Profe B.com

I copied this from the list a few years ago. I don’t know who
deserves
credit for it:

La araña pequeña salió a caminar.
Vino la lluvia, la araña se cayó.
Salió el sol y todo se secó.
La araña pequeña de nuevo caminó.

La arana pequena salio a caminar.
Vino la lluvia, la arana se cayo.
Salio el sol y todo se seco.
La arana pequena de nuevo camino.

I did it twice because I am not sure about sending Spanish symbols.
I’d like
some input from some of you to know if the symbols transferred by
Email.
This is my first computer that would use them in Email.

Sammy

Here’s my version, I like it because the words fit the tune really
well:

La pequeñita araña subió, subió, subió,
Ba -jo la lluvia y se la llevó.
Sa - lió el sol, y todo se secó.
Y la pequeñita araña, subió, subió, subió.

Hope this helps,

Grace Williams
Cedar Falls, IA

— In moretprs@y…, “Laurie C.” wrote:
Dear Bill,
Here is the version I use with my kids:

Poco a poco
la arañita subió
De repente
la lluvia se cayó
Apareció el sol y
todo se secó
y De nuevo
la arañita subió

I add gestures for Poco a Poco (making a gesture for a little bit) ,
De
repente (hands open suddenly from being in fists) and De nuevo (roll
hands
around each other) to help learn those phrases. The funny thing is
that I
originally put that together years ago when I was teaching a
kindergarten
class and they asked if I could teach them the itsy bitsy monkey.
(I said
the WHat?) They taught me in English and then we did it in
Spanish….it is
adorable!!! Here is how it goes…

Poco a poco
el monito subió ( fists on top of each other, move bottom fist to
become
top fist..”climbing”)
De repente
el coco se cayó ( hold a fist high in the air for the coco, bring it
down
and hit your knee with it)
Apareció mamá (hands on hips…rock or wiggle hips )
y la rodilla le besó (point to knee on la rodilla, kiss fingers
and touch
knee on le beso)
y de nuevo
el monito subió

It is a huge hit with my high schoolers. :o)….gets in some great
verbs in
the preterite and three terrific expressions. For upper level kids
have
them write their own versions…I have sung some very funny ones
over the
years!! Hope this helps…
Laurie Clarcq
still smiling from Philadelphi
lingeric@r…

Here are a couple of clean verses.

La cucaracha, la cucracha ya no quiere caminar
Porque no tiene porque le falta dinero para gastar

Una cucaracha pinta le dijo a una colorada
Vamonos par’ mi tierra a pasar la temporarada

Todos la mujeres tienen en los ojos dos estrellas
pero la mexicanitas de seguro son mas bellas

Para serapes Saltillo
Chihuahua para soldados
Para mujeres Jalisco
Para amar toditos lados

Una cosa me da risa
Pancho Villa sin camisa
Ya se van los carrancistas
Porque viene las villistas

Chip McM

izquierda, derecha, delante, detras, cerca y lejos y algo más, abajo,
arriba, enfrente, encima, ahora muchachos se acaba la rima.

Some of my kids really loved this and memorized it!

Shannon
Northville,NY

There is a cat. The cat is big and green. The cat is not a normal cat. The cat eats dogs! The cat walks to Paris, France and the cat sees a dog. The dog sees the cat, and the dog runs. The dog runs fast, but the cat runs VERY fast. The dog doesn’t escape. The cat eats the dog, and is very happy. The cat yells, “YIPPEE SKIPPEE!”

Best I could think of off the top of my head. Hope it gives you ideas.
Michael (Moco Loco) Thompson
thompsonmb@hargray.com

One thing I do with my 3rd year class is bring a big bag of candy -
usually Skittles, since M&M’s might cause problems if I have a
student w/allergies. I pass the bag around and let everyone take as
much as they want (within reason, I won’t let anyone keep the whole
bag!). Everyone has to take at least one. They can’t eat them
until after I give the instructions. Then when everybody has candy,
I tell them they can eat it only AFTER they share one thing about
themselves with the rest of the class - in French, of course! It
can be really simple (brother’s and sister’s names, favorite color,
favorite food, what class they have next), but you should see the
poor kids who took 20+ candies struggle! It’s not that they can’t
say anything, but they can’t think of that many things to say. This
year I will have some 4th year students who will remember this, I’ll
have to remind them not to spill the beans. And I always take a few
candies myself. You do have to watch out for kids who will try to
sneak candies onto their neighbor’s desk or into their mouth, but
usually they do a good job of policing one another.

