The Necessity of Background Language Knowledge for Reading in the CI/ADI Classroom

As I told you in an earlier blog post, I have been voraciously listening to (and re-listening to) Emily Hanford's podcast series "Sold a Story," a documentary about the shortcomings of the whole language/three-cueing approach to teaching students to read and why the science of reading matters. One of her earlier audio documentaries on the topic was "What the Words Say," and in it, Hanford discusses a reading hypothesis proposed by Wesley Hoover and Philip Gough in their article, "The Simple View of Reading" (1986). Hanford also interviews Hoover to discuss this further. Allow me this excursus to summarize this hypothesis (which has been verified in over 150 studies) - I promise that it will lead to a bigger application of what we do in our world language classrooms:

Hoover and Gough's Hypothesis

According to Hoover and Gough, learning to speak is a natural process for humans (unlike reading which is not), so by the time students begin school, they already possess a huge knowledge of spoken language in their L1. Gough writes:

“The average American 6-year-old has a mastery of English [that] would be the envy of any college graduate learning English as a second language.”

However, while these beginning students probably understand the majority of what is spoken to them, they cannot yet read those words which they already they know how to say. Hence, they must be taught those skills. In the podcast, Hoover states, 

"What happens when [students] come to school, their language comprehension is fairly high, and what they have to do is learn word recognition, and so if they're taught word recognition, they can read to the level at which they can comprehend language."

As a result, whenever we read, Gough and Hoover believed that two processes happen simultaneously in our brains for reading comprehension to occur:

• Word Recognition - the actual process of reading the individual words accurately. This happens through decoding, phonics, familiar word recognition, and sight words. 
• Language Comprehension - knowing what each individual word means (either through spoken, listening, or read). Essentially, this happens through the possession of background knowledge of vocabulary, inferring from context, and grammar. 

If one can do both of those processes when reading, then reading comprehension occurs. But if one lacks one (or both) of these processes when encountering a word, then comprehension cannot take place. For example, Marty is reading a sentence. A number of things can happen:

• Marty reads the words and possesses the language comprehension of these words. Successful reading comprehension has taken place.
• Marty cannot read the words. Language comprehension cannot occur; therefore, reading comprehension is not successful.
• Marty reads the words but does not possess the necessary language comprehension of them. Successful reading comprehension cannot fully occur. From here, Marty can infer meaning from the context of the sentence; however, this does not guarantee 100% correct overall comprehension.
• Marty cannot read the words nor possesses the necessary language comprehension even if he could have read them. Successful reading comprehension cannot occur.

Hoover explains,

“Word recognition is complex. Language comprehension is complex. But the big idea of reading is that if you can master those two complex skills, then you can master reading comprehension.”

(NOTE - as we know, poverty can greatly affect incoming students' language comprehension and background knowledge of possessed vocabulary. This is known as "word gap" - those children from lower socioeconomic families are exposed to fewer words earlier in life those from more privileged backgrounds).

So what does all of this mean in our world language CI/ADI classrooms? 

Application to the CI/ADI Classroom

We know that Krashen is a huge advocate of reading:

"Our reading ability, our ability to write in an acceptable writing style, our spelling ability, vocabulary knowledge, and our ability to handle complex syntax is the result of reading."

"The ability to speak is the result of listening [and] the result of reading." 

When students arrive in our classrooms in level 1, most likely they posses absolutely LITTLE to NO language comprehension of our L2 language. So on day 1, if we were to give students something to read in L2, students might be able to read/decode the words, but those words would have absolutely no meaning if there was not any L2 language comprehension involved. 

Hence, there is a great need for us as teachers to deliver comprehensible input to our students for them to acquire words to build up their L2 language comprehension. The traditional "introduce words on Monday, vocab quiz on Friday" does not build up true L2 language comprehension - that is considered conscious/active learning (see Eric Richards' blog post on the difference between language learning and language acquisition - it is GOLD!) and does not lead to acquisition; there is no true retention occurring (I call this the "cram and flush syndrome" - students cram for a quiz, take it and get an A, and then flush it from their minds).

When our students build up their language comprehension and then we introduce reading to them based on that, then the language acquisition process can continue. If we have students read material for which they do not possess the necessary language comprehension, then essentially we have set our students up for failure, because they are unable to understand and process what they are reading. However, this is based on the assumption that our students can engage in word recognition first.

Regardless of what side you are on in the Reading Wars, there are some truths about teaching students to read which can be applied to our CI/ADI classrooms.

Spanish Confidence Readers by Adam Giedd

(This blog post is a continuation of a series on literacy in the language classroom)

Last semester, in my search for comprehensible novellas for my department, I came across Adam Giedd's Spanish Confidence Readers. For these readers, he describes, 

For someone learning a new language, reading their first book in that language is a huge milestone — one that inspires immense confidence. That confidence is like rocket fuel propelling towards fluency...Traditionally, students had to wait months until they could independently read most “level 1” graded readers for language learners. Confidence Readers change that. Now, learners can start reading on day one.

Since I am novice-low level reader of Spanish, I immediately thought, "I need to check these out myself!"

