PQA in a Wink!
Addressing Personalization and Classroom Discipline in the TPRS Classroom
by Ben Slavic
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“It’s not that I didn’t understand TPRS.... I just didn’t understand personalization!”
- Jennifer Wilczewski Denver, CO
PQA in a Wink! 3rd edition. © 2008 Ben Slavic All rights reserved. No part of this text may be reproduced, stored on a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by electronic, recording, or photocopying without the written consent of the author.
Order this and other TPRS materials at www.benslavic.com
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“I had the privilege of a sneak peek at Ben Slavic's new, soon-to-be published book, PQA in a Wink!
“I think it is what we new, inexperienced and struggling teachers have been waiting for. Many of you have seen Ben's posts over the past few months about personalizing and building rapport with the students. This book is the full version, spelled out clearly (for those of us who are on overload!).
“What I took away from it is that while the theory and method of TPRS are important, making connections with the students is the key, and Ben shows you how to do it. Many people have tried to explain it on the list, and have done so beautifully; however, this in- depth explanation finally reached me. It provides a framework to help make PQA work.
“Ben, I'm sure you will let us know when it is available. Thank you for this wonderful and inspiring guide.”
Fern Weis Pequannock Valley School Pompton Plains, NJ
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Table of Contents
Author’s Note ...... 5 Introduction ...... 6 Rationale ...... 9 Chapter 1 – Establishing Meaning ...... 12 Chapter 2 – Using PQA ...... 14 Establishing Identities ...... 14 Circling with Balls ...... 16 Circling with Balls on the First Day of Class ...... 37 Circling Emotions ...... 42 Personalizing Random Sentences ...... 44 PQA and the Oppositional Student ...... 48 PQA with other Student Interests ...... 54 PQA with Students’ Possessions ...... 58 Adding Details with the Portrait Physique ...... 61 Other Fertile Ground for PQA ...... 63 Chapter 3 – Extending PQA ...... 67 Extending PQA: A Simple Formula ...... 68 Extending PQA: the Sad Cow ...... 73 Extended PQA: My Sandwich ...... 78 Extended PQA: Talking about Pets ...... 80 Extended PQA and the Reticent Student ...... 84 Extending PQA with a Story Script ...... 86 Extending PQA by Trusting in the Moment ...... 88 Extending PQA into a Story ...... 93 Jumping Right into a Story ...... 105 Chapter 4 – Keeping Assessment Simple ...... 109 Chapter 5 – Making it Work ...... 111 Chapter 6 – The Pure Land ...... 114 Chapter 7 – Ramblin' Jack Elliot ...... 118 Conclusions ...... 120 Questions and Answers ...... 123 About the Author ...... 149 Resources: TPRS Curricula ...... 150 Resources: Websites ...... 152 PQA in a Wink page 5
Author’s Note
Over the past six years, my efforts to learn Blaine Ray’s TPRStorytelling® (Teaching Proficiency through Reading and Stories) would not have come to fruition without the strong guiding hand of Susan Gross, to whom I owe a level of gratitude beyond words.
Susie’s knowledge of TPRS is in my view unsurpassed. Yet, I believe that it was really the sincere personal interest that Susie showed in my development as a teacher that turned the key. She really wanted to give me the tools that I needed in order to communicate in a better way with my students in French. Susie showed me by example that the personal interest we show in our students is at least as important as our knowledge of the language we are representing in the classroom.
In foreign languages we sometimes look too closely at and puzzle over technique when, if we were but to focus to a greater extent on the kids themselves, we would see gains in communication in the target language we could not have predicted.
It is in this spirit of personalizing the classroom around the TPRS skill of Personalized Questions and Answers, or PQA, that I wrote this book. I would argue that PQA is the essential skill in TPRS and the ticket to achieving success in any foreign language classroom.
PQA in a Wink! provides both TPRS teachers and non-TPRS teachers with a very simple version of PQA, my own. No claim is made to represent PQA as practiced by other TPRS teachers.
The personalization activities in this book are simple to do. Moreover, PQA as described in the following pages can be easily blended into any curriculum, even a non-TPRS curriculum.
Readers are invited to experiment with the activities presented in this book, and then choose the ones they wish to integrate into their own teaching. There is no “right way” to do them. Practicing these activities will definitely increase your ease of communication students and bring a sense of play and fun into your classrooms. Keep reading to unlock a great way to reach kids in the foreign language classroom!
TPR Storytelling® is a trademark registered to Blaine Ray and is used by his permission.
PQA in a Wink page 6 Introduction
In 2005, a ninth grade TPRS student, taking AP French although only in French II, discovered an error on the listening portion of the National French Exam. The AATF leaders, although agreeing that he was correct, not only refused to change his score but also refused to believe that a second year student could be taking an AP language class (the student’s score that year was a 4).
Every single university professor contacted in the AATF hierarchy about this situation expressed the same reaction: it didn't make sense to them that a second year student would be taking an AP class.
It is true that this student was extraordinarily gifted and truly motivated, but it is also true that strong AP language scores from TPRS students at all levels of study are happening more frequently now on a national level. TPRS students are showing much higher gains than non-TPRS students. For those to whom such results do make sense, TPRS is becoming a method with great potential.
However, TPRS requires radical change from teachers. Jumping into the method has just seemed too precipitous for many teachers. Is there a way to start slowly and just use some of TPRS in the classroom? What is a good starting point?
James Asher’s Total Physical Response (TPR) method has been one such starting point, but most teachers find it difficult to use TPR for long. TPR gets boring quickly! And students resist the repetitive commands after just a few minutes of class. Why is this?
Among several answers, one stands out: TPR is not really about the students. Susan Gross has repeatedly stated that TPRS should be about the students. We are beginning to see that success in our classroom depends to a much greater extent than we once thought on the degree to which we personalize our classrooms.
At the time of this writing (2007), the professional responsibilities of foreign language educators in the form of district benchmarks and standards are increasingly based on the acquisition of oral/aural skills. Since communication is essentially interpersonal, reciprocal, and participatory, we have no choice but to take an honest look at what personalizing our classrooms means in the new foreign language classroom.
Teachers are often unaware that in beginning classrooms there is a complex web of dynamic interpersonal relationships going on in the room. Patterns are being formed which will last all year. Certain students try day after day to impress others, vying with each other and with the teacher for attention, etc. This undercurrent of invisible yet very powerful energy in the class must be directed somewhere if the class is to be successful.
About four to six weeks into the year, most students in a traditional foreign language class begin to see that the course of study is not going to be devoted to actually acquiring the language, but to discussion about how the language is built. They also begin to see that the course of study is not going to be centered around them, which in teenagers counts for a lot. These two factors cause an unexpressed resentment in many students. Apathy grows. PQA in a Wink page 7
In response to student apathy and discontent, some teachers clamp down on the class in the interest of professional survival, and what might have been a joyful and fun activity, learning a language, becomes drudgery. All but the high academic achievers retreat into themselves. The smiles and enthusiasm of the first few weeks of school disappear. Significant drops in enrollment occur at each level of advancement.
Students want to know how to understand and speak a foreign language, not how it is grammatically built. They want to know how the language can apply to their lives, and not the opposite. Instead of focusing merely on curriculum, we must shift our focus to include the agenda that the students bring to learning – themselves.
Students must finally be invited to learn what it means to authentically participate in a foreign language class. A teacher has no greater duty than to give the young people in his or her classes a chance to get interested in life, to feel important and valued, and to feel engaged and successful their learning.
The personalization suggestions made in PQA in a Wink! are easy to implement in the classroom. They are clear and detailed. They are like scaffolding on a building, easily removed once the building is constructed. The gains are clear and measurable.
Diane Grieman on the TPRS listserve (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/moretprs) has described PQA in a nutshell. Here is what she says:
“After seven years, I finally get PQA. Sure, I've understood the concept, and I've always asked questions using the target phrases, but I'd never spent enough time really focusing on the kids rather than the vocabulary.
“A [TPRS colleague] came into my room yesterday. She said that she had started to cut down to one target phrase per day. She said that it was easier to get repetitions, and to stay in bounds.
“So today I spent almost fifteen minutes just on the word perezoso (which I had used in a PMS yesterday, but hadn't worked on enough). And Jake said that he isn't lazy because he loves to do homework, and the class laughed, because he was playing the game so well, and I told the class that he was my favorite student, and practically perfect.
“And Sophia and Kenyon and Sabrina are lazy because they would rather watch T.V. than do homework, so they can't be my favorite students. And Kelsey isn't lazy because she's very athletic, but I'm sorry, she's not my favorite because she doesn't love to do homework, and besides, I can only have one favorite, so sorry about the rest of you. Jake isn't lazy and likes to do homework!
“The whole class was on the edge of their seats. I was having the best time! And even better, I am told by [another teacher] that Jake is a misfit, so to make him the star was a good thing.
“As the kids filed out at the end of the class, I heard one in the hall saying “Spanish is awesome!” It only took me seven years to get here. Today was great. Monday might be awful. But now I know the real power of PQA that others have been talking about.” PQA in a Wink page 8
Here, Diane is clearly reaching beyond the minds of her students and into their hearts. She is using Spanish to reach her students, and not vice versa. To use Theodore Sizer’s term, she is not a “deliverer of instructional services.” Knowing that learning a foreign language is reciprocal and participatory, Diane is inviting her students to participate and enjoy in shared meaning with her.
By focusing more on her kids and less on her curricular objectives from the beginning, Diane will meet those other objectives easily. The kids sense where her priorities lie, and will reward her with enthusiasm and hard work all year.
When the primary objective is to provide comprehensible input in a personalized setting, levels of student interest skyrocket, resulting in unprecedented levels of student achievement. These gains have captured the attention of the profession, administrators, and many parents. Those sincerely open to and seeking positive change in American foreign language education want to know why this is happening.
Susan Gross provides the answer: "You can't P too long and you can't P too much. The whole reason kids listen is because of P. The whole reason we get good classroom management is P. Teaching is connecting with every kid. That's why we teach to the eyes. We teach THEM, not a curriculum. Not a story. THEM."
Those readers familiar with the terminology of TPRS may wonder how the terms PMS and passive PMS are connected to the term PQA. I don’t think the terms matter. Susie told me recently:
"I am not crazy about the term PMS. I am even less crazy about the term Passive PMS. Of course you know that I believe that PQA is the key to it all...."
My own objection to the terms PMS and passive PMS is that they are different than the term PQA, and thus create confusion by incorrectly conveying the idea that telling a story is in some way not connected to PQA, when in fact a story is always best when it has its roots in personalized discussion.
There is an art to TPRS that supersedes the idea of steps and techniques. We engage the kids in personalized discussion (PQA), and we use comprehensible input (CI) to move the personalization (PQA) forward. It may or may not turn into a story.
While communicating with some really gifted TPRS teachers in writing this book, I noticed that a common idea seemed to emerge from all of them, reflecting Susie's statements above. All they want is CI + P, and tons of PQA. They see personalization as their point of departure in all classes. My own idea of telling a story is to take PQA and just see how far it can bounce!
Hopefully, this book reflects some of what Susie has been saying about personalization over the years.
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Rationale
It is much easier to successfully personalize a classroom in the first year than later on, just as it is easier to build trust in any relationship earlier than later. Either a bridge between people is built early or it is not built at all.
Anyone who has taught a foreign language is familiar with the honeymoon period that the teacher and the students enjoy at the beginning of the year. The teacher, rested from the summer, encounters a new group of excited students. Together, they spend the first weeks in the relative ease and enjoyment of the simple things involved in starting the academic year.
Just as in any relationship, this honeymoon period of time is when the teacher must build a bridge to the students, one that allows the students into the classroom process as whole people.
How can a bridge be built that won’t crumble at the first arrival of the winter winds, one that in the case of high school teachers may possibly last up to four years? Can building this bridge reverse the abysmal retention rates of the past decades, when only a handful of those excited first year students make it to the end of four years of high school study?
Can students actually be trained in such a way that almost all of them not only see their way happily through the four high school years, but continue with joy and confidence to go on and actually master the language after high school, either in college or through travel?
It can be done only if the students are invited from the beginning to be themselves, to be known for the things that they do, and to be perceived by others in the class as important. Without personalization, students do not feel important, and real language teaching cannot then occur.
Millions of American students enter our classrooms each year expecting to learn a new language. When we invite them into a personalized classroom full of meaningful and comprehensible discussion, they will do just that.
In authentically personalized classrooms lie also the seeds of hope for millions of Asian, Hispanic, and other new immigrant children, whose very future lies in their ability to learn English. ESL classrooms centered upon personalized comprehensible input would dramatically improve the situation of millions of immigrant children currently floundering in our public schools.
Rudimentary seeds of personalizing a classroom were sown by James Asher. By at least involving the students physically in the language, by at least moving around the room the classroom a bit, he treated them as people in an indirect way.
Tracy Terrell’s text Deux Mondes/Dos Mundos was a great attempt to personalize a textbook around individuals. It was just too complex, however, and not comprehensible PQA in a Wink page 10 to most students. Hence, it found use only at the college level, and even at that level did not work, because no textbook can deliver personalized comprehensible input to students.
The same thing can be said for Pierre Capretz’ French in Action program. Its material was not personalized, nor was it comprehensible for all but the most motivated college students. It didn’t work.
If someone in Paris with a hand in their coat approached an American with a background of high school or college French and said, “Haut les mains/Hands up!” the following scenarios would likely play out:
1. The grammar trained student would ask for the English version. 2. The student trained in TPR only would probably ask for time to think back to their first few weeks of their language study. Not recognizing a verb (because there was none in that utterance), they would not respond to the request. 3. The student trained in memorizing expressions around district mandated thematic expressions (time, weather, etc.) would be puzzled because the expression would not have been “covered” in their classes. Trained in pure memorization of prompt responses in these areas, they would not have been able to engage in creating a real conversational flow with the thief. They might actually hurt their cause by responding to the thief, “Je me lève à huit heures du matin/I get up at 8:00 a.m.” 4. The college student, having worked with one of the complicated college texts like Deux Mondes, would try to recreate an image in their mind of the list of memorized expressions that have to do with being robbed, but would have trouble remembering that particular expression since they had memorized approximately twenty thousand such expressions each semester during the course of their study. 5. The Capretz trained student would only understand that they were being robbed if the thief had chosen to dress like the images of thieves found in the French in Action videos. 6. The TPRS student would put their hands up.
There have been countless such failures as those described above in foreign language acquisition over the decades. Not until Blaine Ray figured out a way to make comprehensible input actually work through TPR Storytelling could we as a profession begin to move out of the dark ages of the twentieth century.
In fact, if Asher’s work in TPR were to be compared to Blaine Ray’s work in TPRStorytelling, it would be as comparing early Roman plumbing, viaducts, et al to modern plumbing. Ray’s system moves water (the target language) in such a way that the Romans could never have imagined. Even in their relatively enlightened approach to engineering, Roman ways of moving water pale in comparison to what TPR Storytelling does.
Should Asher’s TPR be used at all? Absolutely, but in the right amounts at the right times. Michael Miller of Cheyenne Mountain Junior High in Colorado Springs, CO is a master at this. As long as it is not overdone, TPR is a great support in establishing meaning and a sense of fun in the classroom.
However, after about eight TPR commands, done en masse and so easily copied by students who don’t understand, TPR loses power. In my view, giving endless commands PQA in a Wink page 11 like “turn left and look over your right shoulder” is a mistake. Does it convey respect and a personal interest in the student to have them walk forward and backward twenty or thirty times under the auspices of learning?
Not only are TPR commands much more neurologically complex than most teachers think, thus making authentic comprehensible input less possible for most students, they lack the key ingredient of authentic personalization. The individual teacher must ultimately make the decision as to how much TPR to include. Personalization, on the other hand, will not be an option in the classrooms of the future.
PQA in a Wink page 12 CHAPTER ONE – ESTABLISHING MEANING
Some kind of vocabulary base must be established early on in the year. The teacher can use it as a magic key to enter into the magic land that is the subject of this book – PQA. To attempt to personalize a classroom without first teaching a strong vocabulary base of a few hundred words makes it harder to do PQA.
The list of words at the back of Blaine Ray’s Fluency Through TPR Storytelling does the job quite well. Listed as single words, the learner can handle them more easily than combinations of words. This is important, because, in their enthusiasm, students often convey a greater sense of understanding than is accurate.
The easiest way to work with Blaine’s list, or any list of single words, is to point to the words in the list (mine are on big posters), say what they mean, ask for mental associations to help the kids remember them, and perhaps do a little TPR with them.
Ten minutes a day of this at the beginning of class early in the year contributes to the building of a great foundation, which will be of immense value later in stories.
Using only ten minutes (or less) of a class period to build vocabulary frees up time for the most important work of the first few months of the year, getting to know the students.
Once a foundational vocabulary has been established at the beginning of the year in the above way, we must also establish the meaning of new words and structures as we present them in our classes on a daily basis. Various techniques can be used to accomplish this.
Signing words is an important skill in establishing meaning at the beginning of a class. Signing occurs when the teacher and students agree on a certain physical sign for a word or expression and then, in order to learn it, play a sort of game to show that they recognize it when they hear it.
It is human nature to imitate signs other people are doing, so if Kristen informs you that she plays the piano, say “Class, Kristen is playing the piano!” and just start signing that. You and the class may agree that the sign for “is playing the piano” is a flowery movement of the fingers from left to right. Simply stop the discussion and create imaginary situations around that expression and Kristen. Make up scenes about it. See where it goes. Enjoy yourself and the kids.
That Kristen plays piano is a subject of great interest to you. Does Kristen play fast? Loudly? Signing and gesturing is a game with your students, besides which you are getting all-important repetitions, which is the true purpose of signing, to establish vocabulary.
Signing is often done at the beginning of class, when you have two or three structures to teach. You teach those structures to prep the class for the comprehensible input (CI) of that day, but signing is useful anytime during class, to make the associations necessary.
In signing you are doing more than giving auditory practice on the structures. You are also establishing that the class will be fun. Signing always creates an upbeat and fun PQA in a Wink page 13 mood, which is a great reason to use this skill often. The class becomes easier to teach simply because of the upbeat mood that signing creates.
When establishing meaning I prefer to ask the students to come up with some sort of sound association, which I find very effective in my classroom.
If I want the kids to authentically acquire the word “voiture/car”, I ask them (they are always smarter and more creative than me) to just throw out in English some ways we can associate the sound voiture (pronounced vwhatur). One student said to think of the sentence “Voiture is your Toyota?” The word is instantly identified by most of the students for the rest of the year.
Besides sound association, visual associations are possible. The word “jeter/to throw” – associates with shortstop Derek Jeter of the New York Yankees. For non-baseball fans, an image of a child throwing a jet plane works.
It is not the focus of this text to try to describe all the nuances involved in establishing meaning. How we as TPRS professionals choose to establish meaning is a matter of individual choice. We must remember to take only a few minutes, and no more, to establish meaning at the beginning of a class period.
PQA is also a matter of individual choice, as is, indeed, any aspect of TPRS. My wish is that the teacher take from these pages an appreciation of the power inherent in the moments of PQA that we create in our classes, and that by extending and expanding those moments, each teacher eventually create a personal definition of PQA and, indeed, of TPRS, one reflecting their own preferences.
PQA in a Wink page 14 CHAPTER TWO – USING PQA
Establishing Identities
On the first day of class this year, I asked my kids in one class why they chose French. Brooke said that she wanted to become a fashion designer and live and work in Paris. I started calling her Fille de Versace/Daughter of Versace in class, instead of Brooke.
Throughout that week, for a few minutes each class, I casually taught a few structures from the song Mademoiselle de Paris about a dressmaker in Paris. I didn’t care if the students understood the words in the song, which clearly they did not. I had two other goals: 1) to let them hear the beauty of the French language and 2) to send a clear message that Brooke and her interest in French haute couture were very important to me.
For a few moments each day, I played the song. I told them it was about someone who works in the Parisian fashion industry. The students sensed what I was trying to do. They reciprocated with genuine interest.
By conveying to the students that Brooke was very important in my classroom, I was setting a tone for the year. I wanted to convey to all of my students that they were far more important to me at that point in the year than teaching French.
It is not enough to be interested in our students. We have to develop ways to show that interest. Not only do we want to find out about our students as individuals, we want the class to know them in that way as well.
We want each student in our classroom to be known to the other students for their interests in life. In addition, we need to find a way to convey what we learn about our students to the rest of the class in a fun and lighthearted way.
Clearly, we are not describing here getting to know the student in depth. Instead, we are focusing on positive and uplifting information that can become a source of class bonding for the entire year, and, in high school programs, for up to four years. Not every child can be the star of the basketball team or a cheerleader, but, in their language class, they can be very special indeed.
Far from being trivial, this building of identity in each of our students by making their own interests paramount is my most important focus for the first three to four weeks of the year, and it continues all year. When I began doing this, I noticed that, for the first time in my teaching career, I was reaching all the kids in the classroom.
This book describes how to use PQA to establish identities and rapport with your students. It also describes how to spin, to extend, that information further. How can we do that?
To start, it is recommended that you ask your students to fill out a detailed questionnaire and refer to it often. It can be an amazing source of information to you. If you learn that Catherine has two horses, developing that true statement into all kinds of imaginative PQA in a Wink page 15 comprehensible input greatly strengthens the quality of the PQA and extended PQA that you provide in your classroom.
Whether you use the questionnaire as a means of embellishing PQA, or just as a way to get to know the kids better at the start of the year, you will find it a most useful tool in PQA and extended PQA. Think of the questionnaire as a sort of foundation on which you can build truly personalized and meaningful classes.
Here is the questionnaire I use. It was first developed by a gifted high school TPRS teacher of German in Maine, Anne Lambert, and I use it with her permission. A free printable version can be found at www.benslavic.com for use in your classes:
Questionnaire
Directions: please fill this out thoughtfully, combining made up and real answers. Blend a little of your real personality into a lot of a make believe personality:
Name ______Nickname ______Name you wish you could have ______Job ______A job you would like to have ______Any interesting or unusual facts about you ______A celebrity you find attractive and why ______Favorite musical groups/athletes and why ______A pet and their name ______A pet you would like to have and their name ______Something you don’t like and why ______PQA in a Wink page 16 Something you don’t have but really want ______Some unusual thing you have ______Talents/abilities, however strange ______Someone or something you fear and why ______Weird chores you have to do ______A food you don’t like ______
A very effective option with the questionnaire is to use, instead of a sheet of paper, a two foot high card stock cutout of a shape of a person, kind of like a gingerbread man. On different parts of the body, I ask the same questions as above, with lines on which to write responses. When the kids have done a good job of filling in all the answers with thought-out answers, I laminate each one. Somehow, the body cards are more effective.
The questionnaire is a reference for the entire year. I try to remember only multiple facts about a limited number of students at a time, as it can become confusing, but I always make sure I know at least one fact about every kid to bring into PQA by the end of the first week. I study these questionnaires during my planning periods during the first week of school. It pays off later.
I do not laminate any body cards that are incomplete or have not been taken seriously. In a way, these cards are my textbook for PQA, and they work absolutely beautifully to establish personalization, trust, and fun in my classroom.
Circling with Balls
On the first day of class I give each student a half sheet of colored card stock, using a different color for each class I teach. I ask the students to write their names clearly in large letters across the top of the sheet, and below it a picture of a sport or musical instrument they play.
If they have neither, I ask them to draw a picture of something they would like to be good at. I teach in a middle school, and most of them draw a picture of a sport ball.
By asking the kids to do this on the first day of class, I catch their attention. The students see that their interests, and not a textbook, are going to be the subject of the class, which is not often the rule.
PQA in a Wink page 17
For the next several days, I ask the kids to place their papers facing me. Then, I just walk around the room, expressing authentic interest in each one while engaging them in conversation in the target language about what they have drawn.
As I walk around, I may notice is that Casey has drawn a volleyball under her name. So, with great enthusiasm, I give my first meaningful statement in the target language to the class for that year:
Classe, Casey joue au volley!
Next, I go to the board and write:
Casey joue au volley/Casey plays volleyball!
Then, pointing to and pausing at each single word I say, I begin a series of repetitive questions based on the original statement according to a pattern. This is called circling. While making these statements, I ask the class to respond to each one in some way, as indicated below in parentheses:
Statement: Class, Casey plays volleyball! (ohh!) Question: Class, does Casey play volleyball? (yes) Either/Or: Class, does Casey play volleyball or does Casey play soccer? (volleyball) That's right, class, Casey plays volleyball! (ohh!) Negative: Does Casey play soccer? (no) No, class, Casey doesn’t play soccer. She plays volleyball! (ohh!) 3 for 1: Class, does Casey write novels? (no) That's right class, that's ridiculous, Casey doesn't write novels! She plays volleyball. What: Class, what does Casey play? (volleyball) That’s right, class, she plays volleyball! Who: Class, who plays volleyball? (Casey) Correct, class, Casey plays volleyball.
When, where, why and other details can be added into this process, but only if relevant and only later in the year.
This questioning pattern is a staple of TPRS. Circling makes input of the target language easily comprehensible to students via interesting, meaningful repetition of target structures. The TPRS train gains momentum in your classroom whenever you circle personalized information!
Circling is an amazing thing. When we circle slowly in the target language, our students understand what we are trying to say. They gain confidence and trust as they experience our efforts to reach them.
Two things are required when circling: 1) that the instructor go extremely slowly and 2) that the instructor point to and pause at every single word they say. Thus, when I ask the class the question as per the above pattern:
Classe, est-ce que Casey joue au volley?/Class, does Casey play volleyball?
PQA in a Wink page 18 I must then go to a list of question words on the wall and point to the word that I just used, which in French is “est-ce que”. Next to the word is its English translation, “is it that”. I have three sets of question words and their translations in large poster form in different parts of my classroom.
Having three posters enables me to point to the question words wherever I happen to be in the room, which could be anywhere because I want to spend all my time walking around the room looking at and marveling at my kids’ identity sheets, looking them in the eyes, getting to know them, and speaking to them in the target language.
I always give my students time to absorb all the words I say by including long enough pauses, up to five seconds. I must remember to continue to do this slow pointing and pausing all of the time, for the whole year.
As the students’ familiarity with the question words grows, I stop pointing to things that they easily comprehend, but I continue pointing to anything that they do not yet know with ease. With anything new, I write it down with its translation before moving on.
I never say anything that they don’t understand without writing it down in both the target language and in English, and pausing and pointing to it to let it sink in. I have two goals: 1) to make the language fully accessible to my students, and 2) to make the class about them.
During these first days of class I am talking about my students in the target language. I am learning about them. Class is about them. I am doing the most important thing in TPRS now – I am personalizing my classroom and I am circling slowly. I want to keep things absolutely simple for my students, who are new to language learning.
Once I have learned what my students’ interests are, to add to the interest, I try to find out the right outlandish name for each student. This is my favorite PQA activity and a favorite of the kids. With these names, the affective filter drops precipitously. Students spring to life. They become three dimensional. Every student becomes important to the class. A colleague recently wrote:
“So far I've got El Rey Mejor, La Reina Estrella, El Duque Italiano, La Princesa Del Sur, and El Señor Twinkie. Other names in the works. The names are all loaded with meaning from all the stuff we've been doing, and, like you say, we will perfect them over time.”
These names are outlandish and imaginary, and full of humor. When we see the kids they describe, we see that the names always fit them perfectly. Once we do this, we see the importance of names as far greater than we had any idea beforehand.
Once I had a group of my middle school students come to my evening college class to give a demonstration of TPRS. The actress who ended up being the star of the story that evening was dubbed La Fille Qui Rit/The Girl Who Laughs.
For the rest of the year, that girl, who really does laugh a lot, wrote her name down every single day on the white board in my middle school classroom and left a message about PQA in a Wink page 19 herself for the other classes that I made sure remained in the classroom for the rest of the day. She wrote things like:
La Fille Qui Rit aime le foot/The Girl Who Laughs likes soccer! or:
La Fille Qui Rit dit: “Je suis heureuse aujourd’hui”/The Girl Who Laughs says, “I am happy today!”
She left them as little notes for the classes coming in later in the day. Then she would run out of the classroom to her next class.
What was happening here? What is the pedagogical value of this? First, The Girl Who Laughs knew that she was important to me. I had given her a special name. I don’t usually let kids write on my board, so she was given a special privilege. She learned how to write correctly because each day she handed me the note for the board at the end of each class so that I could make sure it was correct before she wrote it on the board. She was conveying to others that her name was important to her by writing it on the board every day.
Another student, one who a few months into the year had not yet received a name, perhaps because he always seemed to mistrust me and others, approached me after class once with a sheet of paper that said on it, The Boy Who Goes in Front. He asked me to write it in French, so I wrote Le Garçon Qui Va Devant. He had a name! This astounded me. This request for a special name, made for his own reasons at a time he chose, immediately built an invisible bond between us.
Names contain power. Of course, it takes more than a name to build trust, but, in this case, I knew that by asking me for this name, this boy was signaling to me increased trust.
Le Garçon Qui Va Devant became, by the end of the year, a key figure in many stories. In fact, that spring, when I had to do a demonstration class in front of two principals and our district foreign language coordinator, after PQA, I intuitively went to Le Garçon Qui Va Devant and we had a great story. He knew I was counting on him and he came through.
Many of the names I assign are in English. As we begin the year we want to reduce the amount of neurological activity required by the student to process new sounds. We want to make the language as accessible as possible to the students. Beginning students require simplified input.
One kid I called “Pencil Man”. I called him this because he brought ten sharp pencils to my class on the first day of school that year, which I found hilarious. I found that whenever I said “Pencil Man” and not some French sounding name in a sentence, the class easily processed what I said about him. Pencil Man’s name in English seemed to “frame” the rest of the sentence really well, providing faster recognition, thus higher comprehension.
PQA in a Wink page 20 A well-chosen name has three qualities. First, it reflects humor. Second, it is outlandish. Third, it is connected in some way to the student’s real life interests. The names then reflect humor, an element of the bizarre, and the student’s individual personality.
William is an eighth grade math whiz who is also interested in philosophy. In my classroom he is not William, but Blaise Pascal. Each time William walks into my classroom, he becomes a famous French philosopher and mathematician!
Whenever I do PQA with this student, I am able to ask a wider variety of questions, some about William, a great basketball player by the way, but also others about Pascal, like “So, Pascal, what do you know about triangles?”
Through careful questioning of just a few minutes each day, after a few days, William soon ended up drawing part of Pascal’s triangle on the board, and I got to teach a lesson on numbers, not a dry one from the book, but a personalized one. If an administrator came in to see what I was doing to teach across the curriculum, I had their answer! For more on TPRS and administrators, please see the Q and A section at the end of this book.
Look at the possibilities inherent in a name! By becoming aware of William’s interest in mathematics, I was able to extend that interest into a lesson on numbers.
That is how PQA works. Personalized comprehensible input always leads to unexpected discussion, discussion that contains a richness of potential precisely because it is personalized and unplanned, therefore spontaneous, and therefore interesting.
Far from being a frill, a nice thing to add into a TPRS class, personalized CI, which brings the real power of TPRS into the class, must begin with names.
One teacher reports:
“I plan to start next year with this naming system. I've always passed out a big long list of German names and let them pick one that they liked. But your idea of getting to know them and letting the name unfold in a natural and humorous way is much better.
“The way I see this working is that each kid seems to have kind of a secret alias that I need to uncover [ital. mine]. I may just call them by their regular English name until I figure out the name they are going to have in class. Actually, this has happened a few times already and it is pure magic when it does happen. My one fear is that it might take all year for thirty such organically-grown authentic names to surface.”
The idea of “uncovering a secret alias” describes this process exactly. Calling them by their English names until the right name appears is just fine. There is no “right time” for the name to appear.
There is also a question on the questionnaire which asks the kids to provide a “name they would like if they could choose another name”. This gives you a “bridge name” between their real life name and their eventual secret alias. I use either their real name or the name they would choose if they could until I uncover their secret alias, doing so for months sometimes. They really love being called by this second name, because no one ever does so. PQA in a Wink page 21
Is three names too many? No. This is by design. In order to learn, children must feel that they are part of the classroom community, and names are the single most effective tool, in my view, to accomplish this. They are a key and integral factor to your success in PQA and TPRStorytelling.
Had I come up with some name that “wasn’t right” for Le Garçon Qui Va Devant referred to above, I am certain that our experience as teacher and student would have been different. Waiting for him to approach me was necessary in that case.
It may take longer, but “organically-grown” (i.e. derived from humorous conversation) names mean so much more to the kids and are so much more authentic! The students’ names haven’t been chosen by the instructor as a label of their hair color or whatever, but instead have emerged from things they do.
A minor but important note: when teaching names, the expression who are you obviously comes up a lot. I do not try to teach both the expressions who are you and how are you in the same period of time. What seems easy to the teacher is hard for the student. One of those two expressions is all that the students can handle at a time, at least in French. Look how alike they are in English!
When you have a roomful of kids with names like Pencil Man, Man Who Builds Computers, Bell Girl, The Duke of Earl, Sarah Lee, Rick Clapton, Pro Baseball Player, etc., everything that follows is more interesting. Students want to be in personalized, lighthearted classrooms, and not in impersonal, boring classrooms.
When the instructor first gives a name to a student, it should be presented to the class as a big deal. It should actually be announced to the class. Robyn Valdizon suggested actually having a dubbing ceremony similar to knighting ceremonies in which a (small plastic Wal-Mart) sword is used to draw special attention to the child.
This is a wonderful idea. To us as teachers, it is just another thing we do in class. To the child, it is a rite of passage, a major moment of acceptance into the class, one that meets their basic need, referred to above, to belong to a group before they can learn anything (Bob Sullo).
When you decide to finally unveil a name, tell the student how much thought you have put into it. They may not say it, but inside they are proud of the attention. Often, when they receive this kind of attention, kids drop by before or after school with questions about their names and their roles in class, asking such things as "Can we talk about me tomorrow?" etc. I lie and say yes.
It is in our best interests to perceive the often fragile nature of our students’ defensive posturings in our classes. We must understand that it is up to us whether a student blossoms into a colorful, three dimensional, authentic player in our classroom, or if they retreat into anonymity. The right name can do so much!
Jay, who plays football, loves your suggestion that he be known to the class as Jay Cutler, after the Denver Broncos quarterback. By choosing this name for him, you are announcing his importance to the class – he plays quarterback on a football team! PQA in a Wink page 22
Again, I am really not very interested in the fact that this kid plays football on some pee- wee team for 13 years olds somewhere, but the art of personalizing my classroom requires that I make a big deal of this information. So I must fake the interest.
Two hockey players become Jonah Sakic and Jake Roi because they play the same positions on their hockey teams as do the Colorado Avalanche stars and it is important to them to be recognized in that way by the other students in the class.
Alex is a seventh grade running back. He is not much interested in French. He is a running back. He struts like a running back. He has the smirk of a running back. He is not going to “show up” for a class on French pronouns. Actually, Alex is a fragile little kid who wants some attention.
I can either choose to perceive him as an eighth grader who is not interested in learning French, or as a football player. How I choose will determine my success as his teacher. If I choose the former, we both lose the game. If I choose the latter, we both win, in the most unexpected of ways.
So when I hand him the football in front of everyone in the class while looking directly into his eyes, I am saying: "Alex, you are important. I want you to relax and be yourself in my classroom.”
More importantly, I must also convey to Alex this message: “Alex, I will never let you down. I will always go slowly enough and repeat everything so that you understand, and I will go back and start again if you need me to. I will always be aware of how the listening is going for you in my class."
The look back into the teacher’s eyes from any student who receives such a message is one of respect and thanks. It says, "I am happy that I can trust you, and that you won't forget me, and that you care if I understand or not."
