Reading Strategies

I have organized all of my posts on reading strategies and have put them onto a separate page. They are arranged by the following: prereading (anything which prepares students for the reading in terms of vocabulary and language structures); reading (the actual act of reading); and post-reading (anything which consolidates the reading for students).

Reading Strategies

Hope this can be of help to you!

CI/TPRS Professional Development

Many times, I am asked about what workshops should people attend to learn about CI/TPRS. Below is a list of workshops/conference which I recommend:

A 2-day Blaine Ray TPRS workshop - although one can attend a CI/TPRS presentation at a conference, personally I think to learn truly about CI/TPRS, one needs to attend a 2-day Blaine Ray TPRS workshop. During these two days, you will experience learning another language as a student using CI/TPRS and will learn about TPRS (the basics of Comprehensible Input, circling, asking a story, etc), as well as spend time practicing TPRS, while being coached. In the summer of 2008, I attended a 2-day TPRS workshop led by Blaine Ray himself, where he demonstrated TPRS in German. I was amazed at how much i was comprehending when Blaine was teaching the lesson (and I was not even aware what he was deliberately doing) and how at the end I was able to produce a bit of German based purely on that one lesson from just hearing and interacting with the language. It was at that point I knew that Comprehensible Input worked!

NTPRS - the National TPRS Conference is a weeklong, summer conference dedicated to CI/TPRS. I attended my first NTPRS conference last summer, and it was incredible! You can read my blog post here. In fact, this summer, I will be giving two presentations at NTPRS! 

IFLT - the International Forum on Language Teaching (IFLT) conference is hosted by TPRS Publishing and is much like NTPRS in that it is also dedicated to CI/TPRS. The major difference though is that much of the time is devoted to observing master CI/TPRS teachers actually teaching students, so you will get to see it in action!  A few years ago, I had the opportunity to observe Karen Rowan teach a Spanish class, and it was absolutely amazing. My goal is to attend my first IFLT in the summer of 2016.

TCI Maine, New England and Beyond - This is a 2-day workshop hdedicated to teaching CI/TPRS held in the fall in the New England area.

As I said before, one can learn about CI/TPRS through blogs,Twitter chats, listservs, and videos, but I would recommend experiencing it truly as if you were a student with a language which you do not know. Once you see first hand how it works, you will want to learn more!  

Circling - The Art of Questioning

When folks ask me about how to incorporate CI into their classrooms, the first skill which I say that they should learn is how to circle, because that is a basic CI skill which can go a long ways. Circling allows for students to interact with the language through a series of questions, while at the same time, to hear multiple comprehensible repetitions of the target vocabulary/structures in a meaningful context.

The basics of circling is to ask a formulaic series of questions about a sentence which will result in a scaffolded, limited student output of the language. One begins with a statement (such as "the dog is happy") and then:

1. restates the sentence as a question, which will result in a YES answer - "is the dog happy?" and then
2. asks a question about the sentence which has an OR in it - "is the dog happy or sad?" and then
3. using the above OR question, asks a question which will result in a NO answer - "is the dog sad?"

You can get a lot of mileage out of circling, and it is a great way to get students to interact with the language. There is one problem though. To quote Carol Gaab, "Circling gets REALLY old, REALLY fast for students." 

To quote Carol Gaab once again, "The brain CRAVES novelty," so even in asking questions, one needs to change it up so that it does not get boring. Her advice is to change it up every 4th or 5th question. Based on an example which I learned from Carol last summer at NTPRS, here is a formula which I use for asking questions:

• 1st and 2nd sentences - basic circling
• 3rd sentence - basic circling and W questions (who is happy? the dog is what?)
• 4th sentence- basic circling in English as a comprehension check
• 5th sentence - either basic circling or W questions AND Personal Question/Answer (PQAs), where I may incorporate basic circling and W questions based on the PQA (do you have a dog? what is the name of your dog?)
• 6th sentence - I may skip questioning to give a break or do another set of PQAs
• 7th sentence - repeat any of the above but use your discretion when questioning - students may be tired of it by this point!

Not that questioning can be reduced to a formula, but this definitely allows for variety and keeps things novel (although you as the teacher are being incredibly deliberate in what you are asking and for what you are wanting as a response). The more one uses circling, the easier it becomes. You will also learn how to vary up the questions themselves too, because circling can be very predictable for students once they catch onto the pattern. In fact, when circling, I have to remind myself to be in the moment, because usually I am already thinking three questions ahead!  

Wordle Word Cloud

This is a pre-reading activity which I learned from a language arts teacher at my school and then saw Carol Gaab demonstrate at NTPRS last summer.  For this, you will need the Wordle website and a reading which you plan to introduce .

If you are not familiar with Wordle, it is a website which will take a reading passage and then based on word frequency,  it will create a word cloud, showing which words are used more often than others - the bigger the size of the word, the more frequently the word is used. 

This particular activity is something which you will want to do just prior to reading a story for the first time, because students will be predicting what they think the story will be about based on the words which they see. As a result, you as the teacher will have needed to preview any new vocabulary/language structures through other prereading activities.