I bought all five and immediately started reading them. Wow, these are SO good! As soon as I finished one, I began reading the next one. What I loved about these readers:

• TONS of repetition of high frequency words.
• Short sentences, with each primarily focusing on one main idea.
• Lots of usage of cognates which allows for readers to focus then on the meaning of the high frequency Spanish vocabulary.
• The text is not written as paragraphs but individual sentences, with only maybe 3-4 sentences at most per page.
• Even though the readers are not very long, the plots are VERY compelling. This indeed proves that one can actually create a very interesting, entertaining story with a limited total word count.
• Lots of humor interjected in the plots - I can tell that these were written with middle school students in mind!
• Predictable, repetitive sentence structures - as a novice reader, I am realizing just how important that is for beginner readers.
• Every page has color illustrations - that definitely leads to the compelling nature of the readers. While allowing for double input, it also makes the readers feel like true books.

But most importantly: I cannot tell you how incredibly successful and confident I felt in reading them as a novice-low level reader of Spanish! The length of each reader was exactly what I needed in terms of input. I think too often we rush into novellas for our novice-low readers and thus overwhelm them with too much input which they cannot handle due to length or not level-appropriate (and then we blame students when the blame actually should be on us as teachers!). As a result, we have to wait months until they are ready. These readers definitely do inspire confidence in reading! These Spanish readers are great material for FVR, since they are incredibly easy to read and do not take long. Check them out!

I wish we had these in Latin and that more Latin novella authors would create readers like these Confidence Readers!

Teaching Culture in a Purposefully Communicative Manner

This is part of a series on purposeful communication.

This past summer, I had the wonderful experience of observing Skip Crosby teach a middle school Spanish language lab at the CI Summit in Philadelphia. I ALWAYS enjoy observing Skip, because he is a master CI/ADI teacher with middle school students, plus I know little-to-no Spanish, so I love how he makes the language comprehensible. However, more importantly, I got to see Skip present a cultural lesson on vitilla (a sport in the Dominican Republic which is similar to baseball to a degree) in the Spanish language - what I loved most about it (other than just learning about this sport which I had never heard about before, its cultural connection to life in the Dominican Republic, and its possible correlation to why the Dominican Republic has the second largest representation of players in the MLB after America) was that although it was presented in Spanish (and I know very little Spanish), it was 100% comprehensible to me!

A few weeks ago, I wrote a blog post about my purposeful communicative goals for the school year. This goal was based on Bill Van Patten's definition of communication - here is my explanation of it from that earlier blog post:

"Communication is the interpretation, expression, and/or negotiation of meaning for a purpose, in a given context." Based on that definition, Van Patten continues that our purpose should be that we wish to discover and learn information about each other, ourselves, and the world around us through communication, text, and input. In addition, in his book Van Patten adds that another purpose of communication is to entertain: "When we tell a joke or write a story...our purpose is to entertain in some way."

In that same blog post where I listed ways in which I aim to embrace this in my classroom, I wrote: [here is how I will use purposeful communication] "to learn about the world around us: 

1. teaching cultural topics and other content in understandable target language through readings and presentations."

Therefore, as part of my effort to engage in more purposeful communication, I have indeed begun to teach cultural topics in understandable Latin.

HOWEVER, this is NOT as easy as it sounds though: Teaching a target-language-based presentation is still INPUT, and crafting a cultural presentation in the target language means that it still has to be 98%-100% comprehensible. So often, culture has very specific non-high-frequency words, which means that while I can gloss those particular cultural vocabulary words in the presentation, the remaining words must be known/acquired words and cognates. If there are more glossed words than actual known/acquired words, then the input is not comprehensible and can become overwhelming for students.

My goal for the actual presentation was just student understanding and demonstration of comprehension in English - VERY low level on Bloom's Taxonomy. If I were to want to have a further discussion or application in L2, that would require much more specialized output - I just wanted students to show me in L1 their understanding of that L2 communication. Because my goal was comprehension and understanding, to ask questions in L2 and for them to respond in L2 would not let me know what they initially understood.

In my Latin 2 Honors classes, we are starting Andrew Olimpi's novella Clodia. The first chapter takes place at a Roman dinner party, so I decided to do a short presentation about the Roman cena in Latin. There are a lot of cultural nuances surrounding the cena embedded in that chapter which one will not catch without this knowledge. First off, the Roman cena can be a BIG topic in English, and if my goal is being 98%-100% comprehensible in Latin, I big time needed to "shelter vocabulary" and create lots of exposure of cognates/known words to balance out any glossed words. Below is what I crafted (this is part 1 - the cena is a BIG topic):

NOTE - I know that recumbebant is the better word to use than reclinabant, but my goal was to be comprehensible, so I used the cognate instead.

I presented the above using Google Slides and had students answer the following questions in English during the presentation:

1. Explain the dining seating arrangement in a Roman cena and how it differs from a traditional Western meal seating.
2. Nine people could recline on couches in a Roman cena. Explain what happens if there were more than nine.
3. Explain how social rank could affect one’s seating and food offerings.
4. The triclinium was the most decorated room in a Roman house - explain what different things a Roman could see when dining in the triclinium.

Observations

1. I really like the idea of presenting cultural topics in Latin - this is a great example of purposeful communication! However, the key is that the presentation/reading must be 98%-100% comprehensible. I know that Oerberg presents cultural topics in Latin in his chapters, but many times, those readings are overly vocabulary-intensive and turns into a frustrating decoding activity.
2. If I want to get meaty with cultural topics, then I will have to use L1 for that due to complexity of language needed.
3. I am still learning how to teach culture in a purposeful communicative way, but I was very pleased with what I wrote. Again, my goal was to deliver a cultural topic in L2 using 98%-100% comprehensible language where students at the end could demonstrate understanding and comprehension of that L2 in English.
4. I did spend the next day having students interact with the presentation as a reading with some post-reading activities, but that was it. It was not necessary to spend more than a day on it as a reading, since the reading was quite comprehensible to them already.

