Ray Bauer shares, for those still doing TPRS:
At the last Chicagoland TCI meeting I talked about a tweak to TPRS stories that has worked well for me. I may present on this at one of our Chicagoland meetings, but I wanted to send it your way as well in case it can be of use to teachers on the blog.
I have been doing TPRS stories for over ten years and for the first few years I would create story frames or get them from TPRS story books. The stories would typically go well in most classes, but at times I’d have to bail out of stories due to lack of engagement. A story frame might be a homerun in five out of my six classes, but that one class for some reason didn’t find it engaging. I would also spend a lot of prep time creating stories or finding them in story books. About seven years ago, however, I found a way to do stories that requires almost no prep time. In addition, I no longer have to bail out of stories as much. This way of doing stories has made things so much easier for me, so I wanted to share it with the CI community. I will describe it below:
I call this the “three action story.” To prep for the story, all I do is come up with a question that requires an action. For example, the question could be: What does Paco want to do during winter break? What chores does Paco have to do? What is Paco going to do this weekend? What are Paco’s hobbies?
After establishing the main character with the students in the target language (and writing the details of the character on the board) I then ask the question I came up with. For example: What is Paco going to do this weekend?
Right after I ask the question to the students I write the numbers 1, 2, and 3 on the board. Then, students raise their hands and give creative ideas as to what Paco is going to do over the weekend. Every time I do a story I write the three ideas the students come up with on the board in Spanish and leave them up there the whole period. As you can see, they are all actions. It might look like this:
1. Paco is going to ski
2. Paco is going to clean the kitchen
3. Paco is going to walk the dog
Then, I start the three action story. First, we talk about Paco skiing. We say where, when, with who Paco skis…etc. Then I have an actor come up and act out Paco skiing. As soon as we’ve made Paco ski I go to the board and put a check mark next to number 1 (signaling we’ve completed it). Then we move on to number 2. I say, “Now, Paco is going to clean the kitchen” and the whole process starts over again. We talk about Paco cleaning the kitchen with question circling and everything, and then the same actor comes up to act out Paco cleaning the kitchen. When that is done we move on to Paco walking the dog. This system is actually three mini stories (instead of one big story) with the same character.
The reason I like this system is that when one of the three actions is not engaging for the students I can just end it and move on to the next one. If Paco skiing runs out of steam I can quickly move on to Paco cleaning the kitchen. Nevertheless, if Paco skiing is very engaging for the students I could spend 20-30 minutes on just that (and forget about Paco cleaning the kitchen and walking the dog). For the first few years that I did TPRS stories I would focus on three locations. Maybe I’d have Paco ski in three different locations. But if one class isn’t really into Paco skiing the story flops and I need to bail out of it. Not only does the three action story give the teacher more flexibility and something to fall back on, but the engagement level is often very high because the students choose the three actions that make up the story.
Ever since I’ve gone to this method I haven’t had to bail out of stories nearly as much. And as I mentioned above, this system requires much less planning. All I need to do is come up with an open-ended question that requires an action. Then, I take three actions from the students and write them on the board.
I put the target language that I want to practice on the board as well and try my best to build that vocab into the story. For example, I may want to get repetitions of the words “while”, “each”, and “place.” These three words will also be on the board for the whole period with their translations. So, my board will look like this:
Mientras – while
Cada – each
Lugar – place
1. Paco is going to ski
2. Paco is going to clean the kitchen
3. Paco is going to walk his dog
This system has made TPRS stories much easier for me. I do way less prep work and I’m much less concerned that a story is going to bomb due to lack of engagement. I thought I’d share this in case it can be of benefit to anyone out there. If you have any questions feel free to reach out!
Thanks!
Ray Bauer