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Red Alert 2
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22 thoughts on “Red Alert 2”
I love this. We are going to be there for Lance every day during the two weeks of French. We will figure out ways to eat up time. The two things that jump to my mind immediately are Word Associations, which is how I taught Spanish that one time when I didn’t know Spanish and it worked. I have that list of the WA Spanish words somewhere if you need it, Lance. The other time chomper upper is of course Dictee but the problem there is that they need to know something before they can write it. Doesn’t matter. We are going to do this! I am going to make this article a “sticky” article and keep it at the top of all the new posts for awhile. If anyone has a bit of time to suggest things that Lance can do in this situation, please do so.
So far:
WA
Dictee
Stay tuned and watch this list grow!
I thought of another one. Lance, you can prepare – with the help of the French teachers here – a bunch of Simon’s Cat video clips. An example:
https://benslavic.com/blog/simons-cat-screen-shots-for-3-videos-neubauer/
You can have each sentence written out for each screen shot. You can work from that in all the steps described below. As you go through the MovieTalk process, picking things that work and rejecting things that don’t, you can always circle each screen shot. Make what you can from the MT process work for you. We have lots of clips here already and I bet we could have more for you in French in one day if you needed them. Then after that, you can have them read the entire text in story form, so at that point you are back into English. Then give the simplest of y/n quizzes. Then maybe a dictee, then a free write. THEN, and this is a good idea, play the Textivate card. I can really see that working because the Textivate activities are all contained and limited to whatever the original written text is. I blew through half a class today – 45 min. – messing with Textivate, speaking English. They were looking at French so they thought they were learning and didn’t notice that I was speaking English because I didn’t feel like doing CI at that point in my day. So that is one way, like traditional teachers do all the time, to make the kids think they are learning when in reality they are not doing much because their teacher is speaking English. (They are reading so that’s good.) Who cares? This is not about anything but getting you through the class.
To summarize:
1. Take a Simon’s Cat screen shot PPT – examples above kindly supplied by Diane Neubauer.
2. Pre-teach the words (“this means that”) that are in the video. You don’t have to speak French to do this step.
3. Have your sentences there in front of you and as each screen shot comes up, say the sentence (“CLASS, the cat JUMPS!”) You only have to have minimal French to do this step and you will have each sentence in order on a piece of paper in front of you. There are online programs to tell you how to pronounce it.
4. (optional) If you want to get jiggy with it, learn the je, tu, il/elle, and vous forms of each verb you present in each screen shot. (Classe, le chat saute! [Ohhh!] Sarah, tu sautes? [She shakes her head. You say, “Non? Tu ne sautes pas? Non, classe, Sarah ne saute pas! [Ohhh!] Qui saute? (le chat!) Oui, classe, le chat saute! [Ohhh!]) Just simple circling.
5. Once you have gone through all the screen shots, you can write each one on the board. Don’t project them because you eat up more time writing them, unless they are a class you can’t do that with. They then write each sentence in their notebooks. What a waste of time! Good! (Lance the key to this thing is get them doing stuff like copying, where THEY are doing what they think as work – in schools writing=learning – so you can kick back and count each passing minute on your way to victory in this new game you are playing and we will be waiting for our DAILY report on how it went every day for the whole two weeks.
6. Then Textivate and use the 6 or 8 panel option on when they arrange the sentences in order. I would use the entire sentence format, not the broken up sentence format. This can really be dragged out because it’s such a true waste of time, all stuck up in the analytical part of the brain where language learning doesn’t happen, but where minutes are gobbled up. You don’t have to speak French to do this step either.
7. Then a dictee. Right there on a clip of ten sentences is a 20-30 minute chomp-fest on instructional minutes.
8. Then a freewrite.
One episode could take up to 2 or more classes, and if you notice you don’t have to speak French much at all, and they are sentences you have prepared, all limited to a single set of words, so you can’t get caught out of bounds. And tell them that they may not ask “How do you say?” which I tossed out of my classroom over ten years ago because they will forget the answer (lack of reps) and mostly they don’t even want to know, they just want the spotlight on them. There is a post on that Comment dit-on? topic. Plus, one time years ago when I still allowed it I had a football player always saying that phrase phonetically – Commont Ditt On. Oh my, if he weren’t so big I would have throttled him. I don’t teach French in order to hear it mispronounced. Early speech output fossilizes into crappy accents.
So, to conclude, the best way to eat up time in a language class is to do exactly what many of traditional colleagues do – run the class in English!
If anyone can beef up the above sequence with any other ideas, please send ’em. We got this!