I am going to continue to do this! My next cultural presentation will be on the Roman popina - wish me luck!

P.S. In the second week of school, I did a comprehensible Latin version of Skip's vitilla presentation, since the first week we had focused on PQAs involving sports. I do not know if my other Latin 2 colleagues understood why I did it or what vitilla had to do with Latin, but I LOVED that I was teaching students about the modern world IN THE LATIN LANGUAGE!

Experiencing L3 Literacy Myself - My Reading Experiment

(This blog post is a continuation of a series on literacy in the language classroom)

Recently, I purchased some novellas for teachers in my department, and among them, I bought a single copy of many novice-level Spanish novellas written by Margarita Perez Garcia for my teachers to peruse for possible future use. Margarita had presented at the virtual Voces Digital Spring Conference about reading, and she mentioned many of her novellas which were written for novice-level students and aligned with the proficiency levels as outlined by the Extensive Reading Foundation. I was very intrigued by the novice-level Spanish novellas which she mentioned in her presentation, especially due to the low headword count in them.

When the novellas arrived, I decided to read them myself. I know very little Spanish, and if you have ever been in a CI/ADI coaching session which I have led, I am ALWAYS the "barometer student" in a Spanish demo. Since these were novice-level Spanish novellas, would I be able to read and to understand them with my limited knowledge of Spanish? The answer is a resounding YES!

Observations

1. I began with El Ultimo Arbol and then read Mosca, Mosca, Itipuru, Arroz con Cosas, Mosca en Leche, and Juliana in that order due to the headword count. That was very important, because I was able to build up slowly to longer sentences and more vocabulary.
2. Immediately I could tell that my brain was trying to make some type of sense and meaning of this L3 (Latin is my L2!) into my L1 (English) - what L1 meaning my brain was able to latch onto, it kept; that which it was not able to, it tossed aside. Luckily, due to the frequent repetition of words/phrases and predictable nature of the sentence structures (a key component in any novice readings!), I found that my brain was able to create meaning after awhile.  
3. In the beginning, there was some degree of decoding happening (i.e., stopping at individual words to look up the L1 meaning in the glossary), since there were many Spanish words which I did not know. However, as I progressed in the novellas, I found that this occurred less and less due to the repetitive nature of sentence structures and vocabulary. 
4. When reading sentences in Mosca, Mosca like Mosca no tiene talento. Tiene problemas, my first instinct was to translate it as "The fly has no talent. Has problems." In other words, because the first use of tiene had a specific word serving as a subject, I knew to translate tiene as "has" but not specifically as he/she/it has when used the second time without a stated subject. This is exactly what I see my own students do with Latin verbs when there is an understood repeated subject - they will not add in the subject implied with the verb ending. In other words, this is normal in the language acquisition process!
5. I loved that even though these novellas were novice-level, culture was definitely embedded in them, nor did I feel like the culture was forced into the plot; it seemed very natural.
6. The plots in these novellas are definitely compelling and engaging! I felt some type of emotional connection to the characters in each of the novellas and truly wanted to know, "Will they succeed in their endeavors?" 
7. Formatting of the text played a HUGE role in my being able to read the novellas. As a novice-level reader of Spanish, I definitely appreciated in Margarita's early novellas that instead of writing paragraphs, she wrote each sentence as an individual line. This made it so much easier for me to read and kept my affective filter low. This is something which I need to remember with my novice-level students when I create readings. 
8. When I began reading Juliana, I noticed that the font was now smaller and that the story was written in paragraphs. I will admit that my affective filter rose quite a bit! Now I know how my students feel!
9. HOWEVER, Margarita has a very specific style of writing which carries through each of her novellas, so while Juliana is formatted in paragraphs and smaller font, the sentences continue to follow her style and the choice of vocabulary from previous novellas. That made the paragraphs very easy to read, Krashen refers to this as narrow reading and states that narrow reading actually is a great way to deliver comprehensible input: "Since each writer has favorite expressions and a distinctive style, and each topic has its own vocabulary and discourse, narrow reading provides built-in review."
10. I cannot tell you HOW SUCCESSFUL I felt in reading these novellas! Even though they were novice-level readings, I was actually reading Spanish and not translating/decoding but READING!!
11. I can honestly say that as soon as I finished one of the novellas, I grabbed the next one to read!

Now, I can no way by any means say that I know Spanish as a result of reading these novellas. Nor based on the reading can I say that I acquired any grammar rules. BUT I CAN READ some novice level Spanish with success, and I want to read more! In fact, I had some of the novellas on my classroom desk, and in the last 10 minutes of my 6th period when I had finished teaching, often I would pick up the current novella and read. My Latin students who were heritage Spanish speakers were shocked that I was reading a Spanish book (since they cannot read Spanish even though they speak it at home) - one of them said, "Every day you've been reading a new Spanish book!" What else could I say but that these Spanish novellas were comprehensible and compelling!  

Maximas gratias, Margarita - I look forward to reading more of your novellas!