This anecdote about Alex appears to be a nice story about something good happening in a classroom. Underneath, however, it is a strong statement about how a successful classroom is run.
Why does this approach work so well with all but the most severely recalcitrant students? Because it is human nature to want to be valued. Personalizing the classroom from the beginning works extremely well with those bizarre kids who start the year off by seeming to want to wrestle control of the classroom from the teacher at every juncture.
When the teacher ignores such kids, they start acting out as if on cue. When the teacher retaliates, they become passive and disappear, but their negative energy remains. The teacher makes a big mistake, creating repercussions that will last the entire year, when they choose to see these kids as disinterested students instead of as individual human beings with unique talents and abilities.
The only solution for such kids, besides being tossed out of the room, is that they be given the attention they want. Handing them a ball and telling the class that they are PQA in a Wink page 23 important informs everyone that the agenda in the classroom that year will be student centered.
In one class, Taylor has drawn a football under his name. Announce to the other students his name, TD, and start circling the subject:
Class, TD plays football! (Ohh!) Class, does TD play football? (yes) Class, does TD or WD play football? (TD) That's right, class, TD plays football! (Ohh!)
At any time during circling you can change your circling focus to another part of the sentence, here switching from the subject, TD, to what he does:
Class, does TD write novels?
Since “writes novels” is a new structure, you write it on the board in both the target language and in English, pausing and pointing up to five seconds with the pointer on the new structure, letting it sink in.
Before going on, you ask for a hand comprehension check (skill 15 in TPRS in a Year!) and you check in with your barometer student as well (skill 9), and if the comprehension of “writes novels” is good, you go on:
That's right, class, that's silly! TD doesn't write novels! He plays football!
Continue on with other students in a relaxed way. Don’t fake the interest. You are getting to know them during these first few days, and they are getting much needed repetitions in the target language.
As mentioned, in most beginning classes (in which the kids are between thirteen and fifteen years old), more than half of the students draw a picture of a sport. This, then, immediately brings a sense of play into the first few weeks of discussion. All you need is a number of sports balls of different types in your classroom. It wouldn’t even hurt to have a small skateboard.
I have three smaller sized basketballs (with a goal in the corner for relaxing between classes), two footballs, a soccer ball, a volleyball, a tennis ball, a plastic softball, etc. Some real balls (basketballs, softballs, footballs) are too unwieldy (they bend little fingers), so get the smaller ones.
As I circle in the target language about one kid’s interest in their sport, I hold the ball associated with their sport, maybe tossing it around the room once or twice. I keep the ball away from the kid I’m talking about. This builds tension and interest.
When the kid finally gets the ball at the end of the circled PQA about them, they get to sit there with the ball in their hands or in front of them, now an important member of the group.
There is something about being able to toss the balls around that relaxes the students. Thus, if you walk by a desk and see the name “Reed” and there is a drawing of a basketball there, you say in amazement, "Class, Reed plays basketball!" PQA in a Wink page 24
As you hold the basketball it is clear to everyone that Reed wants it, because he knows that being a basketball player is going to be an identity for him in your class this year. In fact, you may have already decided that he is Willis Reed, an old New York Knick from the Walt Frasier days of Knick glory in the NBA.
But you hold on to the basketball, tossing it to a few kids, but not to Reed, circling away:
Class, Willis Reed plays basketball! (Ohh!) Class, does Willis Reed play basketball? (yes) Class, does Willis Reed play basketball or does Abe Lincoln play basketball? (Willis Reed!) That’s correct, class, Willis Reed plays basketball. Class, does Willis Reed play volleyball? (no!) Correct again, class, you are very smart! Willis Reed does not play volleyball, he plays basketball! Class, who plays basketball? That’s right, class, Willis Reed plays basketball!
The circling with the balls builds tension and interest in the class. Whatever Reed’s typical level of academic achievement in his other classes is, here he is 100% focused.
The kids are hearing language that is meaningful to them. They can understand this simple language that is about them. Waiting to give the ball to Reed only when the circling about him is over, as mentioned, somehow keeps the interest up and going through the entire process.
The great advantage of circling becomes apparent during these discussions about sports: circling keeps things going in the target language! You keep asking questions from the question word chart, and in just a few moments, almost magically, you have circled your way into personalized details. You learn from the class that Reed plays basketball behind Best Buy at five p.m. on Wednesdays in the summer, but only in the month of July. Your reaction to each one of these facts is, of course, one of incredulity.
James gets to hold the ball but he doesn't want it. Yuck! James shows you with his facial expression that he is a soccer player, thank you very much! With a smile and a wink, I called James a football player each time I spoke to him all year, pretending not to remember the true facts in the interest of extra CI and humor.
This play on James’ identity was a game that worked for the whole year, and done with humor, it made James feel even more special. In fact, the last thing I saw written on my blackboard in the last minute I spent in my classroom as I “said goodbye” to my room before the summer that year, was a little note in the corner of the blackboard that read: I play soccer! – James.
This anecdote taught me a lesson. It showed just how strongly a child’s emotions and identity are connected to what they do during their days in our middle and high schools!
And what would Sarah Lee want with the ball? Sarah Lee never plays basketball. She reads. She wants a book!
Class, Sarah reads!
Instantly this shy student, who has been kind of “hiding” in class up to this point, has an identity and seems to like being Sarah Lee, who reads. Here I am encountering a child PQA in a Wink page 25 who does not play a sport, so I just start circling “Sarah reads,” adding as much detail as I can at every opportunity via the question words:
Class, where does Sarah read? (Steakback Outhouse...) What does she read? (letters and numbers, but not words and books...) What is Sarah’s favorite number? (4...) What numbers doesn't Sarah like? (10, 9, 2, and 5...) What is Sarah’s favorite word? (flower…) What word doesn’t Sarah like? (desk…) Does Sarah read or write? etc.
Interesting, comprehensible input is being delivered slowly, new words are being pointed to, and pauses are occurring as the new words sink in. “Write” is probably a new word, so I put it on the board with its English translation, let it sink in, check for comprehension, check in with my barometer students (two in that particular class), and then move on with the discussion.
As previously stated, all new words and any words needing review are written down on the board or overhead the moment they occur. When the circling naturally runs out of energy by itself, as it did with Reed, a new student becomes the subject of discussion:
Class, Sarah reads, but Shelby writes!
As long as the instructor:
listens to the students’ cute answers (which are in English but not more than one or two words long), makes certain that student-provided information is driving the class, pauses and points to all question words, writes down all new words with their English translation, pauses and points to any new words, doing comprehension checks and barometer checks, goes slowly and circles, using absolutely simple language, conveys an honest sense of wonderment that these students do such wonderful things, then PQA is being done well. The language, though being delivered in the form of massive amounts of comprehensible input, is still secondary to the development and integration of Alex, Reed, Sarah, Shelby, and every other student into the class.
Often, a teacher’s mind wants to get to new stuff, to explain new structures, to explore new vocabulary, or to analyze new aspects of language. This is a mistake. Nothing supersedes the students’ need to be taught simple things that they can understand, and to be identified as important.
Every so often, I read the following words from Blaine to my students at the beginning of class:
“I believe people who are the most effective at TPRS don't tell stories. They ask questions, pause, and listen for cute answers from the students.”
Blaine calls this playing “the game.” Blaine’s words remind me to express much more interest in what my students have to say than in anything else. We must practice what we preach. If we want our kids to respond to what we say we must listen to what they say. PQA in a Wink page 26
Even more than just listening for the cute answers Blaine describes above, we must respond to those cute answers with warmth and genuine appreciation. People love to be acknowledged for the cute things they say, and we as teachers sometimes forget that.
Carl Jung said:
“One looks back with gratitude to the brilliant teachers, but also to those who touched our human feeling. Curriculum is necessary raw material, but warmth is the vital element for the growing plant and for the soul of the child.”
The brilliant teachers may be masters of the skills involved in TPRS, but the ones who receive the gratitude of the children are those who bring warmth to the soul of the child by clearly broadcasting a sense of appreciation for whom they are and what they say.
To return to the idea of “forgetting” what kids do in the interest of CI and humor, if one day you happen to “forget” that Holly is not a basketball player but a skateboarder, is that important to Holly? Yes! Is it important to her classmates? Yes! So do it! Getting something going on an emotional level with your kids whenever possible can really heighten the levels of CI being achieved.
Class, Holly plays basketball!
Holly protests vehemently, so you stop circling that and start circling around the new, more interesting, information that Holly is not happy. Point to the chart depicting emotions on the wall and make the statement:
Class, Holly is angry! (ohh!)... Class, is Holly angry?
Yes! Really play up what a big thing that Holly is angry while pointing and circling:
Class, is Holly angry or sad, etc.
Walk over to Holly, and say,
Holly, are you angry?
Then, go and point to the subject pronouns found on the verb “to be” on the wall. While pointing to the “I” and “you” forms, you engage Holly in the following heavily circled conversation:
Q. So, Holly, you are angry? A. Yes, I am angry. Q. Holly, are you angry or sad? A. I am angry. Q. Holly, are you sad? A. No, I am not sad, I am angry. Q. No, I am not happy, I am angry.
PQA in a Wink page 27 Obviously, you will have to do some writing on the board with this if it occurs during the first weeks of the year. If Holly hangs in there with you, don’t forget to acknowledge the wonderful effort she made to speak. Then redirect your questions to the class, recycling your way back into the third person, keeping the focus on Holly. Keep pointing until it is naturally time to circle other information about someone else. Bring back expressions of emotion into class discussion frequently throughout the year, especially between actors during stories.
Notice from the above that we converse with our students by always going from looking into their eyes to pointing to words on the wall with a pointer, back and forth, all period. Pause up to five seconds while pointing to a word so that it sinks in.
Invariably, when ten finger assessments are given (at least once every ten to fifteen minutes), most if not all of the students put up more than eight fingers. Most put up nine or ten.
When this happens, the students believe that they can succeed in your class. The main contributing factor to successful comprehension checks is personalized, slow, circled language.
Once the students trust you completely to never let them down (by going slowly and by focusing more on them than on the subject matter), the class can move forward into deeper and deeper levels of TPRS.
Trust is established via:
the positive focus on the kids, the slow and thus fully comprehensible teaching of basic structures using question words via circling, your staying only in the target language, which is what the students expect, strong discipline, discussed later in this text.
Through your efforts, Reed has by now become the best basketball player in France’s summer pro league. He is going to travel in a rolling chair from Denver to Paris in June. This is the third year he has done this. The season there lasts 41.5 days. Reed earns three hundred and twenty thousand euros per season. He averages 61.4 points a game. The most points he has every scored in a game is 3,067 against the Strasbourg Wildcats, last season. Reed’s team, the Paris Pistons, has its first game in ten months, on Wednesday, the 5th of June, against the short but fast Dijon Mustardmen, in Dijon.
Is Reed nervous? No, because he is 3,5 meters tall, and the tallest French pro basketball player measures only 2,1 meters. Reed has confidence because he is tall.
How does the class understand any of this? They understand because they are the ones who have suggested all this cute information in response to circled CI about Reed’s interest in basketball. As the instructor, all I did was ask questions.
Asking the questions and choosing the ones that led to Reed’s identity in French class was a lot of fun. Reed sat in class like a king, knowing he would soon get that basketball, his reward for good effort. PQA in a Wink page 28
At the same time the class and I came to a common agreement about what Reed did via the magic of PQA, we were in the same moments learning a lot of French. The class even learned about the European system of measuring height, because I used the Portrait Physique, described below.
When you do this, you are teaching a language, but not out of a book. The kids are learning, because what you say in class is connected to their personal interests in life.
What if there are four or five kids in your class who play soccer or basketball? How can each one be the best? If there are two volleyball players, one might be the best in Europe and one the best in the Americas. And then the two would go over to the basket and each take three shots for world domination.
This sort of impromptu moment need not be done in the target language. It is not an indication of a lack of discipline in the classroom when two students walk over to a basketball hoop in the corner of the room and shoot three baskets each. It’s just fine to have a few minutes of fun in the class, to rest the students’ circuits, and to build good will. Resting the kids’ circuits during class is an important thing to do, and can be done in just a minute or two. After the “game” you can retell in the target language. It’s about them! They’ll want to hear it!
The class is so arranged that there is a lot of open space in the center of the room for the instructor to walk around and make meaningful eye contact with each individual kid. It is far superior to tripping over desks.
Teachers fearful of behavior issues resulting from these kinds of moments are referred to the section on discipline below – there need be no discipline problems in TPRS classrooms. Engaged students are never discipline problems, and TPRS, when defined and executed as personalized comprehensible input, engages the interest of students.
The sports balls are useful in many ways. Besides using them to establish identities for those students who play sports, I use them to teach the expressions:
1. Qu’est-ce que c’est/What is it? 2. C’est un ___ /It is a ___. (or ce n’est pas un ___ /It isn’t) 3. n’est-ce pas/Isn’t it? 4. C’est ça/That’s right! 5. Ça ne va pas/That’s not working! (sense of trying but failing) 6. Ça y est/That’s it. (It’s done.)
The first two expressions above need a lot of practice at the beginning of the year and are indispensable for teaching things found in a classroom. French teachers certainly know that expressions three through six are just plain hard to teach in a classroom setting, and so need special attention. The following scenario addresses the six expressions in one compact activity, for which you need only one ball from any sport:
Classe, qu’est-ce que c’est? C’est un ballon de foot, n’est-ce pas? (oui) Class, what is it? It’s a soccer ball, right? (yes) Oui, c’est un ballon de foot! PQA in a Wink page 29 Yes, it’s a soccer ball!
Remember to write down and translate anything new. Then circle that last expression in the following way:
Classe, c’est un ballon de foot ou c’est un ballon de basket? (ballon de foot) Class, is it a soccer ball or a basketball? (soccer ball) Oui, classe, c’est un ballon de foot! Yes, class, it’s a soccer ball! C’est un ballon de volley? (non) Is it a volleyball? (no) Correcte, classe, ce n’est pas un ballon de volley. C’est stupide! (laughter) Right, class, it isn’t a volleyball. That’s stupid! C’est un ballon de foot? (oui) Is it a soccer ball? (yes) C’est ça! C’est un ballon de foot. Right! It’s a soccer ball.
This gets you down into the fourth expression. However, before going on, you can continue circling deeper if you wish, remembering that there is no “right” way to circle. All you want to do here is provide repetitive questioning that accentuates and repeats the structures to be learned.
In this sense, circling (such is the nature of a circle) can be never-ending. The addition of just one question word into this activity, où/where, is enough to extend the discussion further, while at the same time giving further practice on the fourth expression (C’est ça!):
Classe, où est le ballon de foot? (teacher has) Class, where is the soccer ball? (teacher has) That’s right (C’est ça!), class, in the teacher’s hand. Class, in the teacher’s hand or in Reed’s hand? (teacher’s) Class, is the soccer ball in Reed’s hand? (no) That’s right (C’est ça!), class, the soccer ball is not in Reed’s hand. It is in the teacher’s hand. Class, is the soccer ball in (principal of the school’s) hand? (no) That’s right (C’est ça!), class, the soccer ball is not in (principal of the school’s) hand. How absurd! It is in the teacher’s hand.
Anything new (here hand, principal of school) you write down and translate.
Class, is the soccer ball in the teacher’s right hand or left hand? (left) That’s right (C’est ça!), class, the soccer ball is in the teacher’s left hand. Class, is the soccer ball in the teacher’s right hand? No, class, that is absurd, the soccer ball is not in the teacher’s right hand. It is in the teacher’s left hand. Class, is the soccer ball in Reed’s left hand or the teacher’s left hand? etc. etc.
PQA in a Wink page 30 If you have the circling pattern poster on the wall, which is highly recommended for beginners, your eyes may at some point notice the word “combien/how many” and you may choose to get some repetitions around that structure:
Class, how many soccer balls are in the teacher’s left hand? (one) That’s right (C’est ça!), class, there is one soccer ball in the teacher’s left hand. Is there one soccer ball or two soccer balls in the teacher’s left hand?
Correct (C’est ça!), class, there is only one soccer ball in the teacher’s left hand.
Since you used a new word (here the word only), or if you just want to review it, you must point to it and pause three to five seconds while it sinks in, doing a hand comprehension check and checking in with your barometer student at the same time. Then you can return to the circling, which is still directed at getting repetitions on C’est ça!:
Class, is there only one soccer ball in the teacher’s left hand or in his right hand? That’s right (C’est ça!), class, there is only one soccer ball in the teacher’s left hand. Class, are there three soccer balls in the teacher’s left hand? (no) No, class, that is absurd, there aren’t three soccer balls in the teacher’s left hand, there is only one soccer ball in the teacher’s left hand. etc. etc.
This is why Susan Gross spends so much time in PQA – she asks a question, she actually listens to the answer, it leads to something new, she circles that, another fact is established, sparking something else, and a tremendous amount of comprehensible input occurs. If it moves into a story, fine, but if one were to ponder PQA long enough, it would become clear that in TPRS there is nothing but PQA – even the story, in a sense, is PQA.
At some point the class will get restless, and this is their sign for you to go on. I prefer this restlessness, which indicates acquisition, to a blank stare, which is always an indication that you have gone too fast.
When teachers sees “the stare”, it is time to do a reality check, remembering that they are the ones who know the language and that the kids don’t, and to go slower, checking their barometer student frequently and asking for hand comprehension checks. The teacher extends or curtails the class discussion based on an intuitive awareness of what is best for the kids at that point in the class.
Teachers who are used to a more formulaic approach to teaching (“We don’t do that until Chapter 7!”) are asked to consider this more holistic approach to teaching language. If end of year assessments were designed around authentic acquisition and not the student’s ability to remember fragmented bits of information, such teachers would have to make that change.
Returning to the original activity, we have at this point done a good job of getting through the first four expressions (What is it?/It is a ___./Isn’t it?/That’s right.) and are ready to go to the final two:
PQA in a Wink page 31 Ça ne va pas/That’s not working! (trying but failing) Ça y est/That’s it. (It’s done.)
This next part is fun! Take the ball and try to put it on a student’s head. When it falls, say in an irritated way, “Ça ne va pas/That’s not working!” Continue with at least five students, failing to get the ball to balance on their heads. You are getting excellent repetitions on this structure.
Then, having arranged this beforehand, go to a student who suddenly takes out a little cardboard tray that fits on their head so that when you place the ball on the tray, it stays. This is your opportunity to say in a pleased way, “Ça y est/That’s it. (It’s done.)”
The little trick with the tray, or some similar trick, gets the job done, which is good because ça y est is a very common expression in francophone countries. Since it occurs rarely in the written form, like the subject pronoun on, it is often overlooked in the textbooks, explaining why kids who learn a language from books often display a very stilted version of the language.
It is this kind of interesting personalized language that brings acquisition. Presenting language in some other way, with large amounts of English involved, puts the mind of the learner into an analytical, not experiential mode, and the mind simply won’t learn it.
If worksheets are involved, the student may at the end of the lesson be able to visually identify the expressions for a test, but the structure would not actually have been acquired, because true acquisition of language occurs in a different part of the brain than that part which can visually identify information for tests.
The sports balls activities, when done with minimal use of English as described later in this text, become very potent forces for acquisition. Why is this? It is because language is language, and if what the students hear is 99% in the target language and is interesting to them (read personalized), then the students cannot help but learn it.
Not to say that pencil sharpeners and rulers aren’t interesting, just more often to teachers and people who write standardized tests. To kids, soccer balls are more interesting. Circling through the six expressions above went a lot smoother because a soccer ball, not a pencil sharpener, was the focus of the discussion.
Languages simply don’t exist as level 1, level 2, level 3, etc. Such things as pacing guides and checkpoint knowledge, increasingly seen in school districts as a way of inspecting the “progress” of the students and teachers, actually seem to have the reverse effect of slowing the class down when applied to TPRS classes!
Teachers have expressed amazement to me on more than one occasion that the structures quel/which, lequel/which one, and celui/this one (and their forms) are easily and authentically acquired by the end of the first year. They think these are “advanced” structures.
But, as is true with multiple verb tenses, the students have no way of knowing what is “advanced” and what is “beginning” – to them it is all new, so how could one sound be PQA in a Wink page 32 more difficult to learn than another? Such fragmentation and compartmentalization only occurs in the mind of the teacher.
To attempt to teach the expressions quel, lequel, and celui traditionally, the teacher says in English:
Class, I have two markers here. One is green and one is blue. In French the expression which marker is blue is quel feutre est bleu. The teacher then goes to the board and writes it down in French and explains the grammar, why it is quel and not quelle, etc.
This is boring. The teacher is talking about markers and grammar. However, using the sports balls and circling, as above, the interest of the students is held, and the following scenario plays out:
The teacher says in French:
Class, here are two footballs. I am going to give David the Wide Receiver Who Has Never Dropped a Pass in His Life and Two Touchdown Taylor (actual names) these footballs.” Then the teacher gets some PQA going:
Classe, David a le ballon rouge! (ohh!) Class, David has the red ball! (ohh!) Classe, est-ce que David a le ballon rouge? (yes) Class, does David have the red ball? (yes) Correcte, classe, David a le ballon rouge! Correct, class, David has the red ball! Classe, est-ce que David a le ballon rouge ou le ballon noir? (rouge) Class, does David have the red ball or the black ball? (red) Correcte, classe, c’est évident, David a le ballon rouge. Correct, class, it’s obvious, David has the red ball. Est-ce que David a le ballon noir? (no) Does David have the black ball? (no) C’est ça, classe, David n’a pas le ballon noir. Il a le ballon rouge. That’s correct, class, David doesn’t have the black ball. He has the red ball. Classe, est-ce que David a le ballon orange? (no) Class, does David have the orange ball? (no) Correcte, classe, c’est absurde, il n’y a pas de ballon orange! Correct, class, that’s absurd, there isn’t an orange ball! Classe, qu’a-t-il David? (le ballon rouge) Class, what does David have? (the red ball) Classe, qui a le ballon rouge? (David) Class, who has the red ball? (David) Correcte, classe, David a le ballon rouge. That’s right, class, David has the red ball.
This completes a cycle of what one could call “set up” circling. An option available to the teacher here is to circle the exact same thing around Taylor having the black football. However, most teachers would not do that, because clearly the set up work is sufficient as it exists above and to repeat it around Taylor would only stall the class.
PQA in a Wink page 33 Having established a clear setting in the target language that is of interest to the kids, the instructor goes right into the structures to be taught:
Classe, qui a le ballon noir? (Taylor) Class, who has the black ball? (Taylor) Classe, quel ballon a-t-il Taylor? (black) Class, which ball does Taylor have? (black) C’est ça, classe, Taylor a le ballon noir! That’s right, class, Taylor has the black ball! Classe, qui a le ballon rouge? (David) Class, who has the red ball? (David) Classe, quel ballon a-t-il David? (red) Class, which ball does David have (red) C’est ça, classe, David a le ballon rouge! That’s right, class, David has the red ball! Classe, le ballon de Taylor, c’est rouge? (no) Class, Taylor’s ball, is it red? (no) C’est ça, classe, le ballon de Taylor n’est pas rouge. C’est absurde! C’est un ballon noir. That’s right, class, Taylor’s ball is not red. That’s ridiculous! It is a black ball.
The teacher can continue with this circling in any number of ways. As long as the structures are presented in an interesting and personalized way, beginning students easily acquire the structures. The circling continues:
Classe, quel garçon a le ballon noir? (Taylor) Class, which boy has the black ball? (Taylor) C’est ça, classe, Taylor a le ballon noir. C’est évident! That’s right, class, Taylor has the black ball. It’s obvious! Classe, quel garçon a le ballon rouge? (David) Class, which boy has the red ball? (David) C’est ça, classe, David a le ballon rouge. That’s right, class, David has the red ball.
With any sports balls activity, no one in the classroom, including the teacher, knows when something unexpected will happen. To get further repetition of the structure quel at this point, the teacher may sense the need to mix up the location of the balls by asking David to throw the ball to someone. This spikes interest:
Classe, David lance le ballon à Ashley! Class, David throws the ball to Ashley!
(David throws the ball to Ashley).
Classe, David ou Taylor lance le ballon à Ashley? (David) Class, does David or Taylor throw the ball to Ashley? (David) Correcte, classe, David lance le ballon à Ashley. That’s right, class, David throws the ball to Ashley. Classe, quel ballon David a-t-il lancé? (rouge) Class, which ball did David throw? (red) Correcte, classe, c’est évident! David a lancé le ballon rouge à Ashley! PQA in a Wink page 34 That’s right, class, it’s obvious! David threw the red ball to Ashley! Classe, David a lancé le ballon à quelle fille? (Ashley) Class, David threw the ball to which girl? (Ashley)
Now is a good time to write quel ballon and quelle fille on the board with their translations. Nothing need be explained – the CI has made the need for any English unnecessary because the gender of quel vs. quelle is completely clear without explanation. This is the essence of pop up grammar – it is learned without labels and without explanation in English because its meaning has been made clear in a natural way because of the comprehensible input.
How long should the quel structure be circled? This is the art of circling – the decision must be made by the teacher based on the restlessness of the class, the amount of time spent on the structure, and more intuitive factors that are always particular to the individual class situation. At the right time the teacher moves to the next structure:
Class, David a lancé quel ballon à Ashley? (le rouge) Class, David threw which ball to Ashley? (the red one) Lequel? (le rouge) Which one? (the red one) Lequel, le rouge ou le noir? (le rouge) Which one, the red one or the black one? (the red one) Lequel, classe? (le rouge) Which one, class? (the red one) Correcte, classe, David a lancé le ballon rouge à Ashley! That’s right, class, David threw the red ball to Ashley!
Classe, David a lancé le ballon rouge à quelle fille? (Ashley) Class, David threw the red ball to which girl? (Ashley) A laquelle? (Ashley) To which one? (Ashley) Ashley ou Courtney? (Ashley) Ashley or Courtney? (Ashley) David a lancé le ballon rouge à quelle fille? (Ashley) David threw the red ball to which girl? (Ashley) A laquelle? (Ashley) To which one? (Ashley)
Quel garçon, David ou Taylor, a lancé le ballon? (David) Which boy, David or Taylor, threw the ball? (David) Lequel? Which one?
Notice that there is never a formulaic pattern to be followed in circling. The instructor uses a varied format to get repetitions in the target language of the structures quel and lequel and its forms. Circling is an intuitive skill. It is dependent on all sorts of variables specific to the individual classroom situation. As such, it is not a set formula to be followed. Instead, it must accentuate and repeat the structures to be learned in an interesting way. PQA in a Wink page 35
When it is time, the instructor moves into the third structure, celui and its forms. At this point this is very easy. Asking Ashley to surrender the ball, the instructor takes it and asks:
Classe, quel ballon David a-t-il lancé, celui-ci ou celui-là (pointing to Taylor’s)? (celui- ci) Class, which ball did David throw, this one here or that one there (pointing to Taylor’s)? (this one here) Correcte, classe, ça y est! David a lancé celui-ci! (ohh!) Right, class, that’s it! David threw this one! (ohh!) Classe, a-t-il lancé celui-là? (no) Class, did he throw that one? (no) Correcte, classe, c’est ça! David n’a pas lancé celui-là! Ça, c’est le ballon de Taylor! (or, ce ballon-là, c’est celui de Taylor!) That’s correct, class, that’s it! David didn’t throw that one! That’s Taylor’s ball! (or this ball is Taylor’s!)
Again, the circling is intuitive, and reflects the current feeling in the classroom. The teacher would rarely circle these structures at the length described above, which was done for the purposes of explanation only. Instead, it would be much better to simply circle those structures whenever the instructor sees the opportunity, for hundreds of times a year for a few minutes each. Any teacher who believes that these structures could be learned in one class period, after being presented once in English as described above, is misinformed about how languages are acquired.
In the examples above, what the teacher might find interesting, a pencil sharpener, a ruler, two markers and English grammar, the students no doubt would find boring, unlike the personalized circling around David, Taylor, and Ashley.
Here is another example of how PQA with sports balls works, this time applied to adverbs of comparison:
Class, the professor plays volleyball (Ohh!). Does the professor play volleyball? (Yes) That’s correct, class, the professor plays volleyball. Class, does the professor or does Albert Einstein play volleyball? (the professor). Correct, class, the professor plays volleyball. Class, does Einstein play volleyball? (no) That’s right class, Einstein doesn’t play volleyball, the professor plays volleyball. Class, who plays volleyball? That’s right, class, the professor plays volleyball. Class, does the professor play volleyball well?
Go to the board or overhead and write down the new word bien – well if they don’t know it. Don’t digress into a discussion of adverbs here. This is not the place. Grammar is best studied once children can understand the spoken language. In my view, this means not sooner than the second year of study.
Yes, class, the professor plays volleyball well, but...
If they don’t know the word mais, go to board and write down mais – but, pointing and pausing. And then:
...Casey plays volleyball better! PQA in a Wink page 36
Go to board and write down mieux – better if they don’t know it, pointing and pausing.
Class, Casey plays volleyball better than the professor!
While in this part of the circling you are gushing with praise and admiration for Casey, who, whether she shows it or not, is absorbing all of the attention from you and the class:
Class, Casey plays volleyball better (point again to the word) than the professor! Class, Casey is the best!
Go to the board and write down est – is, or point to the verb on the wall. Also write down la meilleure – the best in the feminine form and maybe mention the “e” on meilleure as a feminine spelling but do not launch into a discussion of adjectives. Even ten seconds would be too long an explanation on that pop-up.
This self-effacement by the instructor via hyperbolic praise of the student is an effective TPRS technique for personalizing a classroom. The kids can’t get enough of this kind of praise. This language they want to understand!
Besides comparing their abilities to your own, compare your students’ abilities to those of icons from the popular culture, professional athletes, musicians, movie stars, politicians, and even figures from videogames. The students are always better.
Each time you complete the circling about another athlete, everyone feels a sense of inclusion of that student into the group. This carries on when you run out of athletes and get to those who prefer to read, play music, etc.
One word of caution about this activity. In the first weeks of class, the students, in my view, can only grasp some of the question words on the poster – they cannot grasp them all. Circling with too many question words causes real confusion, even if you are masterfully pausing and pointing to each question word as you say it.
When I do this activity, I prefer to limit my questions to qui/who, est-ce que/is it that, and perhaps où/where, and leave all of the other question words alone until I feel it is safe to introduce them one by one.
Often, the verb faire/to make or do comes into the discussion, in such forms as faire des patins à glace/ice skate or faire de la planche à roulettes/skateboard (e.g. Cody fait de la planche à roulettes). So the next logical interrogative structure to introduce would be, in French at least, qu’est-ce que Cody fait?/what does Cody do?
Of course, decisions about how many question words of which kind to bring in at what point depend on the teacher, class, and other factors. What I have said above applies to average to above average eighth graders.
When circling with this and all TPRS activities, keep in mind that it is best to err on the side of caution when circling. Go slowly, circle simply at first, slowly introducing new question words, and keep the discussion about each kid narrow and deep instead of skipping on to the next kid and completing the activity in one class period. PQA in a Wink page 37
I generally spend a class period on only two or three kids, wedding their cards to the information contained in their questionnaires, and extending all that information into all sorts of PQA and extended PQA and even simple stories. Examples are comparisons with other kids, little imaginary scenes, dialogues between a football player and a guy who builds computers, lies about some girl wanting to go out with some guy, etc.
When you do PQA in this way, just talking about kids and what they do in a lighthearted way, all sorts of unexpected things can and do happen. Instead of having to teach the same boring class five times a day, each class is different.
Just recently, a girl and guy in my class had a “date”, and at the end of the date, the girl got out of the car and said, Je t’adore/I love you! but many of the students, being new to the language, translated that in their minds to Shut the door! Such wonderful humorous moments make your efforts to learn the technique worthwhile.
This circling activity lasts at least four weeks in my classroom, and then I go to the questionnaires for a number of months. I do this because I know that the kids don’t know the language, that they need the repetitions, and that I, as their teacher, need to get to know them on a personal level for them to flourish in my class.
Here is what Scott Benedict says about his transition from TPR to the Circling with Balls activity to start the year:
“Today I assessed my Spanish I students on their listening comprehension ability. I have been doing nothing but circling with balls with a few minutes of TPR here and there. I've spoken very little English from day one.
“I gave a quiz with fifteen pictures on it. There were the pictures of the now famous balls, plus reading, television, a kid listening to music, drawing, etc.
“I read ten personalized statements about my students (got them from circling with balls and other props), and had them write the number of the statement next to the picture. Out of forty one students, forty received perfect scores. The other one missed only one question.
“I'm so excited about using this new technique. I would have never thought it possible to speak so much Spanish from day one in a level I class. Now, when I use even five minutes of TPR, I'm extremely bored and so are the kids. They much prefer to have conversations in Spanish, as they call them.”
Circling with Balls on the First Day of Class
What follows is a specific activity, a template, that might be of help to new teachers. It is modeled on the circling with balls idea above. The purpose of this activity is to give both teacher and student immediate first day experience with easy circling and personalization. It is probably not useful to experienced TPRS teachers, who do this kind of thing naturally in the classroom.
PQA in a Wink page 38 Since the first minutes of the first class set the entire tone for the year, I do not “introduce” the class in English. My students did not come to my class to hear English. They are curious to find out what French sounds like. I will not let them down.
As with the cards above, I take a sheet of colored card stock and fold it lengthwise and place it in front of me on the desk. I next write my name in big letters neatly – Monsieur Slavic. I draw a clear picture of my bike.
Then I fold it so everyone can see, sit down at an empty seat, and prepare to enjoy speaking in the target language in a comprehensible way to students who have never yet experienced such a thing.
While I am writing my name and drawing my bike, they are watching, wondering. No talking. I try to create an air of mystery when I do this. I don’t even call roll, because I will do that in a minute by looking at their names while they have imitated what they are seeing me do now.
Then, in the first minute of the first class of the year, I start circling the word monsieur:
Classe, Monsieur Slavic!
Classe, Monsieur Slavic ou Madame Slavic?
They answer Monsieur, and I say c’est exact…très intelligent/exactly…very intelligent!
I write Monsieur and Madame on the board, pausing and pointing, with translation.
Look what has occurred already: they have heard the language, there has been no English, and they have been asked and understood a question by inflection in the target language, all with two words. Then:
Madame (pause and point again at this word) Slavic? (they say no)
I praise them for knowing the difference between Monsieur and Madame by saying in French,
Class, you are correct! Not Madame Slavic but Monsieur Slavic! Madame Slavic - that is absurd!
Next, I write the following on the board, pausing and pointing, with translation:
Le Président Slavic? (they say no)
I praise them for saying that, adding how absurd it is to imply that I am the president.
Le Docteur Slavic? (they say no)
Another absurdity. I praise them for both their clarity of mind and their ability to communicate in French after only a few minutes.
PQA in a Wink page 39 Le Petit Cochon Slavic?
There is a silence. This silence is your signal to clarify the meaning of what you just said, so you go to the board and write: le petit cochon – the little pig
Pause and point. Give them time to hear it and look at it. Pull out a prop if you have one.
Now you have done what you have to do in TPRS whenever you hear a silence in response to something you say – you interpret that and all silence as a signal to clarify the meaning of what you just said by writing down the word in both the target language and in English.
When I feel a kind of invisible “kathunk” telling me that they have the new material, I move along, praising them for saying that I am not a little pig. If I have a prop, I praise them that this is a little pig and how absurd it is to say that I am a little pig.
Le Professeur Slavic? (some say no – their minds had already coded Monsieur as the right answer, but others correctly say yes).
I praise them for hanging in with me this far.
Then I do the same thing around the bike that I drew next to my name, and (I just happen to have my road bike in the room) I point to the bike and write on the board: fait du vélo/rides a bike
And then circle through professeur and vélo in the following way:
Classe, le professeur fait du vélo!/Class, the teacher rides a bike! (Ohhh!)