Lance, what age are the kids? That determines some of my response. For 2 years, I taught exploratory classes to 4th graders – about 16 hours of class total with each group. The younger ages mean more physical activity and less reading, in my opinion.
Simon’s Cat “Feed Me” worked with them well – they knew cat, wants to eat, good, not good, tastes good/bad, very, and that might have been all they knew.
I’m happy to help out with any French lesson preparation! Feel free to contact me at cerobinson1@gmail.com
Cool. Clarification, though…French will last 2 months, not 2 weeks. I might be able to stretch the Latin portion a little longer, but the pacing will be at least 3x longer than you may have had in mind, Ben.
Diane, 7th grade.
Carly, will do.
Great! I teach 7th grade French but I have been taking Spanish classes with Elissa through Express Fluency. From time to time I have to cover a Spanish class for a colleague who is out sick and I have done reasonably well if I stick to topics I’ve discussed in my adult class. With a bit of a plan I think it is totally possible to rock 2 months of French with CWB (all you need to start are four words – plays, who, where, with whom), lots of TPR, simple movie talks, look and discuss/verb slams, each with a typed up reading to go along with (that you can have someone proof read, I’d be happy to do that). This will be fun!
Oh I forgot CWB, Carly. Thank you. I’ll add it to the list. We have four concrete strategies for Lance already. Thanks for jumping in.
I don’t think I can repeat CWB in May. I’ll have to start with that on the 30th, and we begin with Spanish.
The rest of the ideas are solid, though I need some pronunciation work in order to do the Dictee. PLC members are coming out of the woodwork to offer support. Thanks, peeps.
OK Lance here are the first four we have so far:
Word Associations
Circling with Balls
Movie Talk of Simon’s Cat (because we already have the screen shot power points ready)
Dictee
All the above can be found described in the categories. If anyone is teaching a language they barely know let’s be clear: it can be done with CI as per the above comments, which go into specific detail about how to do it using the above four strategies with more to come hopefully.
(Although Lance I think the four strategies are already enough for you to get through the two week long French piece.)
*2 months
Oh dang it. YOU CAN DO IT! We need more thoughts from group members. I can tell you I taught Spanish without knowing it off Word Associations for an 8 week intro, with some videos thrown in. WA was real strong in that setting.
Is there a post on how to do word associations? I do a little bit of that when we establish meaning, like maison looks like mansion, or se leve looks like levitate…is there more to it than that?
Carly this is just what I do:
Word Associations:
Making associations with words by working with word walls is a powerful way to help beginning students dive into a foreign language. It also gives both teacher and students confidence, which is what both need most as they start their new year together.
The word wall I use is a mix of verbs and other parts of speech, anything I can use to create language with my students. The word wall helps me and my students interact at this crucial time of year in the simplest and most human way possible; its purpose is not to teach certain words in a certain order but to give us a format to interact in the target language using a little English before that option disappears later.
Some teachers, who are locked into a pacing guide with vocabulary lists that are connected to thematic units, put those words up. But those words, because they are grouped thematically, don’t carry much interest. The only benefit I can see from a student memorizing a list of the colors out of context is that when they go to the country they may be able to recite them to people who already know what they mean.
On that topic, Dr. Stephen Krashen has said:
“How’s this? Don’t worry about number of repetitions. Don’t worry about vocabulary. Worry only about presenting comprehensible and compelling input. The vocabulary will take care of itself. For crucial vocabulary, there will be plenty of repetitions, and they will be “distributed,” not “massed,” exactly the optimal way of presenting items for optimal retention.
“Study ten TPRS classes – none of them with a specific focus on vocabulary. Give students a vocabulary test at the end of the semester or year. See what words they know. Compare this to lists of words that are on typical curricula. Compare to performance of students in classes that focus on vocabulary. That’s it.
“In general, CI-based approaches (including sustained silent reading) produce superior results on VOCABULARY acquisition (as well as reading comprehension, heavily based on vocabulary knowledge) than skill-based approaches.
“Will this be proof? No, no study ever provides proof. Research can only support or fail to support hypotheses.”
The real purpose of the strategies described in this book is to foster communication and shoulder-to-shoulder work between the student and the teacher toward the common goal of sharing language with extremely limited use of English in our classrooms. When that happens, learning will occur in a more powerful and natural way than when big lists of similar words drive the curriculum.
Here is an interesting mix of words that I use as a word wall for word association work all year in level 1. I find that it carries energy and makes for good classes. I know that my own students have enjoyed working with this list over the years because I have enjoyed teaching them to my students over the years.