"Grafted Writing" by Eric Richards

I think that one of the most difficult skills for students when it comes to language acquisition is writing in L2, especially if these students already struggle with writing in their own L1. So often we tell our students to "write," and then we are not pleased with the results. In my opinion, there are a number of reasons:

• we have not properly prepared students for the task which involves writing.
• we ourselves are not managing our own expectations properly for what students are able to accomplish at their specific proficiency level (level of output, grammatical accuracy, topics, etc.).
• the task is either too broad with little parameters or too narrow in scope.
• we have not properly scaffolded lessons nor properly built up students' foundations towards writing.

Well, look no further - let me highly recommend Eric Richards' book Grafted Writing! I had not formally met Eric until last summer at the CI Summit (although I knew of his name professionally) where both of us were coaches/team members in the same cohort. At the end of the conference, he did a short workshop on getting students to write in the target language based on this book, and for me, this was the best part of the CI Summit.

One of the things which I like about this book is how sensible so many of Eric's activities are - namely that many writing activities focus on implementing readings which you as a teacher are already doing with your classes. I like how this allows me to have students do some type of writing 1-2 times a week based on our current reading in different ways and with different goals. As a result, every writing activity does not have to be a free/timed write. And yet many of his "free write" activities are scaffolded in such a way that you as a teacher are not just throwing students into a "sink or swim" writing situation.

Eric's book is firmly grounded in CI/ADI pedagogy, namely that students cannot output without sufficient comprehensible input and that output is the result/overflow of bathing students with understandable messages. While some may view a few of his writing activities as students simply copying down text and calling that "writing," that still falls in line with Comprehensible Input theory. Although "copying" itself is found on the lowest end of Bloom's taxonomy, if the messages which students are copying down are 100% understandable to them, then students are receiving repetitions of those messages through both re-reading those messages and then understanding them as they copy them down - double input, if not triple! Thus, subconscious language acquisition is occurring! And even within those activities, there is a degree of higher order thinking happening within students based on the task!

Each of Eric's activities in this book are broken down into the following sections:

1. directions/explanation of activity
2. sample text in English with which to work
3. suggestions for extension activities
4. tips and variations
5. teacher talk

If you have ever met Eric or have attended one of his presentations, you know how practical his communication style is - this definitely carries over into his writing. This book is very easy to read, his directions are not difficult to understand and to picture, and his reflections are very incisive. I have already written about his activity Treasure Hunt - Writing on this blog.

So I highly recommend Grafted Writing as a resource for your CI/ADI classroom, and if Eric is ever presenting at a conference which you are attending, attend his session - you will learn so much!

The Necessity for i-1 in Reading

(Unbeknownst to either of us, Eric Richards has recently posted something very similiar on his blog about this topic - "Why Level-Appropriate Reading?" Take some to read it - very good and has research to back it up!)

If you are familiar with Krashen's theories related to Comprehensible Input, you should know the concept of "i+1 (input plus one)" - according to this hypothesis, Krashen states that while comprehensible and understandable input (i) is 100% necessary for language acqusistion, the "+1" represents the next level of understanding which is needed for a learner to progress in the language. Without oversimplifying this concept, our goal should then be to deliver messages and content which are completely comprehensible for students but also slightly (key word is slightly) challenge their current level of understanding in order for them to progress.

In this blog post, however, I am going to argue the absolute vital necessity for the opposite: i-1 (input MINUS one) when it comes to reading, especially Free Voluntary Reading (FVR).

Krashen is a HUGE advocate of reading and firmly believes that this is a major component  of language acquisition:

"Our reading ability, our ability to write in an acceptable writing style, our spelling ability, vocabulary knowledge, and our ability to handle complex syntax is the result of reading."

"The ability to speak is the result of listening [and] the result of reading." 

I have heard many CI/ADI teachers say that when we have students read L2, our goal for them should be that those messages translate into "moving pictures in their heads," i.e., that these messages should go beyond just words to them. While I am fully on board with this goal, I will also argue though that as novice language learners, our brains will automatically translate L2 messages into L1 (whether we like it or not), because our brains are trying to create mental representations of that L2. In order for our brains to transform L2 messages into "moving pictures in our heads," those messages then need to be BELOW our current level of reading proficiency so that these messages immediately "translate into images."

When novice language learners read messages in L2, numerous brain functions are occurring simultaneously:

• what does this individual word mean? (meaning)
• what does the form of the word tell me? (grammar and syntax)
• what do I do with this word? How do I put all of these words together to create overall meaning? (translation)

As a result, reading can be very overwhelming for novice language learners (and they may already struggle with reading in their L1) if too much is going on in their brains. When students encounter unknown vocabulary and forms, this can impede reading flow, because they are forced to stop to establish meaning. While some students are meta enough to persist in establishing meaning, most will not. 

When a reading is targeted at i-1, although the reading is targeted at a level below students' current reading proficiency, students are receiving repetitions and robust exposure to language with which they are already familiar, thus refnforcing the subconscious nature of the language acquisition process. When learners have constant robust exposure to vocabulary, the words can move from just being words to now "images in their heads." 

So when it comes to FVR (Free Voluntary Reading), although we want students to read for pleasure to reinforce language acquisition, the messages which they are reading need to be 100% understandable. In your own experiences, do you tend to read for pleasure messages which are above your current reading profciency? I would argue that most people do not. For the record, People Magazine is written at an 8th grade reading level.

