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..

Quick Draw - Senora Chase Version

Here is a fun, post-reading activity which I recently saw on a blog post by Gary DiBianca. which he in turn got from Anne Marie Chase (Senora Chase). I recently did it with a few of my classes, and it went really well!

Quick Draw directions (Senora Chase)

Observations

1. This is a great post-reading activity, because it forces students to re-read a passage many times, thus receiving continued robust exposure and repetitions to understandable language.
2. Students need to have a great deal of familiarity with the passage, since it is a race. I did it immediately after a Treasure Hunt Writing, and that was a great setup for this activity since students were already familiar with how the passage was arranged.
3. When I first did this activity, it was with my first period class. No one was in the mood at 7:15am to say anything, let alone to be the first person to say the sentence from the passage aloud first. As a result, I had them find the sentence and WRITE it down, with the goal of being the first person to write the correct sentence. I found that many students preferred this way. However, with other classes, I found that students did not have a problem with being the first one to say the correct sentence aloud! Either way has its benefits.
4. I also made students wait before they wrote down the sentence in order to give slower processors a chance to find the sentence in the reading. Once I said "Scribite," students could write the sentence, but usually I counted silently between 7 and 10 before saying it.
5. Students discovered quickly that it was best to draw the long sentence for their partner and not to pick the short sentences!

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!!

Returning to School after a CI/ADI Conference - What Now?

This past summer, I attended and served as part of the team for three conferences: Acquisition Academy in Dallas, the CI Summit in Savannah, and the Fluency Matters Conference in St. Petersburg. Even though I was in a "staff position," I still was able to attend presentations and language labs like other participants, and I walked away with so much which I am wanting to do now in my classroom.

Maybe like me, you also attended a summer CI/ADI training conference of some kind and want to apply what you learned with your students. Whether you are a novice or an experienced user, it is very easy to get overwhelmed by wanting to do it all or not even knowing where to start.

Here is my advice: Keep doing whatever it is that you are doing in your classroom (even if that is the textbook), but…

1. “Pick the low-hanging fruit” & look for where you can start implementing that. In other words, what kinds of CI/ADI strategies do you feel that are within your own individual reach to facilitate based on your familiarity with CI/ADI? There is no rush to change things right away. Do what you can with what you feel comfortable.
2. Build up your foundation. Again, there is no rush to go "all-in" with CI/ADI instruction if there is no foundation. Get a strong foundation and move on from there. Even if you are an experienced CI/ADI practitioner, sometimes your foundation can get a bit rusty over the summer.
3. Manage your expectations of your progress. Be aware that things may go well and that things may not go as expected with CI/ADI. If something does not go well, that is okay. Reflect on why and try it out again or maybe try a different CI/ADI strategy. I am not a big fan of TPRS/Storyasking because there are too many unknown variables going on, but I love doing One Word Image (which is loosely based on TPRS/Storyasking).
4. Be curious, not judgmental. I love this quote from Ted Lasso, because it sums up a growth mindset. Strive to learn more about CI/ADI before you dismiss it as trendy or that it does not "work"

Here is my list of "low-hanging fruit" which I want to implement:

1. Get students writing at least once/twice a week. This writing does not have to be formal or a timed write, but I want students interacting with writing the language, even if it is just copying sentences from a reading.
2. Implement more PQAs and questioning of my students in Latin as warmups to engage in purposeful communication. 
3. Continue "communicatifying" existing activities, including brain breaks.

What is your low-hanging fruit which you plan to implement in your classroom?

Musings on Introduction to CI/ADI Theory

Last week, I attended the Fluency Matters Conference in St. Petersburg, and I served as a Strand Guide for one of the Beginners/Novice strands. During those three days, these participants were exposed to A LOT about CI/ADI instruction and theory - I am certain that it felt like drinking from a fire house during those three days! Since it was a strand for beginners/seekers to CI/ADI, there often is a lot of resistance (which is perfectly okay. I was once one of the biggest advocates AGAINST CI/ADI). On the final session, as part of a gallery walk reflection, using post-its I asked my strand participants to write a short answer reflection on a number of questions. These are some of their responses to the following question:

How has your view of Second Language Acquisition and CI/ADI theories grown over the past week? 

