Alternate PingPong/Volleyball Reading

Here is an alternate way to do a ping-pong/volleyball reading with your students. I learned this from Alina Filipescu many years ago at IFLT, but I had forgotten about it until now. It still implements the basic concept of a ping-pong/volleyball reading, but it goes a lot faster, thus you can get in more repetitions.

This still involves a partner read/translation, but the difference now is that there is no longer the "read the sentence in the target language" part. 

Directions

1. Give students a reading with which they are familiar.
2. Partner up students.
3. Student A translates the first sentence into English.
4. Student B translates the next sentence into English.
5. Student A translates the next sentence into English...and so on.

Observations

1. I like how much more quickly this goes than a traditional ping-pong/volleyball reading. Students seem to like this better too for that aspect.
2. The downside is that in taking away the "read the sentence in the target language" part, there is little processing time for the partner to translate the sentence into English. As a result, this needs to be a story with which students are familiar or a story which can be read easily.
3. This alternate way adds some novelty and variety in doing a ping-pong/volleyball reading.
4. Because students get through a reading much more quickly than the traditional style, they also re-read it more, thus getting in more repetitions of understandable messages.
5. This can still be done in Read Dating, Airplane Reading, or traditional ping-pong reading situation. The changing of partners after 1-2 minutes adds much movement to the reading activity.

Airplane Reading

This is another way to do a ping pong/volleyball style reading. I first saw Blaine Ray do this at NTPRS 2014 and then again saw this demonstrated by Alina Filipescu at NTPRS 2015. It is similar to Read Dating, in that students will be moving around to read with a new partner. It does take some time to set up the classroom for Airplane Reading.

Directions

1) Set up your classroom so that students are sitting next to someone as if in an airplane. If there is an odd amount of students, that is okay - that just means that you will take part in the activity!

2) In each pair of students, one will be X and one will be Y.

3) Give students a comprehensible reading, and have them do a regular ping pong/volleyball style reading.

4) After a set amount of time (usually two minutes), then Y students will move forward a seat to a new row (see below picture for example)

5) Like in ping pong/volleyball reading, with their new partners, students are to determine the earlier stopping point between the two of them, and at that point, they will start. Explain to students that repetition is good and will only benefit them.

6) After two minutes of reading with their new partner, Y students will move again.

7) Continue again for about 10 more minutes. If students finish the reading, they are start over again at the beginning.

Observations

1) Like Read Dating, this is another fun way to go through a reading. Carol Gaab always says, "The brain craves novelty."

2) The movement keeps the activity from getting stale. I always tell students "If you have to read with someone whom you do not like, don't worry - you are only working with that person for two minutes!"

3) To keep things novel, sometimes I will alternate between having X and Y students move. If you do this, then X students will move the other direction, because if they move like the Y students, they will read again with a former partner! The idea of movement is to allow students to read with a new partner each round.

4) You may want to practice having the Y students move a few times before you begin the activity so that they know ahead of time where to go, especially the one who has to move to the other side of the room.

5) I usually spend no more than 15 minutes (at the most) on a reading activity like this, because students will start to tire of reading.

Lesson Plan - Want to Have, Love, See. Take, Give to Him/Her

I've received a lot of very positive feedback about my Week 1 Lesson Plan. Here is my lesson which I recently used to teach the verbs want to have, love, see, take, and give to him/her; and the nouns dog, money, and baby. I chose those particular verb structures, because they are high frequency, and because students already knew the verbs want and have, I could easily add on the infinitive to have and teach it as a single structure. It is not necessary to use those particular nouns, but to me, they seemed somewhat compelling for the story.

English version
Yoda sees Kim Kardashian. Yoda loves Kim. Kim sees Yoda. Yoda does not love Kim. 

Kim wants to have a dog. Yoda sees a dog. Yoda takes the dog. Yoda gives the dog to her. Kim loves the dog, but aww shucks, Kim does not love Yoda.

Kim wants to have money. Yoda sees money. Yoda takes the money. Yoda gives the money to her. Kim loves the money, but aww shucks, Kim does not love Yoda.

Kim wants to have a baby. Yoda sees a baby. Yoda takes the baby. Yoda gives the baby to her. Kim loves the baby, but aww shucks, the baby explodes.

Latin version

Yoda Kim Kardashianem videt. Yoda Kimem amat.Kim Yodam videt. Kim Yodam non amat.

Kim canem habere vult. Yoda canem videt. Yoda canem capit. Yoda canem ei dat. Kim canem amat, sed edepol! Kim Yodam non amat.

Kim pecuniam habere vult. Yoda pecuniam videt. Yoda pecuniam capit. Yoda dulciolum ei dat. Kim pecuniam amat, sed edepol! Kim Yodam non amat.

Kim infantem habere vult. Yoda infantem videt. Yoda infantem capit. Yoda infantem ei dat.

Kim infantem amat, sed edepol!  infans displodit.

Day 1

1) Dictatio of story version #1 (dictatio directions)

Day 2

2) Teacher retells story aloud and acts it out w/ circling and PQAs (sorry, no script this time!)

Day 3

1) Readers Theater of story (if you as the teacher play Movie Director with this, you can get students to redo their stage directions after each sentence to get in more reps of the language!)

2) Choral Reading of story

Day 4

1) Read/Draw of story

Day 5

1) Partner retell of story in Latin, using Read/Draw

2) 5-minute timed write of story, using Read/Draw as a story map

Day 6

1) Project student-written timed write endings and read as a class (pick out any endings which students wrote for their timed write, edit them for grammar purposes, and write them on a document or powerpoint)

2) Read Dating of Story Version #2