Here is an example from my own experience. I HATE reading research articles; to me, these articles are written at a i+100 level!! If you want to torture me, forget waterboarding - force me to read academic articles! Whenever I read research articles, I can definitely tell you that there are NO MOVING PICTURES IN MY HEAD! Honestly, I am doing everything which I can to stay afloat in comprehension when it comes to reading scholarly material, because it is so above my reading proficiency level. To me, reading academic material is like translating one of Cicero's Latin speeches into English (Latin folks, you will understand that reference).

I would love to hear your take on "i-1 in reading" in the comments!

TPR/Gesturing Vocabulary

For the past ten years, I have been very familiar with using TPR/gestures to teach many basic verbs e.g., want, give, take, has, etc., using ASL signs. Whenever I have taught Latin 1 in the past, I have definitely used TPR/gestures for students to learn basic vocabulary. However, Latin 1 was the only level where I have done this, because I thought, "Honestly, do upper level students need TPR/gestures to associate with vocabulary? Aren't they kind of 'past' that? They are no longer Latin 1 students - TPR/gestures is so basic!" Boy, was I wrong!! Because TPR/gestures are so basic, they are a great way to teach any type of vocabulary regardless of the level.

These past few summers at IFLT and CI Summit, I have had the great opportunity to be part of a cohort team led by Gary DiBianca. Gary has demonstrated using TPR/gestures to preteach Spanish vocabulary for a future reading. Since I do not know Spanish, I definitely took an active part in doing the gestures. Soon I realized that I had acquired these vocabulary words/phrases in Spanish because deep down inside I knew them, and that it was all based on muscle memory from TPR/gestures!

Flash forward to two weeks ago: After a 1.5 weeks of "getting back into Latin" with my students, I wanted to begin a cultural reading about Roman holidays in my Latin 2 Honors classes. I also wanted to throw in some new vocabulary, which I would both shelter in the passage (but not the grammar) and get in lots of robust exposure within the passage. The four Latin words which I chose to TPR/gesture (the ASL signs are listed too) were:

• dies festus - holiday - https://youtu.be/Lm3_E0TZ6lA
• saepe - often - https://www.youtube.com/shorts/_5pcvSFbo8E
• advenerunt - went to - https://youtu.be/cz8JIl_M7ng
• ludi - games - https://youtu.be/0m-wPJj7_2E

NOTE - when using ASL signs to teach as vocabulary, be sure to inform your students that you are NOT teaching them ASL per se, since that is its own linguistic system with its own set of grammatical rules and structures.

Now the key to teaching TPR/gestures lies in the sheer number of repetitions of doing the TPR/gestures so that eventually students associate these words/meanings with muscle memory. In working with Gary DiBianca these past few summers at IFLT where he demonstrated TPR/gestures with our cohorts, I learned a way to do this. In turn, Gary learned this from Teri Wiechart.

1) Say 1 and you model

2) Say 1 and they do

3) Say 2 in a row and they do

4) Say 2 in a row with their eyes closed

5) Say 3 in a row and they do

6) Say 3 in a row with their eyes closed

6) Say 4 in a row and they do

Use the grid as means of helping you add variety of order in calling out which words to TPR/gesture.

dies festus	advenerunt	ludi	saepe
saepe	ludi	dies festus	advenerunt
advenerunt	dies festus	saepe	ludi
ludi	saepe	advenerunt	dies festus

Observations

1. I know from my own experience in language learning that TPR/gestures works!
2. TPR/gestures are a great way to teach L2 phrases which seem very specific or "weird" to students. This summer at CI Summit, I taught my cohort the phrase "along the shore/coast" using TPR/gestures because I needed to preview it for a reading. I just ended up combining two ASL signs, and it did not present a problem.
3. It is important to review the TPR/gestures constantly. In the beginning, students will associate the gesture with L1 to establish meaning, but eventually, the L2 association will kick in, but you as the teacher need to get in lots robust exposure of these signs with both L1 and L2..

Treasure Hunt - Writing

 At this summer's CI Summit in Savannah, I attended Eric Richards' presentation "Writing Strategies for the ADI Classroom" (based on his book, Grafted Writing - get this book!!) - for me, easily this was the BEST presentation which I attended that week (tied with Annabelle Williamson's "Brain Breaks," because 1) it was all about brain breaks and 2) it was freakin' Annabelle Williamson!). Eric presented SO MANY really practical ways to get students to write in the target language which are very easy to incorporate into one's curriculum.

One of the activities from Eric's presentation which I recently used with a few of my classes was Treasure Hunt Writing, and it is exactly that: a "treasure hunt" for students to find and copy down specific sentences from a reading based on a number of categories.

Directions

1. Using a known passage, create your categories. The categories can be structures, certain vocabulary words, or details. Pick categories for which students can find more than one sentence, i.e., do not pick an esoteric category for which there is only one sentence. 
2. If you want to give students additional parameters, tell students that they need to find X number of sentences for a category.
3. Give students a copy of the reading, as well as a whiteboard and marker (everything is made better with whiteboards, just like bacon!)
4. Project a category, and give students time to copy down the sentences based on the category.
5. As a group, review the sentences which students found.
6. Have students erase their whiteboards, and project a new category. 
7. Repeat again.
8. Variation - you can divide students into groups, and project all categories at once. Each group is in charge of finding sentences for that category. Students can then share and compare their sentences within their groups.

