I like that Angie just started with this just this month in her classroom and is willing to report in, like May Lee did today, with some pretty high level questions that, since we are a group, we must respond to with good comments. I certainly don’t have all the answers. We’re all a work in progress and it will always be so.
Just finished the first week, and I have a question about PQA and Circling as preparation for doing stories. I’m feeling a little lost, not sure what I’m circling, it seems to keep changing. Is my focus the question words, or is it those high-frequency verbs that Anne Matava mentions? Or is it Novice Word list stuff? Or is it certain structures? I know that you say that the focus right now is community building, but I spent a whole period circling “Sierra juega baloncesto. ¿Qué juega Sierra? ¿Quién juega baloncesto?…and then moving on to the next student…I tried a couple of dóndes, as you suggested, but I felt like I went out of bounds really, really fast. Plus, I’m surprised that the level 3 students who are juniors and seniors seem to have more imagination than the level 1 8th graders. Plus I’m drowning in discipline issues. Yikes! Should I just bail to the Anne Matava stories? Meanwhile, I’m hearing through the grape vine that students “like my class” and that they feel like they’re hearing lots of Spanish…It’s kind of surreal. Is this what the first year is like?
Angie