If you don’t hear the Ohhh! from everyone, now is the time to train them in how to react with great interest and admiration to everything you say. Explain to them that everything you say is fascinating, so this year, every time you state a fact, they have to react with this Ohhh! – it is not a negotiable point.
The teacher rides a bike? (yes)
Tyler (point to Tyler) rides a bike?
Depending on what Tyler indicates say:
Yes, class, Tyler rides a bike or No, class, Tyler does not ride a bike.
Hopefully, Tyler says no, but you know how to adjust this if you need to because you are becoming more and more comfortable with each passing minute as you communicate with your students in the target language.
Class, does the teacher or Tyler ride a bike? (teacher) PQA in a Wink page 40
Tell the class that they are really a very intelligent class! That is correct! The teacher rides a bike! (Ohh!)
This sets up Tyler to want to say what sport he does, but he has to wait, because I am modeling some very significant behaviors in these crucial first minutes of the first class of the year, and we are establishing a name for me and an identity as a bike person. We will do the same for every child in the class, and introducing ourselves first is a good way to start – we are not just teacher, we are people!
Then circle around the word bike:
Class, does the teacher ride a bike or a pig? (bike)
You praise them for their abilities to understand the difference between a bike and a pig, adding how absurd it is to ride a pig. Later, when the kids are fully trained in PQA, you can add all sorts of other information into the discussion, like people only ride pigs in Nevada, or in rodeos, or in Central California, etc.
Actually, saying the unexpected response here, à la Blaine, that you DO ride a pig, is probably not a good thing to do right now in the first ten minutes of the first class. The kids might just go home and tell their parents that they have this weird French teacher who rides pigs.
Learn to stay with active meaningful circling instead of always thinking that you have to get somewhere. As soon as you feel the need to drive forward to new information, you begin to lose contact with the kids. They can only process information that is being offered to them slowly. This point cannot be stressed enough.
Personalized discussion – PQA - is at the heart of TPRS. Rick Winterstein has said this about how doing this activity has affected his teaching:
“I teach high-school Latin. PQA in a Wink! has wrought a revolution in my teaching. Last year I experimented with bits and pieces of TPR and TPRS, and the results pleased me enough to go wholly into it. But personalization is what my classroom lacked, and Ben's book is what changed my perspective.
“Personalization isn't just one more skill or technique to marshal alongside the rest; it is THE center point around which everything else must orbit and be aligned.
“At the beginning of the year, I had all the students complete a questionnaire, but I also now have had them make the placards Ben recommends - the folded paper with the student's name and a picture representing ONE (and only one) favorite activity.
“Because THEY, the students, were the topics of conversation, everyone was attentive; they all wanted to hear what was going to be said next about themselves or their classmates; plus, they're beginning to form their own responses in Latin. I gave them all Latinized equivalents of their names at the first day of class, but PQA is already opening up possibilities for the creative, engaging, and above all personalized nicknames of which Ben speaks.” PQA in a Wink page 41
If PQA is going well, then, and everyone is understanding, then who needs a story? If personalized discussion leads into a story, fine, but any story that does not arise from personalized discussion is not going to be very interesting.
The earlier discussion around my name and bike card has, almost unbelievably, emerged and taken form and vibrancy and life from one simple sentence, that
M. Slavic fait du vélo/Mr. Slavic rides a bike.
This is what you want to do in class. Milk, add details, circle into all sorts of tangential places, go round and round, repeat constantly, keeping it all meaningful and personalized. Students in first year classes CAN DO THIS on the first day of class if your pacing is slow enough and if you are using the pause and point skill effectively.
In the above activity, you are modeling normative behavior for your class. You are not explaining rules for behavior, which never works. Instead, you are actually modeling the behaviors you want to occur in your classroom. If those norms are not established at the beginning of the year, the kids won’t learn.
By thus starting the first class of the year in the target language, I send many messages to my students:
1. By speaking only in French I am sending the message that French, not English, is the language that we will be focusing on in class this year.
2. By slowly circling in the first minutes of the first class of the year, I am sending the message that slow circling will be the rule in my classroom all year. I am also sending the message that it is my job to make my message clear, and that all they have to do is sit back and listen.
3. By taking time to stop and laugh if something is funny, I am sending the message that we will laugh in my class this year.
4. By requiring that my students react with (Ohh!) when I state something, I am sending the message that everything I say is totally fascinating to them, and that it is their job to make sure I understand that they know that.
5. By immediately writing any new words on the board with their translations, pausing and pointing to Monsieur, Madame, Docteur, le Président, and le Petit Cochon, so that they can see and process every new word I use in English, I send the message that we will use English as a basis for understanding words in French this year.
6. By praising them at every turn, I am sending the message that they will not be criticized on even the smallest level in my class this year, and that any hostile or controlling personality they may have brought with them as protection won’t be needed.
PQA in a Wink page 42 7. By making constant eye contact with each of them, I send the message that I care if they are learning.
8. By discussing myself (my name and a sport that I do) first, I am sending the message that this class will be about us, the people in the room.
9. By supplying card stock for this activity, and by having the cards carefully collected and rubber banded at the end of class, I send the message that we keep our classroom clean and neat.
10. When I begin talking about THEIR cards, doing so with joy and a sense of great interest, I send the message that they are very important to me.
11. By giving a five minute assessment at the end of the class, I am sending the message that they will be tested often in the form of short, unannounced quizzes in my class, and that they won’t have to memorize a lot of material outside of class for long, meaningless tests.
12. By choosing test questions that are reasonable and straightforward, I send the message that it is not my purpose to trick them on tests, but instead to grade them fairly. This motivates them.
13. By speaking French in such a simple and straightforward way on the first day of class, I build good will and ensure my students’ success, thus insuring myself against the “October Collapse”, which happens when the kids’ gas tanks of good will that were full in August are empty because the teacher has insisted on teaching a simple thing in a complex and boring way.
Circling Emotions
In our example above, when we called Holly a basketball player instead of what she is, a skater, we were able to use her strong reaction to our “mistake” to teach some emotions. What follows is another way to do so that can be used actually very early in the year.
Anyone who has been teaching awhile knows how difficult it is to teach beginning students basic greetings like “How are you?” When teaching these, we circle them, keeping things personalized and simple. If we choose to teach:
Je suis heureux/I am happy Je suis triste/I am sad Je suis fatigué/I am tired Je suis content/I am happy Je suis fâché/I am angry
We have choices about how we do that. We could just tell the kids what these expressions mean and then get into boring, forced conversations with them like:
James, comment vas-tu?/how are you?
PQA in a Wink page 43 James comes up with a lame:
Je suis content (said with an American accent).
When we do this kind of forced conversation, we convey the message that we don’t really care how the kid is doing, that we just want to cover the material. The kids sense that we are required to teach those expressions.
This is not fun or interesting for anybody. But there is a very short distance between that boredom and PQA fun!
What is lacking above? Meaning is lacking. Relevance is lacking. How do we make discussions about such basic questions like the one above meaningful?
One way is to ask our students to really focus on what that emotion feels like. We ask them to put the emotion (one of the five listed above in this example) into their bodies.
Then we say each expression, asking the kids to only focus on and repeat the sound of the emotion they have chosen. Next, choosing receptive kids, we ask the question:
Comment vas-tu?/How are you?
We ask for real emotional responses from individual students. If Josh is game and at least pretends to be angry, we then circle that fact with the class:
Classe, Josh est fâché?/Josh is angry? (yes) Classe, Josh ou David est fâché ?/Josh or David is angry? (Josh) Correcte, classe, Josh est fâché/Correct, class, Josh is angry. (ohh!) David est fâché/David is angry? (no) Correcte, classe, David n’est pas fâché/ Correct, class, David is not angry. Qui est fâché?/Who is angry?(Josh)
With Josh acting out this emotion, the class has an anchor in the image Josh is giving us. Without it, the word angry is merely an idea. It seems rather off the mark to try to teach a word associated with a human emotion and NOT connect it to a visible human emotion.
Next we hear from another student who models another emotion. After we have circled the information about that student, we are ready to compare the two kids’ emotions. It’s the old PQA trick of comparing students. Comparing information about two students is a great way to circle, to extend discussion – it is discussed in greater detail in TPRS in aYear! in the section on circling.
When the circling is interesting to the kids, they will acquire the expression in just a few minutes. Obviously, this one example can be applied to all sorts of basic greetings, not just those emotions. Then, when you assess, you simply ask who is sad, angry, etc :
Class, who is angry ? Class, is X or Y happy ? etc.
PQA in a Wink page 44 When the kids get all the answers correct, and then register in your grade book an easy A just by listening, you have done a lot to guarantee inclusion and a feeling in the students that they can succeed in your class, and that you want them to be successful.
Personalizing Random Sentences
It is possible to start personalizing with a structure that is not personalized and circle it into something that is personalized. Why is this important? Because even the most interesting story, if it is not connected in some way to the kids in the classroom, is not a very effective tool for acquiring a language.
The following activity is best used very early in the year. It can be used as a test for the skeptical teacher about the power of TPRS, and can be used at any time with any sentence. Let’s say I choose the expression:
Je veux travailler/I want to work!
I write it on an empty board, overhead sheet, tripod sheet, etc. – we want no visual clutter, no confusion, one expression, simple. Just get in the habit of taking a moment during the class to erase the board every five minutes or so or train a student to jump up and do it without your having to think about it.
And, while we are talking about clarity in teaching, remember that the desks are totally empty of anything. When the room is neat and clean and orderly you teach better. The kids are constantly reminded to sit up, square shoulders, and clear eyes. Do this and TPRS will work so much easier for you.
We then sign the first word of the expression, in this case the word want, asking the class in English:
Class, can you think of a way we can sign “want” and “to work’ so that we can remember them?
For want they suggest something like hands rubbing together, and to work, maybe digging with a shovel.
Next, I sign and gesture the expression a few times as described in TPRS in a Year! I do so very very SLOWLY.
Then, I leave everything, all thoughts of a story, of adding in a detail, of moving forward, of PQA, all that stuff. I drop the notion of TPRS skills and terminology so they don’t handcuff me now. I don’t need terms now. I am teaching, which by my definition is freely focusing on kids in the target language.
In my speech, I munch, I taste, I savor, the words in the expression je veux travailler. When I say it, I mean it. I listen to the sound. I teach them to listen to the sound, and by meaning it when I say it, I send a message that we are not studying words to study words, but to study them as vehicles to convey meaning.
PQA in a Wink page 45 If I feel awkward doing this, because it is a fairly awkward thing to do in front of teenagers, I know that I can always bail out at any time by diving right into the sports/interest cards and the questionnaires and do those activities. But now I am just going to think how much
…je veux travailler!...
I say it over and over. Big pauses. Beauty of the sound of the French language. The class looks at me. I just act like I am tasting a French pastry. I smile, and I enjoy the pauses between the words. Why? Because pauses are a key element in any immersion approach to languages. Pauses allow the mind to process information.
Now, finally ready to move on, I begin circling the line. First the subject, then the verb, and then on into the object.
Classe, le professeur veut travailler?/The teacher wants to work? (yes)
They say yes because they understand. Using a cognate helped a lot here. You have just succeeded in making yourself understood in the target language without using English. Using many cognates early in the year is a good move when you circle.
The kids only used one word in English to answer above – the word yes. Allowing them to use limited amounts of English shows you that they understand. You need to know if they understand, and one way to do that is to allow them a few words of English in response to questions you ask during circling.
Now we continue with the circling:
Class, the teacher or Lowly Worm (said in English) wants to work? (teacher) Lowly Worm wants to work? (no) The King of Spain (said in English) wants to work? (no) Who (point and pause at this question word) wants to work, class? (teacher)
Now, and here is the moment the energy of the class will change, because it is the moment of personalization - look at a kid, Richard, and ask:
Classe, Richard veut travailler/Class, Richard wants to work? (no) Si, classe, Richard veut travailler/Yes, class, Richard wants to work! (Ohhh!)
Now you have a personalized subject in this sentence. Since you now have a subject, you leave circling the subject and start in on the verb, suggesting new verbs like aime/likes, or va/goes, etc.
When this is exhausted, or if you just feel like it, move along to the object. Now that you are talking about someone in the room, whatever you say about Richard becomes immediately interesting to the class, much more interesting than if you were asking the class what some dog or other animal wants. So you ask:
Classe, Richard veut ______? (a dog? a cat? to sleep? etc.)
PQA in a Wink page 46 Air this blank out, give it some room, let the kids cloze in on it. Wait. Keep circling that object. Don’t give in to the desire to rescue the sentence by providing something cute. Blaine didn’t say that the teachers provide cute answers – he said that the students do. They are trying to guess what the teacher is thinking.
Somebody yells out “une moustache”. Bingo! Touchdown! Because of your slow comprehensible circling, a student has provided a cute answer that was offered as a detail to further personalize your discussion. When you finally hear the “right” answer, you stop the circling and repeat the new final information that concludes this set of circling:
C’est exact! Richard veut une moustache/Exactly! Richard wants a moustache!
Praise this kid who said moustache. That kid provided the class with something really great. First cute answer offered and accepted this year! Hyperbole here? No. Why?
Because now it is not the teacher wanting to work, but Richard wanting a moustache! This is huge (not the moustache, but the shift to a personalized sentence). Plus, you are teaching your class that cute answers will always drive discussion.
Now, with the precious detail in tow, you are free to randomly circle: You may choose,
Classe, how many moustaches?
Point and pause at the question word how many. Instantly override your mind’s desire to move this forward to new stuff. These are beginners. They need for you to go slowly.
Get back to Richard. How many, class? (one)
NO! Two! (unexpected answer – they can handle it) One here (point to under nose) and one here (point somewhere else).
Circle colors of the moustaches, etc. if you want.
But be careful - a very common mistake can occur here. Do not move the discussion away from Richard des Moustaches! Mais non! This is the essence of the method – humorous, meaningful (because personalized) input about the people in the room, and in this case one directly connected to a common life experience of teenage boys, that of growing, or trying to grow, facial hair.
Only when we finish with Richard do we go to the sports balls/interests cards. They are always there these first weeks or months, on the tables in front of the kids, so if you ever get wobbly as we all do, remember to bail out to a card and you are in safe harbor immediately.
Use the questionnaires at any moment, as well, to switch over to another kid from a card, if you want. Keep the focus on the kids. There is no reason to feel nervous at the start of a school year with the personalization techniques described in this book.
Of course, if the energy surrounding the circling around Richard stays strong and does not fade, jump it into a story! PQA in a Wink page 47
You may earlier have glanced at Sabrina’s questionnaire. You decide to see if doing some comparison circling around Richard and Sabrina might yield some interesting CI.
Class, Sabrina plays golf! (circle circle – enjoy – laugh - relax)
Class, Sabrina is afraid of ghosts!
All information is accessed from the questionnaire - just look at the questionnaire and say a fact to the class, circling it. It becomes:
Class, Sabrina is afraid of moustaches!
Now, with the ingredients for a story at hand, you stand the two students up. Did this nascent story emerge from a planned story script or did it emerge from PQA? Not planned. Emerged from PQA. This is extending PQA.
What will happen with Sabrina and Richard des Moustaches? Circle to find out! For a story you need a problem, and you have one here. Sabrina likes Richard but is afraid of moustaches. Richard likes Sabrina but Sabrina is afraid of his moustaches. Solve in one, two, or three locations. It doesn’t matter. Just circle.
Whether the story goes thirty seconds or thirty minutes doesn’t matter. Just listen for cute answers, which take you everywhere. Their cute answers could drive things to a big hug between the two actors when Sabrina finds out that the moustaches were penciled on. The kids offer, you choose.
There is a Russian folk tale by Boris Artzybasheff called the Seven Simeons. The storyteller says at the end of the tale, beautifully:
“And now my gentle friends, we are at the tale’s end. For what was good in it, praise it; but for the rest, forgive the poor story-teller. A wrong word is not like the bird in a cage. If ever a word flies out, no man can jump and catch it. In this I have no doubt!”
So it is with us, any word we say that the kids do not understand is a wrong word, and once out, we cannot prevent it from confusing them. It always comes back to slowly circled meaningful input.
Keep the focus on the kid, in this case Richard. Bring in cards and questionnaires whenever you need to. Personalized information that is slowly circled in a classroom always brings interesting discussion! Flow with what they suggest. The cards are your home base if you get confused. Make sure that your students follow the three rules governing the use of English found in Chapter Five of this book.
Remember again that there is no one correct way to circle. As long as you are questioning the kids in such a way that cute answers are being offered, you are creating the perception that the students are driving the curriculum. When the students feel this, they do not feel powerless in the classroom. Empowered students learn.
PQA in a Wink page 48 PQA and the Oppositional Student
Why go to conferences, read books, spend money to learn the method, only to be undercut by one or two defiant students at the beginning of the year? It happens all the time and it is a fair question.
TPRS as a method can be represented by the image of a house. The foundation, that which holds up the method so it can work, is classroom discipline. It is not addressed enough in TPRS workshops and foundations.
Classroom discipline is integrally connected to and emerges from the idea of personalization. It is a cooperative, not a confrontive, process. In a class of thirty students, it is the sum of thirty agreements made between one teacher and one student thirty times.
However, these agreements cannot be written down. Written contracts are made and broken every day in schools. They don’t work, because the students are forced into them. Students do not enter upon written contractual agreements with a teacher out of free will, therefore such contracts must fail, as they are one-sided.
In point of fact, classroom discipline is an invisible thing. It is the result of an acceptance by the student of a feeling of unconditional positive regard from the instructor. This unconditional positive regard obviates the student’s need to act out in the classroom. As such, classroom discipline cannot be the result of threats, or negativity of any kind.
Having studied the process of creating identities for students via names and circling with sports balls, let us examine how those two skills can be used to neutralize oppositional students in the first days of each new school year.
I talked to an adult at the 2007 National TPRS conference who told me that, when in high school, he and a buddy would consciously walk into a classroom at the beginning of the year with the express purpose of “breaking” the teacher. Whether a student tries to “break” a teacher consciously or unconsciously is a moot point. The effect is the same.
Some TPRS trainers say that if you do TPRS properly, picking out and loving the oppositional child on the first day, personalizing, etc. then that will be enough to turn the key and the child will behave.
Or we hear at workshops, “If you do TPRS right, there are no discipline problems.” This is not always true. I need a system, a formula with which to deal with these students. I address such students’ behavior immediately and consciously in front of the class from the very beginning of the first class. If the oppositional behavior does not manifest for a few weeks, or even a few months, I am ready for it as described below.
Miles, who has an I.Q. of 145, never did well in school. His A.D.D. caused him to always be in opposition to his teachers. They hated him and the feeling was mutual. To Miles, it seemed like his teachers hoped he would fail, reflecting a line in an old Merle Haggard song: "Mama used to pray that my crops would fail”.
PQA in a Wink page 49 When Miles came into my classroom in the fall of 2006, I sensed that he was bringing this oppositional personality, which we can label Personality A, with him. I made a good move right away. After welcoming the students into my classroom for that new academic year, I started right in with some comprehensible input and really slow circling with Miles as the focus.
Some teachers may think that circling this early is not possible, and that the TPR phase and vocabulary building must come first. I disagree. I don't have a few weeks to burn while Miles fires up Personality A. I must circle now.
Besides, I do focus on vocabulary building in the first week. I do BOTH vocabulary building and identity building. But if you ask me which I think is more important, I would say the latter.
In that interest, I avoid TPR at this point in the year, if there is even one Miles in the room. En masse TPR puts Miles out of his seat, and I don't want that, because Miles has fifteen girls who need to know that he plays football and happens to be available now in my classroom.
So I prefer being the only one standing for the first weeks of class, unless I do the Three Ring Circus activity. But no Three Ring Circus for Miles. He knows why.
Together, with me taking the lead, in the first week of the year, Miles and I just set out to build another personality, Personality B, for him.
By the time we are done, Personality B feels so comfortable for Miles, so much more confortable than Personality A, that he ends up keeping it all year. Why not? What student wouldn't want to be referred to as The Smartest Kid in the World thousands of times in a year in all kinds of PQA and extended PQA and stories and readings?
Besides, Miles knows that he can still use his other personality in all his other classes, and he also senses that Personality A is just plain not going to work in my classroom anyway.
Miles knows that it would require a tremendous psychological struggle with me, his teacher, not his friend, to get Personality A cranked up. I have given Miles every opportunity to be civil in my classroom now at the beginning of the year by treating him in a civil way.
I was happy that the Personality B that I had built with Miles suited him, but, much more importantly, I was happy that Miles' Personality B felt comfortable to me. I was not about to embroil myself in oppositional behavior with Miles's Personality A. I had worked far too hard at TPRS to have one kid taint all my efforts to do TPRS well in my classroom that year.
When we work with our Miles-like students in creating a Personality B, we are reflecting a truth: our students, so young and just getting started on their life journeys, are probably going to become the people whom we think they are in our classrooms, thus reflecting the old maxim: "Let me be the person my dog thinks I am."
PQA in a Wink page 50 In fact, Personality B worked so well for Miles last year, he was such a force in class, that at the awards ceremony at the end of the year, when it was my turn to present one of the awards (for Excellence in French), I presented it to Miles, the Smartest Kid in the World and the superstar of many stories and the subject of many readings. He didn't have the highest grade point average, but he was the best, most participatory, student and, frighteningly, seemed always about three thoughts ahead of me in the TL in class (there are kids like that).
When I presented this award, I heard hushed whispering, almost gasping, behind me on the stage. I found out later that it came from the language arts teacher and the math teacher, both of whom HAD FLUNKED Miles that year. To be clear, this and the story about Mildred below are true, with names changed.
Those teachers couldn't believe that Miles was getting the award in French because they never knew Miles, just his Personality A. They never got to know his Personality B, which was delightful, that of a superstar and, actually, a very kind person.
Sobering, isn't it, that our Miles are not really jerks, but good people? Miles' parents told me later that Miles had never had any success in school, and that the only reason he went to school at all was because of my class. Otherwise, he would have been homeschooled.
How did I activate Personality B in Miles? How can you do this in your classroom? First, refer often to their questionnaires on the first day. Ask them to respond to all of the questions carefully, to make an effort, because it will count a lot in class. Make it clear that, if you read any joke answers, you will return the questionnaire to the student and have him or her redo it, and that it is a serious matter.
Then, place the questionnaire of the student in whom you sense the most defiance, in this case Miles, on top of the stack and begin class. Formally welcome the kids into your classroom, give out a syllabus if you want, but remember that most of the kids want the syllabus about as much as they want a root canal.
Then start right in with this one student whom you have identified as a possible problem, and go. After a few days, and with the first kid thoroughly pleased with their Personality B, go to the next kid you have concerns about. Watch your discipline problems disappear, as you dance the Personality A/Personality B Shuffle joyfully on down into June.
Then start right in with this one student whom you have identified as a possible problem. In the following example her name is Mildred.
Mildred is the captain of the girl’s basketball team. She is rough. She had to be rough because she was thrown around physically by her abusive parents in a double wide trailer growing up. One day I learn that one of the walls in Mildred’s trailer has a gaping hole in it, covered with plastic.
I sense on this first day of class that that Mildred would probably have little chance in her life to leave that trailer and stay in a five star hotel in Paris on a vacation. Mildred may not even be sure what I teach.
PQA in a Wink page 51 I have a problem, because Mildred’s swagger upon first entering my classroom is saying, “I am going to take over this class, and bring five of my friends with me, and that is the way it is going to be.”
Mildred just doesn’t go to her seat. She walks around a little, not unlike an animal staking out new territory by peeing on things. Mildred is peeing, but not in the way Susie Gross means.
Have you ever taught a Mildred? Isn’t it fun?
If in this moment I say to myself, “I am going to really love Mildred”, it is a futile act. Mildred has not experienced enough love growing up to know how to even respond to it. Instead, I need a technique, a process, for dealing with Mildred in a specific way. I have two possible scenarios from which to choose:
Scenario 1:
“Mildred, sit down now. We are going to start class.”
She doesn’t. What do I do? Wag my finger in her face? Raise my voice? The class senses my indecisiveness. Mildred finally sits down, but not after establishing a negative mood in my classroom on the first day of class.
That was her purpose, because Mildred is comfortable in a negative mood. She thinks confronting people is a normal activity. She sits down, having displayed her power. You teach poorly the rest of the period, because Mildred is passively controlling the classroom via her aggression. Mildred wins.
What happened in this scenario? I allowed Mildred to bring her Personality A into my classroom, the personality she uses in all her classes and the one which will eventually cause her to drop out of high school before she graduates because it simply won’t work for her in schools.
Is there a Personality B that you can develop with Mildred so that this doesn’t happen? Is it possible for teachers in all subjects to interact in such a way with their students that the Mildreds of the world want to stay in school instead of dropping out?
Scenario 2:
When I greet Mildred at the door and sense her game, even though I know nothing about her, I sense that she may be “the one” who needs to learn some discipline at this point in the year a lot more than she needs to learn some French.
So when the students begin filling out their questionnaires, I casually sit down next to her and say, “Hi Mildred! What sport (activity, etc.) do you do?”
The reason I ask about sports is because a large part of teenagers’ personalities are centered around sports. It is a good way for them to get a workable identity in school. I have found that well over 50% of the kids, in eighth grade at least, when I do PQA with them, tell me about their sports first. It’s what they do. PQA in a Wink page 52
If Mildred tells me that she doesn’t play sports, I find out one thing she does. If needed, I stay with Mildred for the filling out of the questionnaire, just sitting close by engaging her in idle conversation every few minutes, visiting with other students if possible, but keeping my focus on her on this first day of class.
The class is seated alphabetically (in a big rectangle around the room) to prevent Mildred from establishing a “cell” with her friends.
When I collect the questionnaires, I first look at Mildred’s questionnaire and bring her sport to the attention of the class. I turn this into a positive for both of us in the following way:
I start in English, “Mildred, you play basketball? That is so cool. I used to play basketball some but I wasn’t very good at it.”
Remember, this isn’t about teaching French. It is about establishing firm discipline in the classroom, a prerequisite to success in any classroom, and doing so via personalization. Then I say in the target language:
“Classe, Mildred joue au basket!/Class, Mildred plays basketball!”
The students understand “class” because it is a cognate, and “Mildred” because I say it in English, but not “joue” so I write down:
joue au basket – plays basketball
Now I stay there. I circle that expression really slowly using the question words, pausing and pointing, going slowly, not moving off the sentence until it comes to a natural stopping point. It is a simple sentence and everybody gets it because I am following the visual metaphor offered on page 108 of the Conclusions section of TPRS in a Year!
My focus is not on the target language now, it is on Mildred. I am neutralizing her by making her the center of attention. I whisper in English to her, “What position do you play?” She says point guard. This fact becomes a fact of supreme importance to me as I continue with this super-slow circling.
By now I have a basketball in my hand. I have created a kind of tension around the basketball. Will I hand it to her as I continue around the room circling? Mildred and the class sense that she will get that basketball if she keeps paying attention.
By my feigning a few handoffs to Mildred, but each time withdrawing the ball, the kids begin to understand that Mildred won’t get the ball until she responds successfully with “yes” or “no” to me in French.
What have I done by this? By talking about Mildred in the target language, I have forced Mildred to pay attention to me because I am talking about her and because I am so impressed that she is the point guard on the basketball team.
PQA in a Wink page 53 People love to hear how great they are, and Mildred is no exception. I am beginning to own Mildred, the person who came into my classroom intending to own me.
And, in fact, Mildred buys into the whole thing. She has no idea that her Personality A is getting neutralized, and that her Personality B is being built. She gets the ball when the circling naturally dies down. I then interest myself in another student’s sport or activity, but not before making strong and meaningful eye contact with Mildred when handing her the ball about who is in charge of this class.
What if Mildred decides to chuck the ball to a friend or toss it up and down? I simply take it and put it in the cabinet. When Mildred comes into class the next day, she goes straight to my cabinet where she gets “her” basketball. She is shocked when I allow her to do that, but she doesn’t know that I am training her in her new personality. She also knows that the minute she disrupts class with the ball, it is gone.
I return often to Mildred these first few weeks, circling the simplest of sentences about her, keeping her involved, smiling, inviting her to accept this new Personality B – that of an important athlete in the school who pays attention in French class.
By the end of the week I have a naming ceremony using a small plastic sword from Wal- Mart, in which Mildred is dubbed in English “Best Point Guard in the History of Colorado High School Basketball,” a name she will keep all year.
I will use this name in all sorts of PQA and extended PQA activities, in stories, and in readings. The Best Point Guard in the History of Colorado High School Basketball needs to learn how to read French to know what great things she has done on the court as described in the readings I have created about her Personality B. As long as I keep Mildred engaged and important, she doesn’t relapse into Personality A.
By always returning the focus to this wonderful basketball star (the greatest in the history of Colorado high school basketball!) and this great French student, Mildred buys into whatever I do. I win.
Personality B sets in fully by the end of the second week. The problem is solved, not by my loving Mildred, but by my doing a specific, designed, activity directed right at her in the first few classes of the year.
Some teachers may object that this kind of energy output is not part of their job description. But, if we remember that we teach students first and language second, it is the most important aspect of their job. If they feel they cannot do it, they must fake it until it becomes a reality.
What if there is more than one Mildred in the classroom? How does the teacher deal with that?
The first thing is to keep them away from each other physically via alphabetical seating. I use the alphabet because they don't see it as a planned attempt to separate them from their friends.
PQA in a Wink page 54 If the alphabetical seating still allows two loose cannons to be in close proximity of each other, I casually seat them in places where they cannot see each other. I work very hard at this seating, because it works.
Mildred 1 soon forgets about Mildred 2 if Mildred 2 is in the furthest most out-of-contact seat in the room from Mildred 1. By the end of the first week of school, I have identified the Mildreds and they are so far apart as a result of my meticulous pre-emptive planning that they are a non-factor. Any social group that hangs together meets the same fate - the kids become separate entities in my classroom and their group has no power.
I also make sure I can put a name with a face as early as possible and learning at least one thing about each kid from their questionnaire, and then trying to bring it into the PQA. By doing this I send the message to the kids that each one of them is important.
Focusing primarily on who the kids are at the expense of content during the first weeks may seem somewhat off the mark to some teachers. But I maintain that if it is not done there will be little teaching of content. Conversely, if it is done, the academic atmosphere will be assured, and with it content.
PQA with other Student Interests
Leaving the area of circling with sports balls occurs naturally and should not be forced. For Michelle, who drew a book under her name and has now become Michelle Angelou, you circle:
Class, Michelle Angelou reads! (Ohh!) Class, does Michelle Angelou read? (yes) That’s right, class, Michelle Angelou reads. Does Michelle Angelou read or does she play football? (reads) Class, does Michelle Angelou play football? No, class, that is ridiculous, Michelle Angelou doesn’t play football! She reads. Class, who plays football? (TD) That's right, class, TD plays football! (Ohh!) Class, does TD write novels? (no) That's right, class, that's ridiculous, TD doesn't write novels. He plays football. And what does Michelle Angelou do? That’s right, class, Michelle Angelou reads!
Apply the same techniques as described above with sports to these non-sports kids. Do the same things. You also read, but Michelle reads much better, because she is the best reader in the world. She reads for twenty hours a day, and you only read for twenty minutes per day. The principal of the school also reads, but Michelle reads more.
One teacher recently reported:
“In my eighth grade exploratory I taught them how to play “the game,” then they drew pictures of what they like to do. It's two full class periods later and we still are on Sophie plays the guitar better than Mr. D., who is the worst player in the world. They love the circling and the personalization and they get why it's so repetitive and don't mind at all. This activity works as described.”
Can district benchmarks and required vocabulary be included in the PQA during these early months of the year when your primary focus is on building rapport with the students? Or should the teacher wait to bring in such things?
PQA in a Wink page 55 As long as the teacher focuses on the kids, the students will learn. Instead of awkwardly trying to insert time expressions and other more complicated benchmarks into the class, language should be allowed to unfold naturally. Instead of teaching colors, numbers, and the alphabet as separate entities, simply integrate them into the discussion about sports and the students’ other activities. Here is an example:
Class, Eric the Orange is going to Sweden! Class, is Eric the Orange going to Sweden or to France (circle, circle)? Class, Eric is going by ocean liner! (circle, circle)? Class, how long is the trip? (circle, circle)? Correct, class, the trip is seven days! (circle, circle)? Class, what does Eric eat on Monday on the boat? (roast beef), etc.
The circling ends up with:
Class, that’s right, Eric eats fish on Sunday!
This is not exactly fascinating material for a story, and it tends to stall the action, but the teacher has included the days of the week and circled a lot of food expressions into the story by doing this. The trick is to not let this inserting of mandated vocabulary into a discussion drag down the CI. This is learned by experience.
The alphabet is easily taught as per skill 46 in TPRS in a Year! (“How Do We Spell That?”) Just stop the sports discussion for a moment and ask the class in the target language how a certain word is spelled, being sure to write the word down on the board as it is spelled.
Colors and numbers are also easy to integrate into PQA. The balls used are usually of different colors, so the instructor need only ask what color they are or how many there are.
At the beginning of the year, the focus is using personalized discussion to build bridges with students. Do not let district benchmarks distract you from this goal in the first weeks. It should be the main focus of class, and it should be done slowly. The students’ comprehension must be assured.
Learn to recognize and then ignore what I call “ghost voices” during PQA. These are voices that pop up in many teachers’ minds during PQA that say, "Get to something new! Teach some grammar! You have to get going or you won't be anywhere by the end of class!"
Don't listen to those voices! It doesn’t matter if you get anywhere. All you have to do is focus on the kids and speak the language. There is no need to get from point A from point B during a class. That’s why they call it circling!
What are you accomplishing when you approach PQA in this way? You are getting personalization and massive amounts of comprehensible input. Anything else you might do at this point in the year would be too complicated for the students. Take it slowly. Remember that with most students, if it's not about them, it's too complicated!
Personalization is not effective at all if you just touch on it, and then say, "There, I personalized." You must emphasize that your Casey really is the best volleyball player in PQA in a Wink page 56 the room, the school, the district, the state, the country, the world, the universe, etc. Casey will repay your validation of her with hard work.
A common error in PQA occurs when we approach the kids with facts or events that we have made up about them. This is exactly the opposite of what we need to do.
If we become authentically and honestly aware of the kids’ cute suggestions, on the other hand, via circling, ideas that ring true automatically become part of the students’ new identities.
The teachers of the future will bring to the foreign language classroom peaceful, slow, heartfelt, reciprocal, and spontaneous human interaction. They will have authentic respect for the students and will want to show it. They will help prevent their students from “disappearing into themselves” all day. They will draw students into class activities without force.
Students will look forward to entering such a classroom. And why not? The teacher thinks it a grand thing that they read and like strawberries!
Whenever you end the personalization phases described in this book, at the end of the fall or at the end of the year, you will have achieved at that point:
great gains in many basic target language verbs and nouns, much more comprehension by your students than you could have ever thought possible, a sense of loyalty from the students in the classroom, a sense of fun in every class period, and a genuine interest in your job as a foreign language teacher.
I have designed one PQA activity around the verb “to be”. Obviously it is a necessary verb in building identities in the classroom, but it is also, with “to have”, a hugely important verb. This activity affords an opportunity to ensure acquisition of this verb in the future tense.
First, pre-teach a big list of professions and ask the kids to “fast forward” their lives and use circling to ask them what they think they might be professionally in twenty years:
Tyler, in twenty years, will you be a professional basketball player? (no) Will you be a dancer? (no) Will you be a teacher? (no)
Keep circling, fishing for a profession that Tyler approves of. Point to the list of professions or write each one down on the board as it occurs.