Below is an example which I used - mine was in Latin, but it is in English for you (this passage is actually based on a PQA which Eric demonstrated with our cohort group)

Cooper is not happy, because Kevin is a better basketball player than Cooper. Cooper wants to be a better basketball player than Kevin, but Kevin is the best. Kevin plays basketball very well! Cooper is athletic, but Kevin is more athletic than Cooper. When people see Kevin playing basketball, they shout, "Kevin is the best!" and they celebrate! When people see Cooper playing basketball, they do not shout and they do not celebrate.

Cooper has an elephant. The elephant is big and athletic. The elephant does not play basketball but plays soccer. When people see the elephant playing soccer, they shout, "The elephant is the best!" and they celebrate! Cooper does not want the elephant to play soccer. Cooper wants the elephant to play basketball. Cooper wants the people to shout, "The elephant is the best basketball player!"

Cooper wants the elephant to be a better basketball player than Kevin. Cooper wants the elephant to be more athletic than Kevin. Cooper trains the elephant to play basketball. Cooper trains the elephant to be a better basketball player than Kevin! But the elephant is not happy - it does not want to play basketball! The elephant wants to play soccer!

Categories

1. Copy down FOUR sentences from the story which contain the Latin word “want”
2. Copy down THREE sentences from the story which describe Kevin as a basketball player.
3. Copy down THREE sentences from the story which describe actual or possible crowd reaction.

Observations

1. This is a great post-reading activity!!
2. Students need to have some degree of familiarity with the passage, because this involves close reading. This is not at all something which I would do after introducing a passage unless it was very readable and 100% comprehensible for students.
3. Some may be wondering, "Where is the CI aspect of this? Aren't students just copying down sentences from the reading?" My response: "There is SO MUCH CI going on here!" First off, students are receiving understandable messages in reading/re-reading this familiar passage - lots of robust exposure to familiar language. Secondly, in copying down the sentences, students are receiving more comprehensible input, because they should be understanding the meaning in L1 as they copy down each word; if they are not, then to them they are just writing down "nonsense words."
4. I love that this is very low-prep activity! All that I had to do was to create 3-4 "categories" for students to find sentences based on the reading.
5. This is also a great higher-order thinking activity, because for those categories asking for a specific detail, students have to truly read the passage and to use their judgment to determine if a sentence fits that category.
6. I was surprised at how engaged students actually were in this!

Give this one a try - it is a definite keeper! Thanks, Eric!!

How to be Comprehensible in Class - Sarah Breckley video

I have just returned from the Fluency Matters Conference in St. Petersburg, Florida where I served as a Strand Guide for Novice/Beginners. My fellow Strand Guide Andrea Schweitzer shared this video with me to show my strand of participants on the last day. I only showed the first 3 minutes of it (it is 57 minutes long), but it is a really good primer on how to be comprehensible in the classroom. Sarah Breckley created this video (she too was a Strand Guide), and she says A LOT of very good and necessary things about the need to be comprehensible in the target language and what are ways in which we can achieve this.

So if you are a beginner, seeker, or advanced user of CI/ADI, pull up a seat and watch this - good stuff!

The Power of "Rewind"

This past summer at IFLT, I served as a Cohort Team member for the Intermediate Low cohort. Gary DiBianca was the our cohort leader and led the daily sessions on CI/ADI strategies and implementation. As one of the Cohort Team members, I demonstrated many of these strategies which I conducted in Latin. Since the majority (if not all) of the participants in the cohort did not know any Latin, it allowed them to experience CI/ADI as language learning students themselves.

On one of the days, I demo'd a Movie Talk in Latin and kept it very basic, sheltering/limiting vocabulary. In the debrief afterwards where I asked participants what did I do to make the Movie Talk understandable and comprehensible for them, one participant remarked, "I liked how you kept going back and reviewing in Latin the previous parts of the Movie Talk before you moved onto the next part." Quite honestly, I was completely unaware that I was doing that - I was just repeating parts solely to make the movie talk last longer! However, aware of that comment, I notice now when teaching that I do go back and repeat previous parts of the story when doing Movie Talks, Story Listening, and Telling a Story aloud - all subconsciously and not intently. 

"Rewinding" or repeating previous statements in stories can be a very powerful tool:

• It allows for repetitions of understandable messages.
• It lends itself to repetitions of language which slower processors may need to comprehend what is being said.
• It keeps already-stated messages still at the forefront of learners' minds.
• It allows for a place to park and to conduct a Personalized Question and Answer (PQA).

You can also ask students to help do the "rewind" with you, starting it off with a sentence, and then asking, "Who can then tell me what happened next (in the target language)?"

While many of you may think that "rewinding" is overkill for students, there are many who actually need it and will benefit from it!

Personalized Questions and Answers (PQAs)

Often times I get asked what is the purpose of circling and asking students questions in class, especially when it starts to become really monotonous and repetitive for students. Essentially, asking questions is a great way to assess comprehension in the moment among students, since it can be very easy for students to "fake" understanding. If I ask a target language question, and students mis-answer, then I know right away there has been a breakdown somewhere in the comprehensibility of my messages. As a result, I can re-adjust in the moment. Also, asking questions is another way to continue the current dialogue in the class. I have heard Ben Slavic compare the process to a balloon which we are trying to keep in the air. The more we can dialogue with students using comprehensible language about a sentence/topic, the longer the "balloon can stay in the air." Personalized Questions and Answers (PQAs) are a great way to do this. But honestly, I feel like I am horrible at PQAs.