Step 1 Vocabulary

Give the meaning in English
Gesture (younger students require gestures)

Personalize the vocabulary:
Ask questions using the new words.
Ex: If the word is a noun, asks if a student likes
it. If the word is a verb, ask if he does it.
Show interest by asking follow-up questions.
Ask the entire group about the first student.
Invite reactions by entire group.
Ask similar questions of another student.
Compare and contrast students.

Always look for confusion (hesitation or no response)
and use translation to clear it up.
Make sure that every student knows all of the new
vocabulary words.
Show interest and enthusiasm.
Capitalize on the comparison between students to make
a little story about them.

Step 2 Story

Get actors to dramatize the story. The actor performs
after each statement.
Spend plenty of time on the story (do NOT hurry.)
Follow each statement with 5 ? 6 questions. Use a
variety of questions: translation, low-level,
open-ended, and creative.
Use translation to clarify grammar and structure.
(Pop-up frequently throughout the story.)
Creative questions (that have no answer yet) invite
BEP (bizarre, exaggerated or personalized) details.
Students must answer all questions. they respond to
statements with ?Oh!? and ?Ahh!?
Use the information that you learned about students
(in step 1) to personalize the story.
Recycle parts of the story many times.
Retell the story without actors (but with more
questions and embellishments) if you need to.

Teach to the eyes! Look at the audience, not at the
actors.
Enjoy the sparkle students.

Step 3 Literacy

Give students a printed story.
One person at a time translates the story while the
rest follow along.
Make sure that students understand the entire story.
Use translation to explain grammar so that grammar is
tied to meaning, not to a grammar rule.
Discuss the reading in the language.
? Relate the situation, characters, and plot to
students.
? Ask if they have ever been in such a situation.
? Capitalize on the cultural information in the story.
? Use the story to teach life lessons.
? Give a short quiz on the reading.
? Act out a scene from a novel.
? Discuss character development, choices and values.

Repeat step 3 for as many readings as you have.
Extended readings and novels should be translated in
this manner.

Dear listeros,

TPRS camp ROCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Even though it was my first year, I hardly knew anyone (not even my roomates….and I ended up with several!!), and I was nervous about being away from home that long….IT WAS AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!

I don’t know if I can really express what an amazing experience this was…except to compare it with a summer camp!! At first it was just an enormous group of people…from everywhere!!! (from Alaska, to Hawaii, California, Oregon, Maine, Canada, Florida, Montana, Texas, Malaysia, Germany and many other places in-between) Elementary teachers, college professors, private school teachers, public school teachers, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Russian, Swedish, Hebrew, and ESL teachers. Teachers of the academically gifted and challenged. Teachers of the financially elite and the impoverished. The accents were faschinating and beautiful.

By Wednesday, however, we were campers (and most certainly most of us were happy!!) The feelings of being overwhelmed (yes…TPRS can seem overwhelming!), the nervousness (it is HARD to teach in front of your peers!!), and confusion (3 steps? Circling? Past and present together?! How does a slot machine work anyhow?!) had diminished and a family started to emerge.
By Friday we were celebrating a birthday, wearing camp shirts (hawaiin or ES OBVIO, whichever you prefer!) and singing the camp song!! (over and over and over!)

Several things became clear that we ALL could bring back with us:

1. 3 STEPS
a. VOCAB (preferably with an embedded structure…Rob explained that beautifully.) Gesture it/ PQA it/Write it whatever works best for you and your students.
b. STORY (focusing on that vocab!!!) with or without actors, with or without props, with or without humor, with or without a script whatever works best for you and your students.
c. READING (comprehensible!!!!!! with translation and DISCUSSION) the story, a version of the story, a novel, a poem, a song, a children’s book, whatever works best for you and your students.

2. BELIEVABLITY
The teacher MUST (at least!) act AS IF the story being told or created is ABSOLUTELY, COMPLETELY, AND WITHOUT A DOUBT…………REAL. This “suspension of disbelief” is KEY to creating and maintaining student interest and participation.

3. PERSONALIZATION
Include students, student names, student lives, student feelings, students in any way in the story.Think of the cell phone commercial…Are you in? We want all the students to shout I”M IN!!!