You may wish to include nationalities at some point in the discussion. Everyone seems to love to talk about what nations they are from, or would like to be from. Use either adjectives of nationality or mention the actual country in the following way:
Tyler, will you be a journalist in France? (no) Will you be a bullfighter in Spain? (no) PQA in a Wink page 57 Will you be an Italian architect? (no)
Tyler ends up planning to be a German plumber. This information can be added on all the other information you have circled into existence by speaking with her in the target language in the preceding activities. See skill 49 in TPRS in a Year! for more on using nationalities in TPRS.
Remember to register appropriate fascination with the wonderful things you learn from your students. Convince them that the only reason you get up in the morning is to learn these things!
As you continue through these PQA activities, remember that there is no rush. As long as slow, personalized, interesting comprehensible input is occurring in the classroom, and that students’ personalities are being established, you will accomplish your goal of personalizing your classroom.
You must overcome any fears, any voices, that tell you that you are not properly teaching possessive adjectives. The students don’t want to learn possessive adjectives. They want to learn French, and they want it to be about them.
We should be aware that students are always comfortable with a rate of input that we often consider too slow. Therefore, we should always transition deeper into PQA with circling that is, for us, almost uncomfortably slow. It won’t be uncomfortable for them, which is the only thing that counts.
Don’t forget to ask students what foods they like. For example, you have already determined that Sarah L. is really Sarah Lee, who plays volleyball. In this case, the name and the sport don’t connect. It doesn’t matter, because Sarah Lee is the perfect name for Sarah L:
Sarah, do you like pizza?
Keep circling suggestions until Sarah decides. She rejects at least fifteen food offerings (each written on the board) with a smile and a shy nod of the head “no”. Finally, she relents, admitting that she likes strawberries.
Now you have three bits of information about Sarah: her name is Sarah Lee, she reads, and she likes strawberries. This new information adds to the strength of the link between you and her. The personalized comprehensible input that you continue to establish with your students is becoming a powerful connecting force between you and each student in the class.
Of course, you don’t have to link the verb “likes” with food. It can be anything. This would be a good time to have the list of 64 words up on butcher block paper and link your circling around “likes” to certain of those nouns. It only creates more interesting circling, because it is comprehensible input about the student you are talking to.
Connecting the verb “likes” to words in the list of 64 words could alone lead to weeks of PQA. It would be easy to extend this PQA into all sorts of little scenes, some lasting only a few seconds, others gaining enough steam to turn into stories. The verb “likes” is an PQA in a Wink page 58 excellent one for creating interesting, meaningful, and personalized comprehensible input.
Of course, the information that you are establishing via circling is just minor and innocuous enough to prohibit any in-depth entry into the real facts of the students’ real lives. Personalization should be limited to the extent that it helps us teach the class, but not go beyond that. Thus, we limit our discussion:
Class, Sarah Lee likes strawberries. Does Sarah Lee or Reed like strawberries? Correct, class, Sarah Lee likes strawberries. Does Reed like strawberries? No, class, that’s not true! Reed doesn’t like strawberries! That is absurd! Class, does Pencil Man like strawberries? No, class, that is false! Pencil Man doesn’t like strawberries; Sarah Lee likes strawberries!
And off we go, using our funny names, talking about how great the kids are at their sports or musical instruments or other talents, and now having fun finding out what foods, etc. each of them likes.
PQA with Students’ Possessions
We also want to use the verb “to have” when we do PQA. It is such a common verb! Here is one (of many) way to get started with this verb:
First, pre-teach family vocabulary and make sure the singular column of the verb “to have” is handy and visible, as you will point to it a lot in this activity.
Then, with the same level of incredulousness and fascination expressed about their sports and other activities described above, simply ask the students questions about their families.
This discussion is stronger if you review numbers (TPRS in a Year! skill 35), age vocabulary, and the alphabet (skill 46) to ask how to spell names. Don’t forget to encourage hyperbole or outright lying.
On the first day teach only the words for father, mother, sister, and brother. Having taught father and mother, leave them be, as so many broken families these days make this an uncomfortable topic. Just focus on brothers and sisters. Keep circling what you hear.
Thus:
Class, Skate Man has four sisters! (Ohh!) Class, does Skate Man have four sisters? (yes) That’s right, class, Skate Man has four sisters! Can this be true, Skate Man? Can it be true that you have four sisters? Really? Really, really? Sarah, did you hear that? Skate Man has four sisters! How many sisters does he have? Right! Five! (They correct that) Oh, you are correct, class, four! Jack, do you have four sisters? No, that is absurd, you don’t have four sisters but Skate Man does! Jack, how many sisters do you have? One? Oh, class, Jack has one sister and Skate Man has five sisters! (They correct that) Oh, you are correct, class, Skate Man has four sisters! (Ohh!) Emily, how many sisters do Skate Man and Jack have together?
Go to the board and teach together if necessary. Keep going into more and more detail. Move around the room. Try to engage everybody. Milk for a few details if you wish, but keep the focus on the verb, and do that by pointing and pausing relentlessly at the verb. PQA in a Wink page 59
Your attitude of amazement is what carries the students’ interests. You lean into Tyler’s face, making sure that you understand that he has seven and not thirteen uncles – you want to understand such a thing properly, because it is so important:
Class, Tyler has seven uncles! (Ohh!) Tyler , do you have seven uncles (yes) That’s amazing, class, Tyler has seven uncles! Does Tyler have seven or thirteen uncles? (seven) Class, does Tyler have thirteen uncles? No, class, that is ridiculous! Tyler doesn’t have thirteen uncles. He has seven uncles! Tyler, do you have an aunt? (no) etc.
If Anne and Shelby both have one aunt, encourage them to answer using the first person plural form. Point to the verb on the wall, point to the first person plural form of “to have” and wait until you hear: “We have one aunt.” Work through any confusion in the target language.
Return to the last question you posed to Tyler, who answers in the first person singular: “I don’t have an aunt.” Point out that “pas de” means “not any” often in French. Do so in less than five seconds. Whenever you do pop up grammar, just say “____ means ____” and go on.
Then recycle what you have established via the PQA up to this point: Anne has one aunt and Shelby has one aunt and so they have two aunts, but Tyler has no aunts. Keep circling in amazement until the discussion draws to a natural close, usually in about fifteen to twenty minutes.
Assess often, with short answer quizzes about the details just learned. Since the material is so fresh, the students all do well. Nothing motivates like success.
Since pets are part of families, we also ask the kids about their pets:
Class, Sarah Lee has a dog named Growler. Does Sarah Lee have a dog named Growler? Correct, class, Sarah Lee has a dog named Growler. Class, does Sarah Lee have a dog named Growler or Howler? That’s correct, class, Sarah Lee has a dog named Growler. Class, does Sarah Lee have a dog named Howler? No, class, that is absurd! Sarah Lee does not have a dog named Howler. Sarah Lee has a dog named Growler. Class, does Sarah Lee have a dog named Jeff? No, class, that also is absurd! Sarah Lee does not have a dog named Jeff. She has a dog named Growler!
When the kids draw their pets on paper and place them so that you can see them in much the same way they did with their names and sports/other activities above, the discussion goes better.
I just walk around the room and act surprised and extremely interested in the fact that Tyler has a dog named Dipper, and I use this fact as the jumping off point for a lot of PQA. This PQA around pets is always the best of all. People really love to talk about their pets.
Since I will ask Tyler at least 50 to 70 questions about Dipper in a period of about ten minutes, really locking on to that pet with many varied questions, Tyler has to enter into a one-on-one discussion with me. PQA in a Wink page 60
When this type of questioning occurs, I usually only receive one word answers. That is fine with me! However, if the questioning is done in the right way I can draw Tyler out into longer responses, even sentences.
When this is going on, the focus in the room from the other students is very high. The others know that they are hearing what they came to learn – the target language, and that is why they are so quiet when the questions about the pets are being asked.
These extended one one-on-one discussions can be awesome! They bring great pride to both the instructor, who is doing what they set out to do as a language teacher, and the student, who can’t believe they can understand the questions so clearly.
Even if the student answers with only “yes” or “no” for five straight minutes, I often notice that with each passing minute the smile on their face gets bigger as they realize what they are doing – communicating in the target language.
Moments like these make it great to be a language teacher. All the people who do research on how people acquire languages would envy us this kind of application of their research, because it is just so much fun! We’re not thinking about it, nor are we talking about it, we’re doing it!
Here are some examples of questions normally asked during discussions about pets:
1. Is it a male or a female? 2. What is his/her name? 3. What color(s) is it? 4. How old is it? 5. Is it big or small? 6. Does it have (big, small, average) (eyes, ears, teeth, legs, etc.)? 7. Does it sleep a lot? Where does it sleep? 8. Is it fierce or timid? 9. Are there other pets in the family? 10. If yes to (9), do they get along? 11. What kind of food does it eat?
A somewhat tangential point: the structure s’entendre avec in question (10) above is somewhat complex. Just how is a teacher going to teach it for acquisition without using PQA? Although it may be taught for a test, memorized, and forgotten, it will never be authentically acquired unless it has some kind of inherent relevance to the learner, as it does above.
This explains why TPRS teachers enjoy such high student retention rates, rates so high that if we worked in business we would all be given big promotions. We make what we teach relevant to our clientele!
On the subject of pets, as on the subject of family members above, we again remind you to encourage your students to lie about facts if they feel so inclined, or to even to make them up from scratch. Such lies always inject interest, humor, and new vocabulary into PQA in a Wink page 61 the class discussion. Many of my students are excellent liars, and I am very proud of them.
Adding Details with the Portrait Physique
The Portrait Physique, described at length in TPRS in a Year! helps in creating falsified and bizarre images of pets that really grab the listener’s attention. In that way, it is an embellishing factor in PQA, adding incredible detail.
Of course, the Portrait Physique is not limited to creating physical images of pets, but can be used anytime in TPRS as a powerful tool to generate additional interest in anything. It allows the teacher not just to ask the story, but to show the story as well, via the sometimes startling images that it helps create.
Portrait Physique
Taille (height):
Je mesure 1,70 mètres (I am 5’ 7” tall). or Je fais 1,70 mètres. Je suis petit (I am short). Je suis grand (I am tall). Je suis de taille moyenne (I am of average height). Quelle taille fait-il? (What is his height?) Combien mesure-t-elle? (What is her height?)
Pointure (shoe size):
Ma pointure européenne est 38 (My European shoe size is 38). (One site for conversion of shoe sizes is www.jackyshoes.com/pointure.php)
Les cheveux, le poil (hair): courts (short) longs (long) blonds (blond) roux (red) bruns (brown) noirs (black) châtains (chestnut) gris (grey)
Le visage, la figure (face):
ovale (oval) allongé (long) rond (round) carré (square)
Corps (body – sugg. use ‘plutôt’ and ‘avoir l’air’ in French with these):
PQA in a Wink page 62 mince (thin) fort (strong) fin (delicate) épais (thick) faible (weak) costaud (sturdy) le cou (neck) les doigts (fingers) les mains (hands) les bras (arms) la tête (head) les yeux (eyes) les jambes (legs) le dos (back) les oreilles (ears) les pieds (feet) les épaules (shoulders) les cuisses (thighs) les genoux (knees) le ventre (stomach) le nez (nose) le front (forehead) les joues (cheeks) les yeux (eyes) la taille (figure, waist)
When asking kids about what their pets look like, I often spin the real pet into something bizarre. When something of a freaky-looking creature, usually with one or grossly exaggerated physical characteristic, is created, it’s just funny. Even blasé students will give a smile when Portrait Physique is used to generate hyperbole.
Those of us who experience pressure to use technology in our classrooms can do so with Portrait Physique. In my personal view, technology has very little place in the TPRS classroom, because I have seen no programs that can actively engage kids in a language for more than a few minutes. However, when giving physical characteristics to a character or creature, you can use the SMART Board. Just circle questions and convert into an image using Portrait Physique as a guide as you circle.
The only thing about using the SMART Board is that it kicks the kids’ minds into a visual, not an auditory, mode, and hence slows things down. Really, for what we are trying to do in TPRS, it makes a bad fit. In TPRS we need unfettered imagination.
Really, all you need with Portrait Physique is to have the above list handy and just refer to it randomly during class. It will become your good friend in class. And with Portrait Physique, you sure won’t ever need anything else to teach body vocabulary!
Note that the Portrait Physique can be useful with the game Simon Says. If you want, refer to a list of action verbs on the wall behind the students to start doing TPR commands at any time during class, with the Portrait Physique list in one hand for quick reference. The list of body parts makes thinking of Simon’s command so much easier! PQA in a Wink page 63 The verbs on the wall behind the students and the Portrait Physique lists in your hand together make you a master Simon!
Other Fertile Ground for PQA
So far, we have discussed how different verbs can be used in PQA to develop our students’ personalities and personalize our classrooms, and how to use this information to insure classroom discipline. Our students may be known for their name, a sport or other activity they do, what they like, an imaginary profession, nationality, family members and/or pets, etc.
This list could be expanded at the discretion of the teacher. We need never leave PQA! PQA presents language as the whole and complete thing that it is. Thus, PQA can be seen as and endless discussion with our kids in the target language, reflecting Stendhal’s beautiful definition of happiness:
Un bavardage sans détour, et la présence de ceux qu’on aime.... An endless conversation, and the presence of those one loves....
Are there other verbs that lend themselves to good PQA? The verb “to admire” is an excellent verb, and works especially with reticent students. Kyle is a reticent student. So:
Kyle, whom do you admire? (no response) Do you admire the President? (no response) Do you admire the President of France? (no response)
Instead of avoiding these students, I love to engage them. It’s fun. With a smile, I walk over to the board and point to the word whom on the list of question words, then to the word you on one of the verbs from the verb wall.
Then, I write down do you admire in both the target language and in English. I’m going really slowly here. I’m letting Kyle know in no uncertain terms that my intent here is to engage him in the class by teaching Kyle and the material, and not just the material.
Kyle doesn’t want to look like an idiot, and he knows now that you have slowed down to an idiot’s pace. And, my patient smile is there, floating over him, letting him know who is in charge and who is going to win this little battle.
Kyle would have to be asleep to not understand the question at this point, and invisible pressure from the class builds as I establish what I expect from Kyle in the clearest and slowest of terms. Moving closer to Kyle and making solid eye contact, I ask the question again:
Kyle, whom do you admire? (no response)
Now, Kyle is digging himself a hole. But he won’t get away so easily! If I can get Kyle involved now, I will get the message across that my class is not built around superstars PQA in a Wink page 64 but everyone. My reticent students will have to show up for class. All I have to do is win this battle with Kyle to accomplish that!
What Kyle doesn’t know is that I have accumulated from the students’ questionnaires a tremendous amount of information. I know whom Kyle admires:
Kyle, do you admire Lindsay Lohan? (I get the half-look) Kyle, do you admire Lindsay Lohan because she is a tartlet? (tartlet said in English) Do you admire her beautiful eyes? (Kyle becomes uneasy) Do you admire her beautiful figure?
That ought to get a reaction. The impasse with Kyle is over. I win. I have made class relevant to Kyle. He smiles. I’ve made a friend. Go figure! Kyle admires Lindsay Lohan more than the President of the United States!
This approach to personalization, making things meaningful by learning about the kids’ subculture, is not optional, in my view. We must do our homework about what is interesting to the kids.
Brittney Spears, at the time of this writing, is bald. That would be another good one because it is interesting to the students. Quite frankly, the fact that Brittney Spears is bald does nothing for me. But I have to overcome that bias! By bringing in the name of someone or something relevant, interesting, controversial, and current, with charged meaning not necessarily to me but to the students in the room, contact with the students is made and PQA works.
Teachers using textbooks that are not current (any text not published that year is outdated) never win a lot of style points by presenting to the kids material about pop icons of the target culture from years past. The same is true with sports stars and other important figures from the cultures we are presenting. Though great and pertinent in their own cultures, they don’t translate well into American classrooms.
Why force such interest? By asking kids to be interested in the (often inaccessible) cultures we represent, are we not being somewhat hypocritical? Forced interest is never genuine interest. We only gain our kids’ attention by showing interest in their cultural interests, not by the reverse.
There is nothing wrong with mentioning people like Yannick Noah (who?) in our classes, but can Yannick really be interesting to our kids who are not interested in the history of tennis?
Cantinflas, the Mexican actor whom Charlie Chaplin once called “the best actor in the world,” has never been recognized as a great comic icon on an international level because much of his humor was understandable only to native speakers of Spanish.
How, then, can we expect our kids, lacking full command of the language we are studying, to get excited about such people? The cultures of the countries we study are grand things, but we should save extensive study of them for the more advanced levels.
PQA in a Wink page 65 Not being tied to a text, we can have style in TPRS! We can teach the students and not the book! A story about Cantinflas is just not going to have the same spark as a story about Justin Timberlake wanting to ask our fifth period student Sarah out.
Humor, so important in TPRS classes and so unique because it is created in the target language in TPRS (what other method can claim that?), depends heavily on the cultural references we make in our classes. We learn to drive humor in our classes from facts that are of cultural importance to our kids.
A great verb to generate humor in PQA is the verb “to fear”. Since this is addressed in our questionnaires, we just read the students’ questionnaires to see what they fear. Jennifer is afraid of clowns.
Just pause, sidle on up to Jennifer, make eye contact, and start the PQA using your best barrister imitation:
Jennifer, what are you afraid of? (no response) Jennifer, are you afraid of ghosts? (no response) Jennifer, are you afraid of spiders? (no response) Jennifer, are you afraid of heights? (no response)
Of course, you are probably having to write down and point to ghosts, spiders and heights. But, even with those distractions, the tension is building. What you are not telling Jennifer is that you already know what she is afraid of!
Jennifer, are you afraid of...... CLOWNS!!!!???
Usually, if the student was honest on the questionnaire, this will get some kind of response. However, those students like Jennifer who have opened up their hearts to this way of learning and bought into the concept of “playing the game,” may even give you a histrionic:
Yes!! Yes! I admit it. You are right! I am afraid of clowns! AGH!
When a student does something like that you must register your amazement that they have decoded the secret to the class, that they understand that we are in the classroom to laugh and have fun and play the game.
And give yourself some credit when you do this! You have sent the strong message that you are there to teach Jennifer first and the language second. If Jennifer really doesn’t want to participate in the game, take your PQA game to someone else. Keep fishing! Eventually, you always get something good from someone.
When asked about this, Joe Neilson responded, “I just wait to see what my superstars will feed me that day.” Joe is saying that in his classes he is patient enough to just let his classes unfold by themselves, relying on the students instead of prying them open himself. But it never hurts to have that questionnaire information handy if a little prying is necessary!
PQA in a Wink page 66 Draw out the circling. Point to every new word. Act astonished. No! Be astonished! Check your list of things the kids reported that they feared on the questionnaire. Hang in there! It only requires persistence and the belief that you can do it.
The verbs described above (to play, to be, to like, to have, to admire, to be afraid) are quite easy and effective when used in the present tense. But PQA shouldn’t be limited to the present tense. It can and should be done in all tenses.
To get PQA going in the past tense, you can ask the students what you did on a recent vacation. Ask them details about a place or person they visited, something they ate, a gift, etc. Or, before a vacation (or anytime), to get practice with the future tenses, ask them about something they will do.
Instead of worrying about how you are going to get different verb tenses going in your PQA, though, just speak naturally to the kids. You will notice that when you just speak naturally to people, different verb tenses just occur naturally. We know that that is how we acquire tense awareness in our first language. If you think about it, it is quite strange to speak in just one tense!
Judi Nicolai describes how to involve the past tense in PQA:
“One way to help keep students' attention during discussion with other students is to have a "Who did what?" session at the end of the sharing time. I do this every Monday after the weekend to have “talk time” in Spanish about what they did over the weekend. The whole session can take 20 minutes and sometimes it's hard for kids to keep listening, but they do.
“When the sharing time is over, I then ask, for example, "Who went to their grandmother's house?" Someone raises their hand to answer and I give them a peso (my reward system for participation points). This works really well and keeps kids interested and attentive the whole time, for the most part!! The students really enjoy having the time to talk about their personal lives.”
Just talk to the kids. As always, put any words they don’t know on the board with translation, point and go slowly. Joke around. Keep circling and stay on the key structures. When you focus on the kids first and the language second, an amazing thing happens – the kids learn the language.
PQA in a Wink page 67
CHAPTER THREE – EXTENDING PQA
So far we have discussed ways to use various verbs to gather information that describes students:
Reed was described as a pro basketball player in French. Sarah was described as liking strawberries and reading, with a favorite number (4) and a favorite word (flower), and a dog named Growler. Tyler was described as a German plumber with seven uncles. Kyle was described as admiring Lindsey Lohan. Jennifer was described as having a fear of clowns.
PQA is a collection point for all kinds of information about your kids. When that information is used in some way to create action, it becomes extended PQA.
It is very easy to spin PQA into something bigger, to build a little scene or story. Often, it occurs without any effort at all, as a natural outgrowth of PQA. Extensions of PQA can occur while the students remain in their seats or they can take the form of stories, taking the class directly into Step Two of TPRS.
Extended PQA differs from PQA in that it is less purely conversational, and so involves less first person practice. It can directly follow the period of establishing meaning at the beginning of class, or it can piggyback off either signing and gesturing or PQA. Whether it develops into a story doesn’t matter.
Once during PQA I was talking to Thomas about his interest in trains. It turned out his dad has a basement world of trains. I registered the appropriate fascination with that fact, even though I don’t care much about those train worlds. Because Thomas is interested in trains, and he is my student, I then must become interested in trains. It is my job as a teacher who uses TPRS.
So I asked Thomas to stand next to me in class, I put my hand on his shoulder, pointing into the distance, and asked him if he saw the train there, approaching us.
In that instant, I extended PQA. In this case, it never became a story, although it had the potential, because Thomas and I got into an extended conversation about whether there was in fact a train coming towards us, since all he saw in front of him was a classroom wall. Of course, in the end, I won, because it was my class.
Did I spin a marvelous story with Thomas? No. Did I take a risk? Yes. Did I let my freak flag fly? Yes. Did I deliver a large amount of comprehensible input during this period of arguing with him whether there was a train or not? Yes. I remembered the most important thing to remember in TPRS, that the story matters less than interesting and personalized comprehensible input, than talking to the kids.
Taking the risk of creating a little imaginary scene about an approaching train in the minds of everyone in the room spurred that input. It is the duty of all teachers to take PQA in a Wink page 68 risks like that, to open their minds and the minds of their students to see what can be spun out of PQA.
Whether these little scenes are extremely simple or border on the complex and the bizarre doesn’t matter. Whether they are called a story doesn’t matter. The spinning of PQA into action creates personalized comprehensible input and therefore is a powerful tool for teaching language.
Extending PQA: A Simple Formula
Assume that it is early in the year and you have been doing some PQA and getting comfortable with it. You sense that you can take it further, so, one day, you decide to try to spin a few little scenes out of the facts you have gathered about your students.
The formula below is suggested as a concrete example to give you the feel for spinning images out of a few facts. As a formula minus specific facts about specific students, it offers simplicity. The idea of using a formula for extending PQA is ridiculous, but it is offered to the raw beginner as a preliminary “training wheels” activity, to be discarded after it is learned. This activity is specifically designed to allow you to feel safe when you extend PQA.
You will need:
1. a set of place posters (train station, mall, swimming pool, museum, supermarket, etc) on the wall of your classroom. 2. a list of transportation nouns, not in poster form but as a hand held list.
First, write down only the singular forms of the verbs “to go,” “to have,” and “to buy” in the target language with translations so that they are easily visible to the students.
Next, look at the following formula:
1. (Name of student), are you going to ______? 2. (Name of student), are you going to ______by ______? 3. (Name of student), what do you buy at the ______?
Notice that this formula is simple, repetitive, and not random.
When applied to any class, these sentences might take the following forms:
Jett, est-ce que tu vas à la gare/Are you going to the train station? Jett, est-ce que tu vas à la gare en taxi/Are you going the train station by taxi? Jett, qu’est-ce que tu achètes à la gare/What do you buy at the train station?
You point to the place posters and circle while referring to the transportation list. You can insert any kid’s name into the formula, and any place or means of transportation. Just pick a kid who has exhibited in PQA the ability to communicate well with you for this all-important training activity.
PQA in a Wink page 69 Tell the kids that you are going to play a little game where they pretend to go somewhere and they have to listen carefully to figure out where it is. And they also have to figure out how they get there and what happens when they get there. Explain that you are going to speak very slowly and very clearly and that they can stop you at any time and say, “What does ___ mean?” for clarification.
Start with the first sentence of the formula, which is constructed to be intelligible by anyone. Students with very little or even no background in the language will understand you easily as long as you go slowly enough, word by word, pausing and pointing, etc.
Before class, you have asked Cameron, whom you trust, to help you in this work:
Cameron, est-ce que…/is it that…
Stop speaking here and point to the question word. Pause. Remember to speak slowly. Use “what did I just say” if you feel it is needed. Do what is necessary to make sure that everyone understands. Then say:
Cameron, est-ce que tu…/is it that you…
Stop. Point to the subject pronoun. Write the English on one of the whiteboards. Remember to speak slowly. Use “what did I just say” if you feel it is needed. Do what is necessary to make sure that the class understands. Then say:
Cameron, est-ce que tu vas…/is it that you are going…
Stop. Point to the verb in the target language and in English. Pause. Remember to speak slowly. Use “what did I just say” if you feel it is needed. Do what is necessary to make sure that the class understands. Then say:
Cameron, est-ce que tu vas à… /is it that you are going to…
Stop. Point to the preposition. Write the English on one of the whiteboards. Pause. Remember to speak slowly. Use “what did I just say” if you feel it is needed. Do what is necessary to make sure that the class understands. Then say:
Cameron, est-ce que tu vas à la…/is it that you are going to the… Stop. Point to the article. Write the English on one of the whiteboards. Pause. Remember to speak slowly. Use “what did I just say” if you feel it is needed. Do what is necessary to make sure that the class understands. Then say:
Cameron, est-ce que tu vas à la gare…/is it that you are going to the train station… Stop. Point to the object. Write the English on one of the whiteboards. Pause. Remember to speak slowly. Use “what did I just say” if you feel it is needed. Do what is necessary to make sure that the class understands.
Some kids may get restless with this. Tell them that even if they understand, not everybody does, and it won’t hurt them to just listen to the language.
PQA in a Wink page 70 When Cameron finally answers it will either be a yes or a no – he is either going to the train station or not. If he says yes, you can circle that information with the appropriate fascination:
Class, Cameron is going to the train station! (ohh!) Class, is Cameron going to the train station? (yes) Class, is Cameron going to the train station or to the pool? (train station) Class, is Cameron going to the pool? (no) That’s right, class, Cameron is not going to the pool, Cameron is going to the train station! It’s obvious! (ohh!) Class, is Cameron going to the Golden Gate Bridge? (no) That’s right, class, Cameron is not going to the Golden Gate Bridge! That is ridiculous! Cameron is going to the train station!
If Cameron says no, do the same process as described above using the place Cameron indicates.
Notice what you are doing here – you are engaging the student in imaginary conversation using simple words that they understand at a slow rate of speed. You are pushing outward in the direction of suspending disbelief. You are learning how to extend PQA.
If you can do this simple exercise now, you can suspend disbelief to more and more bizarre levels as the year progresses. PQA and extending PQA will be easy for you.
If Cameron shows that he is buying into the game by standing up, go with it. You have started a story. If not, continue to extend the PQA. Either way, this works for you because the kids are hearing repetitive comprehensible input in a personalized environment.
Next, moving to the second sentence in the formula, ask:
Cameron, est-ce que tu vas à la gare en taxi…/is it that you are going to the train station by taxi…
Stop. Write the word taxi on the board. Remember to speak slowly. Do what is necessary to make sure that the class understands.
Cameron either agrees that he goes to the train station by taxi or, given a few more options, he chooses some other method. It may end up that:
Class, Cameron goes to the train station on foot! (ohh!)
In the same way that the information in the first sentence was circled, circle this sentence:
Class, Cameron is going to the train station on foot! (ohh!) Class, is Cameron going to the train station on foot? (yes) Class, is Cameron going to the train station on foot or on a horse? (of foot) Class, is Cameron going to the train station on a horse? (no) That’s right, class, Cameron is not going to the train station on a horse, Cameron is going to the train station on foot! It’s obvious! (ohh!) PQA in a Wink page 71 Class, is Cameron going to the train station by covered wagon? (no) That’s right, class, Cameron is not going to the Golden Gate Bridge by covered wagon! That is ridiculous! Cameron is going to the train station on foot!
Each time new vocabulary (horse, covered wagon) appears, you go to the overhead or the board, and you write the word in both the target language and in English, pausing and pointing to let the new word sink in. If you don’t know the word for covered wagon, say it in English, unless it is important to you that they know it. Remember, in TPRS we teach the language, not vocabulary lists.
Then you go on to the third sentence of the formula. At this early stage in the year, you do not say:
Cameron, what do you buy at the train station?
It is amazing to think that some teachers will rattle off a question like that without going slowly enough and breaking the sentence down into its component parts in the fashion of the first two sentences above. Then they wonder why the students don’t understand, which is even more amazing. Some teachers even egregiously conclude that they have low ability, unmotivated students!
To effectively establish comprehensible input, the teacher must go slowly and with patience. Again, they must teach the student first and the language second.
So, in the same painstaking way that you established the meaning of every single word earlier in the formula, you do the same with this sentence:
Cameron, qu’est-ce que/what is it that…
Stop speaking here and point to the question word. Pause. Remember to speak slowly. Use “what did I just say” if you feel it is needed. Do what is necessary to make sure that the class understands. Then say:
Cameron, qu’est-ce que tu/what is it that you…
Stop. Point to the subject pronoun. Write the English on one of the whiteboards. Remember to speak slowly. Use “what did I just say” if you feel it is needed. Do what is necessary to make sure that the class understands. Then say:
Cameron, qu’est-ce que tu achètes/what is it that you buy…
Stop. Point to the verb in the target language and in English. Remember to speak slowly. Use “what did I just say” if you feel it is needed. Do what is necessary to make sure that the class understands. Then say:
Cameron, qu’est-ce que tu achètes à la gare/what is it that you buy at the train station…?
Stop. Check for understanding in the above manner.
PQA in a Wink page 72 With the question understood, fish for answers to answer this third sentence of the formula as per Cameron’s wishes. Listen for cute answers and go with them! You also have the option of suggesting words they may already know from the lists of words you taught in the first days of class or in the TPR phase. For example:
Cameron, do you buy a watch at the train station?
Just have the white board ready and start writing, adding in new words until Cameron answers yes, he buys a train ticket, a monkey, whatever.
Only at this point can you circle this last sentence:
Class, Cameron buys a monkey at the train station! (ohh!) Class, does Cameron buy a monkey at the train station? (yes) Class, does Cameron buy a monkey or a rabbit at the train station? (monkey) Class, does Cameron buy a rabbit at the train station? (no) That’s right, class, Cameron doesn’t buy a rabbit at the train station, Cameron buys a monkey at the train station! It’s obvious! (ohh!) Class, does Cameron buy roast chicken at the train station? (no) That’s right, class, Cameron doesn’t buy roast chicken at the train station! That is ridiculous! Cameron buys a monkey at the train station!
You thus arrive at the logical end of circling through the three sentences of the formula. You have gotten low-interest extended PQA laden with heavy amounts of CI. Your students are not at the point where they can enjoy high interest extended PQA anyway. The humor and elegance will come later.
At this point, you are just trying to learn how to extend PQA and your students are just trying to learn the structure of the language. Since this formula is so simple and direct, with no words or ideas floating in from the side of the discussion, so to speak, this formula works to accomplish that goal.
If you look closely, you will see how close you are to actually being able to tell a story from the above. All you have to do with the sentence you just created:
Class, Cameron goes to the train station on foot and buys a monkey! is to ask Cameron to stand up and tell the class that Cameron’s monkey jumped on the train (oh no oh no oh me oh my!). If you believe it, they’ll believe it. Cameron could end up chasing his monkey all the way to Santa Fe before the problem is resolved.
As long as you circle efficiently and go slowly, you can create a story even in the very first few months of the year. All it takes is an actor and a problem to turn extended PQA instantly into a story!
During this activity, neurological pathways are opening up in the brain, and, although it seems impossible, the language is being acquired. Obviously, as time goes by, the students get better and better at “the game” and new and much more interesting and entertaining extended PQA and stories will result.
PQA in a Wink page 73 When Cameron ended up going to the train station to buy a monkey, an invisible truth, an arbitrary new fact, was created by simple circling. You used your authority as the instructor to decide where the discussion was going, guiding it along, and there were no animals running around the room amidst all kinds of noise. In fact, quietude was the rule.
What if you had chosen in the above discussion to try to teach the language instead of directing the students’ mental focus on to the images of the train station, the taxi, and the monkey? What was achieved by your keeping the language secondary to the images created in the student’s minds?
In a word, acquisition was achieved. This is the great success TPRS brings – real acquisition. Though not particularly interesting in this case, the words in the extended PQA contained meaning to the students. The language was acquired in spite of any attitude that the student might have brought into the classroom, because it was clear, via the deliberate and slow nature of the questioning, that no student was going to get away with not understanding what was going on. Sharp eye contact with all the students, especially the barometer student, was occurring. There were frequent hand comprehension checks, and new words were pointed out with pauses, (watch, train ticket, monkey, rabbit, roast chicken).
All of these things kept the CI alive in the minds of the students, and everyone enjoyed Cameron’s brief little journey to the train station. The images created bypassed the analytical mind, and, as each image piled on top of the one before it, they brought the words into the mind unconsciously.
Once you use the above formula just a few times, you will see how easy it is to extend PQA. You will be able to take any structure and mold it into something bigger and more interesting without relying on a formula.
Another Example of Extended PQA: the Sad Cow
In one class I was using one of my favorite TPRS structures – a souri/smiled, which is neat because people always want to smile. I use this structure in all my classes at the beginning of the year. In this class we were just using the format of pure PQA to simply talk about who was smiling that day in class.
We added some imaginary people into the room and tried to figure out if they were smiling a lot or a little or not at all, if they were smiling sadly, joyfully, with tears, etc. By adding these imaginary people, we were leaving the area of simple PQA and extending it a little.
At one point the discussion was about an imaginary cow. Neither I nor the students had any idea that this cow would become the subject of extended PQA, but circling has a way of doing that. Soon the face of this imaginary cow had captivated our imaginations and we just chose to keep on talking about her.
First, I asked if the cow was smiling. The class said yes, so I said no:
That’s not right, class, the cow is not smiling. Class, is the cow smiling or PQA in a Wink page 74 does the cow have a serious expression on its face? (serious expression) and circled that:
Class, the cow has a serious expression on its face. It is not laughing. Class, is the cow laughing? (no) That’s right, class, the cow is not laughing. The cow has a serious expression on its face...
I decided to check in with my barometer student, who was o.k. with everything. Then I did a hand comprehension check, and everyone was at nine or above, so I continued circling.
So far the students knew that there was a cow and that it was not smiling. I knew this was a good time to extend the PQA, to see where it might go.
I felt safe, because I knew that if this attempt to extend PQA went nowhere, I could always return to the structure and find someone else who was smiling and see where that went.
More importantly, I knew that I could just drop the PQA on the spot and go right into a story, since I had a story script waiting in case I needed it. In spite of all the seemingly complex TPRS skills, there is one simple formula that we should always lean on:
We engage the students in personalized comprehensible discussion during PQA, extending it beyond PQA if we can, sometimes into little scenes, sometimes into a story, and we don’t worry about anything else.
In stories, we need a physical actor. We call up the actor, and the story continues with our moving the actor around to locations, etc. In the past, I felt compelled to do that in every class, but now, more and more, I am feeling comfortable with PQA and extending it.
