Keri has a question:
Hi Ben,
I had a question that maybe the PLC can help answer. Since this is my first time teaching a level I class, I am just thinking about how to help them learn numbers. I have found many different great activities and games to do with them to help them review their numbers…but I can’t do these until they know them. So, I was just wondering how I would go about this. I realize that numbers will certainly come up in stories and I could expose them to many numbers this way, but I can’t imagine now putting up a PowerPoint with numbers 1-100 and have them write those down, right? I mean, this is what I used to do pre-TPRS…I don’t want to do this now.
I realize that this is a simple question and maybe not as important as acquiring target structures & vocabulary but I am curious as to how others go about doing this or if they even do it at all.
On another note, after finishing my first full year as a TPRS/CI teacher, Iget it even more than I thought I did before. Last summer, before ever teaching this way, I was looking at the stories as the focus of my teaching. In other words, I built all my supplemental lessons and practice activities around the stories. This may not necessarily be a bad thing…but I recently realized that the stories are nothing more than another activity in order to expose the students to the target structures I want them to acquire. This may not seem like much news to you, but I never really thought of it that way until the end of the school year. I am now looking at my outline for next year and looking at the three structures I want to “teach”. I then have various activities & games to do with students based on those structures: movie talk, TPRS story, PQA (and PQA in different and creative ways such as “Hide and Speak PQA” thanks to Martina Bex, Look & discuss, the readings of TPRS stories, and many, many more) Even the games are so important…they are fun to students and as long as they naturally allow me to use vocab or structures that we are currently trying to acquire-or even that we’ve seen before and want to review-then we play and have fun…as long as I limit language use and use the target structures or vocabulary!
Of course, I also realize that not everything will be planned. Some of my best lessons last year just happened. If something comes up and it interests the kids, I go with it…this will still happen as well in my classroom.
Thank you, Ben, once again for your help in order to get me started last year. I know I will continue to improve my skills as a CI/TPRS teacher thanks to you and the PLC.
Sincerely,
Keri Biron