• Grammatical accuracy is a result of acquisition, not the means of it
• It has deepened my confidence that this is the way to go
• Realizing that I can do this - just not all at once
• I now understand this is a long process. It just takes time. Just like when little kids are developing language
• I have a deeper understanding of how CI activities and strategies can be used together to help acquire a new language
• It can be changed little by little
• Less focus on grammar, but it is not "the enemy"
• I feel better equipped to use CI and challenge my students w/ higher level of questioning at the proper level
• SLA knowledge has grown from near nothing to mid-level understanding
• I can incorporate CI with activities which I already do in class

I love these responses, especially that many people realized that the transition to a CI/ADI classroom is gradual and takes time! 

So to anyone wanting to start their CI/ADI journey or who have been journeying for awhile, be aware that it is a continuous process - I feel that my view of CI/ADI continues to grow and to expand every year! The above responses definitely motivate me!

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!

CI Summit 2023 Report (LONG)

The CI Summit in Savannah, GA ended yesterday, and I am still basking in the afterglow from it all. This weeklong conference is dedicated to "offer[ing] World Language teachers in-depth training and support for acquisition-driven instruction and comprehensible input [with the intent that] more teachers can bring these effective and equitable techniques back to the classroom." Thanks to Voces Digital for a wonderful week!  

What I love most about conferences like CI Summit is seeing teachers suddenly experience the a-ha moments like I did at my first NTPRS conference in 2014, and although this is my eighth CI/ADI summer conference which I have attended since then, it never gets old for me. I always walk away with my cup refilled! Even though I was serving in the role as a coach/cohort team member at the CI Summit, I still was able to experience the conference as a participant and to attend many sessions and language labs. As I reflect on and decompress from the week, here is my report of the sessions and language labs which I attended:

• My Cohort - Level 2 - At the CI Summit, I served as a cohort team member/coach for level 2. This group was for participants who have had some exposure to CI/ADI through attending a workshop/conference and possess some experience implementing a few CI/ADI skills but need more exposure and refinement. Gary DiBianca served as our cohort leader, with team members Andrea Schweitzer, Eric Richards, and me. We only had roughly 12 hours of instructional time over 4 days with our cohort participants, and we definitely used every minute of it. The theme for our cohort was volcanos and how we need to nurture our inner volcanos to eventually erupt our CI lava flow (yes, on paper, that may sound corny but it makes so much sense!) In many ways, I am certain that our participants felt like they were drinking from a fire hose, because we threw a lot at them. However, they were able to experience SO much as students! Eric began each day with questioning/PQAs in German and scaffolded it in such a way that by the last day participants were able to do some simple writing on their own in the language which they had acquired in that time! In Latin, I demonstrated TPR, a 3-place story, and post-reading strategies all for the purpose of previewing vocabulary and structures for a Latin cultural reading on Mount Vesuvius at the end of the week. Meanwhile interspersed through all of this, Gary and Andrea demonstrated other strategies such as One-Word Image, a volcano-related Movie Talk/Clip Chat (The Floor is Lava game) in Spanish and how to put it all together as a unit lesson. Oh, and did I mention that we also broke up into groups to work on skill-based practice such as circling/asking processing questions, storytelling, storyasking, etc.? By the end of it all, our cohort participants had so many a-ha moments! The majority of them had never experienced learning Latin or German before, but by the end, they had subconsciously acquired the target vocabulary/structures through interaction and robust exposure with the languages. Many of them did not realize that Latin could be spoken as a living language, so I am glad that I was able to expose them to that. 

• My Fellow Cohort 2 Team Members -  However, as much as I loved the participants in my cohort and what they got from our time together, I absolutely LOVED my other team members even more: Gary, Andrea, and Eric. We worked so well together, and our individuals strengths naturally complemented each other in what we each contributed during our cohort time. Gary, Andrea, and Eric are master teachers, and I learned SO MUCH from each of them in their demo sections.