Things were going well with the cow. We were having fun in the target language, we had some good comprehensible input going, and it was personalized – the cow had become kind of the “class cow.” I knew to stay with this circling because it contained energy and interest.
I felt it was a good time here to add some detail to the description of the cow using the Portrait Physique skill. Soon, the cow in front of the classroom was not just any cow, but a small black cow with a very large light brown head with a pierced nose who was wearing tight light brown pants and a gold necklace with Ozzy on it.
Although it took a lot of circling and writing of new words on the board to establish such details, it was worth it because the class now had ownership in what was now “their” cow. The image was becoming increasingly real to us.
Next, I looked again at the question word chart in the back of the room. I had options about where to go with the circling. I took my time and brought in the right question words, the ones that would allow the most interesting facts to come into the discussion. PQA in a Wink page 75
Class, why was this cow serious?
The reader is asked to note here that the reason I chose to ask that question was because I was curious as to what the answer might be. There was genuine interest in my mind. I was not a teacher trying to teach a class as much as I was a person who was taking part in a discussion and wanting to know something.
Beth excitedly blurted out in French:
La vache est triste/The cow is sad!
Beth had spoken French! I completetely ignored her verb in the present tense when my question was asked in the imperfect. Instead, I registered astonishment and approval, at both the clever answer and the French.
In that moment, I was sending Beth the message that she was a great French speaker. I did that because I know that nothing motivates like success. Correcting Beth’s choice of verb tenses would not have been the thing to do. Then:
But, Elizabeth, why was it sad?
Grant, usually very quiet, said in English:
The pants….
Bingo! “Of course,” I thought, “any cow wearing tight pants would have a serious expression on its face!” Grant had come through in a big way.
Note that my questions above were not particularly complex and did not require a great deal of creativity on my part. They were just questions. The cute content always comes from the kids.
This is hard for some teachers to grasp, and may account in part for the slow learning curve required by many teachers to fully grasp PQA. In reality, it must be stated that cute things kids say are more interesting than cute things teachers say in the foreign language classroom.
I continued to let the kids think they were driving the discussion, when in fact the comprehensible input was really just a natural outgrowth of my circling. I registered my absolute approval of Grant and threw in the obligatory “C’est évident!” Let’s review what was happening here:
1. We had an expression, smiled. 2. We applied the expression to some PQA by talking about who was or was not smiling. 3. We expanded the discussion by talking about imaginary people smiling or not, and were soon talking about a cow who was not smiling because of some tight pants. 4. We made a connection between the mood of the cow and its clothing. PQA in a Wink page 76
So far, we had expanded the description of the cow, but no action had yet occurred. However, through circling over the next twenty minutes, we decided that the cow just had to bust out of those britches!
It happened when a small man with a small knife cut the pants off in exchange for 48 gallons of milk which became quickly available once the pants were removed, at which point the cow no longer had a serious expression on its face, but was smiling.
At this point, we had circled our way back to our original structure! The whole thing took about 45 minutes, and we never used an actor to play the role of the cow, probably because it would have been a little awkward.
Was this a story? There was action but no actor. It matters little what we call it. Interesting, in this case very amusing, comprehensible input had led us through the circling process from PQA into extended PQA and beyond.
That, of course, was an excellent moment to recycle what we had discussed. We did so in less than four minutes. The students showed me via hand comprehension checks that the comprehensible input of the recycled story was near 100%. I knew then that I had recycled well and gone slowly enough.
Our discussion had begun with establishing meaning for one single expression and then moved into a highly repetitive period of personalized questions and answers about who was or was not smiling. Then the PQA was extended into a little imaginary scene involving a smiling cow. After that the PQA was extended into a delightfully funny scene via circling.
I did not try to force the scene into my version of what it might be. Rather, the cute answers supplied by the students kept the extended PQA afloat for some time.
Many of the skills described in TPRS in a Year! were used, yet I felt no compulsion to use any of them or even think of them during class. They just happened. Even if they hadn’t come up, the class would still have been a lot of fun because we were doing interesting and personalized comprehensible input that reflected a high degree of involvement by the class in the extended PQA. In the process of extending the PQA, I made sure that:
1. I circled all the time, writing new words and their translations on the board, thus staying in-bounds. 2. I used constant eye contact to hold all students accountable for keeping up with the discussion, especially the barometer student. 3. I checked for comprehension frequently via hand checks. 4. I went slowly with massive repetitions. 5. I asked for information to extend the PQA instead of telling it.
Our goal was not to create a story, but to have fun creating bizarre images around a single structure in French. Our goal was not to cover materials of any sort. It was to have fun!
PQA in a Wink page 77 It is clear that extending PQA into imaginary realms requires a certain mental adjustment on the part of the instructor. For most teachers, it is strange to take a few words from the target language and construct little scenes or images with them, but this is exactly what extending PQA requires.
Once you do it a few times, it becomes easy. Everybody wants to know where such scenes are going. Teachers are encouraged to learn to give themselves over to really listening to the suggestions from the students, keeping ever in mind that, if given the chance, students can come up with some amazingly funny and creative things. But they won’t do so unless they think the instructor believes that they have funny and creative things to say.
Think of extending PQA as building a kind of theatrical improvisation with the target structures. This may involve one or more than one student. Often the best extended PQA has very little basis in reality and is often completely imaginary right off the bat.
Children do this all the time. They call it playing. Tapping into your ability to play will help you in TPRS. If you have forgotten how, try to remember. Just letting yourself go in the classroom and having fun with the kids is the engine that drives TPRS.
While establishing meaning, doing PQA, and extending it, remember to go slowly. Try to speak in slow chunks while you build images for the class. Just continue to slowly ask detailed questions. “Milk” as much information as possible from the students. Who cares if what you are saying is factual or not, as long as CI is occurring? Like learning to ride a bicycle, it only seems daunting at first.
You know you have gained mastery of this process when you actually sneak from PQA through extended PQA and on into a story, imperceptibly via CI and personalization. The students tend not to notice any transition points because they are focused on the CI and the personalization.
Some teachers pepper way too much English into class when establishing meaning, during PQA, into extended PQA, and, indeed, throughout the entire class. A teacher may be expert at every single skill possible in TRS, but the minute they bring English into the CI, they become ineffective.
In schools, people walk into our classrooms with notes from the office, sneaking a few words of English in with the note, or a few kids sneak a little side conversation in English in, or you can’t resist making a little side speech in English about not speaking English. Before you know it there is very little authentic acquisition occurring!
In many classes there is an unwritten message that, if there is any confusion during the discussion, the class can just use the “real language” of the class, the one that guarantees comprehension, English. This prevents learning.
By not allowing any English into the class, except the one or two word answers from the students, which keep the discussion moving forward, we send the message that the target language will be relied upon as the principle mode of communication in our classroom.
PQA in a Wink page 78 When extending PQA, be sure to hold the students 100% accountable for understanding what they are hearing, and for communicating to you their level of understanding. Do so by teaching to the eyes and frequent comprehension checks, both described later in this text, and with frequent use of “What does ___ mean?”
When the responsibility for learning is placed properly on the shoulders of the students, we experience no blockage of energy, and hence little fatigue. The kids accept their fifty percent of the deal. TPRS works for us.
Extended PQA: My Sandwich
Once I was eating a submarine sandwich when a class came in. I think it was tuna. For some reason, I decided to scrap my plan for the day and find out what kind of sandwiches my kids liked. I just started with the PQA.
I knew the kids knew “sandwich” and “eats” and “drinks” so I skipped the establishing meaning activities and started circling my first sentence, pausing and pointing and writing down and translating anything that confused them:
Class, was I eating a sub? (yes) Was I eating or drinking a sub? (eating) Was I drinking a sub? (no, c’est stupide) Was George Wallace eating a sub? (no) Correct, class, that is absurd. George Wallace wasn’t eating a sub. Mr. Slavic was eating a sub! (ohh!) Class, was Mr. Slavic eating an apple? (no) Class, what kind of sub was Mr. Slavic eating? (tuna) etc. etc.
This went very quickly and smoothly. It was working because:
1. the students had previous knowledge from other classes about the words I was using 2. I had a visual aid, the sub. 3. the conversation was real. It wasn’t about a guy in a book named Jean Pierre in a restaurant in Strasbourg. 4. I went slowly. 5. I repeated everything. 6. I wrote new information down, pausing and pointing, making sure they understood. 7. I did hand comprehension checks every ten minutes. 8. I checked in with my barometer student very often, guaranteeing her inclusion in the class. 9. I stayed in bounds, adding in only words like tuna and other words that were pertinent to the discussion. 10. I made constant eye contact with every student in the room.
Where was this PQA going? I didn’t know, and that was a good thing. I had many options. The nature of PQA is that there are always hundreds of options available to the PQA in a Wink page 79 instructor, all of them good because they all involve personalized CI. I could have circled my sub into a pink sub with polka dots, as small as a dollar bill. I could have asked any one of the students about what kind of subs they liked best. I chose to do the latter because it directly involved my students:
Meghan, do you like subs? (yes) What kind of subs do you like? (tuna) So, like me, then! (yes) Class, isn’t that incredible, both Meghan and I like tuna subs! (ohh!)
I extended that PQA into:
But, class, there is a problem! (oh no oh no oh me oh my!) Class, I have a sub, but Meghan doesn’t have a sub! (ohh!) Class, do I have a sub? (yes) Does Meghan have a sub? (no) Is that a problem? (yes) Is it a huge problem? (yes) Class, what is the problem? (try to get some output here) That’s right class, Meghan doesn’t have a sub. Meghan wants a sub but Meghan doesn’t have a sub.
Even if Meghan says she doesn’t want a sub, I tell her she does, or, if I sense that she doesn’t want to play “the game,” I go to someone who does. I don’t have to let my positive energy be dragged down. There are always plenty of kids who want to play in a TPRS classroom!
Notice that, with the introduction of the problem, the extended PQA is starting to take on the qualities of a story, but why confuse things? I was just extending the PQA, and the discussion was quickly expanding from me eating a sub at lunch into a big arena of language built around subs.
First, the questions and answers were general, but then, as I narrowed it down to Meghan not having a sub, it got more specific. I look at my options! I can now:
1. solve the problem by getting Meghan a sub, with Meghan in her seat. 2. fail to solve the problem by trying unsuccessfully to get her a sub, with her in her seat. 3. solve the problem by getting Meghan a sub, with Meghan going to different locations. 4. fail to solve the problem by trying unsuccessfully to get her a sub, with her going to different locations. 5. design the perfect sub for Meghan, giving a great lesson in food terms. 6. let the class design a sub for Meghan. 7. have Meghan design her own sub. 8. offer Meghan some of my sub, since she likes tuna too.
In other words, PQA is a gold mine of potentialities for teaching language, and the gold (CI) lies in the mine of personalized questions and answers (PQA).
PQA in a Wink page 80
Extended PQA: Talking about Pets
Another easy way to extend PQA is to talk about pets. Write the singular column of “to have” on a portable dry erase board or just have it handy somewhere. Then just ask the students about their pets as you did in the PQA above.
Using Portrait Physique, embellish the appearance of a few of their animals. Be on the lookout for something quirky that could be spun into something more quirky. Many little quirky scenes seem to spring into the collective mind of the class when you have a few quirky facts, and for some odd reason this is especially true about animals.
Point to imaginary places with your pointer. Connect an animal to a place. See what develops. Before you know it, your classroom can become the location for a bizarre scene out of the movie Dracula, only with your students’ pets in starring roles.
Here is one way that could happen:
In a community college class one evening, after doing some PQA around the students’ pets, I had a general image of each one. When I asked where these pets were, someone said in Vail, Colorado. I agreed.
So then, in our minds, these animals were together in Vail. I had no idea where it was going. I didn’t need to, because we were doing CI in the target language. I was speaking the language, asking them questions, listening to their cute answers, rejecting some, accepting others, writing down and pointing to new words, pausing, doing hand comprehension checks, all in a slow way and with great interest in the incredible stuff they were saying.
I asked them if there was a mountain. They said yes. I agreed. There are big mountains around Vail.
Class, is there a mountain? (yes) Class, is there a big mountain or a little mountain? (big) That’s right, class! You are so intelligent! The mountain is big. Class, is the mountain little? No, that is absurd! The mountain is not little! It is big. Class, what color is the mountain?
Circle that until you come up with a color.
Class, is there snow on the mountain?
Circle that until you decide. When you do that, you make the input easy to understand because it is so repetitious. Remember to shuffle the order of questioning.
PQA in a Wink page 81 Just remember that if you don’t circle, blank looks will appear on the kids’ faces. This is natural and to be expected, and you are the only one who can prevent such stares. The students need you to circle. You need you to circle. Circling is the water that puts out the fire of the stare. It alone turns nervousness (always connected to lack of comprehension) into laughter in TPRS.
Soon we circled our way to the idea that everybody wanted to get their pets up onto the mountain, because there was a big ugly cat up there who was taking over the area and needed to be neutered! Only one person had an animal that was too timid to go. We made a big deal out of that pet’s timidity, in a lighthearted way.
We had time to focus on the timid pet. We had over two hours. We could focus on anything we wanted to with that kind of time. I find it amusing when people ask how to fill those 83 minute high school block classes. Hello! Kick back with some PQA and enjoy your students!
Somehow, when there is a lot of time, classes go better. Perhaps it is the feeling of not being hurried, or of allowing pauses, and silence, into the discussion, as is common in other cultures that are in less of a hurry than our own.
Long, silent pauses in PQA and stories are really nice. We learn to cultivate what the French call the “Art of Conversation.” Silent periods in the discussion offer time to reflect, time to appreciate the other people in the room, and time to think about what is being said. It is a new language to them! In the end, it is our choice how we want to live our professional lives, in a frenzy or in pleasant conversation using the languages we love.
Quickly, with that monster cat up the hill, my students’ pets became like the crowd of villagers in Dracula. As I listened to the cute answers they came up with in response to my circled questions, some amazing things happened.
Adrian's little white dog was the animal that was too timid and stayed behind, but a number of animals went, including a little orange-red pet hamster belonging to Lorraine and a big Irish Setter belonging to Heather. Things got interesting very fast:
Class, are the animals running fast or slowly into the mountains? (fast) Class, are they running very fast or fast? (very fast) Class, how is the hamster running? (special shoes) Special shoes or normal shoes? (special shoes) Class, what kind of special shoes? (alligator shoes) Class, do the animals have pitchforks? (yes) Pitchforks with two or three prongs? (3.75) Class, did the hamster have a pitchfork? (yes) How? (pitchfork tied to back of hamster) Is that dangerous for a hamster? (yes) Lorraine, how do you feel about your hamster in danger like this? (she can handle it)
This is only a small portion of the circled questions, but it gives an idea of the flow of the conversation. I never knew the word for “pitchfork” in French. I still don’t, because I don’t care what it is, because I was fortunate never to have had to use one when I lived in PQA in a Wink page 82 France. I just said the word “pitchfork” (and, I admit it, “prongs” too) in English when it came up. I would rather my students hear and understand the structure of the French language than be able to provide me with the French word for “pitchfork” on a test.
I noticed again that these college students, too, smiled a lot when talking about their pets. Of course they smiled! Their pets were in a movie!
In fact, the reason that the circling lasted so long on this was because THEIR PETS were going up the mountain. Some animals going up a mountain is not so interesting, but their animals going up a mountain is really interesting!
The vivid and detailed description of each animal made the extended PQA more interesting. A few received one bizarre physical characteristic, including the hamster, who suddenly began speaking Czech during the ascent. We weren’t just telling a story, we were seeing a movie, each animal with its particular color, size, etc.
We ended up spending so much time on the ascent up the mountain that we ran out of time for any confrontation with the cat. We just ended the story by fast forwarding it as per skill 31 in TPRS in a Year!
Extending PQA is simple! Success turns on the very simple idea that people like to hear about themselves, or things about them and their lives. All the CI in the world, expertly done, is not enough. Susan Gross has been saying this all along. It’s time we listen.
With stories, you have a script and locations, and thus some idea of where the story is going. You have actors. But when you just have information gleaned from talking to the kids, all you are trying to do is extend PQA a little and suspend the students’ disbelief into as bizarre and amusing a situation as you can.
In another class in one of my middle school classes, Kelsey had a pet fish, Buddy, and Tyler had a dog, Dipper. After five minutes of circling, using Portrait Physique, Buddy had become the owner of 64 teeth. He was all mouth.
Was Kelsey offended? No, because her fish was about to become a star! Kelsey is one of those students who have what I call the “TPRS Decoder Switch”. These are the kids who feel quite comfortable in the realm of the imaginary, and who often are the ones pushing me further into it!
Dipper slept a lot, all day in fact, occasionally smelling. He only woke up to eat and use the backyard. Was Tyler offended? No, her dog was going to be part of French class that day!
Now, upon completion of Step 1, I had a bit more information, but not a lot. I knew that Buddy had a big rack of teeth and that Dipper slept a lot. Still, to extend this information, I needed some cute answers from the students.
Other students were trying to get their pets in, but in this case Buddy and Dipper seemed to be an interesting combination and I just stayed with it. Knowing my tendency to stay too long in PQA and get into too many details, I decided to start extending things right away. PQA in a Wink page 83
I needed a place for Buddy to be, and I wanted it to be local and therefore relevant. I always try to remember that local places are always more interesting to the kids. I brought Buddy into the classroom. I was content for the scene to occur there, but, if it became some other place that had local interest to the kids, I would go with that, too.
I asked where Dipper was and Tyler didn’t know if I meant at home or where, so I said:
“No, Tyler, Dipper is over there by the door.”
Circling took the form of:
Is she by the door or by the computer, Tyler? By the computer? No, Tyler, Dipper is not by the computer, she is by the door. Tyler, is Dipper by the door? That’s right, Tyler, your dog is over there by the door.
The fish just stayed across the room with Kelsey.
Now, I had two characters, minimally described, a boring place, the classroom, and still no idea of where this was going.
Relying on and trusting in the power of circling, Dipper, who was by the door sleeping, got attacked by the Poisson aux 60 Dents/the Fish with Sixty Teeth. Knowing that her fish had no legs, Kelsey wanted to push Buddy’s toilet (go figure, these are teenagers) over to the door by Dipper, and I let her. We continued to circle possibilities around Buddy’s toilet.
Buddy had to ask Kelsey to flush him over to the door (somehow flushing his toilet made it move). The reader may wonder, as the author did during the story, how Buddy kept from going down the toilet each time Kelsey flushed.
The answer is simple. Everything is possible in French class! The transport scene over to where Dipper lay sleeping was a very short but very funny dialogue in French, with one of my superstars providing the voice of Buddy:
Buddy: Kelsey, flush, please! Kelsey: Why? Buddy: I need to get over to the dog! Kelsey: O.K.
Having arrived, Buddy at once leaped out of the toilet and attacked. It was as if some invisible force drew the owners of both creatures immediately into opposition with one another. Why can’t they just play cards or something?
The weird scenario that followed was, however, excellent extended PQA. It only succeeded because of my insistence on using skill 19 of TPRS in a Year! – synchronizing words with actions – which kept the brakes on what would have otherwise become a runaway discussion.
PQA in a Wink page 84 It had taken us half a class period (of 52 minutes) to circle two creatures into existence with Portrait Physique, and then the rest of the class period to extend that PQA into what in this case had become a story with actors. As usual, we had to use skill 31 to end the action without getting to a “real” ending to what, in this case, had become a story.
In the end, did Buddy get flushed for real? Did Dipper live up to his name? Or did something else happen? Tune in next week! Some young adult will probably come up to me in ten years and ask me if I remember Buddy and Dipper. Of course, I will lie and say I remember.
Extended PQA and the Reticent Student
Here is an example of how extended PQA can spin out of PQA with the end result of drawing a reticent student, Darren, into the classroom process.
Darren is a non-participant in most of his classes. He has attempted to create a wall around himself in French class as well. Counselors have sent information explaining to all of Darren’s teachers that, for various confidential reasons, Darren may not do much in his classes, doing just enough to pass, and to not take it personally. It is normal that Darren not participate, they told me. Right!
In the identity building phase, however, I see that Darren plays football. When the circling comes around to Darren, I have a red and white football from Wal-Mart ready for Darren. What will happen?
Two other students, also both non-participant boys, have indicated on their sheets that they also play football. I see the possibilities and establish these boys’ names and identities in my classroom as football players. I have their interest. I then extend the PQA from that information.
The preliminary circling establishes that Darren, Brady and Shawn have become Darrent Williams of the Denver Broncos, Tom Brady of the New England Patriots, and Shawn Alexander of the Seattle Seahawks.
Keeping things as authentic as possible, I also establish that, in real life, Darren is a quarterback, Brady in this case is a wide receiver, and Shawn is a running back. I know that more information about the boys’ interests in football can be circled in at any time.
Next, I ask the boys what foods they like (not what they like to eat, as stated earlier):
Darren, do you like Chief Burgers? (no) Class there is a problem! (oh no, oh no). Class, Darren doesn’t like Chief Burgers! (oh no, oh no) Darren, do you like Bronco Burgers? (yes) Class, does Darren like Chief Burgers or Bronco Burgers? (Bronco Burgers)
They understand everything because I go slowly, circling, pointing and pausing, and because the discussion is about them. The circling leads away from food to:
Darren, do you like the Broncos? (yes) Darren, do you like John Cutler? (yes) Darren, who is your favorite Bronco? (Darrent Williams) Oh, class, Darren’s favorite Bronco is PQA in a Wink page 85 Darrent Williams! (ohh!) Class, is Darren’s favorite Bronco John Cutler or Darrent Williams? (Darrent Williams) That’s right, class, Darren’s favorite Bronco is Darrent Williams.
If the instructor is not a football fan, anything can be circled. Nor does the circling have to be about food. You can drive the discussion into any area you need to teach, addressing district vocabulary requirements if need be. Just keep the input flowing as you further get to know your three football players. The point is that you are getting personalized comprehensible input about your students, and the kids are enjoying talking about themselves.
Circling for food preferences tells us that Darren likes Bronco Burgers, Brady likes ham pizza, and Shawn likes red green beans. Next, you ask all three student athletes about their pets.
Shawn, do you have a pet? (no) Shawn, imagine that you have a pet! (o.k.) Do you have a cat or a dog? (cat) Do you have a cat with just want to enjoy myself and teach these kids Spanish! legs, Shawn, or with six legs? (four legs) No, Shawn, six legs. Class, Shawn has a cat with six legs! (ohh!)
Next, go to Darren, who ends up with a big dog, and then to Brady, who has a very thin blue pig. When all three boys have been asked what they like and what pets they have or imagine having, extend it further, pushing on the envelope of believability.
Just create some kind of scenario to activate the information just gathered. In this case, the “clay” with which the instructor can “sculpt” the scene reflects the boys’ interest in football, their choice of burgers, and their pets.
What verbs would be necessary to create a scene involving football? Why not start with “throws” and “catches”? I wasn’t sure if they knew those words, so I wrote them on the board to be sure, we translated and signed them, first with open, then closed eyes.
After the review, I reminded the class about who is the best at these things:
Class, Darren throws footballs! (ohh!) But, class, the teacher throws footballs too! (ohh!) Class, does the teacher throw footballs? (yes) Does the teacher throw footballs or basketballs? (footballs) Does the teacher throw basketballs? (no) That is correct, class, the teacher doesn’t throw basketballs, the teacher throws footballs. Class, there is a problem! (oh no, oh no) Class, the teacher throws footballs, but Darren throws footballs better! (ohh) Class, does Darren throw footballs better than the teacher? (yes) Does Darren throw footballs better than John Cutler? (yes) Class, who throws footballs better than John Cutler? (Darren) Class, is Darren the best quarterback in the world? etc. etc.
Note again that in authentic personalization, the student often does what they actually do in real life, and are not asked to imitate an animal or some creature they are not. Connecting and creating authentic interplay between these three boys and their classmates is much more interesting and important than asking them to pretend to be cats being chased by some other animal.
PQA in a Wink page 86 Now we can extend the PQA. Darren Williams is asked to be a quarterback. Give the ball to Darren and tell him to throw it to Shawn.
Class, Darren throws the ball to Shawn! ...circle circle... (end up with) That’s right, class, Darren throws the ball to Shawn! Class, does Shawn catch the ball? ...circle circle... (end up with) That’s right, class, Shawn catches the ball! (ohh!)
Next, the instructor takes another ball, leaving Shawn to keep his prize until the end of the period, and gives another football to Darren:
Class, now Darren throws the ball to Brady! ...circle circle... Class, does Darren throw the ball to Brady or to Sarah? (circle and end up with the statement...) That’s right, class! Darren throws the ball to Brady!
Applying skill 19 (synchronizing words with actions) from TPRS in a Year! is most important in this particular activity because it involves actually throwing a ball around the classroom. Skill 19 reminds the instructor to let actions occur physically only as they are described verbally. Following this rule is a big factor in maintaining discipline in the classroom.
At this point the three boys have been recognized by the group for something that they do that is important to them. They have been given special names which have served to lighten up everything. They have been able to show off a bit for the class.
As a result, to put it a bit bluntly, the boys now owe the teacher some attention. Now, they can choose to drop any agenda that they may have come into class with and begin to participate as genuine people in the classroom process.
Darren has been having a great time, and is turning out to be not at all the stone faced learner that he was made out to be. Besides academic gains, he is making gains in social skills as well, because he has been sent the strong message that he is important to the teacher and to the class and that he is valued by his classmates for something he does.
If enough teachers personalize their classrooms in this way, TPRS might be able to shed its misunderstood image as being about kids pretending to be animals in the classroom. We only get real academic gains when we authentically personalize our stories.
Students who interact with each other in this way in class tend to interact more outside of class. They become more connected to the school and to life. One teacher expressed her satisfaction with having personalized her classroom as per the above activities at the beginning of the year in this way:
“I always do hand checks and they are always high, like the average is 9.5! That's how slow I go. I am sheltering vocabulary but not sheltering how truly great these kids are at what they do!
“I really can see now how the class is about the kids first and the language second and that is why I have stayed with the sports thing from the first day of class. We have had nine days of class now and I have only talked at this point to about only 30% of the kids in the class, so this will probably last well into October. PQA in a Wink page 87
“Who cares? I am getting repetitive and meaningful input. My kids are getting identities that make them think, ‘If my teacher thinks so much of me, then I want to be here!”
Extending PQA with a Story Script
Here’s a twist! A story script can be a great “starter” for extending PQA! Just keep in mind that your purpose is not to get a full blown story going, you are just using a story script as a starting point for extending PQA into something a little more detailed. Let’s see how that can work.
On one occasion, after some PQA about pets, we had dogs and cats, birds, another hamster, and one girl even had talked about her pet llama, Tina. My job at that point was to see how I could mold that information.
There is only one way to extend PQA, really, or for that matter to drive any input forward in TPRS, and that is to just start circling. In this case, however, I decided to circle using as a starting point a story from Carol Gaab’s Cuenteme/Raconte-moi series:
There is a family. The family lives in Kansas. The family is going in a car. Suddenly, there is a terrible tornado. Darn! The wind blows very strongly. The car goes up in the air and floats for three days over Oklahoma. A bird enters the car through an open window. The baby of the family cries and the bird cries too.
First, I needed a family and a car, so I put five chairs in the middle of the room, placing drawings of five of my student’s pets in the imaginary car. The drawings are folded in half so as to be visible to everyone. It took a while to do this, as there was real competition between the students to get their pets into the “car”.
This placing of drawings on chairs, by the way, is an excellent way to extend PQA. Strategically placing a student's drawing somewhere in the room creates instant interest.
For example, if the instructor casually and with an air of mystery puts a drawing of a pet cat on a shelf next to a bobble head doll, the student who drew the picture will immediately begin looking for ways to get that cat into the story. In order to do that, however, he or she will have to listen to and process every circled question you present. Instant class discipline, from that student at least!
We ended up with mom, dad, and junior being dogs, with two other adopted kids, one Dooey the cow, and, of course, Tina the llama in the back of the vehicle. I just put each drawing on a chair. The students whose pets were now in the car were proud and excited. Everyone was excited. I wasn’t as excited as they were, but I was happy that there was so much energy in the room.
Next, I started circling sentence by sentence. The car went to a Sonic drive-in nearby, where the dogs had water, the cow milk, and the llama forty-six kilos of onion rings, and became “Fat Lard Tina.” This is a name I normally wouldn’t have allowed into my classroom, but, since it was being applied to an animal in a wildly popular film to the kids, Napolean Dynamite, it got into the discussion. PQA in a Wink page 88
For those thinking that this sounds a lot like a story, it wasn’t. There were no actors, just pieces of papers on chairs. There was no movement. There weren’t locations. We never made it past the second of the eight sentences in Carol’s story. These were beginning students, and we weren’t focused on anything but communicating with each other.
The story about the family in Kansas was only necessary to get things going, and we used only a few sentences of it. Without it, however, we would have had no starting point for our discussion.
The story, combined with my students’ interest in seeing their pets doing something weird in French class, was what was needed to get some SLOW comprehensible input going with these raw beginners. I succeeded with these beginners because I focused on going slow and talking about things interesting to them, not on trying to “tell a story”.
I didn’t try to put “onion rings” into French, because it sounded inelegant to me and I didn’t care if they knew the word or not. I don’t think the French even have them. So I said it in English. What was important to me was the personalized comprehensible input.
What seems at first impossible – talking to beginning students in the target language – turns out to be simple. All that is needed is to put aside all ideas of “telling a story” and instead just start talking to the kids about their pets, and then, once some facts are gathered (PQA), using a story script like Carol’s as a jumping off point for extending the PQA.
Whether I use Carol Gaab’s materials, Blaine’s, or Amy Catania’s Cuentos Fantasticos/Contes Fantastiques doesn’t really matter. What matters is that I have an interesting story line from which to bounce into an imagined set of events. Carol’s script functioned as a safe reference point for the extended PQA, which rested on the solid foundation of the imaginary car, where the personalized comprehensible input took place.
Extending PQA by Trusting in the Moment
By creating images in the minds of the students via signing and gesturing, the TPRS teacher bypasses the analytical (left) hemisphere of the brain. This allows the student’s mind to go directly to the experience of language instead of the analysis of language.
Merely translating a word and gesturing it, though effective, is not sufficient to acquire a language. When the teacher writes the expression on the board with its translation, for example:
dévisage – stares at the students are engaged in a left hemisphere activity.
This is a great start to establishing meaning, and if the teacher were then to create a little scene with that structure, the learner’s right hemisphere would become involved:
Class, Tyler is staring at Michael! (she does so) Class, is PQA in a Wink page 89 Tyler staring at Michael or is Michael staring at Tyler?
Circle, adding in details:
Class, Tyler is staring at Michael for a long time! Class, Tyler is staring at Michael and smiling!
Now, in many instances this very simple expansion on a new word could be stopped here if the instructor feels that the word has been circled enough and its meaning clearly understood.
However, if there is energy in the image, see where it goes!
Class, Michael stares out the window!
When you circle during extended PQA, you accept and reject answers just like you do in stories. You listen enough to get a fact or a detail and then you move on. The class hangs on your decision making. You are in charge of the class.
Obviously, you reject a lot more suggestions than you accept, but, when you finally accept one, it is fun to act as if that was the one you had in mind the entire time! Your intention in the above mini-dialogue was to get repetitions of the term “stares”. When you began class that day, however, you did not plan on teaching any specific sentences like “Michael stares out the window”.
So, when learning various ways to extend PQA, you don't extend it to where you want it to go, you just move it along to where it goes. You can still be in charge and listen to the student’s answers.
Extending PQA is a just a dance, a game, where the CI moves forward because you listen to each other – they to your questions, you to their answers. Interesting CI cannot help but emerge from such reciprocal trust, from this wonderful process of making collaborative decision with others in what is, for your students, a new and exciting language!
Extending PQA, with its high degree of imaginative work and no story line to speak of, is an activity of the heart, of trust. You trust the CI to unfold, but you do not require that it unfold.
Soren Kierkegaard put it this way:
“If I were to wish for anything, I should not wish for wealth and power, but for the sense of the potential, for the eye which, ever young and ardent, sees the possible.”
This is the eye that we must employ when we do PQA.
If there is a girl named Lexie who rides horses, start circling that sentence – Lexie rides horses – into extended PQA, trusting that it will go somewhere. Just start the circling:
Class, there is girl.… Class, her name is Lexie… PQA in a Wink page 90
Remember always to circle only when there is the need to circle. There is no need to circle information that they already know, as per the above two sentences…
Class, Lexie rides horses! (Ohh!)
Here you can circle: does she ride fast or slowly, often or rarely, etc.….
Class, Lexie is riding!...(circle circle, where are they riding, etc.)… Class, Lexie is riding (point triumphantly with the baton) in the forest!….. (Ohh!...circle circle)
If you “stall out” with questions, which happens, just look to your circling chart in the back of the room. Your eyes may land on the word “when.” Use it!
Class, when is Lexie riding through the forest?
In a few minutes you have gone from a boring sentence (Lexie rides horses) to a potentially interesting scene in which Lexie is riding fast through the forest at midnight.
Where will it go from here? You win either way. If it fades you have gotten some decent CI in, and if it continues to go forward you get to extend the PQA further, sculpting away waste rock (rejected questions) and letting the image in the rock (accepted questions) drive the story forward.
The extended PQA continues to develop in a funny way at the end of your pointer. You are teacher/maestro/magician. Lots of imagined possibilities are set afloat for the consideration of the class at the end of your pointer. Lots of funny comments arise. Best of all, there is lots of laughter!
Circling eventually takes Lexie, after an eleven hour ride, to a local restaurant – Red Robin – where she has lunch with a boy named Jeff. A classmate friend of Lexie volunteered the name Jeff as Lexie’s boyfriends’ name. Lexie falls in love – it’s obvious!
Interestingly, Lexie never left her seat (the CI occurred at the end of the pointer), and there never was a problem that needed to be solved, so this wouldn’t be called a story. It matters little what we call it, as long as interesting and personalized comprehensible input occurs.
Once the discussion loses energy, you congratulate Lexie on her wonderful adventure and then you simply look around the room for another fact, and the process of creating personalized comprehensible input by using circling begins again. At this point you can also do retells, assess, get some writing in the form of a dictée or a ten minute free write, or any one of a number of things.
As the PQA develops more and more into extended PQA, the kids make their suggestions one student at a time, sitting up with clear eyes and providing cute answers. The instructor has no preconceived line of thinking, just an open mind. The kids, with their straight backs, squared shoulders, clear eyes, and growing confidence in “playing the TPRS game,” make it all happen. I succeed in extending PQA because I know that the next moment in the discussion will follow naturally from the one before it. PQA in a Wink page 91
Assume that you have done some PQA with some students and you have discovered the following things about three of them:
1. Landen snowboards. 2. Luca has a dog named Washington. 3. Evan is an artist. 4. Jett likes mushroom pizza.
You always extend PQA in the same way:
Class, Landen snowboards!
Keep talking about Landen with the class. Keep a smile on your face. Find out where he snowboards. Love their answers. Keep trying to get things increasingly bizarre, but not from your mind, from their cute answers. Give up trying to control everything.
Don’t circle it into the ground, but don’t go too light on it either. The thought in the back of your mind is, “I need some more cute answers to see if this can get more bizarre.”
Pretty soon, Landen Igidibigida, the Colorado Cowboy, is snowboarding in Chambéry, France on a blue snowboard.
What have you done so far? You gave Landen a giggly name and a cool place to snowboard. You have created a feeling of lightheartedness in the room, never mind that you have been establishing a lot of interesting comprehensible input via circling!
You can keep this new information in your mind and build on it later if you want, or not. You can use it in some way or not. Your strength lies in the sheer quantity of information available to you from the PQA, and you can always process more information.
