like Carol’s Cuentame series or Blaine’s LICT materials. I can grab any script one minute before class and go. That is how I work anyway. I love the spontaneity that comes with working in that way. It’s not for everyone, but definitely perfect for some of us, as long as we do in fact get those months of verb work in before doing them. Like, in my level 1 class right now we are into Pauvre Anne already but haven’t done any Matava stories yet. We’ve been packing verbs in via CWB/OWI/and a limited amount of LICT (the first four stories or so are excellent for teaching important basic verbs).
This is really helpful to hear exactly what you’ve been doing so far and where you are right now. I think I am finally “getting” some very basic understanding. It’s not like you, and others, haven’t said this before about starting the year, but if I hear things repeated often enough and can put them into the context of my growing experience, they really do finally sink in. It’s like getting TCI training using the principles of CI.
I’ve done some things well, and the kids are learning some French for sure, but I didn’t set things up at the beginning as strongly as I should have, not for lack of wanting to, but for lack of knowing really how and by trying different things and just being scattered, no matter how many times I read here and reminded myself to stay simple and stick to the basics.
I have to remember, too, that I can’t do the same amount and get into the same kind of routine as people who see their classes regularly every day (in other words, a decent schedule). Next year, I’ll know better how to start the year off right, though.
Thanks again!
…I didn’t set things up at the beginning as strongly as I should have…
Nobody does. I don’t think one person does enough to set up stories. Maybe Eric who has described how he targets certain verbs. Others maybe. The idea of targeting certain verbs is not a topic here in the fall but should be. Thank you for bringing this up. It’s just another area that we need to develop. Maybe we should do less CWB and more Questionnaires, judging from what I have seen Anne Matava’s kids capable of. I think her use of the Questionnaires is something we all need to look into more. CWB is great for personalization and setting up norms of classroom management, but we need more verbs than those we get from that strategy.
I use the questionnaires as a way to transition to stories. There is a spot on the questionnaire, for example, that asks for what the student is afraid of. That’s a great way to transition to the “afraid of the package” story, for example. Not only can you use somebody’s cute answer as the beginning of the story, PQA is easier because you can use several cards and compare/contrast before starting the story.
I wonder if almost every story in level 1 could be linked in some way to the questionnaire.
James, I had that same thought (and promptly forgot it until I read your comment). A while ago we got a bunch of reps with “wants to be” from the questionnaire question that asks the kids what job they would like to have. Soon after we went on to my version of the Halloween story and “wants to be” was right there! I thought to myself, “Wow! How accidentally sequential!” Maybe that’s the intention of the questionnaire, but for me that time it was just plain luck!
It did make me think that maybe I would tweak the questionnaire a bit for next year to support the early structures and my simplified stories more. Your comment reminded me of this.