Alaskan TPRS Magic - Michele Whaley

I first saw this session listed in the program and thought-- TPRS in Alaska? What can that have to do with me? Then I read further and realized that what Michele would be describing was exactly what I am looking for: how to expose more colleagues to comprehensible input strategies, get them excited about learning and practicing, and thereby create a network of practitioners to work with.

Michele Whaley teaches Russian in Anchorage, AK. She shares her Prezi of the session here.

Michele and a couple of TPRS colleagues recognized that TPRS teachers (perhaps all good teachers...?) need continuous access to observation and coaching in order to learn and grow. Having more TPRS teachers in the district would help make that possible. The Anchorage school district has 8 high schools, 16 middle schools, and 45 elementary schools. Over the course of 3 years, Michele helped 100 Alaskan language teachers gain access to TPRS meetings, classes, webinars and conferences. Starting with a tentative group of 5 teachers, they have grown to a core group of 25 language teachers who meet and contribute regularly to discussions about teaching with TPRS.

Michele shared these very helpful Nuts and Bolts of getting people together to learn:

Set up meetings

Send two notices (to every language teacher you can think of)

Send follow-ups with additional info

Provide food!

Keep getting training

In the Alaskan Miracle, many national experts were willing to Skype into meetings: Corinne Bourne at AFLA, Ben Slavic, Susie Gross, Laurie Clarcq, Scott Benedict webinars, Jamie Kroll from NC, Terry Waltz, Katya Paukova. Participants clustered around computer monitors and cameras and soaked it all in. I think they even had participants Skype in to the Skype sessions, so they were communicating screen to screen.

Katya (a seasoned TPRS presenter and Russian teacher) taught a Russian class to parents, getting them excited about TPRS and seeing how their children could be learning. Susie Gross went with Michele on their annual exchange to Russia. Many Russian (nationality) language teachers are interested in learning TPRS when they see the results.

Michele arranged for teachers to receive university credit for time spent in training and development:

3-credit class: required readings, attendance, etc.; 1/3 credit for evidence of collaboration; increased conference attendance; on-line presence; very visible at AFLA

Three important elements for success:

COACHING

COLLABORATION

OBSERVATION

As many of us have discovered, it's not enough to go to one workshop and come home fired up and ready to roll. You get through one or two lessons and find yourself saying "What now?" You need to be able to brainstorm with another TPRSer, get coaching form a more experienced teacher, and observe and be observed (see Susie Gross's wonderful Observation Checklist).

In order to be able to do these essential collaboration activities, Alaska teachers received a grant to pay for subs so teachers can observe each other.

My biggest take-away from the session was Michele's observation that Outsiders work best as gurus in the beginning. I have discovered first hand that colleagues don't necessarily respond to ideas for change from one of their own. If an outside expert can get the group charged up, then the group can find its own power to move forward.

Hmm... I already have plans underway for a workshop in August to share TCI strategies with colleagues from my (independent PK-12) school and from area schools. If Michele's observation is correct, the workshop will have more of an impact on visiting teachers than on my own school-mates. We'll see...

Comprehension Checks with Leslie Davison & Barb Cartford

Leslie Davison is a K-5 Spanish teacher in a dual immersion school in Colorado. Barb Cartford teaches Spanish and Swedish in Minnesota, and does an amazing Lisbeth Salander impersonation (but that was last year...). Handout.

Leslie spoke about the importance of distinguishing immersion from submersion : we want our students to hear the target language, but we don't want them to drown in it! To make sure they are keeping their heads above water, we need to develop ways to check for comprehension. These may range from quick translation checks: What did I just say?* to a variety of subtler student feedback checks:

One-word quick check: El gato fue al cine--What does "fue" mean?*

Ask students to respond to statements in the TL with "Ahhh!" if they understand or a time-out signal (such as raised hand, T-hands, hand swooping overhead--"That went right by me!"--or fist in palm, e.g.) if they don't. Often it's the abler students who use this strategy most-- they know what they don't know more readily than slower processors. How do we serve the slower processors?

Do a quick poll of students, asking them to close their eyes and raise both hands using 1-10 fingers to show how well they understand. The teacher can see who is feeling less than 8 and focus on raising comprehension for those 'barometer students'. In older classes, students can be polled using their cell phones and texting to the website www.polleverywhere.com.

When reading a text, students can show full comprehension by translating into English, then discussing in the TL.

*Teachers wanting to use as much of the target language as possible teach their students early on how to say and understand comprehension check language such as "What did I just say?" and "Show me with 1-10 figures how much you understand.")

At the end of class, give a quick 5-question, 5-Point quiz.

Yes/no

Name

Place

When

Solution

Practice numbers by asking who got more than 80%; aim for 100%.

Barb Cartford did a fun Swedish lesson, practicing some of the comprehension checks we had heard about. She used the story of the Bilingual Mouse, based on a Cuban folktale in which a mother mouse saves her mouse children from a threatening cat by barking at the cat in Dog language, the lesson being: "It pays to be bilingual."

Vocab needed to tell and understand the story:

yes/no

and/or

there is

comes from

is a cat

not

says

eats cheese

is scared

plays baseball

walks

runs

Later in the conference I talked to a teacher who has students teach their parents this vocabulary as homework during the weeks before Parents' Night, then the teacher tells the Bilingual Mouse story to parents on Parents' Night so they can experience the wonders of TPRS! I may try it this year.

If Mme Hayles can do it...

I'm inspired by a teacher I met last week at the National TPRS conference in St Louis-- Bess Hayles, who keeps a great blog of her experiences as a TPRS teacher. I've been following her since last year, and her blog inspired me to start mine, though I've been ve-e-e-ry slow to get into the routine of posting. OK, so I haven't really developed any routine of posting. Mme Hayles is now posting a session by session account of her week at NTPRS, so I think I'll do the same here, just to get me back on blogging track. Feel free to compare and contrast.