Spanish Word Wall
levántate
siéntate
rápido
despácio
camina
salta
parate
da una vuelta
adelante
atrás
levanta
baja
mano
pierna
grita
suave
fuerte
toca
señala
pega
cabeza
boca
ojos
mesa
nariz
chico
muchacho
chica
muchacha
silla
piso
techo
puerta
ventana
come
pescado
llora
ríe
escribe
dibuja
oreja
rodilla
carro
tira la pelota
corta
le da, dale
a la derecha
a la izquierda
pelo
pecho
pie
reloj
toma
casa
brazo
lápiz
pluma
grande
pequeño
pone
hermosa
sonríe
una vez
me gusta
French Word Wall
on se lève
on s’assied
rapidement
lentement
marche
saute
arrête
on se tourne
devant
derrière
lève
baisse
main
jambe
crie
doucement
fort
touche
montre (v.)
frappe
tête
bouche
les yeux
table
nez
garçon
fille
chaise
plafond
plancher
porte
fenêtre
mange
poisson
pleure
rit
écrit
dessine
oreille
genou
voiture
lance
coupe
lui donne
English Word Wall
stand up
sit down
rapidement
lentement
marche
saute
stop
turn around
in front of
behind
raise
lower
hand
leg
yells
quietly
loudly
touches
shows
hits, knocks
head
mouth
eyes
table
nose
boy
girl
chair
ceiling
floor
door
window
eats
fish
cries
laughs
writes
draws
ear
knee
car
throws
cuts
gives to him/to her
Here is the process I use in my own CI classroom. Basically it’s just TPR. I go over a few words to start level one classes in the beginning of the year. This simple training wheel exercise starts class on a fun, physical note. We put the words into our physical bodies via gestures, sounds or images that enable us to remember the meaning of the word. We play with the words and make weird sounds and gesture them and just have fun. It’s just establishing meaning, but we make it fun.
If the first word for that class is voiture (car, pronounced vwature in French), first, as always in this way of teaching, I establish meaning by saying to the class that voiture means car. Then I ask if anyone can think of some way to remember that voiture means car. I allow the word association suggestions from the students in English, but only in this beginning of the year activity.
Different suggestions come up. Some are very outlandish but are often the most remembered ones. If you ever doubt your students’ creativity, you won’t after using this strategy word association strategy with them. Someone may suggest that we can remember that voiture means car by making an association with the phrase, “What year (sounds like voiture) is your Toyota?”
Another example, mentioned in the previous chapter, is les yeux in French. The students almost always associate that sound with either laser eye surgery or lazy eye.
If we are working with a verb, of course, we use basic TPR. We put the verb “into our bodies” and then try throughout the year to gesture it whenever we say it, keeping in mind that thousands of repetitions and gestures of a verb is still often not enough.
I once asked a student who scored a perfect score on the National French Exam one year what part of the instruction he felt most contributed to his score, and he immediately replied, “…those word activities we did at the beginning of the year…”
Anyone who has done this kind of gesturing and association knows how oddly powerful and compelling it is as a teaching tool. A few details:
1. If no one can come up with an association, we just go on to the next word.
2. We never do more than three words in one class period, usually only two, and end after five minutes.
3. The process has a predictable sequence each day. First I tell the students what the word means, and then I ask them how they can remember what it means. Doing this creates a pleasant sharing of ideas in English as we get to know each other in the first weeks of the year before we go to all-L2 classes.
Let’s take a closer look at the word association sequence. As stated, each time we introduce a new word from the word wall, we say what it means (there is no need to write it on the board) and then we ask the class how we can remember what it means, as in:
Class, the next word that we want to learn today from the wall is les yeux. Les yeux means eyes. How can we remember what les yeux means?
When the class as a group chooses to remember that les yeux means eyes by making associations in their own minds and by expressing those associations out loud in the group in their own voices, they create a problem solving community.
When a student makes his suggestion, the instructor says:
Oh, class, Bryan said that we can remember that les yeux means eyes because of lazy eye!
By reacting in this way, she acknowledges Bryan and his immediate contribution to the group at the beginning of the class. The student is more important than the subject matter. This is part of the all-important process of personalizing the classroom every day by recognizing the child as a human being first before trying to teach him anything. Bryan is acknowledged for his intelligent and creative suggestion, expressed in his own voice, in linking les yeux to lazy eye.
Also, as soon as I accept Brian’s suggestion, I tell the class in L2 to applaud him. How many times would we ourselves have liked to come into class and receive a round of applause for something we thought of in the first week of school?