You choose to leave Landen snowboarding and talk about Luca and his dog Washington:
Class, Luca has a dog named Washington!
Notice how simple it is to initiate PQA. You just make a statement to the class! You have two names here, and you know that funny names are one of the cornerstones of PQA. So Luca becomes Luca Palooka and Washington becomes George Washington. The class likes the names because they made them up, and so you move on.
Using Portrait Physique, you circle George Washington into a short red dog with a really skinny body and a tiny square face who is standing with Landen at the top of a mountain in the Alps. Keep circling. Keep building interest by moving things increasingly in the direction of the bizarre. If the circling stalls, move on to Evan:
Class, Evan is an artist!
Again, PQA begins with a simple statement about someone in the room. Circle it around with the students and see what you come up with together. By focusing on this particular PQA in a Wink page 92 student, you are now responding to what he has told you. Responding to what students tell you is a key part of making PQA work in your classroom.
The discussion with Evan may fade. You have no way of knowing. Don’t panic. You just keep circling. If the energy fades, you have other people, or your backup story.
Assuming that the discussion about Evan’s interest in art is fading, you can always decide to go back and see about Landen and the dog on the mountain. Ask Landen to stand up and get on his snowboard.
You now have an actor up and a few details. You need a problem. Ask the class for one. Resist the temptation to tell the class something. Wait it out. Repeat the question. Someone says it’s raining. That works. Recycle the information. Keep circling. Act upset that it’s raining in the Alps.
Where does Landen go to solve the problem? Keep circling. Get the problem solved in another location. Teach expressions of weather. Make the students responsible for Landen finding a good place to snowboard. Landen ends up winning the Xterra championships in Steamboat Springs in his home state out of three kids entered. Anything is possible in French class!
All of those details emerged from one simple bit of information about Landen: he snowboards. The details, the students chosen, all emerged from PQA. Since the details were interesting and personalized, they did their job in the creation of interesting comprehensible input.
If Landen is the kind of student who may try to steal the scene, which happens often, then act before it is too late! You don’t have to ask him to stand up. Just keep him in his seat and discuss his adventure with him seated. Or go to other actors and build little scenes from the PQA you learn about them. Eventually one will turn into a story and you won’t even realize it till the class is over, and the kids, on their way out of the room, are laughing about how fun it was.
There is no correct way to extend PQA. In a sense, the core message of this book is to let the PQA go where it will by getting out of the way and letting the kids drive things forward in response to your circled and personalized questions.
Learn to feel comfortable in suspending disbelief. By embellishing actors via circling to something greater than they are, we generate interest. We do not change the students into something they are not, like giraffes. Giraffes do not captivate interest unless they are personalized. If, however, your football player David has to line up against a twenty foot tall giraffe in a football game, interest is guaranteed.
The only way to be effective in the TPRS classroom is to trust that in each moment of comprehensible input lies the seed for the action of the next moment. We need to believe that things will go forward just fine if we let them. We need to give up our quite understandable need for control in the classroom and just listen to what the kids say. For more about this idea of staying in the moment and trusting things to go forward in a natural way see skill 22 in TPRS in a Year!
PQA in a Wink page 93 Extending PQA into a Story
You never know when simple PQA will extend all the way into a story! Let’s look at how that can happen with a student named Drew. On his identity sheet Drew has provided two images, one of a fishing pole and one of a guitar.
I establish meaning by writing down the expression for “to fish” and translating it. The class signs the action. Then, going slowly, I begin the circling:
Class, Drew fishes! Class does Drew fish or play volleyball? That’s right class, Drew fishes. Class, does Drew play volleyball? No, class, that’s ridiculous, Drew doesn’t play volleyball, Drew fishes. Class, does Drew play soccer? No, class, that is also absurd. Drew doesn’t play soccer. He fishes. Class, who fishes? That’s right class, Drew fishes.
Then,
Class, Drew plays the guitar!
I could just sign this image, but I choose to write it down with the English translation so the students can see it, pointing and pausing:
Class, does Drew play the guitar? That’s right class, Drew plays the guitar. Class, does Drew play the guitar or does Drew fish?
The class says he plays the guitar and is of course incorrect, since he does both. They say that he plays the guitar because of a tendency to learn and predict the circling pattern of the instructor. It was therefore necessary to break them of this by jumping around in the circling as early as possible:
No, class! Drew plays the guitar and Drew fishes.
I write “and” on the board with its translation because “and” and “is” are identical sounds in French and the difference between them must be stressed. It’s all about repetition. I use my voice to highlight this new word:
Class, does Drew play the guitar and fish? That’s right! Drew plays the guitar and fishes! Class, does Drew play the guitar and fish or does he play the guitar and play soccer?
Never assuming anything, I point to “he” on a verb chart:
That’s right, class, he plays the guitar and he fishes. Does he play the guitar and play soccer? No, class, that is absurd. He doesn’t play soccer! Drew plays the guitar and fishes!
I stop the circling when it naturally arrives at a point of group understanding and before the students send an exasperated message saying “We get it!” Circling a structure too long can really drag down the class. Although they may not show it, most students are curious about where the information is going. PQA in a Wink page 94
Now I want to find out more about Drew. I need personalized information to draw upon later. Again, any new information I gather need not necessarily be based in fact, as long as it is meaningful and interesting.
The new information should be molded and pulled and pushed via the circling into an increasingly bizarre form. The more bizarre it becomes, the more meaningful and interesting it becomes.
So how to take the fairly mundane information provided by Drew and turn it into something interesting and bizarre? Just keep circling!
Drew, what kind of fish do you like? (big fish) Drew, do you like big ugly fish or big handsome fish?
I write down and translate the words for kind, ugly, and handsome. But that goes nowhere, so I just scoot the questioning along to:
Drew, do you have a pet fish? (no) Do you have a pet? (no)
Nothing. So I tell Drew he has a pet. (ohh!)
Drew, what kind of pet do you have? (cat) Is the cat big or small? (small) Is the cat’s head big or small? (big) As big as a house? (no) etc. etc.
In that last sentence I get some good repetitions on comparisons by using skill 38 from TPRS in a Year! In order to do that I have to write down and explain par rapport à/in relationship to. If anything is new, I write it and translate it. When the comparisons of the big cat head to other things fades, I move on to:
Drew, I fish also! (ohh) But, class, there is problem! (oh no oh no) I never catch any fish! (ohh) Drew, you catch fish, don’t you? (yes) Yes, you catch fish because you are a good fisherman, better than me, the best, etc.
I don’t have to be funny and the PQA doesn’t have to be great. CI is occurring and I am learning to relax amidst the PQA, even if I am not the funniest and most entertaining teacher in the world.
Class, Drew fishes! (ohh!) Class, where does Drew fish? (Drew says Montana).
Now, Montana is a perfectly good place to fish. Very good, in fact. But it lacks two very important ingredients. It is not local (read personalized), and it is not bizarre. So I try to twist the information Drew has provided:
Drew you are very funny! What a great joke! Ha ha! You know you don’t fish in Montana! How absurd! Drew, where do you really fish? Class, where does Drew really fish?
A few minutes of circling around the room leads to information that is both local and bizarre: PQA in a Wink page 95
Class, that is correct! You are so intelligent! Drew fishes in the toilet in the restroom outside of our classroom!
I decide to apply Anne Lambert’s skill (49 in TPRS in a Year!) of making a T-shirt out of “special” information like this. Soon Drew is wearing a special T-shirt that says, “I fish in toilets.”
Aware that languages don’t just occur in the third person, I remember to engage Drew in dialogue:
So, Drew, you fish in the toilet in the restroom in the hallway?
If Drew tries to say he doesn’t fish in the toilet, I override him so as not to lose any more time to this fairly unimportant, though humorous, bit of information. This is exactly where many teachers (I am at the front of the line on this) make the critical error of getting bogged down in details instead of moving events forward.
Knowing I am moving into a first and second person dialogue, I quickly write on the board those forms of the verb “to fish”. I start speaking and slowly pointing and pausing to the “you” and “I” forms of that verb. Drew says in French:
Yes, I fish in the toilet.
I say:
Drew, do you fish in a lake or in the toilet?
Drew:
I fish in the toilet.
This is not so very hard for Drew. Everything he is saying is being pointed to as he says it.
Drew, do you fish in the toilet or in a car?
I fish in the toilet.
Do you fish in a car?
I write down the negative form so he can say it. I write:
I don’t fish in a car.
Drew hangs in there as the discussion continues between (his) first person forms and (my) second person forms.
We should note that dialogues, though often short lived, are a powerful tool in TPRS, perhaps the most powerful tool, in generating output of plural forms of verbs as well.
PQA in a Wink page 96 For example, when we dialogue with multiple actors we get practice in first and second person plural forms – the nous and vous forms in French. Also, during retells of stories involving multiple actors, we get excellent practice in third person plural forms. I do not know of more efficient ways to generate output of plural forms than dialogues and retells involving multiple actors. But I do wait a few months at least in first year classes before using more than one actor.
With the dialogue with Drew over, I take the circling back into the third person:
Class, does Drew fish in a toilet or in a bathtub? That’s right, Drew fishes in a toilet. Class, does Drew fish in a bathtub? No he doesn’t fish in a bathtub. He fishes in a toilet. Class, does Drew fish in a sink? No, that is correct. He doesn’t fish in a sink. He fishes in a toilet. Class, who fishes in a toilet? Drew. Class, does Drew fish and play the guitar in a toilet? No, class, that is absurd. Drew does not play the guitar in the toilet! etc.
There is implied action in all this circling. The instructor is fishing for details. If Drew does not play guitar in the toilet, then where does he play guitar? This exploration may go nowhere, but it may lead into a full story. Circling always leads to a dead end or to something bigger. The ground is being tilled.
During this time, there are long wait times, smiles, lots of pointing and pausing as words are explained, and many cute suggestions by the class. I “milk” as much information as possible from the students while they remained seated. I just say things about Drew, factual or not. I am learning to relax in the process of PQA. I reject some ideas:
No, class! Drew does not play guitar in the bathtub – that is absurd! etc.
Once an answer is accepted, another decision about where to take the discussion is made. One option, always available, is to simply circle information about another student. But if things are going well with Drew, why not at this point go ahead and try to build a story? The criteria for a story have been met – meaning of the structures connected to Drew has been established, and I have more information now.
I make the decision to go into a story because I think that the idea of a student fishing in a toilet is just bizarre enough to become the basis for a story. Knowing that (step one) PQA and extended PQA is typically done in the present tense, and that (step two) stories are done typically in the past tense, I now make the natural transition into the past tense:
Class, Drew went fishing in a toilet! (ohh!)
Knowing also that for a story to happen an actor has to stand up, I steer Drew to the front of the classroom, asking:
Class, did Drew go fishing? Yes, class, Drew went fishing! Class, why did Drew go fishing? Class, Drew went fishing because he wanted to catch some fish!
Now we have set up a story. The general pattern any story follows is:
1. Class, there was a boy/girl/character, etc. 2. Class, there was a problem involving that character! PQA in a Wink page 97 3. [actor] wanted [something] (circle that and insist on big reaction) 4. so [actor] went to [location one] (circle that) 5. by [car, plane, train, automatic toilet, etc.] (all of that via circling) 6. and [actor] tried to get [something] (circle that) 7. and [actor] failed to get [something] (circle that) 8. so [actor] went to [location two] (circle that) 9. by [car, plane, train, automatic toilet, etc.] (all of that via circling) 10. and [actor] got [what they wanted] (circle that) – end of story.
This, of course, is not the way stories are always done (there is no such thing!), but it is another formula to experiment with. Think of the above steps as a frame or scaffolding for you until you get the feel of stories.
In this case, Drew’s first location is his seat. Then I simply take him somewhere where he fails to get what he wants, in this case a fish.
Class, where did Drew go to catch a fish?
After some circling, I can tell that the class really wants Drew to go to the erstwhile toilet in the hallway. That’s fine with me! It’s bizarre, interesting, and meaningful, and since it is right around the corner from the classroom, it carries personal meaning to the kids. So I ask:
Class, how did Drew go to the toilet in the hallway?
I pick up my handy list of transportation words. I ask:
Class, did Drew go to the toilet by car? (circle circle)
When it is all circled out, the class decides that Drew goes to the toilet by motorized spoon. An option here is whether to use a “never fails” laugh getter to have three big students lie on the floor with Drew standing on them and the motorized spoon scrunches SLOWLY across the floor to the toilet. More information on modes of travel is found in the description of skill 43 in TPRS in a Year!
You may decide to save the whacky transportation scene for another story, or use it right away, but there is always a moment when the actor must travel somewhere. These different traveling scenarios can upstage any story, so keep them short and intense.
I continue with the story:
Class, did Drew catch (remember to circle any new words) a fish in the toilet? Yes, class, Drew caught a fish in the toilet! (ohh!) Class, what kind of fish did Drew catch?
This is prime circling for the Portrait Physique, so I go for it, perhaps ending up with a small talking fish named Chad with a small head on a small body.
Anything can happen while circling, and perhaps in this case Drew finds out from Chad that all the fish in the school’s plumbing system are like just like Chad:
PQA in a Wink page 98 Class, all the fish in the hallway toilet looked just like Chad! (ohh!) Class, was that a problem? etc. Class, what did Chad tell Drew? (circle) That’s right, class, Chad told Drew to go somewhere else!
This is a good chance to get a new actor up, and I do so, presenting the dialogue between the new actor and Drew. Chad tells Drew where to go.
Once that dialogue is complete, Drew heads off to the third location. Of course, if you run out of time, as is often the case in TPRS stories, you can end it in location two or anywhere in between! But since I have time I ask the class:
Class, where did Chad tell Drew to go? (circle, circle)
I refer to my location posters – post office, train station, hospital, etc. – on the wall of my classroom:
Class, did Drew go to the post office in (our town)? (no!) Yes, class, that is absurd!
I can tell from their mood that the class wants to get to something bizarre.
Well, where did Drew go? Correct, class, he went to the toilet in the train station in (our town). It is obvious!
Don’t forget that all location transitions in stories are good times to play the whacky transportation game and to recycle information along the way.
Since I know that I personally have a tendency to get bogged down in these details, however, and since the class period is almost over, I get Drew to the train station by just walking him over there myself.
Here a student might ask why Drew went to a train station to go fishing. The short answer is to say, “It’s my story!” or you could inform the child that “Everything is possible in French class!”
You could even use the “brief explanation” skill from TPRS in a Year!, that they have giant toilets in train stations in many towns with bigger fish in them than those in our school’s toilets, where the fish are small like Chad. Then back to the story:
Class, did Drew catch a fish in a toilet of the train station of (our town)? (Yes!) Class, was it a small fish? (No!) Class, was it a big fish? (Yes!)
Usually they are no more than props, but actors can grab the spotlight, with teacher permission only, from time to time. In this moment, Drew may want to act out catching the fish. I agree, seeing an opportunity to employ skill 19 in TPRS in a Year! about synchronizing words with actions.
I ask Drew to move slowly enough in miming his fishing actions so that I can describe every detail of catching the fish in slow motion. He ends up catching a very big fish!
At this point I decide to focus on Drew’s reaction to his success by asking: PQA in a Wink page 99
Class, was Drew happy? (yes!) Drew, were you happy? (yes)
Now I see that I can dialogue with Drew in the past tense! All I need to do is circle, writing and translating anything confusing. Then, continuing on with no other agenda then to keep asking questions:
Class, where did Drew put the fish?
I sign and circle “put” because it is new. I accept or reject their cute suggestions, playing the game. I see an opportunity to work with prepositions and seize it:
Class, did Drew put the fish on his guitar? Ridiculous! Did he put the fish (under, to the left of, to the right of, behind, etc. circling until group consensus is reached…) Correct, class! He put the fish in the guitar! Class, was that a good idea?
Sign and circle “idea” on the board and circle it if necessary. Then:
No, class, that was not a good idea! Was that a bad idea? (circle circle) Was that a very bad idea? (circle circle) Class, was that idea the worst? (circle circle)
At this point you either run out of time (especially if you want to assess) or you come to a natural stopping point for the story. When it starts to wane just end it.
You simply end the story with a round of applause for Drew. As he returns to his seat you let him know how proud you are of him and that you will reward him in some way in the grade book. Then do so!
If a story ends in a way that doesn’t make sense it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t even matter if the story ends! What matters is that you have been actively engaged in relaxed, meaningful, interesting, personalized comprehensible input for a long period of time, starting out in PQA with a drawing made by a student which led into some extended PQA which then just naturally became a story.
What was my goal in the above? I wanted to establish a continuous and uninterrupted flow of the French language in my classroom. I wanted to send the message to my class that French would be the vehicle of communication in my class each day and that Drew, a student, would be the subject of our discussion in French.
In the example above, we transitioned into a story with Drew using information that was interesting to everybody. The PQA around Drew was interesting, and so it grew into something greater.
However, what do we do when the questioning process begins to wain? Do we give up possibly getting into a story? Do we stay in PQA and try to get something going anyway? Do we grab the book?
The answer is not that complicated, but it is more of an art than a skill, and for that reason we may be making this question more complicated than we need to. First, we must look at why the PQA begins to wain. PQA in a Wink page 100
As we go along through PQA, we are trying to find out interesting things about our kids. If a kid says:
I have two guinea pigs we all get bored. True, it is personalized information, but it is boring personalized information.
The mistake is to cheerfully (riighhtt!) ask the class if Jenny has two guinea pigs or seventy-one guinea pigs:
That’s right, class, Jenny has two guinea pigs. Does Jenny have seventy-one guinea pigs? No, class, that is not true!
How boring all this is to the kids! Even Jenny, the parent of the rodents, is bored because she knows she only has two of them. Who cares how many guinea pigs this child has?
We extend the agony of PQA when we then ask Jenny if her guinea pigs are big or small, how old they are, or, worse, what color they are? This kind of questioning, of course, is not so bad at the beginning of the year, when simple adjectives, age expressions, and colors are being learned, but the kids quickly tire of the same questions.
In PQA, I always try to remember to take the first bit of information that lends itself to being bent into something weird and I go with it. I push it, if I have to, but generally, if the kids are doing their job of supplying cute answers, and if I am doing my job of circling creative questions, we can quickly get into something interesting.
This means that all I need to do is just leave the direct questioning of Jenny and instead ask the class about these rodents. Jenny is too “close” to her little darlings to make up weird stuff about them.
But the class is not! So I would just stop the discussion about Jenny’s rodents, and start one about an imaginary rodent. We don’t want to offend Jenny. To heck with Jenny – talking to her is keeping everything unintentionally too real. I try instead with:
Class, there was a guinea pig!
Nothing great here yet, but I try to spin this into a bizarre image. I point to an empty part of the room, which is certainly not mandatory to start a story. The change in the group’s perception from merely personal dialogue into a (usually bizarre) image in just a few lines can occur in many ways. Whenever the class is asked to form a mental image of something different than the information in PQA describes the shift into the story.
When this happens, some of the left brainers may have trouble with this, but the right brainers are usually ready to pounce.
Class, the guinea pig was eating!
PQA in a Wink page 101 I remember to embellish with nuance. I say the words with mystery, maybe yelling them, maybe whispering them. In doing this, and not saying the words like a computer merely conveying information, I am focusing the minds of my students on what the words mean, and not the words.
Right brainers lean forward. Left brainers try to figure out why. They control the classrooms in this school, yet these right brain “C” students who never listen are suddenly shouting out insane answers in response to:
Class, what was the guinea pig eating?
And soon this rodent has become Sam, a twelve inch high, twenty inch wide, very hairy, very ugly, toothless rodent who eats earrings.
You can circle your way into that much information in five to seven minutes. Moving from PQA into a story involves getting away from Jenny’s pets, wonderful though they are (to her), and to move the discussion to this more interesting creature.
Now you can simply ask the class to imagine more, to create more, with their group mind. You always use circling to do this. You will find that, even in later classes, sometimes lasting all year, they will find ways to bring Sam back into future stories. It’s what they do.
Why? The answer is precisely because they created it. Of course, in this case, with a creature like this, you have to say no to Sam being brought back into story lines simply because he is so disgusting.
Now what does this rodent have to do with transitioning from PQA into a story? Nothing. Just kidding. It is what we just said: by asking the class to imagine it, to create it, it is their work, their mental effort that is working, and all you have to do is guide the questioning along, and not feel like you have to be funny. I don’t want that kind of pressure on me. It is enough that I just circle!
So I am just describing here how a little twist in the focus of the questioning can get you out of boring PQA questions.
Now, as soon as this becomes real enough to make a student play the role of Sam, you have a story. If it doesn’t naturally evolve into a story as described, let it go. But if it does, stand a kid up to be Sam, and start circling.
At this point, since it is looking more and more like a story, you may want to bring in a problem. You have choices. You can:
1. try to parallel this Sam character into a previous story script, one with a pre-set problem, which is waiting in the wings if you need it. 2. think of a problem on the spot without basing it on a parallel script. 3. wing it, which is what I usually do, not caring if there is a problem, and just see where the circling goes.
PQA in a Wink page 102 Option three is the best one in my opinion. We see where the circling takes us, and, whenever the interest in one character wains, we introduce another character, comparing the two and bringing the two into some sort of conflict in some kind of location.
For me, stories have to emerge organically from the things that are actually happening in my class at any moment. I do not like the idea of having a pre-thought-out problem, because it may not be easily connected to what we have imagined so far in class, and what we have learned during PQA.
That is the art of asking a story, to be ready to pounce on the funniest possible scenario my students and I can think of together. This pouncing always creates better stories than pre-arranged scripts, because in the former there is always a freshness to the discussion, a joyful eye that is always looking out for new possibilities.
Pouncing describes a process that is ever-expanding, because we are looking for something together, which guarantees success in any kind of conversation.
Compare such expansive circling with having a pre-arranged base of information, in which there is a kind of reduction of facts to get all of the circled information to fit into something.
This is not to say that people new to the method should begin this kind of free expansive circling. They shouldn’t, any more than a child should attempt learning how to ride a bike without using training wheels. With experience, however, they can experience a much higher level of communicative input with their classes if they are not tied into anything that has been pre-arranged.
Stories that are created artistically in this way are like supernovas, ever expanding, whereas scripted stories are pushed kicking and screaming in the opposite direction, as the instructor tries valiantly but vainly to fit the kids’ wild imaginations into a box.
This explains why teachers who stick too close to a script experience such frustration. It doesn’t work because you can’t squeeze kids into a story. In fact, you have to do exactly the opposite - squeeze a story out of kids.
Who cares if what you end up with doesn’t follow the original story line? Blaine and Susie have been making this point all along. I remember some years ago I saw Jason Fritze spin a story from a reading and it was just so effortless because he knew how to use information supplied by the class as his primary source and follow it along naturally to wherever it went.
Answers can’t be forced. If they are forced, they are, at best, ineffective. As Pearl Buck wrote in Pavilion of Women,
“All the strength of our listening must gather around the opportune moment of the right answer. And then it will be the right answer.”
So, in order to be successful, you learn to go not in the direction of the story script, but in the direction of the circling. Unless we are beginners, it is not necessary to base PQA in a Wink page 103 everything we teach and do in a class on a set of one or two or three pre-chosen words and a script.
The natural flow of any circling or, for that matter, any conversation, cannot be directed in any one direction any more than water can be told which way to flow down a hill. It will take its natural, gravity induced, direction.
That is why I prefer the Realm, which has the word “real” in it. In circling questions in the Realm each day, each story is really just an episode in a much larger story, a mega story, in which each student potentially plays a role on any given day.
This heightens interest in each episode exponentially. The students get upset if they can’t get into a story, because they are being excluded. It makes them really pay attention. Eventually, after months, we get them all in.
I tell the kids that they have to earn their way into the Realm with good listening. I tell them that if they really listen well I will reward them with being brought into the action.
Quite frankly, we like to have kids participate, but it is a bit of a bother to have kids coming up to you in the lunch room begging for you to direct the next episode in their direction. I guess it is a good problem to have.
There is even a big plastic goblet in a prominent place in my room which I place the cards of kids who have active personalities in the Realm. They all seem to want to have their card in there.
The Realm also obviates the need for pre-planned words, a story line, and choosing actors. We have a whole village of blacksmiths, knights, millers, various levels of royalty, fools (15th c. variety), etc.
At the beginning of each class, we just hit the ground running as another episode tags on to what we had going from the day before. It's kind of cool doing PQA with a miller who lived in south central France five hundred years ago. The guinea pigs back then were bigger and somehow more interesting.
When we divorce ourselves from any idea of establishing meaning, defining words, telling a story that resembles a script, or even of teaching, then we have arrived at the threshold of a new world, a new experience as teachers.
We are no longer clever TPRSers who worry about how PQA differs from a story, but just people talking to other people in a spirit of shared meaning and a desire to communicate and uplift each other’s experience of life by means of the vivid experience of imagining things together. This is where I see the method going, and I know this is where my teacher Susie sees it going.
This kind of TPRS brings a new day of lighthearted discussion, laughter at the expense of none, language flowing like water in any direction, language that is free to follow in the direction created in each moment of circling during PQA.
PQA in a Wink page 104 As I have said above, I am not so naïve that this kind of classroom experience can be reached without first basing one’s work in the classroom on all the established premises of TPRS. Indeed, the steps of TPRS are just that – stepping stones to a higher experience of teaching.
Kim Oberdick once said in a delightfully honest self-assessment of the problem of where and how to take PQA forward:
Oh, my gosh! How can I keep this up until the rest of the period? The anxiety works against itself and zaps my creative juices and I'm down for the count!
But then Kim added:
I'm finding myself on occasion to make an amazing segue into either a passive or active story.
Let us explore this. It is my suspicion that when the anxiety hits Kim in those moments of wondering how he can “keep this up until the rest of the period”, he is able to successfully “segue into a passive or active story” (i.e. extend PQA) only because he stays in the moment of anxiety, exploring it, instead of running from it.
This idea has been discussed elsewhere in this text. It is crucial to your success in TPRS. When Kim does what I have called feeling the burn, staying with the questioning, insisting on cute answers from his students, he provides them with something that they want, which is more discussion about them.
Kim can always go to another student, and perhaps compare the two. This is always a good choice, because the soul of TPRS lies in asking questions and listening for cute answers from your students. In fact, it is natural and expected that there will be lulls in the conversation, as there are in all conversations.
Understand that the students are your allies in this battle. They want you to succeed in talking about them. They don’t care about your opinions as the teacher. They are just always listening for things about themselves. Their world (and ours, were we to be honest), is comprised of:
But enough about me, let’s talk about you! What do you think of me?
So keep the focus on them, perhaps looking at the quality of the questions you are asking. Do we really want to ask our kids drivel? The kids can see right through that stuff. I call that teaching to the forehead. You have to make it real!
Our students don’t want questions that make them feel like two year olds. They know the deal. So how do we choose questions that are real? How do we CONNECT with the kids? We ask them questions that they are actually interested in answering!
And it is nothing more than teaching experience, not skill really, but just hanging out in those moments of exploration, that will make you finally relax while you do PQA. The anxiety will disappear because you will trust the method, the kids, the questioning process, all of it. It works if you work it. PQA in a Wink page 105
Jumping Right into a Story
What if the instructor doesn’t feel like doing PQA on a given day? Is it possible to get an interesting story going without doing PQA? Of course! Just start the story, remembering to personalize!
We do not adhere to any kind of formula (e.g. PQA first and then the story) in TPRS. Everything described in this book about PQA and extended PQA applies equally to stories. In reality, there are no steps in TPRS, just CI + P.
Personalization, the big key, is not so hard during a story! To demonstrate this point, we have chosen a scripted story called The Crazy Old Lady by Amy Catania. Amy’s stories are simpler, thus easier to follow and work with, than others:
old the lady the dress bald
There is an old lady. The old lady has a problem. The old lady is ugly. The old lady wears an ugly dress. The old lady is bald. The old lady wants to be pretty.
The first and most crucial thing to do here is to not say to the class that there is an old lady. The students aren’t interested in old ladies. They are interested in teenagers and pop culture.
Personalize instead. Don’t even mention the old lady. That script is a template, a skeleton story, for you, and the kids don’t need to know about it. Say that there is your student Josh, or Courtney, or Brittney Spears, or someone interesting:
Class, there is a girl. Her name is Courtney.
Ask Courtney to stand up. Now you have made the right decision: you have personalized your story. Next, you ask the kids to imagine Courtney with a problem that needs solving. Following the story script:
Courtney has a problem, class!
Now, reading the third sentence in the story script, you come to a very sensitive point. Are you going to call Courtney ugly? Hardly. The reason you are not going to call Courtney ugly is because, not only is it in bad taste and can get you fired, you always tell your students that they are the best looking, the most intelligent, the most athletic, of all the students in the world.
It is best to avoid using the word ugly at all. Claiming that all the kids in French class are good looking but that there must be an ugly kid in the Spanish class next door is not in my mind best practice.
PQA in a Wink page 106 As you look at the next sentences of the scripted story:
The old lady wears an ugly dress.
Your job now is to transform that story script sentence into something interesting about what Courtney is wearing. The fact that Courtney is wearing blue jeans and a sweater is not bizarre enough. So you just keep circling, asking personalized questions about what Courtney is wearing, being sure to write each new word (pants, shirt, etc.) on the board with its English translation, while pointing to it and pausing for the information to sink in, always pushing the limits of the believable into the bizarre:
Class, is Courtney wearing a dress?
Someone says no, that she is wearing blue jeans.
That isn’t interesting, being a fact. So you immediately try to turn it into something interesting. Trust your instincts. Perhaps you think of black jeans covered in chains. Perhaps a boy in the class who doesn’t participate much is wearing a pair of black jeans covered in chains. Force him into the story in an oblique way!
Class, Courtney is wearing black jeans and chains! (ohh!) Class, is Courtney wearing black jeans and chains or purple jeans and chains? (black!) Correct, class, Courtney is wearing black jeans and chains! (ohh!) Class, is Courtney wearing black jeans with chains on the front or on the back of the jeans? (front!)
An interesting point about personalization is that you will notice that in the circling that there is always some point of agreement in the class around the facts. The jeans are in fact black and the chains are in fact on the front. The class in some odd way seems to come to consensus, in almost an unconscious way, as if the class has a collective mind that is making decisions. Your job is simple then – you are just there to validate the information that the class provides.
You just dance forward with the circling, using each successive sentence in Amy’s story as springboards for the sequential development of your own. The next sentence is:
The old lady is bald.
Should you skip it? It’s your decision. If Courtney is not bald, you are probably o.k. using this bit of information:
Class, Courtney is bald!
Just monitor their reaction and if you notice that their disbelief has been suspended sufficiently to make it work, you go on. If you don’t feel it will work, you circle away from it. You always want to circle in the direction of meaningful, interesting, bizarre comprehensible input.
Your goal now is to get plenty of repetitions of the word “bald” and you must remember to do so by conveying that this new information about Courtney is a big deal to you! You PQA in a Wink page 107 have a bald kid with black jeans with chains on front! The students naturally want to know where the story is going.
Remind any slouchers to sit up, clear their eyes, straighten their backs, and continue to do their job of playing the game and providing cute answers to your questions! The boy wearing the black pants and chains, who may even have some bald friends, is now paying attention.
Don’t lose the parallel development with Amy's script; it is there for you to follow sentence by sentence. The next sentence is:
The old lady wants to be pretty.
This is what I call a springboard sentence. You want to know how this information is going to connect to the rest of the story provided by Amy. You read ahead:
The old lady goes to the gym. The old lady lifts weights. Now, the old lady resembles a bald Arnold Schwarzenegger. The old lady is ugly but very strong.
You can take this in any direction. You know enough to avoid saying that Courtney wants to be pretty, and you circle until you find out that Courtney wants to be a fireman. It’s obvious!
You continue to build your own increasingly bizarre story around the new facts that Courtney wants to become a fireman.
The next sentence:
The old lady goes to the gym. becomes in your story:
Class, Courtney goes to fireman school.
Continue to circle with the mindset that you are going to uncover interesting, meaningful, and bizarre (read personalized) details from Amy’s scripted story.
By the end of the second paragraph of the scripted story, you and the class may have established that Courtney became a bald fireman with pink chains on her uniform who rescued the boy in the class who really was wearing black jeans with chains from a fire, and they fell in love. Anything can happen in French class!
Without the level of personalized and bizarre information the circling provided, the story would have fallen flat. But since it was about two students in the class and it was bizarre, it worked.
Just remember to let the cute answers provided by the kids drive the discussion. If you have a story script you are working from, that is fine, but work hard at keeping the discussion more about the kids while retaining only the general frame of the scripted story. Focus on the kids primarily and only secondarily on the story. PQA in a Wink page 108
When you focus on the kids, the story becomes merely a template, a structure which evolves into a new story with all sorts of new information because during circling you have asked a bunch of cute questions of the kids. See page 85 and page 108 of TPRS in a Year! for more details.
PQA in a Wink page 109 CHAPTER FOUR – KEEPING ASSESSMENT SIMPLE
Assessment in TPRS classes is largely done in class during class, informally via eye contact with the kids. Kids who clearly aren’t involved must be talked to, and, if they continue to “not show up” for class, parents and/or administrators must be brought into the discussion, early on.
This is not an option. Just because we teach differently from other teachers in other fields does not give the student a right to use that as an excuse to not participate. The teacher using TPRS who fails to confront non-participatory students as soon as a problem is apparent, certainly within the first three weeks of the year, will regret not having done so later.
Confronting such students need not be done in a negative way. The student needs to feel the support of the teacher in this new way of learning. Keep things positive with such kids. What begins as a small issue can sometimes balloon into a very challenging situation later in the year.
Since we all have to give grades, the following things are suggested for formal assessment:
Testing should be very simple. One option, of many, is to ask simple questions in the target language about the story:
#1: What does “fish” (spoken in the target language) mean in English? #2: What does “plays guitar” mean in English? #3: True or False, Drew fishes in a toilet in our school. #4: True or False, Drew goes to England.
Ask for either short answers like those above, true/false, or yes/no questions. The objective is not to confuse the kids and try to trick them by asking difficult questions, nor is the objective to establish your intellectual superiority to the kids. The goal is to find out if they have understood and to motivate them via their successful assessments.
That you are interested in your students experiencing success should be made clear to administrators, ideally before you accept a position, so that you are both on the same page. If you wish to work in the school on behalf of the best interests of the kids, your tests should serve as motivators that bring you together with the kids in a shared spirit of successful learning. Most administrators will go for that concept.
Another way to assess is to have your students do a ten minute free write using the words from the story but making up their own story. You will be very surprised at what the kids come up with. Just make sure all the rules for writing and reading are posted on the walls.
Many of us like to teach something in the process of assessing our students. I like to take advantage of the high level of focus students devote to a task when they know they are being graded and give them a task that they will learn from. Reading passages are excellent for assessment because students really focus on the reading.
PQA in a Wink page 110 I give students a text that uses structures we have recently been working on. Students read the story and write the translation in English. I find out if they know what I expect them to know and, in the process, they devote some quiet attention to reading carefully in the target language.
Students can also try to retell the story in class. This makes the students feel that they are really learning the language, especially when you show approval and amazement at how much they can speak! If they do a retell, make sure to run around the room keeping up with what they are saying by pointing to posters in the same way you did during the creation of the story.
Of course, many other assessments are possible, but this is a good base. I do not give “participation” grades. The term is bogus and never accurate. Some louder kids don’t participate well at all, and I have had a few very quiet, almost silent, kids who contribute greatly, like jewels, to the success of class.
Unbelievably, kids in recent years have somehow been given permission (by whom?) to challenge teachers on grades, which is another good reason not to give a participation grade. There are always a few students who argue on their own behalf for a participation grade that is simply not deserved. To avoid the unpleasantness this creates, don’t offer a participation grade.