Instructions

1. Cut/paste a 5-6 sentences from the reading onto the Wordle website.
2. Create a word cloud using Wordle.
3. Save the image and paste onto a document
4. Project the word cloud onto the board and based on the words in the word cloud, ask students to predict what they think the story is going to be about. I ask students to create sentences in Latin. This is why students need to know already the vocabulary/language structures in the story.

An example:

Observations

1. Students really do like to predict what they think they the story will be about.
2. Because students have predicted the plot of the story, they have a more vested interest in what they are reading, as they are mentally comparing their version with the actual story
3. After reading the story, I have actually had students say, "I like my version so much better than the real one." Many times, I will make a mental note of what they thought the plot to be and will write an alternate version of the story which incorporates their plot for them to read later.

Sound Effects Theater

This is another very quick post-reading strategy which I learned from the great Carol Gaab last summer at NTPRS and then saw demonstrated again at ACTFL last November as part of Krista Applegate's presentation. I do not know if they specifically called it "Sound Effects Theater" - I call it that - and it is a variation of Readers Theater. Instead of acting out a story (like in Readers Theater), the class adds sound effects to the reading.

The idea is simple: assign students to make certain sound effects every time a particular vocabulary word is said in a story which is being told/read aloud.

Example of some sounds with vocabulary words:
pater - "da da"
mater - "mommy"
iratus - "grrrrr"
tristis - "boohoo"
scribit - "Dear Diary"
leo - "ROAR"
feles - "meow"
pirata - "arrr"
pulsat - "POW"

Instructions

1. You will read aloud/tell the story a few times.
2. When reading aloud/telling the story the first time, do it slowly and allow for the assigned students to make the sound after you say the word - if the word is repeated more than once in the story, the better!  
3. Read aloud/tell the story again, but do it a little faster. Students who are making the sound effects will have to keep up with the pace.
4. Read aloud/tell the story again, but now quickly. Those making the sound effects will really have to listen so that they do not miss their cue! 

Observations

1. Another fun way to re-read through a known story and to get in repetitions of vocabulary. Even though the story speeds up with each reading, because it is a known story, the reading remains comprehehensible for students.
2. Another way for students to personalize vocabulary and to associate it with a sound.

End of the School Year Reflections

My school year has come to an end: Final exams have been graded, the semester averages have been posted, and my classroom has been packed away for the summer. I am now officially on summer vacation. 

Honestly, I feel restless at the moment. It always takes a few days for me to decompress from it all.To me, the end of the school year is always a crazy time with finals, graduation, etc., and I liken it to being on a runaway train. The train is not going to stop whether I like it or not, so alI I can do is just hold on. And then suddenly, the train stops, but due to the laws of physics, I am still in motion and am hurled forward. I once told a class this analogy, and a student just looked at me dumbfounded and said, "Wow, that is SO deep..."

Yesterday at my school's end-of-the-semester luncheon, my principal handed back to us teachers two goals for our school year which we each had written back in August. This was his first full year as principal (he had been with us though for many years as an assistant principal and then took over as principal halfway through last school year), so he had wanted to know what we were feeling. Quite honestly, I had forgotten that I had even done this, so I was pleasantly surprised to read what I had written down as my goals:

1. Goal #1: to make my classroom a Comprehensible Input classroom
2. Goal #2: to not allow what I view as educational obstructional policy to sour my view and love of teaching

I'll address Goal #1, but gosh for Goal #2, did I really write the words educational obstructional policy for my principal to read?!! Wow, that was pretty brazen of me! (In an earlier post, I address my reaction to "educational obstructional policy"). My principal actually included a really nice note to me when we got back our goals, and in it regardng this particular goal, he wrote, "Your passion and POSITIVE approach continue to produce excellent results for students. You make Brookwood a better place." I truly do appreciate my principal. He has been an ardent supporter of the Latin program at my school (we will be adding our FOURTH Latin teacher next year) and in fact, our school will be paying for one class of Latin 1 to be taught at the local middle school in order to start up a Latin program there!

Regarding Goal #1 and making my classroom a Comprehensible Input classroom, I would give myself a letter grade of B. This year, I was only teaching Latin 1 and AP Latin (talk abut extremes!). On the one hand, I see all of my shortcomings, failures to deliver Comprehensible Input, the times where it was easier to show a video instead of teach, and the days where I failed to engage students due to falling back on grammar-translation ways; plus I was teaching AP Latin which is not truly CI-friendly. On the other hand, this was my second full year of teaching full-out Comprehensible Input (I had been doing TPRS for years prior to this, but I did not truly understand CI when I was doing it), and I felt like I had a much stronger hand on CI this time. I have heard that it takes three years to get the hang of teaching CI, so watch out next year!