The teacher, like Scrooge at the end of A Christmas Carol, sends this message to her class when starting class:
I’m going to like this class! I like the ideas these kids are giving me!
All the ideas can’t be accepted, of course, so we reject some of the ideas, but always with lots of good will, a smile, and sometimes even that process of rejecting ideas can become pretty funny.
Starting a class with plenty of personal acknowledgement of how smart and creative kids are is good politics. Asking kids for help is always a good idea – it gets them involved. That is why the Jobs for Kids piece mentioned elsewhere in this book has such enormous power. When we say how funny their ideas are, we flatter them. Flattery gets us everywhere in comprehension based instruction.
The phrase “how can we remember” is of key importance when we work with our word walls. How can we remember it? We are becoming a team working together. Here we are all together, about to embark, after this brief period of word association work, into L2 for the rest of the class period, and the inquisitive messages from the instructor are:
How can we all work together?
What can I learn from you?
How smart you kids are!
Man, I could never have thought of that!
and the kids’ messages to the class and to the instructor are:
Look how smart we are!
You can learn from me!
I’m smart!
I can think of weird and crazy things to help the class!
There is a tonal difference here. This inclusion of the individual in the group, this attention to how they can help the larger group, this attention to the student as a person changes many of our students’ perceptions of what our classes are all about.
Of course, if we can remember to do it, we glance briefly with a knowing smile at the student who came up with the gesture or the word association each time it occurs in class. A further bond is built with that student when we remember to do that.
The revolutionary nature of this work CI can be seen in the Word Association activity, which is about forging bonds primarily. Before trying to connect with our kids in the language, we first connect with our students in a social way before we get into the harder challenges of connecting solely in the language after the first few weeks of the year,
One of Three Ways to Start a CI Class
When the fun of working with the word associations begins to wane after a few weeks, the instructor has the option of starting classes using two other strategies – silent reading in conjunction with calming music, or Power Point based Do Now activities. Both are explained later in this book. They cannot be done at the beginning of the year because, unlike the word associations, they assume prior knowledge.
Word Walls Help with Simon Says
When we play Simon Says it is easiest for the teacher to create commands when looking at a word wall. If the words “hit” and “arm” catch the attention of the teacher as she tries to make up commands, she can then say, “Hit your left arm”. She can then ask the kids, as they try to decipher the message, to look at the word wall and maybe help things along with the laser pointer. It’s all about comprehension.
You can do the weather and date. Lots of opportunity for personalized QnA there. It’s Monday! Who likes Monday? Well Carl you’re strange. You like Monday? How strange! Who likes Monday? Well who prefers Friday? Well that’s normal! Who likes Friday better than the weekend? I prefer Fridays too.
Then on to the weather. It’s raining! Well do you like rain? You prefer sun? Me too! Who likes sun better? Who likes sun?
I may be the most boring person in the world but in my class this can easily eat up ten to fifteen minutes!!
I’m joking. It’s actually pretty interesting to the kids and me. I teach seventh grade too.
I also have started the “comment ça va” or “cómo estás” attendance taking. It took sooooo long the first three or four days that the end of class arrived before we were done with attendance. So I started a competition among my classes to do attendance faster while still responding in a sentence with a verb. Talking about the competition also is super engaging and personalized and my twelve year olds love it. I compare one period to another. Class first period is in second place in the competition. Look. Two minutes and thirty three seconds. You are in second position. Faster class!!!
I ask the timer kid if they are ready. Then if they’re sure. Are you sure you’re ready? Bill look at Jolie. Is she ready. Are you sure. This is good reps on to be.
You could do the persona especial. I’d think it would be easy cause you could have a poster to guide you.
I’m a real seventh grade aficionado so I’ll keep thinking. Plus I’m also teaching Spanish on some pretty shaky foundations. I taught myself too. I really loved the fluency fast online classes. They were a life saver!!!
I would like to see a video of you teaching French. It’s sounds exciting! I’m going to add weather after the Thanksgiving break.
Lance if you could get video of you teaching French there are many of here who would want to see that. Talk about putting yourself out there!