Assessments should be short. By minimizing time given to testing, the kids learn more because they are hearing more comprehensible input. They want to learn more because it is fun, they understand it, they are doing well on tests, which do not involve memorization, and the class is about them.
If anybody worries that district benchmarks are not being “covered” because they are not being studied formally out of the book, ask one of your students to keep a list of all new vocabulary that occurs during class for a month, or even for the year. A massive and very surprising amount of words are being circled daily. There will be a huge overlap with the district mandated vocabulary, with the difference that your students will have actually acquired the words because they were given in context.
PQA in a Wink page 111 CHAPTER FIVE – MAKING IT WORK
We all know what it feels like to be metaphorically dangling from a clothesline in front of our students while trying to learn the various skills of storytelling – it comes with the territory of learning something new. How do we react in such moments? If we choose, we can work through those moments in class, and we will find success.
The first thing the novice teacher needs to do during those moments of uncertainty in front of the class is not panic. The second thing is to avoid the temptation to grab control of the class by forcing a conversation or, even worse, a textbook, down their students’ throats. PQA is proven to work. It is a very high powered machine that, once all its switches and dials have been learned, works beautifully.
If this machine, which we can compare to an airplane, stalls, the instructor need but remember to circle and listen for cute answers and the engine will start again!
Remember to check the SLOW gauge in the airplane, and make sure it is working, remembering that the fastest way to lose a class is to speak too fast. Then, look at the circling dial and make sure there is plenty of power there. Although SLOW and circling are key, and signing is really great fun for the kids, personalization is the crucial element.
Next come the first few moments in the air, those moments of lift off when we first begin PQA. Something tells us that the instructor must be funny and capture the students' attention.
But stop and think! It's not the instructor who has to be funny! The instructor is a teacher, not a comedian! Teachers aren't funny! Students are funny. When I try to be funny my students look at me like I have some kind of disease.
But why fret if indeed the class is boring from the outset? The beginning of any conversation is by its nature boring. We don't yet know any details! Usually some fairly boring circling is necessary to establish details and get a story off the ground. We have to allow it to be boring at the beginning, as we begin to fish for details and listen for cute suggestions from the kids.
What if you circle the whole time without anything funny happening? Are you still a good person? Will they like you? Your job as a teacher is not to get adolescents to like you. As long as you are making yourself understood in the target language, all is well. You are doing your job and more. It can’t be funny all the time.
There must be rules about when they can speak English in a classroom using TPRS, and the rules must be enforced.
At the moment all these kids start talking, what is really happening? Who is in control of the class? What signal have you sent to the kids that it is o.k. to babble in English after you accept one of their cute answers?
To avoid the babble, which brings chaos, I tell students that they can use English in my classroom in only THREE CASES:
PQA in a Wink page 112 1. after I ask que veut dire___/what does___mean 2. after I ask any other question 3. after I ask (in English) "What did I just say?"
The first rule tells the kids exactly under what conditions they can clarify anything they don’t understand in class. My students use this question all the time in my classes. It really helps them, and therefore it helps me be a better teacher.
The second rule applies to any open-ended questions I may ask during circling, as I seek cute answers to drive the story forward. The kids make suggestions of one or two words in English. Many people, including Blaine, don’t allow kids to suggest answers to circled questions in English, so we differ on this point.
The third rule I use when I want to find out if the kids understand. Since checking for comprehension is a huge part of my responsibilities in my TPRS classroom, the kids have to answer me in English when I ask them what I just said. This is a very effective tool to make sure that all my students are understanding me, and I use it like a hammer.
In addition, the students must clearly understand that they don’t speak English to each other in class. Enforce it, give a detention, call a parent, do what is necessary to ensure compliance with these rules.
I also let the kids know at the beginning of the year that in class I will always speak French so that they can understand me, and that in return I expect them to sit up, back straight, square up their shoulders with me and show me that they understand by “speaking” to me through their eyes.
This “square shoulders” norm is easy to forget, but it is most important. The successful TPRS teacher will learn to recognize when even one kid slouches or refuses to give eye contact and tell them, whenever needed: "Sit up, back straight, square shoulders, clear eyes." It is like a mantra to me. Without this one norm I would have to work a lot harder in my teaching than I actually do - it really lets me pour all of my energy into the art of storytelling.
Something very interesting happened one year in my classroom that bears out that TPRS is an excellent method for keeping discipline in the classroom. There was a girl who was very talkative, and I could tell it was going to be a problem early on in that year. But I made my point about when we could use English in the room and she respected that, and did really well with it until about March.
It happened that in March of that year, however, I tried to break back into the book and traditional teaching to get some grammar taught since the kids were going into an articulated second year grammar class at the high school that was basically an all grammar curriculum. I will never do that again! This girl’s mouth became a loose cannon, and it took me a full two weeks to wrestle control of the class back from her! The point here is clear, I think.
Of course, the best defense is a good offense, and “funny” kids, not those with serious behavior issues but those who mean no conscious harm, are easily neutralized by good teaching. SLOW and pausing and pointing and setting a quiet tone are major weapons PQA in a Wink page 113 against disruptive students. If students understand what they are hearing, and if they know the rules, they won’t disrupt class.
Proper circling allows the minds of all students to be fully focused on the words being spoken. It would thus become physically impossible for them to interrupt the flow of the story with unnecessary comments, because their minds are so occupied processing the target language that is being so effectively presented to them. Why, then, would they be tempted to disrupt class?
A lot of students’ attempts at humor are just disguised attempts to cover their lack of understanding, and it is the job of the instructor to make sure that they understand. That is why the ten finger comprehension checks are so important.
As Mary Anne Williamson once said about life, it's not the major issues, it's the little insults. The little classroom insults, in particular the pencil tapping and the slouching, have a much greater deleterious effect on our results with this method than we could ever imagine.
Use the skill of "what did I just say" when classes aren't moving along well. Students really don't want to be exposed to their classmates as not understanding. “What did I just say” is an underrated skill. It keeps the kids focused.
Remember especially that anything you create, even if it is a group of four buck-toothed horses on the edge of a blue field, is not interesting to a teenager. Teachers often lament that their neat ideas don't work in stories, but this is usually just due to a combination of lack of personalization and circling too fast.
Keep in mind that learning a language is by its nature reciprocal and participatory, and is not an analytical process. You listen to and interact with your students and they listen to and interact with you. It is a two-way street, with clear rules, and the discussion is always about them.
So when we are "hanging out" in front of the class, clueless as to what is going to come next, worried about discipline, we are right there in a moment of great power. All we have to do is trust what so many other TPRS teachers have learned, that slow personalized comprehensible circling brings cute and funny answers and keeps stories going. If we do that, while insisting on proper behavior from our students, we will make it work.
As Susan Gross says,
“Teach to the eyes. You can't P too much and you can't P too long. Teach students, not curriculum. They don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. The key to classroom management is the big R: RELATIONSHIP.”
PQA in a Wink page 114 CHAPTER SIX – THE PURE LAND
I used to prepare for every class as one would prepare for battle. First I would do “this” – it was sure to grab them. Next I would do “that” and on and on, each instructional product in tight little increments of fifteen minutes each, covering all the skills.
The students didn’t hear me. They didn’t hear the instructional services I was delivering. A few did. They were the ones with an agenda to succeed instilled in them, not due to any great love of French, but because there was no way that they were going to get a “B” in my class. It became an invisible battle – the crafty teacher vs. the smart student going for the grade. All left brain stuff, more or less. Boring. Not professionally fulfilling.
Now, after three decades and over 25,000 classes, I am starting to get it. Battle plans don’t work. Preparing my heart works. Before each class (I really do this), I reflect on how much these kids have to go through in their young lives, stuff at home, stuff at school, dealing with well-intentioned but still-fighting teachers who are still playing academic “gotcha!”
Before each class, I try with open heart to welcome my kids into the classroom. I try to set aside judgment. Most importantly, I try to be aware while circling of how much they are getting. I try to be open to that. Not how much they should be getting, but how much they are getting.
I try to speak with awareness of what my students are actually hearing. This is even harder because most kids aren’t trained in how to visually interact with teachers. The kids are not programmed to reciprocate in the learning process. They don’t know how to dance!
Yet dancing, where the instructor speaks and registers how much they are getting, and the students listen and express with their eyes how much they are getting, is the only way I can imagine doing TPRS. I often use the phrase when communicating my expectations of my students: “Speak to me with your eyes!”
So I try to dance with the kids when I circle in the target language! Dancing seems to add elegance to circling. It somehow leads to our experiencing the language on a deeper level. Class becomes much more than mere intellectual reciprocity.
Language isn’t just an intellectual thing! It is full of nuance, and subtlety. It is a physical thing. Why not bring that part of language into our classes as well?
This approach is the way taken by the teaching artist, the teacher who wants to experience the beauty of language at a higher level than is commonly experienced in foreign language classrooms, the one who wants to enjoy teaching.
A sculptor must attempt to release the image trapped in the rock by chiseling away that which is not the image. In our own classrooms, we must chisel away the pencil tapping, the slouching, the glazed eyes, one kid at a time, until only language is left in a quiet space of pure communication, the image in the rock, what I call the Pure Land.
PQA in a Wink page 115 The Pure Land is a place where quietude in the classroom rules over noise, where pauses occur more often than words, where the timbre and tone of the instructor’s voice are characterized by calmness and kindness, and where the communication with the students is unusually heightened.
Teaching a language is not about doing some method correctly. It is about getting rid of anything in the room that prevents the instructor from communicating in an honest and open way with the kids. It is about emptying the room of pretense.
A musician attempts to get the best sound from the instrument. The same applies to the conductor of the orchestra, whose hands must pull the music from the players and from a written score with all kinds of musical instructions on it. Would the music be as good if he did not move his body with the music?
The language instructor has no such instructions, just a story script. Her task is to use words to create meaningful linguistic expression in each moment of class so that her students to want to know what happens next in her stories.
For this the language must be made attractive. It must invite curiosity. Think of quiet evenings around a fire, soft voices, and mystery. We don’t call it story yelling!
The Pure Land is where meaning and sound converge in happiness. It is the gentle wind that blows authentic acquisition into the students’ minds, bringing real appreciation for the language, and sweetening the experience for all lucky enough to be in the room when the teacher expertly circles the story into the Pure Land. When the students are in the Pure Land, they sense it, but they don’t say anything about it.
It would be folly to think that this could be achieved without rules. Just the opposite! By flat out insisting on rules, we achieve what few people achieve in foreign language classrooms – a sense that a special level of communication is taking place, one that doesn’t happen too often.
Anyone who has the guts to go through the internal emotional changes associated with growth deeper into storytelling knows that such changes can be very trying. We wake up at night thinking about the deep changes we know we are in. We wonder how we can grip and keep our students’ attention with PQA and with stories. We teach magically, expertly, in our sleep and then go into the classroom and mess it up. Then we try again the next day. We slowly get better, but not without a strong focus on discipline.
For me, it always comes back to loving discipline. We can get away with not doing the skills of PQA correctly, because the students don’t know any better. But we cannot get away with not instilling clear discipline in the room. By insisting that our students give us clear eyes, straight backs, cute answers to our circled questions, and no pencil tapping, we create more quiet space to just relax and flow with language.
When the kids are focused, and the room is completely quiet except for the circling, a space opens up in our minds for us to actually work on the TPRS skills we are trying to implement. Our minds go right to those skills, which seem to pop up as if on cue at these times during class.
PQA in a Wink page 116 Materials don’t count. Any word, any structure, is enough to infuse a story with interest and humor. Instead of obsessing about materials, the teacher must “show up” for the language class.
Instead of saying, “If I circle correctly, this TPRS will work,” the teacher must say, “If I just really enjoy circling this word or structure, if I circle it with joy in my heart, we will enjoy ourselves so much that we can’t help but learn.”
TPRS really represents a shift in attitudes towards teaching as much as any shift in methods. Instead of approaching learning through the minds, we must first open the hearts of our students, and we can’t do that until we open up our own hearts.
In the Pure Land there is no preoccupation with:
district benchmarks such as time and weather expressions. This is not to say that such benchmarks won’t occur during the circling. Of course they will, because they occur commonly in everyday speech. grammar issues, or anything else that breaks language down out of its essential expressed form.
The Pure Land is characterized by:
personalization – the instructor invites the students into the flow of a conversation which is about them. a feeling by the teacher and students of being very “close” to the language, and a desire to return to that space of “closeness” to the language often. quiet, sometimes whispered voices – everything sometimes seems to have a hushed tone. The language is perceived by some in the room in the same way beautiful music is sometimes perceived. a clear yet unspoken message by those students in the room who are aware of what is happening to those who are less focused, one that says, “Don’t try to speak English now. We won’t let you!” a deep focus on the question that is being circled. It is the opposite of playing chess, where the player calculates many moves into the future, trying to trick their opponents. In the Pure Land, there is only one question, and that is the one being discussed in the moment. unforced words, and thus more pauses than usually occur. less overt laughter and much more wit and subtle humor. dialogue with the students that is authentic and not fake, with no inappropriate comments. Although they are less verbal, the students share equally in the creation of the quality of the language with the instructor. giving up control of the story in favor of relaxed, sweet, and personalized dialogue.
Ultimately, we must ask ourselves why we teach. What is our intent in teaching? Are we speaking the language in the classroom to just speak it, or for something greater?
My intent in teaching is to explore the beauty of language while using it to share ideas with others in a loving way. For me, TPRS is the only method I have seen that can come PQA in a Wink page 117 close to achieving this. I teach beyond a mere effort to get my students to acquire language. I teach to experience the joy of being alive.
This elevation of language to a place of beauty is what all great literature does. The work of Faulkner, Joyce, Rimbaud and especially Marcel Proust are considered great not only for their content but also for the beauty of language that they communicate to the reader.
It may not happen all the time (mainly occurring during retells), but when you circle your way into the Pure Land, it is a great and most pleasant surprise, one worth working for. You then learn that teaching a foreign language can be one of the great experiences to be had in life.
PQA in a Wink page 118 CHAPTER SEVEN – RAMBLIN’ JACK ELLIOT
Ramblin’ Jack Elliot is an American folk singer. He is considered the link between Arlo Guthrie and Bob Dylan. Jack’s life was dedicated to the creation of an image of himself as a “rambling” cowboy singer, going from town to town, singing folk songs, relating to people from a stage through his music only.
Using his music as a shield, Jack stopped relationships when they became personal, and hit the road, imitating the life of the cowboy. He was never in one place for very long. Jack is still rambling around the American folk music scene.
How much of Jack shows up in our classes? Do we leave a topic in a story too quickly, as Jack left towns, before it gets fully developed? Do we fail to adequately personalize our classrooms, as Jack did in his own life?
Most importantly, whenever he spoke, Jack “rambled” along. People could never get a word in edgewise in conversations with Jack. Do we “ramble” through our stories, never making sure that the comprehensible output we are offering is fully grasped by our students?
When performing, Jack “rambled” on about various topics between songs. His audience had come for the music, but he talked halfway through his sets. Do we do that in our classes, speaking English when our students had come for the target language?
When Jack talked, he talked at people, not with them. Do we do that?
Jack is a perfect image of what not to do in TPRS. By focusing more on the method, as Jack did on his music, we sometimes build a wall between us and our students, and then we wonder why our classes are not interesting and exciting.
Jack could afford to focus only on his music, because as a performing artist he was separate from his audience. We, as TPRS teachers, however, cannot afford to do that. We are not separate from our students in the TPRS classroom. We interact with them in class or die.
Students in a TPRS classroom form a complex web of personalities, and when those personalities work together it creates magic. We, unlike Jack, cannot afford to “ramble” along in our classes, focusing primarily on the language at the expense of high quality Personalized Q and A. When we do so we create incredible distances between us and our students.
We consider circling to be at the core of TPRS. Though it is at the core of the technique, it is not at the core of the method. Successful TPRS depends entirely on personalization, the real core of the method.
We must understand that teenagers are naturally more interested in themselves than in foreign languages. Why, then, would we ramble through our classrooms, with our focus primarily on the words of the language, ignoring the kids?
PQA in a Wink page 119 Until we learn to be effective at PQA, we are like a train full of faceless captive passengers, speeding down the tracks, thinking incorrectly that the train is more important than the passengers inside. If the train approaches a small town, which in this image represents a potential scene in a story, we need to slow down. We must invite the passengers in our trains to participate in those scenes.
Of course, the metaphor is clear to the experienced TPRS teacher. Like Jack Elliot, all of us have approached potential scenes in a story at too high a speed, talking and singing about things of interest only to us, forgetting the need to personalize the classroom, to focus on the passengers of the train, to develop one scene instead of four.
When the teacher forgets to SLOW down, many “could have been” scenes in a story are missed, all of their elements missed, because of too much speed, too much moving around from topic to topic, and not enough personalization. Too much Jack Elliot.
We must learn to focus more on the “passengers” in our classrooms and only after that on the language. Whenever personalization is lost, interest in the story is lost. Potentialities in the story are missed.
We need to understand that there are people in the room, and that they do not understand the language we are teaching. Thus we need to keep our train/story going SLOWLY, and we must always remember that there are passengers in the train, our students.
Like the people in Jack Elliot’s rambling life, who always wanted him to slow down, our students want us to slow down and recognize and include them in our classes. Most importantly, those passengers, our students, want to be acknowledged as people, not as an audience.
PQA in a Wink page 120 CONCLUSIONS
For thousands of years kids learned languages by listening to them. Meaningful, comprehensible input was all they knew, so the languages they heard were easy for them.
Adults would say things to them that had meaning, look them in the eyes, tell them stories, pause if they didn't understand, look for their reaction, smile and laugh, sing them songs, and, on a good day, even chant. Adults would ask them questions repeatedly. They learned because it felt right, because what they heard meant something and made sense to them.
Then, for the first time since kids started learning languages, they found out they could be wrong. Unexpectedly, adults started asking kids to learn languages not by listening to them, but to looking at them, how they were constructed, the pieces of language, etc.
Kids were forced into analyzing language, trying to understand what an adverb is, as if that could be understood, and what a stem changing verb is. They saw that their success depended on their ability to grasp these ideas.
So they stopped listening to the language in a way that had meaning to them, and they started conjugating verbs. This new method had predictable results. Kids learned slowly. Many gave up and put their heads on the desk. It felt wrong to them. But it went on for a hundred years. It is still going on.
Then Blaine Ray came along, and suggested that we return to a more traditional way of teaching, a way that actually conveyed meaning to the learners. A few embraced his ideas, but many attacked him as being "non-traditional".
One is prompted to ask, "Who, really, are the traditional teachers?" Blaine and his merry band, or those who espouse the new fangled notion that the way to learn a language is by breaking it up into little pieces and analyzing them?
The ideas expressed in this book are an attempt to bring meaning back into what we do, all of us, when we try to learn and teach another language.
We create new and authentic personalities for each student in our classrooms at the beginning of the year. The teacher and student work together using PQA to create an in- class persona that works for the student. If this is not done, the student will create one at the expense of the teacher.
This is true at all levels of instruction. Even at the university level, the student who “fails” is often the one who has been excluded from the process of learning on an emotional level.
By heavily sheltering vocabulary for the first few months of the year, input is kept comprehensible and the focus of attention is on the students. When students easily understand material that is about them, they become motivated to learn more.
When each student has a humorous name, one which really stands out in the group, learning is guaranteed. When each student is known for a particular talent, for something PQA in a Wink page 121 they like, or for a pet, learning is guaranteed. When classroom discussion is about the students in the room, learning is guaranteed.
When our classrooms are personalized with PQA, lightheartedness and laughter fill the classrooms. When we meet with parents, instead of tense discussions about how their child doesn’t “measure up” to standards, the parents tell us how important their child feels in our classrooms, and how excited their child is about learning the language we are teaching them.
As more and more new information, true or not true, is gleaned each day about each student, humorous stories begin to emerge. The talents and interests of one student become interwoven with those of another.
Sometimes, as in Anne Lambert’s classroom world, an invisible classmate named Biddley makes an appearance in a story. He explains to the class that he was absent for the past two weeks: he was suspended for wearing inappropriate T-shirts to school with expressions like “I Stole This T-Shirt” or “The Food in Jail Tastes Good”. Somehow, the students warm up to their classmates, real or imagined, more than they do to fictitious students in textbooks. This can hardly be a surprise!
We must be wary of all materials. No materials can be expected to solve the problem of what students really need in a classroom. Increasingly, especially at the lower levels and in Spanish, mixed classes of students are popping up all over. Some students have no experience, some have a partial background, and native speakers are even thrown into the mix.
How is a set of “the right” materials going to solve that problem, or any of the other strange combinations of (oversized, ELA, mixed) classrooms we are seeing more and more? No materials can solve such problems! What we all really need and want are classrooms where the emotional needs of all the kids are met first, before we even attempt to address their intellectual needs and what materials to use.
With native speakers in the classroom, the first thing I would do is recognize those kids as important sources of learning to those in the room who don’t know the language. I would not tell them to "work with the materials you are given and do this and such a lesson while I work with these beginners over here.” I would include the native speakers in all class discussion and honor them as important. I would teach them how to be a part of PQA, how to listen to their classmates in the same way I do.
Extended PQA paves the way for an effortless transition into real stories. Then, such things as cats with six legs may wander into and out of class all year. In certain classes, on certain days, under certain conditions, the Pure Land is reached. Teaching then becomes a joy, and not a job.
If we do our jobs right, some of our students will come back to find us in order to tell us, “In your class I felt like you valued me as a person. Thank you so much! I am now a famous fashion designer and I want to fly you and your family to Paris for the opening of my new line of clothing!”
Susie Gross posted on the listserve in April of 2007: PQA in a Wink page 122
“As I listen to teachers, I hear that something is missing. In our attempt to spell things out and to do TPRS step by step, we have missed the big picture. The big picture is the relationship with kids. The big picture is having a love-fest in class. The big picture is letting go of curriculum and just teaching students.
“A teacher is NOT a moron; a teacher knows that the kiddos need all six conjugated forms of verbs by the end of level one. A teacher knows that they need to say "going to do" and not just "does." A teacher knows that numbers and colors and agreement are important in this particular language. We don't need a schedule, We don't need "going to plus infinitive" this month, forget it, then "wants to plus infinitive" next month. We need to get it all in, but that is easy to do if we speak the language every day and ask lots of questions! Just keep recycling all of the important stuff all of the time all year long. That's the content and we need to teach it.
”But the BIG PICTURE is the relationships among those in the classroom. That's what real teaching is all about. If the relationship is healthy, the kids will learn better. If the relationship is shaky, the learning is shaky. Only the teacher has the power to fix classroom relationships.”
There is a parallel here in Charles Dickens’ masterpiece, A Christmas Carol, Scrooge, after his awakening by the three ghosts of Christmas, ran into the street and had the following conversation with a passing boy (ital. mine):
Scrooge: Do you know the butcher shop in the next street? Boy: I should hope so. Scrooge: What a remarkable and intelligent boy! Do you know if they have sold the prize turkey that was hanging up in the window? Not the big one! The enormous one! Boy: The one as big as me? Scrooge: What a wonderful boy! So witty! It’s a pleasure to talk to him! Yes, that’s the one! Boy: It’s still there! Scrooge: It is? Go and buy it! Oh, what a lovely boy! I think I’m gonna like children!
The words in italics indicate Scrooge’s changed perception about children. Of course, if we are teachers, we certainly are not scrooges, but do our students know that? Do our families know that? As Scrooge takes a real look at this child, he sees the child’s inherent value and wit. He sees the real person.
Maybe Susie Gross is right. Maybe the greatest thing about TPRS lies not in its awesome technique, but in the simple fact of it as a way to bring personalization into our classrooms and into our lives. If we can really see our students as Scrooge does above, maybe we can unlock the greatness of the method once and for all, and in doing so, unlock our own greatness as teachers and as human beings.
PQA in a Wink page 123 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
Q. I understand that Step One of TPRS is to “establish meaning”, but I’m not sure what that means.
A. Stories usually have certain salient words or groups of words that you pre-teach in order to make it easier for the kids to instantly identify those words when you do the story. You can pick out the words that you want to pre-teach, or use the ones provided in materials provided by Blaine Ray, Amy Catania, etc.
Pre-teaching these target words is establishing meaning - you define and work with them as described in TPRS in a Year! Obviously, you don’t work with a lot of words. Just a few will do.
A lot of teachers who use this method think that establishing meaning is just telling the kids what the word or group of words mean. But if that were true, Blaine would have called it something else, like “translate the words” or something. You don’t just tell the students what the words means in English, you also work to make sure that the kids can recognize and identify them by sound.
In his research, Stephen Krashen has identified five stages, the first two of which are slow processing and fast processing. The first stage, slow processing, means that the student can translate the word or words when they hear them. The second stage, fast processing, means that the student can understand the word or words without having to translate them.
Blaine is teaching us here to address both of those stages when we establish meaning. It is not enough merely to tell the students what the words mean. We must also use them in various ways before or during the PQA and the story so that when the story begins the student is able to understand them without translation.
Meaning can be established before or during the story. This means that step one of TPRS, in my opinion, is optional. Some teachers, once they have become familiar with the method, just skip step one altogether and simply establish meaning during the story.
The advantage in doing that is that you don’t always have to connect your story to some arbitrary pre-established list of words, and the story is free to go where it wants. This may not work for new people who require the conceptual scaffolding that step one offers, but it is an option available to experienced TPRS teachers.
Q. Do you always have to establish meaning?
A. I greatly favor PQA over stories, so when I start a class, I use the kids' questionnaires and activity cards (sports, talents) as a sort of textbook. Obviously, then, when just talking to my students, I don't need to start with any target words. I just start with their questionnaires, circling with balls, etc. to see what direction the personalized discussion takes.
PQA in a Wink page 124 So meaning can be established before or during class. This means that step one of TPRS, in my opinion, is optional. Some teachers, once they have become familiar with the method, just skip step one altogether and simply establish meaning during the story.
The advantage in doing that is that you don’t always have to connect your story to some arbitrary pre-established list of words, and the story is free to go where it wants. This may not work for new people who require the conceptual scaffolding that step one offers, but it is an option available to experienced TPRS teachers.
Q. I have a morning class that I just can’t get anything going with. They are just too sleepy. I can’t get the energy and sparkle I seem to get later in the day in some classes.
A. It doesn't have to be all sparkly and creative. If sparkly happens, great. If no sparkly, you get your comprehensible input going, relax and just take it easy in the class - the kids don't really have the capacity to discern a great class from any other and anyway your job is not to entertain and be their friend but to deliver CI and be their teacher and keep control of the CI.
Sometimes sparkly even gets in the way of pacing and CI, and thus acquisition! I sometimes get so enamored of my sparkly ideas that their sparkle draws my attention and builds energy and then I roll right over my kids and their comprehension. I quickly return my internal teaching gaze to what the kids are actually hearing me say, remembering that personalized CI is at the heart of the method, not sparkly.
Q. What are the absolute essentials to cover in the first few days of class to get things really rolling?
A. The thing is that the kids are so busy taking in new stuff in all their classes that they can barely process all the rules, all the classes, all the procedures, etc. So I avoid that sort of thing in the first week. My goal in the first week of school is to let the kids know that they are liked. If the kids know that they are more important to me than the subject I am teaching, my success is guaranteed.
The circling with sports balls and identity building and related activities described in this book will get the job done. They are enough to get the ball rolling. Just pick one. I use the circling with balls activity to start and then expand that into the Realm activity.
Diane Miller-DeSoto, brand new to TPRS, wrote the following passage on the moretprs listserve about her first day of class:
“After ten minutes of circling with balls, I was able to explain that that is how much of their learning will happen... relaxed, no paper/pens, soaking it in little by little, hearing it again to give them more chances to get it, light bulbs going off with little effort, just listening.
“Then when I got to my classroom expectations, the part about attendance and active listening and participation made more sense to them. They had already seen the process and they better understood that so much of what they are to be graded on will be their PQA in a Wink page 125 ability to understand what I am saying which can really only happen by their being conscious.”
Diane is giving her students permission to do all the things that go into a successful language learning experience: relax, no pens or pencils, textbook as secondary to the experience of CI, no rush, no pressure to get it the first time, and being conscious in the classroom!
Q. Your approach puts a premium on engaging kids every minute of class. Isn’t that an energy drain?
A. When you are processing shared meaning (CI), you are engaged in a flow of energy with the class. This creates more energy. At the end of the day, you are not tired because you have been a part of this flow.
Using the book generates ideas and concepts that the kids knock around in their minds in English, and there is no flow. Little kids certainly don’t analyze and reflect on salient grammar points when they learn their first language! Instead, they engage in this back and forth flow.
When you engage the heart of the child in a language class by focusing on things that mean something to them (via personalized discussion as described in this book), no one gets tired.
Q. I'm trying to plan lessons for this year, and have become a bit confused. Could you give me an idea of what a typical week looks like for you?
A. For me, everything has to be contiguous - each class is an exercise in personalized repetition of simple content via circling. So the only weekly plan I have is to just talk to the kids and try to get to know them and/or any virtual personality they may have developed in my class.
Blaine’s plan is perfect, and is used by quite a few TPRS teachers. Here it is:
Monday and Tuesday: Ask a story Wednesday and Thursday: Read and discuss Friday: Timed writing and read and discuss novel
I think this is a wonderful, easy way to plan a week. It covers everything.
Q. One thing that I would like to pull off this year is some version of your technique to find names for students. I am a little nervous about pulling it all off with one hundred and fifty students in five classes. Any ideas?
A. Take it slowly - there is no rush. Rather, dance into an identity with a kid. You may perhaps learn a little fact in class while circling with sports balls or in some other identity building activity. Or something may emerge in the hallway. It may look so small. But PQA in a Wink page 126 you keep it in your mind, like a treasure, and when the right moment arrives in class, you try it out.
Names EMERGE. This is such a fine thing. You are a watcher of the process, a contributor, to be sure, but you don’t have to be clever and put the naming game all on yourself. They don’t want you to. They want in on their names, just like they want in on everything.
They may act amused if you tell them that they are Pablo, but they resent it on some level. You labeled them without getting to know them. Why do that, when the creation of funny, organically emerging names that reflect the REAL KID, is so crucial to your success.
When they have seen you pull an organic name from one kid, they are just waiting to see what you do with them. Even if it takes seven months, it is still better than the other way of branding them.
I feel strongly that most of the names should be in English – don’t ask why. I think it has to do with humor and clarity of language as the kids work so hard to decipher the language around the funny English names.
Q. Sometimes I get the circling bus on autopilot and don't know how to generate more energy. Are there any tricks for that?
A. We sometimes forget that an interesting story is always within our grasp. Stories are a split second awareness away from being hilarious all the time. It is a problem of perception, and the quality of the questioning
Fishing for details helps immensely, each detail spiraling further into the bizarre. You have to create space for cute answers for that to happen. Most kids really want to imagine bizarre things, but they need to have time and space to do so. You will find that those cute answers provide details that almost always contain little grains of humor that can be easily expanded into interesting content as you circle along.
In this way, you constantly anticipate, on your feet, the direction of the discussion, like in chess. Nudge it always closer to things that are outlandish, bizarre, and funny. Circling mechanically prevents a class from gaining energy, so don’t circle mechanically.
Q. I hear and read so much about the barometer kids, but, really, I can’t reach them and it is very frustrating trying to do PQA with them. It seems so impossible. What can I do?
A. If your own child was a barometer kid, you would not ask. You reach them. It is your job. It does not hurt the others when you SLOW down and speak to kids who are trying but process more slowly. It doesn’t hurt anybody - it only helps everybody to aggressively include these kids in class.
You just can’t ignore barometer students. When I find myself tuning them out, I say in English: "Class (spoken to the entire class so as not to single out the barometers), I have been making a mistake here. My job is so make myself understood. But for the last half PQA in a Wink page 127 hour, some of you have not been understanding. I am sorry. I will try to make myself understood better by slowing down and speaking in such a way that you understand me. Let's start again." And we start again.
The others will not be bored because they will be hearing reviewed comprehensible input in the target language, which is what they are there to do. The discussion may not be all funny and wonderful, but comprehensible input will be occurring, and CI is the point of TPRS, not funny and wonderful.
My belief is that IF WE DON'T INCLUDE those barometers from the beginning of the year, establishing clearly in their minds that we care deeply for them and for their success in our classes, we may as well not even use this method. We will have discipline problems and, worse, unhappy kids.
Q. After reading your idea on how to circle on the first day of class I decided to ditch my traditional TPR introduction and go for the personalization. What fell flat was keeping the rest of the class interested in each kid as well as my responses to them.
I discussed my name tag (I play volleyball and have cats) and then asked Miguel if he plays volleyball. He said he plays the tuba. He plays the tuba for more than five hours a day. At this point, the class was still interested.
Then I got stuck. So I had the choice of going to another student or continuing with a comparison of me and him, so I went for the comparison. Do I play the tuba for five hours a day? Who plays volleyball?
After four or five of these questions the class was still involved, but I felt like I should move on. Loca plays the double bass, but not in class, and Margarita plays football. I wanted so much to get deeper and build up that information but I was stuck! It felt like we were all wondering how long this would last and so I just jumped ship to discuss supplies and class rules.
I don't know if it was just first day jitters, or if I've already had many of the kids before in Spanish I and it was weird for them. I am genuinely interested in what they have to say and sharing it with the class, but it feels off. Personalized class and building cohesion in the class is something I really want to do well this year. Any thoughts on what to do differently?
A. This question is honest, candid, and thought-provoking – no one escapes moments like that while learning this method. It really describes in detail a barbed part of the learning curve that we all must go through. In my opinion, it was not first day jitters, nor was it because you had had the kids the year before in a non-storytelling environment.
Let’s take a look at the moment it gets boring. What is happening in that moment?
We have all been taught as teachers to be in charge, to drive the discussion forward, say the right thing at the right time, be funny, and just generally be the total focus of the room for the whole class period.
PQA in a Wink page 128 However, if the teacher is the one driving everything forward, there is no "space" for the kids to join in the game. More importantly, if the details of the story are not provided by the students, they will not be interested in the story. The instructor must create spaces via artful questioning that allow for those spaces to be filled by students' answers that are amusing.
It sounds as if the answers you were letting into the discussion weren’t that interesting, and kind of artificial. Miguel plays tuba for five hours a day. Who cares? Marguerita plays football. Not that interesting! Sounds kind of fake.
Personally, as soon as I heard the tuba thing I would have done a little scene or even started a story, which is easily done by just having Tuba Man stand up.
Miguel, stand up. Class, Miguel has a tuba. (ohh!) Class, does Miguel have a tuba? (yes) Class, does Miguel or Frankie have a tuba (Miguel)
Circle the verb and object if you wish, but it clearly won’t be necessary. They understand. So now just be open to what can happen now. Give up all the control, and listen to the kids. Good move to bring in Frankie, as comparisons always breathe life into fading CI.
Overriding your conscious mind to make a kind of collective decision with the students takes real courage. What do you say?
You have Miguel with a tuba and Frankie with nothing. Doesn’t it make sense to go to Frankie? Do you have Frankie’s questionnaire? I keep mine alphabetized exactly for this kind of situation. Ask Frankie to stand up. Look at Frankie’s questionnaire.
Go ahead! You have time! The students know that silences and pauses are just fine in your classroom. They know that class works better and things are funnier when those pauses happen.
Frankie has written that his favorite thing to do is to listen to music. Here is a link! You don’t know how the two things will connect, Miguel’s tuba and Frankie’s interest in music. All you know is there is a connection there.
Class, Frankie listens to music! (ohh) Class, does Frankie or Miguel listen to music? (Frankie) Class,does Miguel listen to music? (no) That’s right class, Miguel doesn’t listen to music. Miguel PLAYS music! (ohh) Class, Frankie listens to Miguel and Miguel PLAYS music! (ohh) Class, does Frankie listen to Miguel play music?
