Of course this is much more than can be done in two blocks. More like 10. But it gives the sequence, a very valuable one in my opinion that has been cooking for at least four years and is now ready to serve as each individual CI chef wishes:
Block 1:
- FVR
- Grammar Translation
- Word Associations
- Greetings Reps
- PQA
- Story
Block 2:
- FVR
- Silent Reading of the Text
- Instructor Reads Aloud
- Pair work
- Choral translation using laser pointer
- Discussion of grammar in L1
- Dialogic Reading
- Acting mode
- Jump into the Space!
- Running Dictation
- Work on accent
- 5 minute write
- Class artist
- Dictée
- Textivate
- Sacred reading
- Translation quiz
- Content quiz
- Free Write
I also always like to update and remind group members about the vast array of strategies we have, so for those wishing a full list of ALL of the strategies that they can use in class even when they aren’t doing the normal 3 step TPRS process as described above, here they are:
Strategy #1: Word Associations show us how to start class on a fun, physical note by putting 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.
Strategy #2: Starting on the first day of classes, Circling with Balls establishes in our classrooms a web of connectedness and personalization that removes the emotional walls between student and teacher and between the students themselves. The most important quality to be found in any classroom has thus been introduced – that of building trust and community via acknowledgement of each person in the classroom.
Strategy #3: One Word Images show our students how to focus on meaning by focusing on an image and not on individual words, thus training their unconscious minds to turn sounds into meaning without the involvement of the conscious mind.
Strategy #4: The Word Chunk Team Game fosters class chemistry and team building. It teaches kids how to think in word chunks. The time in play goes by quickly, and there is a high level of auditory focus on L2, setting the stage for successful stories later.
Strategy #5: Dictée bridges the gap between sound and writing, melding the two, moving information back and forth across the hemispheres, allowing the students’ deeper minds to make all sorts of connections as they lay the ground for original and authentic writing later.
Strategy #6: Look and Discuss is a proven winner in the comprehension based classroom because the picture is right there in front of the students, which heightens comprehension and makes it easy for them to easily respond to the instructor’s circled questions in a positive way. Look and Discuss is a great strategy to use when the teacher needs to take a break, because it is an effortless way to get a discussion going in the TL. Just grab a picture and start talking.
Strategy #7: The Verb Slam Activity, a TPR based activity, brings into the students’ deeper minds instant or nearly instant identification of many high frequency verbs found in the target language.
Strategy #8: Textivate allows us to plug into its software any written texts that we have created from the comprehensible input created in our classrooms by cutting and pasting texts into the program.
Strategy #9: The Super Mini Stories set up regular stories by providing simplified practice in the Three Steps of TPRS, setting the stage for regular stories.
Strategy #10: The Writing Strategies make deep connections to acquisition in that they access any comprehensible input that the students have heard in class before and transfer it from input to output in the form of writing. They bring what is unconscious into the conscious mind. Communication is the only goal.
Strategy #11: Sentence Frames are great after a vacation. They allow free form discussion after a break, while developing the writing and reading skills. The Star of the Week activity is based on Sentence Frames.
Strategy #12: Interactive Whiteboards allow the class artist to visually recreate stories on an iPad/tablet if one is available. If not, the artist can just draw a picture on a piece of paper that can then be projected through a document camera. Interactive whiteboards are one of the best things that we have going for us in our comprehension based classrooms.
Strategy #13: Three Ring Circus is a great way to get kids up and moving and responding to prompts in the target language. It is a tried and true strategy that has been used in CI/TPRS classrooms for decades to teach verbs.
Strategy #14: Many teachers who use comprehensible input could not do it without the energy-changing Jobs for Kids. When kids are involved in making the classroom work, ownership of the class, without which learning falls flat, goes to the students and is not thrust fully onto the shoulders of the teacher.
Strategy #15: The many reading strategies in this book, like the writing strategies, are the ones that have risen to the top of the heap over the years. In particular, Reading Option A for processing readings from stories and Read and Discuss for process novels are unmatched in making CI reading classes work.
Strategy #16: Listen and Draw is a CI activity that the students don’t get tired of. We create a story that the kids draw as we go. These can be graded or used to generate writing.
Strategy #17: In MovieTalk, the teacher describes the content of short video clips. The audio track of the video is not used. Instead, the teacher provides the audio track in the form of in-bounds comprehensible input, narrating the action and describing things.
Strategy #18: The Special Chair/La Silla Especial is perhaps best used with younger kids. The instructor asks students questions when they are seated in front of the class during the creation of a story.
Strategy #19: Like the Special Chair, the Star of the Week builds face-to-face communication in the TL that leads to trust between teacher and student, and also gets the students to know each other in real ways in class.
Strategy #20: Two Truths and a Lie is one of those strategies that gets right to the heart of what we desire to do in this work – make face to face contact with our students and share ideas in the TL. It’s a winner after vacations, weekends, or any sort of break.
Strategy #21: Animal Parade offers us a wonderful diversion into the world of animals with our students. They create their animals, bring them to class, and we get to talk about them. What’s better than that?
Strategy #22: Visual PQA may be the most useful strategy we have, along with stories. We work from Power Point slide presentations, scaffolding from one slide to the next in what is a powerful taxonomy. Visual PQA keeps kids interested and is an easy and pleasant way to spend a class in the target language with the students.
Strategy #23: The Class Poem or Song, when used for a short period of time in each class, leads to eventual memorized mastery of certain poems.
Strategy #24: Running Dictation and Drawing Dictation change the energy in the classroom when it is dragging. These dictation activities take the teacher temporarily out of the spotlight and give the kids time communicating with each other in the target language.
Strategy #25: Tric A Quiz is a fun way to goad output from students, who know that if they can just trick the teacher on the quiz questions, they get free points.
Strategy #26: Three Locations – This tried and true way of getting repetitions on structures is certainly not a requirement in stories, since it can take up to an entire class period to get through even one location. However, taking a story through three locations is a highly effective tool in doing what CI is all about – getting lots of reps while the students aren’t even aware of it.
Strategy #27: Teaching Greetings – Because there are so many possible forms of questions and answers in simple greetings in another language, repetitions on greetings are needed every day. One way to do this is to provide the students with a big list of possible answers using a poster/tripod.