More good stuff from Bryce:
At the beginning of each class I have my students do a “Repasito”. The Repasito is a sponge activity. It is a review of what we did yesterday and a link to today. Sometimes it is just a fun warm up to get them thinking in Spanish. The goal of the Repasito is to remind students of yesterday’s material and to give them a mental set for today. It can also be a comprehension check and a PQA starter. The Repasito is almost always written in Spanish, the idea being that students are getting CI, even on mini formative assessments like this.
The Repasito is output, but keep in mind that it is only one minute or so long—just five quick questions to get us thinking. The Repasito is mainly a springboard for PQA, and the thoughts generated often guide conversations for almost the entire class period. We often spend a lot of time just talking in Spanish about student thoughts and feelings and never actually get around to the lesson. I am moderating and asking questions and occasionally writing something on the board—ideally, functioning like a gifted, empathetic talk show host. Kids think they are getting away with something when that happens. Yeah, right, they spend an hour speaking in Spanish and listening to me and to one another in comprehensible Spanish, everyone is listening, most are sharing and we are “wasting time” and “getting away” with something. I will take that kind of get away any day. It doesn’t always happen, but on those days when it is clicking, I feel like I am channeling some weird hybrid of Oprah Winfrey and Blaine Ray.
Here are some winner Repasitos we have done in the last couple of weeks. They all got either an enthusiastic response or generated some long and compelling PQA. To keep it simple there always are five questions on the Repasito—that keeps the record keeping easy for me: 1 day = 5 points. The Repasito is almost always written in the target language on the board, but are translated here for non-Spanish speakers.
Also, as a follow up, and a reason to do well on this activity, I often tell the students that when they are done with their Repasito, they will need to check a classmate’s answers. This tiny accountability prod gives them motivation to be accurate and cute in their answers. When almost everyone is finished, I have the entire class stand up. Each student is to take a specified number of steps to arrive at a classmate and share their Repasito answers. The task is different each time, but is usually something like “Listen for the most interesting answer.” It can also be the most boring answer.
Spanish 3:
We are working our way through a story that focuses on the present perfect tense, so most of the Repasitos have focused on that verb form recently; the questions either use that form or encourage the use of it.
–Write five things that you think your parents have done almost all their lives. This created a bunch of interesting conversational fodder. If parents only knew what we hear about them—the good the bad and the ugly!
–Write five things that you imagine that Lindsey Lohan has done. Fun responses; fun like watching a train wreck is fun. Especially comparing her to when she was a child star.
–Write five things that you have done almost all of your life. Interesting self disclosure. Most were a lot different from Lindsey Lohan, although a joker or two in each class talked about doing the same things we heard that Lindsey had done from yesterday’s Repasito.
–Write five things you will do this weekend. We have used the future tense this year and I want them to remember it. The “weekend” questions are standard fare in many CI-based language classes—on Friday it is “What will you do?” and on Monday it is “What did you do?”.
–Write five things you did over the weekend. As stated earlier, these always generate great PQA. I almost always want to know some more details and the kids almost always want to share. And like lieutenant Colombo, I always have a few questions.
–Write five things that another student in this class probably has done this week. The question sets up the need to use the present perfect again. Also a great opportunity for light teasing, which is ideal if a safe, trusting environment has been established in the classroom—no one is going to go too far, but we are ware of one another’s foibles.
Spanish 2:
Write the five most important Spanish words, in your opinion, and share them with a classmate. Are they similar? I like to get the Spanish 2 kids up and moving and talking—maybe it is because my Spanish 2 classes this year are at the beginning of the day and right after lunch when kids are the most passive and lethargic. Once they had shared and had sat back down, this generated a lot of quick comments and compliments on their insight or character by me as we shared our way around the room. We got some REAL interesting ideas here. Some kids gave the words they thought they were supposed to give: ser, estar, tener, etc. Others went with the ones their mommas’ always told them: please, thank you, you’re welcome. Still others went with the typical gringo route with expressions like: ¿Dónde está el baño? But others vaulted off into unexplored territory. I liked it when they included “¿Por qué?” (Why?) as one of the most important Spanish words.
What were five problems in the story? Compare your answer to a classmate that is seven steps away from you. The main problem in the story we were working on was that the clerk only spoke English, but there were all kinds of other small problems in the story as well.
What are your favorite rejoinders? Compare them with the answers of the person on your right. We have a big rejoinders poster in Spanish on the wall. Students can earn P.A.T. points by appropriately using 50+ rejoinders per class. I do this because using rejoinders is a great way to keep conversations going and getting more input.
Write five things that you imagine that the person on your left did yesterday. Another fun opportunity for light-hearted ribbing.
Spanish I:
What are the five most important words to tell the story? We are telling a long story/joke in Spanish I right now. I want them to reflect. Even for the slow processors this is not too hard since we pre-taught the most important words with gestures. ¡Es obvio!
What are five other important words in the story? (Use different words than yesterday).
These five questions were written on the board in Spanish for the Spanish I classes’ Repasito on Friday:
1. When is el cinco de mayo? I always get this question this time of the year. Drives me crazy, so I thought I would ask some more obvious questions to match and mock it.
2. What color was George Washington’s White horse?
3. When was the war of eighteen twelve? (I almost always write out numbers rather than just putting the numeral to reinforce them. Numbers are so abstract that kids will forget them unless they are used all of the time)
4. Who is buried in the tomb of Ulysses S. Grant? I translated the term buried (enterrado) for them.
5. What was the last name of Abraham Lincoln? About half the class remembered the Spanish word for last name.