I do have Ben Slavic's PQA in a Wink (a great resource), but when it comes to questioning, I feel like my questioning just peters out after awhile because I do not know where to go with it or students begin to tire of it. However, as I look over what kinds of questions I ask students, I realize that I actually do ask a lot of PQAs and that PQAs can take a lot of different forms:

• Do you like/have/want? - In many ways, this is a natural personal question to ask students such as do you like to eat pizza, do you have a dog, do you want a lion? But again, these questions can get really old with students even if you add details to them such as do you like to eat pizza at night or in the morning, do you have a big dog or a small dog, do you want a big lion or a small lion? So as extension questions, consider asking...
• Would you... - In the summer of 2021, I was serving as a cohort coach for the virtual IFLT Conference. I was coaching teachers on circling, and a teacher had volunteered to do be coached on circling using the structure "eats". She did the basic, "Maria eats insects. Does Maria eat insects? Does Maria eat insects or Takis? Does Maria eat Takis?" However, then immediately she turned the structure into a PQA, directing it to a "student," asking "Do you eat insects? Would you eat insects? Would you eat insects for $100?" Now the questioning became interesting! I wanted to know how the student would respond! Moreover, this teacher was demonstrating how to shelter vocabulary, not grammar by keeping the vocabulary word "eat" but now changing it to a subjunctive form for the purpose of communication. This teacher did a great job of keeping the "balloon" in the air!
• Asking for examples - Very often, I like to ask students to give me examples of something based on a vocabulary word for which I want to get in lots of repetitions or where I think we can get in some good discussion. For example, for a movie talk where the word "witch" was being introduced, I asked students to give me an example of a witch in a book, TV show, or movie. Wow, students were volunteering answers left and right (I did not realize that there were so many), because for many, this was a personal question of interest. I could extend the questioning to be "What witch did Carson suggest?" "Who suggested Glinda as a witch?" A student suggested Mary Poppins as a witch, and suddenly that became a question for discussion - "Who of you thinks that Mary Poppins is a witch? Or is she just magical?"
• Predictions - In a Movie Talk or a reading which we are doing at sight, I like to ask students to predict what they think will happen next, "What will happen next?" "Do you think that X will be happy?" "How will X respond?" Once I get a response from a student, I can then ask the class, "Who else thinks this?" or "Who here does not think this?"  Again, this can be a personal question of interest for many. 

So consider using many of these different types of PQAs with your students!

Embedded Writing

This week, I was cleaning out my files in my Google Drive and came across this activity which I had completely forgotten about and have not used for years. It is a post-reading, writing activity which I learned from a conversation that I had with Bess Hayles at NTPRS a number of years ago and then saw demonstrated by Betsy Paskvan. It is a very low-stress, low affective filter way to get students to write without overwhelming them into a full-blown timed/free write. It is very similar to an embedded reading, but this time, students are supplying the missing information. 

Instructions

1. Take a paragraph from a reading which you have been covering in class. 
2. Type the sentences out on a document as a list but leave a lined space between each sentence. 
3. The objective of the activity is very simple: Students' task is to write a sentence of their own in the target language in that lined space which makes sense between the two sentences. It can be an expansion of the sentence of previous sentence, be a transition between the two, or explain the need for the next sentence. Did something happen in the story between the two sentences that is missing? 

Observations

1. I like this activity, because although students are writing in the target language, they also have parameters in adding new details and meaning to a story.
2. For beginning levels, you may want to do this as a guided activity first to familiarize students with writing and with the activity itself. For example, for the sentence between #1 and #2, you could ask students aloud, "What is the boy or girl feeling? Happy? sad? Can you describe the boy or girl? Is the boy or girl doing anything?" This will help give students a number of different ideas and details which they could add. Many times I have found that it is not necessarily a lack of vocabulary knowledge which prevents students from writing but rather a lack of direction or ideas to follow.
3. This is actually a very good higher-order thinking activity, because students must create a sentence of their own which makes sense between two other existing sentences.
4. Depending on the level of the class and its familiarity with writing, you may choose to leave two lined spaces between each sentence as a higher-level challenge. Students must then write two sentences between each sentence.
5. I would scaffold this late in a unit lesson plan, because students do need to be familiar enough with the story that they can add new details of their own.
6. Variations of this activity could be pairing up students or having students pass their papers to another student after they complete writing a sentence, and the next student must write the next new sentence.

Again, I found this activity tucked away in a Google Drive file - I may need to see what else is in my Google Drive!

Multiple Story "Put the Sentences in Order"

Once again, this is a post-reading activity which I learned from Annabelle Williamson (LaMaestraLoca) at IFLT this summer. It is actually an incredibly easy and quick activity to create (outside of cutting lots of sentence strips) and to facilitate. It will involve at least three different readings, with which your students are very familiar.

Pre-class directions

1. Pick at least three different readings with which your students are familiar and you wish to review.
2. Type up at least 15 sentences in the target language in a list for each reading in a large font. These sentences need to be in order of that particular reading. Do not number the sentences. You will also need to space each sentence.
3. Cut each of the sentences into strips (one sentence per strip). 
4. Type the titles of the readings and cut into strips.  
5. Mix all of the strips together.
6. You will need to repeat this as many times for groups of three, e.g., if you have 30 students, you will have 10 piles of identical strips.