In August, I had written a list of CI goals for the year. Let me write up here how I felt I did. This only applies to my Latin 1 classes:

1. Leave the textbook behind - On the one hand, I did leave the textbook behind in that my students never used it  - in fact, although I was required to check out books to students in August, I told them to keep it in their lockers for the year. On the other hand, due to my Latin colleagues closely using the textbook, I could not leave it behind complelely. I looked at the sequence of how topics/vocabulary were presented in the book and then taught it how I wanted when I wanted. It was quite a tenuous task, since at the same time I needed to prepare my students for my colleagues who do follow the textbook. I will discuss my experience at this summer's NTPRS in a presentation called "Detoxing from the Textbook."
2. Deliver understandable, comprehensible and compelling language to students in word and on paper - I feel like I did a good job on this and am looking forward to expanding it even further. Was I teaching 90% of the time in the target language. Not even close, but I'm getting better! I really enjoy writing, and I found that it is indeed possible and very easy to write compelling stories with a limited amount of vocabulary.
3. Limit vocabulary - I felt like I did a good job...maybe too good a job. In some ways, I feel like I underprepared my students for my colleagues who may expect that they know more words. However, I feel like my students truly acquired them and have a working knowledge of their vocabulary, instead of just having learned them from memorization.
4. Hit the high frequency words first - Wow, what a simple concept! Done and done!
5. Incorporate a Word Wall in my classroom - This is definitely something which I am going to do every year. Why did I not do this before? Students told me how much they liked it, because it helped them self-monitor their own knowledge of vocabulary. Reviewing words on the word wall 2-3 times a week is a great warm up activity.
6. "Point and Pause" more - I have definitely gotten better at doing this. See an earlier post here where I discuss it.
7. Vary things up -  One of the best things which I have learned from Carol Gaab (and believe me, she is a font of CI/TPRS knowledge) is the phrase  "The brain CRAVES novelty." She was the first TPRS/CI presenter whom I ever heard say "Just doing circling questions and PQAs gets REALLY OLD, REALLY QUICKLY for students." I have learned to vary up circling in a way so that it does not even seem repetitive at all, and I now have students go over a story at least 6-7 different ways. The 4%ers (who have already probably mastered the story) appreciate the novelty of the new activity, while the slower processors appreciate the reps. As Rachel Ash says, "The goal is to get in repetitions without being repetitive." 
8. Focus on student reading and re-reading of material -  I can honestly say that reading and re-reading is where the magic happens in language acquisition. The job though is to vary up the readings and to find those stories which are compelling to students. This week, on my Latin 1 final exam, I put two reading passages which students had already seen before on previous tests from months ago but with a different set of questions. The feedback which I received was overwhelmingly positive about how easy they were to read, since they already had a background knowledge of them. After the exam, a student told me "Those passages were almost too easy, " to which I replied, "Wow, that just shows you how much your reading ability has improved in just a few months." 
9. Read more CI/TPRS blogs - Reading blogs has been my lifeline for my teaching this year. There are so many good ones out there. In addition to learning so much from them, I feel such a strong sense of comraderie now with these bloggers, as we are all headed towards the same goal of student language acquisition. 
10. Attend CI/TPRS presentations at conferences - at ACTFL, I attended some really great CI/TPRS workshops. Unfortunately, now that I am pursuing an Ed.S degree in Instructional Technology, whenever I attend conferences, I must attend tech presentations in order to accrue lab hours for my classes.  
11. Teach fearlessly - DONE!

So thanks to everyone who helped me achieve my goals. I learned so much from your blogs, presentations, tweets, and emails. I am so grateful for you, and I am already looking forward to next year. Now off to enjoy my summer vacation...

Who is It?

This is a great listening activity to do at the last 10 minutes of class, and it involves whiteboards - like bacon, in my opinion, everything is better with whiteboards! 

Planning

1)  Write 3 VERY short comprehensible descriptions in Latin of famous people (characters, historical figures, or real people), where the first description is most general and the third is most specific, i.e., by the third description, it should be obvious who the character is

Activity

1) Have students grab a whiteboard and dry-erase markers.

2) Have students number 1-3 on their whiteboards.

3) Explain to students that you are going to read a series of descriptions and after each description, they should write the name of the person/character whom they think it is. All three descriptions are about the same person/character.

4) Read the first description, and next to number one, have students write whom they think is the character/person.
5) Read the second description, and next to number two, have students write whom they now think is the character/person. If they think it is the same person/character as what they wrote for number one, they are still to write down that name.
6) Read the third description, and next to number three, have students write whom they now think is the character/person. If they think it is the same person/character as what they wrote for number one and two, they are still to write down that name.
7) After reading the third description, ask students “quis est?” and have them respond aloud. Ask them to hold up their whiteboards so that you can see their series of answers.
8) Start again with a new person/character.

Examples:
Beyonce
1) femina
2) cantatrix
3) uxor JayZis

Laocoon
1) Troianus vir
2) sacerdos
3) interfectus a serpentibus

Observations

1. This is a GREAT way to review characters if you are reading a story with lots of characters.
2. This is a wonderful, low affective filter, output activity, since it just requires students to write down the name of a character/person.
3. Because it is such an easy listnening activity, I have found students to be very engaged whenever I have done it.