4. STAY IN BOUNDS
It’s easy to get out of bounds (use words or phrases that kids don’t know..or get away from the word/structure we are focusing on). To stay in bounds translate new words (and write them down for kids to see)and try to use the phrase of the day as OFTEN as possible (apparently this gets easier with practice :o) )

5. The job of the BAROMETER student is to help us be better teachers. If we go too fast…they tell us. If we go “out of bounds” (getting too far away from the focus word/structure) they tell us. They are vital. Without them we have to guess whether or not we are doing a good job. Thank students EVERY TIME they ask a ? for helping you to be a better teacher.

6. CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT is both prerequisite and a challenge. MEAN BUSINESS. SET LIMITS EARLY ON. KEEP YOUR SYSTEM SIMPLE. BE CONSISTENT. BE PLIABLE NOT BENDABLE. USE YOUR HEAD. FOLLOW YOUR HEART. REMIND RETEACH REMIND RETEACH REMIND RETEACH.

7. INPUT ACTIVITIES are the ideal acquisition activities….however….OUTPUT ACTIVITIES (writing, retells, etc) build confidence and provide essential feedback.

8. GO TO YOUR KNEES or crawl before you walk. Blaine told a terrific story about his surfing experience (Blaine…you should send that to the list sometime…it is excellent). Basically, he felt he was doing well and disregarded a basic step that a very wise teacher tried to give him. But when he did go “back to basics” so to speak…his surfing fell into place. This is good advice for us as we develop our skills. Honing our basic storytelling skills (see #1 above) is key. Start slow. Enjoy. All of the rest is icing on the cake. When things aren’t going as well as we would like…refocus on the basics.

9. EVERY STUDENT IS VALUABLE AND SPECIAL TO SOMEONE. If we cannot find his or her specialness in our room we have only to look around….somewhere, someone can or should appreciate that child. When we can see that…then we can truly see the child.

10. PERFECTIONISM IS THE ENEMY OF THE HAPPY TEACHER. The perfect TPRS teacher does not exist. TPRS is not a rigid system. It is a fluid system. It flows within basic guidelines but rarely flows the same way. Each teacher and each class is different. TPRS flows differently for each. That is the beauty of it. We saw Joe use one word PMS’s, chants, responses, and his own unique and special humor (not to mention “guapisidad!”) to creat TPRS a la Joe. We saw Jason “force” a story, get his students to create the homework, create original Big Books, and use dazzling Power Point possibities. We saw Piedad the brilliant Colombian Engergizer Bunny. We saw Von with his calm, quiet, hypnotizing attraction draw students in. We saw Blaine mesmerize a group of novice Spanish students without actors, props, music etc. AND have them be able to use the past and present tenses. With NOTHING but himself and his love for the language and the students.

There is no one right way to TPRS. There is no need to try to be the perfect TPRS teacher. We need only to be ourselves, use the basics, and build on our own strengths…be that organization, humor, musical ability, knowledge of culture, love for reading, travel experiences, love for our students….whatever. When we feel the basics are strong, we can build our skills and build our programs by working on advanced skills slowly and one at at time, through practice and coaching.

11. GET COACHED. Go to a coaching session somewhere and find a way to incorporate coaching into your professional development. To be honest….it is 25 times harder to be coached than to teach a class of kids….but worth it. Once you get past the first 10 minutes you will be in the middle of a gift more valuable than any conference.

12. THE LIST RULES. Everything you need in teaching and in life can be found here….in someone. :o)

OK…Laundry calls….enough for now. :o)

Love to all of you ….
Laurie

TPRS

1. It is very difficult to teach a word like habia in
day one.
2. It gets easier after about a week or two.
3. After a while, both Diane and Von felt the TPRS
kids were a lot farther along in the language and in
reading. Their timed writings were written in the
past where the TPR kids had TPR structures in their
writing. (without exception.)

TPR

1. I would never advocate doing the imperative in
Spanish unless it is with an advanced class.
The TPR structures get ingrained.

Middle ground.

1. Do some TPR with some he form structures and past
tense stories.

The boy stood up, walked to the door, hit his head and
cried.

These are all TPRable words. Easy to do. You can do
the questioning in the past and read it in the
present.

If I had a class this year, I would start with a few
days of TPRable stories in the past.

Blaine