Class directions

1. Divide the class into groups of three.
2. Give a pile of strips to each group.
3. Tell the class that there are three stories' worth of sentences in the pile. Their task is to separate the sentences according to the reading and then to arrange those sentences in order of the story.
4. When a group is finished, review its sentences to determine if it got the order correct. 

Observations

1. This is a higher-order thinking activity, because it not only involves students knowing which sentence strip goes with which story but then to put those sentence strips in order - both of these when written in the target language.
2. This is a quick 10-minute activity but a fun one to watch.
3. Students are receiving repetitions of familiar understandable messages in this activity.
4. I love seeing how the students work collaboratively on this activity. First, they separated the strips by story, and then each student took one of the stories to put into order. 
5. I was surprised at how much students remembered from the earlier stories, even though it had been a month since we did the first story.
6. If different stories have similar vocabulary, all the better, since this now requires to read each sentence strip closely to determine from which story the strip comes. I had two stories involving monsters, so students had to do close reading to determine of which story the sentence strip was a part.

Latin Lesson Plan for Prologue of "Perseus et Rex Malus"

This year in Latin 3, we have started the school year by beginning to read Andrew Olympi's novella Perseus et Malus Rex. Here is my lesson plan for the prologue - this also contains a lesson plan for how I previewed vocabulary and prepared students to be able to read the prologue - it is with Andrew's full permission that I post the entire prologue here on my blog:

Previewing Vocabulary for the Prologue 
Day 1

1. Movie Talk - Monstrum in Armario

• Target words - In lecto, aliquid, magnos sonos facit, defessus, in armario, tempus est, obdormire, timet
• Movie Talk script
• Movie Talk worksheet (students fill this out during the Movie Talk)

Day 2

1. Introduce reading of Movie Talk
2. Choral Reading
3. Stultus
4. Monstrum in Amario cartoon

Day 3

1. Running Dictatio with pictures
1. Pictures
2. Worksheet
2. Translation/Drawing Dictation (sentences) - students can either draw or translate what they hear

Day 4

1. Unfair/Give or Take game

Prologue

Day 1

• Story Listening 2.0 of Prologue (Tier 1)
• script
• picture example

Day 2

• Retell story again using picture (project Story Listening picture)
• Hand back pictures & students answer questions on paper using only their pictures
• questions
• Social Emotional Learning reading
• Tier 2 level of Prologue

Day 3

• Read/Draw/Pass of Tier 2 level reading
• Read Dating of full version of Prologue
• full version of Prologue

Day 4

• Lucky Reading Game of full version of Prologue

Day 5

• VINCO with pictures
• VINCO sheets
• VINCO cards
• Assessment

The Unfair Game/Give or Take Game

In online CI groups and in social media, there has been much talk about the Unfair Game over the years. For some reason, I never investigated what this game was, although folks were praising it as a fun activity for students. This summer at IFLT, Martina Bex talked about the activity with our cohort, and suddenly I realized that I already knew what this game was - I just called it something different! 

I have always called the game "Give or Take," but I like the title "The Unfair Game," because that so describes this game. Here is a link to the directions which Martina Bex has written up for the activity. However, I have always used it with a PowerPoint that has a grid with hyperlinks. The game is still played the same way but now with a visual. Students will pick a number from the grid, and the point total is revealed using the hyperlink. Although it is a generic grid and I have to write in new questions and answers, I can re-use the basic template.

Give or Take PowerPoint example 

• Download the PowerPoint and change the questions/answers.
• Don't touch the hyperlinks when editing. 
• The two icons, face and thunderbolt, are purely decorative. Choose which icon you want to be "give" and which one will be "take" - both icons have the same point value attached to it.

Directions for PowerPoint version

1. Project the slide which has the number grid.
2. Ask a student to pick a number from the grid, and click on that number. There should be a hyperlink on that number,
3. Ask the question now on the screen.
4. Student will respond.
5. Click on the screen to reveal the answer. Be sure NOT to click on the face or thunderbolt.
6. If the response is correct, ask if the student wants to give or take the points. 
7. If the response is incorrect, ask the other team if it wishes to give or take the points.
8. Click on the icon, and a point total will be revealed.
9. Click on the yellow reverse arrow, and you should now be at the original number grid. Numbers which have already been called will now be a different color.
10. Begin again with a new student on the other team.

Observations

1. Students REALLY get into this activity!
2. This is a great post-reading activity for a story, because there are so many different types of questions which you can ask (see Martina Bex's examples).
3. Quite honestly, although there are questions involved with this activity, for students it is all about giving or taking the points and making the correct choice for their teams.
4. I always tell students that they will either love this game or hate it depending on which end of the "fair/unfair" that they are on.
5. I also tell students that it is best to volunteer to be one of the first ones to pick a question, since there is not any stress just yet in the activity.
6.  I have had students deliberately miss a question for which they knew the answer, because they did not want the stress of having to choose either give or take.
7. The PowerPoint does not transfer well to Google Slides, because the hyperlinks get all messed up, so I just edit the PowerPoint template each time I use it.
8. Miss Maestra in the Middle's' version - great way to involve ALL students in the game at the same time instead of just two teams.
9. This is an easy game to keep in the target language, since the questions/answers are in the target language, and I keep the dialogue basic and formulaic: 

Teacher: Do you want to give or to take?

Student: I want to take.

Teacher: O class, _________ wants to take. And the points are ____________.