That’s nice of you…but the thought of videotaping myself scares the hoo-hah out of me! I had to tape myself and watch it in teacher school, and I absolutely hated seeing myself. It honestly scarred me. So I have never done it again. But I would be GLADDER than GLAD to answer any questions about teaching the weather. Or anything else. 🙂
Hi Lance,
Here are a few video ideas that I get a lot of mileage out of with my 7th and 8th graders (the 7th graders especially like them.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAMuNfs89yE
(Joe Dassin sings ¨Champs Élysees.¨ Over the course of a couple of weeks I add more and more lyrics on posters until we are singing the whole thing at the start of the class. Upbeat and good vocabulary.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVhfIgghOPw
¨Five a Day in French¨ Good workout and and good vocabulary builder. You can add a lot of these words into your early stories.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7tJSTCI-L8
Fun song with greeting and departure expressions. I have these expressions on a poster on the wall and we choose one each day as ¨the magic word¨ they have to say to me as they shake my hand when they leave class. If the students don’t say the word, I don’t let go of their hand.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qxnpz0z_hg
Three little pigs story set to Lady Gaga’s ¨Poker Face.¨ I put the vocab on posters in the room and we use it to build stories. (afraid, big, crazy, mean, who is afraid of…)
I sometimes have any one of these songs playing when my students enter the room. Another recent favorite is ¨Sur ma route¨ by Black M.
Here are a few things that I use that I’ve put together (Use them as you will):
Introductions (My name is… How are you?):
https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B8iMgKGzPTxaSnYwdG9CZEZBTWs&usp=sharing
Le Super Six:
https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B8iMgKGzPTxac05SNm50WWlOSm8&usp=sharing
Le week-end (talk about weekend on Mondays- what you did & Fridays- what you’re going to do): I would just tell them to keep it simple and use the options here (since you won’t know other vocabulary). It might be too much of a pain if they want to say a bunch of things that you don’t know, though…
https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B8iMgKGzPTxadnZxeGQtd3ZiUG8&usp=sharing
I love using songs (plus, you can listen to it a couple of times by watching the video, then going through it as a class, and practicing it a bit each day). You could easily do a song each week or two.
Frère Jacques (song):
https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B8iMgKGzPTxaNzFJSDBkcjF2elE&usp=sharing
Les sept jours de la semaine (song):
https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B8iMgKGzPTxaekt6dTdWeWE5Zkk&usp=sharing
Le robot dans mon château (song):
https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B8iMgKGzPTxaaTBDRkE5NnlCcFk&usp=sharing
J’ai faim, j’ai soif (song):
https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B8iMgKGzPTxac3JScl9IVldKOVk&usp=sharing
Meunier, tu dors (song):
https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B8iMgKGzPTxaTVhVSVBTMEl3NUk&usp=sharing
Here are links to a bunch of other songs for beginners:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8iMgKGzPTxadWVyRjdDeUFFVlE/view?usp=sharing
Here’s a link to the short story (rewritten and illustrated by yours truly) “La tortue et le lièvre” (The Tortoise and the Hare) You may need to simplify it, since it’s such a short period of time, but you could at least use the images.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B8iMgKGzPTxaVmttVVVPOTVyTXc
La fourmi et la sauterelle (The Ant and the Grasshopper) (once again- may need to be simplified…) :
https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B8iMgKGzPTxaOF9qUWhHWmNBYTQ&usp=sharing
You can also fill up time by working with numbers. (Math brakes) Since numbers take so long to really get down anyway, you can easily take up any extra time with those (even when you’re learning them with them).
The alphabet is also a prime time eater-upper…
I hope this helps! Bonne chance! (Good luck!)
Hi, Lance,
I did the same thing you did.
My new-to-French job was doable with Circling with Balls and TPRS. You can do it!
Lance,
I teach a 9 week French exploratory class to 6th graders, along with my 7th and 8th grade French 1 classes (our school divides French 1 into 3 semesters). I’m new at it, this is the 1st year they have offered Spanish instead of French to 6th grade, but I have taken many ideas from this blog for it and it is really successful so far. Along with the great ideas already mentioned, the kids love TPR. We can spend a good amount of time doing TPR commands mixed with adverbs, circling, and 3 ring circus, objects, etc. I watched the video of Sabrina that someone posted from a recent conference (Maine?), and it was so helpful! She is truly a master! I refer to that and the one of Eric frequently, just to make sure I am giving them as much comprehensible input with the activity as possible, and not just making them do gestures. My 7th graders and 8th graders love that part of the class also. It gets the kids moving, forces them to stay in the language, and they have a blast. We move from that into Simon Dit, le disco francais, etc. There are also good songs on you tube from Alain le Lait and Matt Maxwell that you can use to teach vocabulary that you aren’t comfortable with yet (days of the week, months, weather, body parts, greetings, etc.).
I hope that helps! Bonne chance!
Cherie
Even though we’re helping Lance, I’m going to take advantage and take from some the resources here. Being a first year teacher has been good for me. I just want to keep the CI going.