Hey Ben –
I’ve been experimenting with an activity that I like a lot. It’s kind of a backwards TPRS. I write a story that has mostly known but some unknown vocab/structures and give it to the students to read…sometimes silently, sometimes in pairs “snowplow” style, where they are just reading the text aloud to one another in English (text is in Spanish). Then we set a timer and discuss the text in Spanish for as long as we can stand it (max 10 min for me and my current students). Then do extension activities for a few days (drawing, theater, t/f, etc.) and read it again. The thing I wanted to tell the blog about was an interesting comment several students have made. When I ask them to read silently to themselves, they ask “should I read in English or in Spanish?” 🙂 The text is in Spanish, so they’re asking what they should be doing inside their heads! Actually I don’t know what to tell them!
I’ve also been wondering about heritage students who are blocked in their speech output. If they have been listening to Spanish all their lives and speaking comes from listening, then why can they not speak? They are so bored by the CI because it’s so SLOW.