The dream team: Andrea, me, Eric, and Gary

• Language Labs (Elementary school-aged students Spanish - Annabelle Williamson & Middle school-aged students Spanish - Skip Crosby) - I cannot get enough of the language labs! I love being able to observe CI/ADI instruction in action with real students, especially a language class where I do not know the language (which is pretty much all of them) so that I can experience learning like one of my own students - that makes such a HUGE difference. The labs are where the magic happens! I will always observe Annabelle whenever I can, and this year, I also observed Skip Crosby since I was serving as his lab debrief facilitator. The labs can be tricky since the instructors only have roughly 90 minutes of instructional time/day with their students for 4 days (while being observed!), but neither Annabelle nor Skip disappointed! While I definitely was able to see them demonstrate CI/ADI skills in their Spanish classrooms, what I loved most was their intentional effort to establish relationships with their students. During the first debrief session on Day 1, a teacher asked Skip, "How long have you known these students? You have such a good relationship with them." His response: "Just today. My goal today was just to love on them." Another thing which I absolutely loved about observing Annabelle and Skip over multiple days was me actually getting attached to their students - I felt like I had such a vested interest in them (even though I never interacted with them). Each day Skip would note to us observers that the "flowers were starting open up more" as students began to trust him more and to become more involved with him and the Spanish. I loved that I was able to witness this!!
• Brain Breaks presentation - Annabelle Williamson - If you have read my blog, you know that I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE Annabelle. I love that we share such a tremendous, profound, deep respect for each other, and I will always walk away learning something from her. I first learned about brain breaks from Annabelle back at the 2016 IFLT in Chattanooga, and she is a master of them! Although I came halfway to her presentation this year, I still walked away with my mind absolutely full of new ideas. However, my main takeaways from her presentation were that brain breaks need to be a minute or less, i.e., they are quick; because if they are longer, then they are a game, and games and brain breaks are two completely different things! Wow - I need to remember this! We played so many of these brain breaks with her, and I am certain that in the upcoming months I will blog about some of these new brain breaks which I learned as I try them out with my students. Annabelle also touched on how we can "communicatify" our brain breaks to engage our students with purposeful communication - I love this!
• Writing Strategies for the ADI Classroom - Eric Richards - My mind was absolutely blown in this workshop presentation - I feel like I am still processing everything! This has utterly changed the way in which I view writing in an ADI classrom. Eric is a GREAT presenter, and he demonstrated/had us take part in many simple, level-appropriate writing activities which we can implement immediately in our level 1 classes. The best part is how simple and low affective filter-raising these strategies are! Like what I learned from Annabelle, I am certain that I will be blogging about many of these in the upcoming year as I implement them. Let me plug his book Grafted Writing, which has these activities and so many more!
• Whiteboards - Although this was not a presentation, I will say that whiteboards were the MVP of the CI Summit. Because CI Summit was in Savannah and I am in the metro-Atlanta area, I drove to the conference. Innocently, I told my cohort team that I was going to bring my classroom set of whiteboards, markers, and rags since I wanted to use them for a possible activity in my part of the week's lesson. Because I was driving, it would be no big deal for me to bring them. Let me tell you: everything can be made better with whiteboards (just like bacon)! Eric used them during his daily questioning/PQA time in our cohort time and and then asked to borrow them for his writing strategies workshop presentation, and I used them in my cohort presentations. The whiteboards just raised everything to a new level - now I know why students love it when we use them in class! Gary, Andrea, Eric, and I have already talked about who of us will bring whiteboards to next year's CI Summit! 

If you were at the CI Summit, what did you get out of it? Were there any presentations, observations, or cohort time where you experienced any a-ha moments? What presentations did you attend where you walked away with some good ideas?

Hope to see you all next year in Philadelphia for CI Summit 2024!