If the class says yes to this question, you can agree or not. If you don’t agree that Frankie listens to Miguel play music, you can explain that it is because Frankie only likes hip hop. Bringing in Frankie personalizes things more, offers more possible questions, and the very randomness of possible answers thus generated fuels interesting questioning.
PQA in a Wink page 129
To find that link between the two boys you just need to ask slow personalized circled questions. Do you need to save the world as the most gifted teacher who ever lived by supplying all sorts of brilliant answers to your own questions? Not at all! What the kids say is always more interesting to them than what you come up with.
Indeed, most TPRS teachers agree that a very common error we all make is to assume that it is our job to maintain control of everything. But that really does put a choke hold on the story and the discussion.
When the teacher lacks input from the class in the form of cute answers, the teacher starts to birdwalk, looking awkwardly around for something interesting. But the answer to the problem is always right in front of you! Once you are focused on two kids like Miguel and Frankie, stay with them! When you actually do this for the first time, and something really amusing occurs because you stay with your two students and compare them, you will be shocked at how much fun it is.
Class, what kind of music does Frankie listen to? (hip hop)
You got hip hop from the questionnaire. Look at Frankie, check to see if it is true, and check as well to see if Frankie wants to go there. He may be having a bad day. If so, sense that and go somewhere else with the questioning. Usually, as stated, kids really want to hear about themselves in class. So:
Class, does Frankie listen to hip hop or tuba? (hip hop) Class, does Frankie listen to tuba? (no) etc.
So you are fishing for meaningful and interesting details and making space for what they say in the form of cute answers. That is all PQA and extended PQA, and stories, are. You wonder if there is a link between the tuba and hip hop. Since everything is possible in French class:
Class, Miguel plays hip hop on the tuba!
This may or may not work. Is it cute enough? How cute is cute? It doesn’t matter! Interesting personalized comprehensible input matters. Just relax and see where it goes. Miguel playing hip hop on the tuba is at least more interesting than Miguel plays the tuba for five hours a day.
So, if it gets boring in spite of all your wonderful efforts to generate interesting CI about Miguel and Frankie, go to another student. Alexis has a cat. Can her cat be circled into the little scene, maybe into the tuba?
Class, Alexis has a cat! Class, the cat is called Gilbert.
You remember to circle the verb, which eventually moves the sentence into:
Class, the cat likes tubas! PQA in a Wink page 130
More circling results in:
Class, the cat jumps into the tuba! Class, Miguel plays the tuba loudly! Frankie dances hip hop to the tuba music while the cat snarks. Class, the cat ……. etc.
The above is more interesting to the students than “Miguel plays the tuba for five hours a day”. Why? Three reasons:
the kids came up with the details the information involves more than just Miguel it is somewhat bizarre
To repeat: you are not driving the discussion forward, the students’ cute answers are. You are controlling the class via your choice of certain cute answers over others, and by your slow circling, but their cute answers are actually driving the discussion.
This involves staying in the moment, resting there, avoiding the desire to push forward, and the desire to listen to that deceptive voice that tells you to move on, the one you referred to when you said:
"After four or five of these questions I'm still getting the class to respond, but I feel like I should move on..."
I think that the key point in this most interesting question lies in the feeling inside that sentence. Yes, the class is responding. But it feels like you should move on because it is not that interesting.
So this reveals something important - you have to trust the method and the kids. You have to trust that circling works, that SLOW works, that pointing and pausing works, that kids are smart enough to come up with interesting suggestions. In point of fact, they are far more gifted and capable than we may have any idea!
Provide the spaces and the possibilities. It is in those spaces that you move to greater levels of specificity in the details you are getting. In those specifics, lies the humor. This is the art of PQA.
Q. I am so nervous about starting stories. When I use the simple activities like circling with balls, I am fine, but I know eventually that I am going to have to go into stories. What should I do?
A. Stories are just kids a) standing up and b) having some kind of problem to solve. Even having a problem is optional! Many stories just roll beautifully along without a problem, taking the form of endless interesting details painted beautifully into the grand mosaic of language being produced in the room.
PQA in a Wink page 131 So relax, and be open to that moment in PQA when it seems natural to ask a kid to stand up. If you want, tell them there is a problem, and start circling something. Then, just see where their cute suggestions take that. It is always best to connect the real interests of the actor (from the questionnaire) to the story, and to include places of local and hence authentic interest as well.
You are like the ringleader of a circus coaxing things along, asking questions, personalizing to the highest degree possible, waiting for and happily choosing answers that resonate with your version of things. But if they say something that doesn’t fit with your conception of the story, but you sense power in it, then why wouldn’t you explore it?
They suggest and you choose. If you reject an answer you do it in a lighthearted way, never implying that it is wrong, or that it is not what you were looking for, but rather just not in alignment with what you have in mind.
Whether it is a story or just PQA or whatever doesn't matter. Whether a kid is standing or not doesn't matter. Having a problem doesn't matter. Interesting personalized comprehensible input matters.
Q. When I try to extend PQA into a little scene, it just doesn’t seem real and the kids sense it, and I sense it. How do you make those scenes and then stories seem real?
A. Make it believable. If the teacher starts out a class with an enthusiastic:
Class, I am a frog!
The kids groan and slide down into their seats. It is not genuine. This sentence is neither true nor about the kids. But when the teacher artfully blends and mixes real facts (learned from classroom discussion and/or questionnaires) with the imagined, then PQA is being done properly.
Q. Any other uses for the questionnaires?
A. The questionnaires can be used as a source of information when writing personalized readings, which can be done before asking a story. I described the use of personalized readings after stories are created in TPRS in a Year! but this idea is a twist on that. How does it work?
Many teachers depend on the story provided by Blaine or others, and they read it after the story has been asked. This generally works, but wouldn’t it be wonderful on some days to start things off with a reading that is highly personalized, and therefore more charged?
Such readings would contain the names of many of the students in the room, not to mentions all kinds of inside jokes and things relevant to the lives of the students in the school and the local scene?
PQA in a Wink page 132 The kids would definitely want to read such a story more than an original, impersonal, canned reading. We must ask ourselves: do we want our kids to read simply in order to read, or to do so in order to find out interesting things that happen?
Students would much rather be put in a position to find out what happens to one of their classmates. In TPRS stories we come up with personalized and interesting things, and, in my opinion, this should apply to readings as well.
When we provide personalized reading materials to the kids before we ask a story, we shift their focus further away from the vehicle (language) and closer to the content (meaning) that the vehicle provides. This is not to say there is no interest in canned texts written after the story, just that there is more interest in stories with personalized pre- readings.
So I just write out a story before class, being sure to include any local jokes, places, and information from the questionnaire about as many kids in the class as possible. Thematic vocabulary and other essential learnings required by the district can be included. The text is saved in a Word file.
At the beginning of the first period class, using the LCD projector, we project the text onto the screen and begin reading, translating into English. When the next class comes in, using Word’s Find and Replace key (Control H), we replace, with one click, the nine references to Keith from Period 1 with Tyler’s name in Period 2.
We update all names, and anything else that is proprietary to that class. Each new class collaborates on new versions of the text throughout the day, adding in new details, taking things out, learning district vocabulary that you sneak in, etc.
With the LCD projector, we can also do cloze activities, explain grammar, and generally work on how the target language is built at the same time we are working on reading. The kids pay attention because THEIR NAMES ARE UP THERE.
When the kids are the stars of the reading, with their own carefully selected classroom names up there for everyone to see, when we start class, the kids WANT TO KNOW WHAT THEY DID. Thus, they decode the text almost without even thinking about it.
Because the readings are personalized and are created by the instructor, she is able to add in rich and imaginative vocabulary of any variety. When students are exposed to rich and varied written language, they will eventually exhibit amazing vocabularies in their speech.
Then, after the reading, it is a very natural thing to ask the kids all sorts of questions about the story (“Hat Man, is this true?” “Mr. Colorado, did you really do that?”) and, from those questions, a strong and energetic new story can emerge. Since the new story that emerged from the reading has strong relevance and interest, the story just flows. Stories that emerge from personalized readings done before stories have a lot of power.
PQA in a Wink page 133 Q. In PQA in a Wink! you describe how to personalized a classroom. Is it possible to “overdo” the personalization aspect, and to get so involved in talking to the kids about things that are interesting to them that some of the more essential aspects of the language are lost or ignored?
A. No, it is not possible to do that. How can you ignore the essential aspects of language when you are speaking to your students in flowing and meaningful language that is not cut up, dissected, and divided up into sections?
There is a movie called The Indian in the Cupboard. In it, a boy of about eleven, caught right between childhood and his teen years, develops a powerful imagined friendship with two small plastic toy figures, one a cowboy and one a Native American. They have adventures together and, by the end of the movie, they have created a story.
In the last scene of the movie, the camera pans across the boy's face as he finishes a report to his teacher and classmates about what seemed like an imaginary tale, but to the boy was quite real. The magic of film, of the story, made it seem quite real to the people watching the film, as well.
The poignancy of the internalized vision of the boy, as the voice of the next kid to present to the class begins to slowly draw the boy’s internal gaze away from his imagined life for the last time, is remarkable.
Of course, the boy must return to class in his mind, but the depth of his heart experience with his two friends is felt deeply by the audience. One senses that part of the boy will always remain there, in his heart, drawn into it by his experiences with his two imagined friends, even though his mind must return to the classroom.
When kids in our foreign language classes are forced to cut up and dissect language, it sends them into their minds. But when we present to them language as it really is, wholistic and seamless as in a well built story locked in the target language, our kids move into their hearts.
So, when we teach our foreign language classes, we can either choose to talk about the language, a thing of the mind, or just speak the language, a thing of the heart. Many teachers consider the first choice their professional prerogative because it has been done that way literally for hundreds of years, so it is not such an odd thing to them.
I can only defend the rights of these teachers to teach the way they want to a limited extent. I defend their rights to teach as they want, but not at the expense of their students.
We have a chance now. Blaine has opened up a door to a wonderful way of teaching. We have been invited into his story. We are the kids in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. If we want to reach into the hearts of our students, we must go fearlessly into that wardrobe, into flowing speech, where the real essential elements of the language are hiding.
By going inside, if we train ourselves well in the most difficult process of learning the method, if we never give up, always reaching deeper into our own hearts, we can bring PQA in a Wink page 134 back to our students things that will make their hearts sing, and their minds buzz with excitement.
Like the boy in The Indian in the Cupboard, our students can only experience what it means be in their hearts if we create classes in which they are allowed to be in their hearts. When we have done that, we can say that we have learned what personalization means, and what it means to ask a story.
Q. I have had some successes with circling PQA activities. It’s all a whirlwind and I’m loving it. I can’t wait to get up tomorrow and have another adventure. It’s all so radical after more than 30 years of teaching. I feel reborn. Will it always be this way or is this the honeymoon period?
A. That depends on you. If you slowly circle, waiting and getting cute answers, you will only go deeper into the method. It is all an inner voyage, unique to each one. But the method is flawless. So, no, it isn’t a honeymoon, as long as you continue SLOW and open up spaces for cute answers, making yourself absolutely comprehensible in a loving way.
Q. At what point do you tell them how they have to sit? Straight back, square shoulders and clear eyes?
A. Every time you see one slouch you must correct that posture immediately. It is a sign of disrespect and will definitely affect all the others. You train yourself to be aware of how they are sitting every instant of every class. You call them on their postures. Call their parents if necessary.
This is a power game. Tell their parents that this method requires interaction with the teacher, unlike other classes, and thus proper posture and eye contact. Remind the parents and the kids that people who sit like that in the workplaces of America don’t last long in their jobs or don’t get paid, and I don’t allow it.
Q. I understand that you use the circling with balls activity first and then move into the questionnaire. How long do those activities last?
A. This really depends on the teachers. The goal is to build inclusion in the classroom, and, since different teachers have different definitions of what that means, the length of time spent on these activities will vary.
Inclusion activities are all that I personally do in my classroom. They are my curriculum, my textbook, and everything else. Each time I have stopped doing inclusion and personalization activities in my classroom over the past years, the level of interest and excitement always goes down, and it does so visibly.
I also find that I am able to stay in the target language a lot more with these personalization activities. As a result, I am able to teach exponentially more language than I did before I discovered the importance of classes built around inclusion and personalization.
PQA in a Wink page 135 So, for me, I do these activities in some form or another as described in this book or in TPRS in a Year! I cut a deal with my kids that if they can learn all the district vocabulary outside of class they can do PQA all the time, and they go for the deal because they really don’t want the textbook.
Q. When you have completed a round of the circling with balls activity, how do you assess?
A. When, during the activity I found out that Mr. Yankee and Joe Schmoe both run track, but Mr. Yankee runs the 100 meters and Joe runs to the bathroom.
I also learned that Senequa designs clothes, and that Cindy rides her younger brother’s bike to school occasionally.
My statements were:
Class, Mr. Yankee runs the 100 meters! Class, Joe runs to the bathroom! Class, Senequa designs clothes! Class, Cindy rides a small bike to school!
There was a lot of funny conversation around those things, but the above was the basic idea around which we circled our discussion, and on which I tested the kids. Did I ask test questions on a lot of the frill information that came up? No, my choice in assessing this activity is to stay with absolutely simple questions.
My goal as a teacher of languages is to motivate kids to learn languages by talking about them, and I would undo all the benefits of my work if I tried to trick them when I assess them, or to try to get them to remember minor details. So I ask:
1. Class, does Mr. Yankee run the 100 meters? 2. Class, does Joe run to the bathroom? 3. Class, does Cindy walk to class? 4. Class, does, Senequa design clothes?
The kids would write down:
1. yes 2. yes 3. no 4. yes
Another way, perhaps the easiest, is just to give a translation test on individual high incidence words from your discussion with the kids. Simple true/false tests serve tremendously well also.
It is fun and easy for the kids, they experience success, and the affective filter drops precipitously when they know that all they have to do for a good grade is learn a few words outside of class and to pay close but relaxed attention in class. PQA in a Wink page 136
Q. I do not know how to translate the student questionnaires into a story that is interesting and meaningful. I don’t have an overall game plan that can be amended with the students' cute answers. I start with something but do not feel clever enough to know where I am going, thus the story becomes such a mishmash that I get so confused myself and can't concentrate on circling in an interesting way. Do you have any advice for this problem?
A. This is the same question as the one about Miguel and Frankie above. My answer will always be to make space for their answers by really attempting to hear what they say, thus allowing the dance to take place without a bull (the teacher) in the room, running around, breaking priceless objets de language.
The first red flag in your question that I noticed was: “…I do not have an overall game plan that can be amended with the students' cute answers.” That very effort to “have a game plan” may be messing you up. Because when you are sticking to a game plan, the magical unfoldment of your dialogue with the kids in that moment of dialogue cannot occur. It can’t open because the game plan keeps it glued shut.
The second red flag in your question that I noticed was: “…but I do not know how to translate these into a story that is interesting and meaningful.” That very effort to “get to a story” may also be messing you up. Because when you are trying to get to a story, you are not fully present with the kids during the PQA. This method is about kids, and stories are merely the byproduct of WHAT WE HEAR THEM SAY, and so are secondary to them in importance in the classroom.
The third red flag in your question that I noticed was: “…I start with something but do not feel clever enough to know where I am going…”. Who says you have to be clever? Isn’t it enough that you are successfully engaging kids in conversation in the target language via the astoundingly simple and effective practice of circling? Just let go of that need to be clever and let the kids do their part by supplying the cute answers! When the kids know they are being given the space to inject cute answers into the dialogue, they take it!
These kids are not stupid. Give them their work (supplying cute answers), do yours (asking the right questions at the right time using circling in the right way, and enforcing the rules against the use of English) and let the method work. You kind of have to let go of control of the discussion to be able to get real control, which seems like a contradiction but, in fact, is not.
Susie recently said two things to me. First, she said to always remember to circle all parts of the sentence, to be intuitive when circling, and generally never quit working at improving your own abilities to circle, again, all parts of the sentence. She really stressed that.
The other thing was really important and bears directly on your question. She said to never get to thinking about how clever or cute or smart you are being as the teacher, and, instead, to focus on the kids and what they are experiencing.
PQA in a Wink page 137 Q. I am having some trouble circling SLOWLY with a big class that is not always as quiet as I would like, but I will continue to try. I did the name cards and drawing of what they were good at and I brought in the football and basketball. You are so RIGHT, the boys LOVED it, but it was very hard to circle. I wrote all the questions on the board but that didn't help. Next time I will try just two questions and not all five!
A. Yes, I have always felt that circling with too many question words with first year beginning students causes confusion. So cutting down on the number of question words you are using is a good move. I personally limit my questions to the use of who, what, and maybe where for at least a month.
Don’t forget that you can do comparison circling, where you take the information from one kid and compare it with the information from another kid and then you find that you instantly have a lot of questions to ask that are not too hard for the kids.
Then, just going slowly is always the big key, pausing and pointing at any new words, and focusing less on the information and more on the kids.
Q. What do you give the kids for homework?
A. That is all discussed on my blog at benslavic.com under the homework category so for ideas for homework in comprehensible input classrooms go there.
Basically, I align with Alfie Kohn on homework. My colleague Robert Harrell puts it very clearly:
“What I took away from The Homework Myth [Kohn] were the following:
1. No homework should be the default setting.
2. Whenever homework is given, it needs to be justified, i.e. it accomplishes something that cannot be done in class.
3. “Homework” should be things that students are able to do on their own and can enjoy.
Also, I have a packet called Useful Information that supplies (by thematic units) all the words needed by my kids to pass the French I end of year diagnostic exam, necessary in our district to get into French II. It’s a whole slew of words.
I have a CD of it available if a kid requests it, but I don’t just make hundreds of CDs and hand them out to gradually settle at the bottom of various lockers in our building. I give periodic tests on all those words throughout the year. The tests are simple visual recognition tests and not auditory.
For example, I give the kids a week to learn time expressions, and we practice them a little in class with a Judy clock, maybe forty minutes total over the five days the kids have to prepare outside of class for the test.
PQA in a Wink page 138 I have the kids learn this as homework because I am not very good at including that stuff in stories, and I am jealous of my time for stories. Everybody wants to find out what happens to the little man in the little boat with all the oranges in it off the western coast of Africa when he goes to meet the mini me merman on the beach. Nobody is really riveted by how to say two o’clock in French.
Then I just give a visual translation test on the words having to do with time. The kids learn quickly to actually learn what they are told to learn, because if they try to cram it all in the night before, they fail and I put that in the grade book.
Soon parents call, and I explain that their child, who seems to enjoy the class and listens well, is having trouble with out of class work, and the parents see that as a reasonable thing for a teacher to say, and they conclude that I must be a good teacher because I give homework, and that their kid needs to get to work, and learn this stuff.
But I don't give worksheets, or any other of that wasteful busywork that does do much to curtail the kid's natural desire to learn French. Since the kids need to know those words to be successful in the compartmentalized book experience they will experience at our high school next year, I just combine learning those words with homework and testing.
Personally, I have tried to inject the expected outcome words into stories and find that I cannot do it effectively. I can teach the words, but not for acquisition without giving up more story time than I am willing to give up.
Since I am unwilling to take time away from stories to teach those words in class, they are perfect homework and testing materials. Really, the idea of trying to “fit in” these expressions is to me impractical – stories are just too much fun to stop in midstream and ask the class what time it is.
Testing at the end of the year to see how much or how little of those words my students know is something I used to get too concerned about. I know that they know a lot that would never show up on any test (such is the nature of wholistic acquisition) and my kids know that they have heard so much CI in stories all year that the final year test on words like pencil sharpener and the color orange and the number 71 and the way you say 7:15 p.m. in French barely scratches the surface of what they know.
I heard from a colleague once that in her district the term finger nail polish was a required word in level II. The 4%ers probably got that one right, but there are only about four percent of them among all my kids, so go figure.
But since I give the useful expressions per thematic unit tests all year, with make-up tests allowed at any time, the kids learn the words that the district says are important, and I get credit for being a good teacher by giving them tests and homework, which then determine about half the kids' grades, with the other half coming from easy test questions about stories.
Doing homework this way allows me and the kids the class periods to speak French in my classroom, and I don’t worry about covering district benchmarks like telling time and all that in class.
PQA in a Wink page 139 Q. Honestly, why do you think TPRS and PQA are so challenging to most teachers?
A. For the past few hundred years at least, teachers have intimidated kids in classrooms. Tolstoy recalled his years in school as "the worst of his life...filled with endless boring tasks."
Think of Jules and Jim and Au Revoir les Enfants in French film or Alain Fournier's Le Grand Meaulnes in French literature. It is almost an archetype, the teacher pulling on the ear of the boy with too much energy.
Carl Jung says that we all share a collective unconscious, a kind of collective memory of humanity on a level below our personal unconscious. We need to keep in consideration that we all are possibly in some way fighting images of teachers as mean people. This would explain why TPRS intimidates. It makes the teacher retool, rebuild, and destroy old images of what a teacher is. It makes teachers open up their hearts to children. That is hard work. TPRS and PQA are hard work.
Q. I've been using circling in my classroom for a month and a half now, and I've found that it's a great way to slow down and make sure that everyone understands everything. But I don’t know how to start personalization in PQA.
I've tried some PQA on the topic of pets, and I even got lucky since one of my students happened to actually have 5 hamsters, 2 dogs, several fish, and a horse (which could be added to her grandmother's chicken to make a total of 43 animals living at her place...) But still the discussion remained flat and contrived and most of the class was exhibiting signs of intense boredom.
Q. What could be missing in what I'm doing?
A. In your question you said, “I couldn't manage to find questions that would allow anything cute to come out.” Let’s talk about that sentence.
First, let’s ask, what do you mean by “cute”? O.K. you probably mean cute answers that drive the story to higher levels of interest. Suggestions that bring a smile. Maybe one grin on one kid’s face, for starters. So now we know what we want.
Next, let’s talk about how we get some smiles out of the kids. In my view, asking how many cats a kid has is merely a starting point for a conversation, but no more. I really don’t care how many cats a kid has. Once I know a kid has two cats, I don’t really want to prolong the boredom by asking boring questions about the two cats.
I have what I need. I have enough to EXTEND what I just learned in PQA into a stupid little scene, or maybe even a story! I want to TWIST those banal facts about those two cats into increasingly bizarre images of cats, and I want those images to be filmed in one of the basic TPRS technologies, and a good one, Whacky Vision.
I continue asking for details, fully intending to TWIST them into Whacky Facts, into Whacky Town, where Whacky Vision was invented. We already know that the cat (that PQA in a Wink page 140 nobody is interested in) is grey and lazy. Seriously, who cares? C’mon everybody, let’s TWIST!
Can’t TWIST? Sure you can! Just mess with Jenny’s mind a little. Ask her if her cat is nice. She says, because she is bored too, “Yes.” Tell her “NOT! YOU ARE WRONG! YOUR CAT IS MEAN.” Circle that, WITH EMOTION, until there is not one kid in the room who does not clearly understand that Jenny’s cat is MEAN AND UGLY, and if Jenny objects, you smilingly say, “C’est mon histoire!”
Then mess with her mind again - ask if the cat is handsome. She says yes. You say, “No, Jenny, your cat is NOT HANDSOME! HE IS UGLY! (your are circling and repeating and pausing and pointing here). Put some emotion into your words! Mean it! Meaning is so much more important than language. Language is merely a vehicle to convey meaning. If there was no meaning, there would be no language.
Then take a few minutes to draw the cat. Or let your resident artist kid draw the cat (a lot of my kids have jobs – weird jobs, but jobs). Limit the drawing to a few minutes or the class will get too into it and you will lose time on your rapidly developing Whacky Story. Refer to Portrait Physique for details on how to get the description of this MEAN AND UGLY cat going.
Do you see that the personalized information about this girl’s cat was merely a springboard for crazy stuff, which, because it carried interest and meaning to the kids, was crazy like a fox? Do you see what you are doing here? You are TEACHING LANGUAGE THROUGH INTERESTING AND MEANINGFUL AND COMPREHENSIBLE INPUT.
Jenny, you have a cat that is MEAN AND UGLY!
As you do all this, remind the class that EVERYTHING you say is interesting, and insist on a reaction from EVERY kid in the room – ohh! – to every statement you make Go ahead! You can do it. Hold those little Fauntleroys accountable!
If a kid fails to recognize how really interesting it is that Jenny has a MEAN AND UGLY cat, first let the kid know that you are so sorry that you have not done a good job of communicating to the class how MEAN AND UGLY this cat is (which is rapidly ceasing to be Jenny’s cat but the class’ cat, as it were), and say, “Class, I am sorry I must be going too fast, let’s go back…”. And go back and start over, twisting the grey and lazy cat (boring!) into Whacky Cat. Just start over.
This recycling causes the kids in the room to regret not communicating to you that they were getting what you were saying. Because now they have to sit through it again, circling, pausing and pointing, the whole thing. Do it cheerfully and like it is your fault that they don’t understand. Swoop in on rude kids who have no social skills (a classroom is a social setting!) Call their parents, apologizing for not being able to reach them. Watch the eye daggers from the class when you apologize to the rest of the class, which wants to go on, and go over and give the kid who can’t get it a personal recycling session.
Throughout, point to your rules and insist on reactions to everything you say. Teach them that they bear fully 50% of the responsibility for making things interesting in a story. Tell PQA in a Wink page 141 them storytelling only works when they do their part. I have my rules poster but the file is at school. Basically, though, it says:
Listen with the intent to understand Squared shoulders/Straight back/Clear eyes Speak English ONLY when furnishing cute answers to my questions (TWO WORD LIMIT PER SUGGESTION) or after I say to you “What did I just say?” No “talking over”
I point to that poster a lot! The first two points are real important. You teach each of them that they must clearly SHOW YOU through the way they are sitting that they intend to understand what you are saying. If you don’t do this, you then convey to your students that what you are saying is not important, and that you will allow them to “slide” in your class.
Why would you ever do that when they are about to hear about the MEANEST, UGLIEST cat in the entire Caribbean region? One who actually attacked the kitten owned by some other kid in the class, which was CUUTTE!
But all that comes later – now you are still recycling the MEAN AND UGLY thing. You will recycle only that until each kid clearly understands those words, teaching to each kids’ eyes.
The big deal is in the third thing I wrote up there. When you circle, you make it clear that you will accept answers with no more than TWO WORDS in English, and that they can’t be all blurted out at the same time
(no “talking over” each other in their efforts to get their cute suggestion into the story as per the fourth point above).
What are you doing here? You are EXTENDING the PQA. PQA by itself is ever so boring, as you described so well in your post. Instead, twist the facts into the Kingdom of Whack, insisting on the rules above.
And most importantly, know your clients. This is a business, and you and I sell French. If they don’t like the product, we both lose, and our clients lose. If you know that another girl in the class, on her questionnaire (that you studied diligently during your planning period), has a cat too, named Cuddles, you build interest by comparing the two cats. You create little weird scenes to see where they go:
Class, [the first cat] attacked Cuddles! (oh no, oh no)
Class, is that a problem?
INSIST on a reaction. If they don’t get the meaning that you are conveying to them, go back and apologize for not making it clear. Soon, when most kids (80% at least, I go for 95%) get it, you will see a subtle shift – there will be peer pressure on those not showing their intent to understand. And there will be interest. Now that the scene is getting PQA in a Wink page 142 whacky, the kids want to know what happens. This describes an actual working TPRS class.
So play around with that and let us on the list know how it is going. You should see Joe do this. Oh my gosh. His heart sings when he takes them all to Whacky City. His body dances. His character, in open heart, opens other hearts. Notice those words – heart, sings, body. I didn’t say mind. Why? Because we have spent enough time in our minds trying to teach languages.
In essence, and this is a much shorter answer to you question, we must learn to move away from merely gathering information from our kids, and go beyond the mind into the merry old land of Whack. At the start, this will be way out of our comfort zone. After you tough it out, though, you will wonder how you could have ever taught in any other way.
Q. How about personalizing a story and not just PQA? Could you expand on what you said about that earlier in this book? To what extent can stories be personalized?
A. The degree to which you can personalize a story depends entirely on how well you have gotten to know the kids. If you have distributed questionnaires (or even if you haven’t), if you have done the circling with sports balls thing, and made that effort, stories are much easier.
It all depends on how much effort there has been in building relationships with kids, which explains why we do the heaviest PQA at the beginning of the year, when relationships are built.
The clear message lately on this list is that P is no longer a frill, but necessary to success, and so we hit it hard in the early fall and keep it going to various degrees depending on our personal preferences. I checked in with Scott Benedict a few weeks ago and even now in November he is still running hard with PQA, which I think is very cool.
And we should always remember that the personalized information gathered during PQA can always, at any moment, launch a story. We take a little fact we learn about a kid in PQA and spin it into a scene. But on those occasions when the scene then naturally spins into a story, the classic form of a story takes over, and there is simply too much going on to get a lot of P into the story.
So that fact hampers heavy personalization of stories. Another hindrance is that, just like in the theatre or in the movies, the stories are not about the personal lives of the actors, but about the personal lives of the characters they are representing.
So the question is a challenging one. To what extent, indeed, can we personalize stories with information from our kids? If P is so powerful, and it is, then what can we do to bring it into everything we talk about, including stories, even if it just a little bit?
On my regular class questionnaires, I now ask my kids to provide mostly imagined (80- 90%) answers. This has helped a lot, because I think that imagined information is more easily injected into stories than real information, which are themselves also imagined. I also really don’t care how many cats one of my students has, or what position they play on their soccer team, or what their real world job is. I really don’t care. PQA in a Wink page 143
So the question becomes “If we bring in just enough personalized whacky information into a story, not from the general class discussion but from the new imagination-based questionnaires, could we then get extra helpings of P into our stories?” If the kids fill out their questionnaires just thoughtfully enough on the side of whack, will that be enough to increase the general interest in our stories?
Jenna is afraid of shrimp, according to her new style questionnaire. That is a typical answer from a creative kid, and exactly what I am looking for. When I know a few such whacky facts about each kid in my class, and have studied them, I have great new ammunition for any story any day. I need but keep track of these facts in the back of my mind, and when a story circles its way into seafood, or fear, or both, I am ready with it.
Developing a sentinel eye looking for those precise moments in the story when I can add more doses of P thanks to my kids’ slightly whacky questionnaires may seem overly difficult, but what is difficult is to make a story work without personalization.
So here's something that might work:
Instead of frontloading step one with three expressions from a scripted story, I just use one completely random fact from one of the kids’ questionnaires as a structure, and write that on the board, as per the following:
Class, kid X + wanted + any infinitive + any noun!
Since it is only one expression, the need to develop a lot of base information is removed from the first part of class, and time is saved, with the result that more time is available for targeting the kid and personalizing the story. The only thing that doesn’t change in the formula is the word “wanted”, which therefore allows a full three quarters of the target structure to be personalized.
First, you pick the kid whose questionnaire you are working with:
Class, Lindsay wanted…
Now the guessing game begins. The kids according to this formula immediately try to figure out what their classmate Lindsay wanted. Just remember to make them suggest infinitives.
On Lindsay’s questionnaire she wrote that she likes to dance with cowboys. I didn’t make that up, Lindsay did.
This echoes the critical point that Donatienne Dougherty made on the listserve once:
"The teacher is not fishing for cute answers, the student is fishing for the teacher's cute answers. Maybe this is one of the pieces of the personalizing-the-story puzzle."
This gives wonderful insight to Blaine’s original statement, that I quote whenever I can:
"I believe people who are the most effective at TPRS don't tell stories. They ask questions, pause, and listen for cute answers from the students."
PQA in a Wink page 144 So in our example the kids are trying to guess something the teacher already knows – that Lindsay wants to dance with cowboys.
For some reason, the story is more interesting when the thing the kid wants is in the form of an infinitive. This is a most important point. Nouns are just more boring and don’t make the feeling of the CI as personalized and energetic as do infinitives. Why? Who knows?
The sentence I am suggesting above is easy to circle (CI) and it is about a kid (P). It gets the class going right away. Note, however, that Lindsay does not yet stand up. She doesn’t stand up until the original sentence has been circled into something new.
Proper circling will cause either the subject, the infinitive, or the object to change, since “wanted” is a constant. One, two, or even three of the factors will change. Let us assume, to further our discussion, that circling causes the subject and the object to change into:
Class, Lindsey/wanted/to dance/with cowboy boots!
Any experienced TPRSer, were they to look at that sentence closely, could instantly smell the power and potential in it. It is the kind of problem we want to have at the beginning of a class, one that we know will quickly mushroom into a hilarious session with the kids.
Think of the possibilities, if we but follow the kids zany questionnaire answers, using the formula suggested of simply adding an infinite to the verb “wanted”:
Joe/wanted/to make/a cake! could become:
Joe/wanted/to burp/some Mountain Dew!
An important point about the verb “to burp” is that some teachers would say, “I could never do that!” (get a funny verb) - this goes back to what Donatienne said, the kids have to guess, but in their guessing you only feign to know the right answer – if one of them says “to burp” you jump on it.
In this sense, TPRS is like a dance, as per this recent inspired observation on the listserve from Rita in Oregon:
"…TPRS really is a dance between teacher and students. When both sides are trying to do the steps correctly, we avoid stamping on our partner's toes and can really enjoy the music…”
The teacher only accepts funny infinitives, not nouns, until someone guesses “to burp”, or, if the guessing goes on too long, the teacher plays the “to burp” card using the expression It’s obvious/C’est évident/Es obvio.
One might think that the teacher would need a list of “funny verbs” to make this work, but even that is not true. We just don’t need as many materials as we think. Any verb can be made funny with the proper object, as per:
PQA in a Wink page 145 Lindsay/wanted/to dance/with a cowboy boot. Joe/wanted/to burp/Mountain Dew. Trace/wanted/to run/around a toilet. Arnold/wanted/to attack/a bug.
Maybe this formula creates such interest not just because it is simple and involves the kids directly, but also because it creates strong visual and tactile images. Whatever the reason (leave that to the researchers), the main thing to keep in mind with this suggested formula is that it has four parts:
1. a subject (kid from the class) 2. the constant word “wanted” 3. the infinitive (which provides a lot of the power) 4. the noun (which can bump up interest in the verb in an instant, as per the above examples
Whatever you and the class come up with by circling the formula into a personalized and interesting base structure, the usual rules of telling a story would apply - the story would go forward from the first location (situation as first presented via circling to the class) to the second location where the kid failed to get what he or she wanted, and then to the third location where they got what they wanted.
The first location requires about ten minutes to be circled into existence from the original information provided in the student’s questionnaire. So it takes about ten minutes to establish the idea that
Joe/wanted/to burp/Mountain Dew!
This is the precise time to stand Joe up and extract the requisite Oh no, Oh no! reaction from the kids to a fact that, if you think about it, is really quite serious, that Joe can’t burp Mountain Dew.
So Joe stands up and you send him off to location 2, usually having a funny travel vignette about how he gets to location 2, which always seems to bring cascades of funny suggestions in answer to your circled question about how Joe gets to the second location.
In fact, the questions "where did he go" (in his first attempt) to solve the problem and "how did he get there" can be considered staples in the construction of any TPRS story. Some classes that have been doing it for a long time even prefer to leave the travel scene out to get to the “good stuff”, even thought travel scenes are always “good stuff” themselves.
So when Joe arrives in location 2 he of course can’t get any Mountain Dew, but, does it always have to be the object that we focus on? This reflects Susie’s suggestion in her workshops that we curtail focusing so much on circling objects and spend more time circling verbs and subjects.
If, indeed, we circled the verb instead, we see we could get more bang for the buck - Joe in fact gets some Mountain Dew but he can’t burp it (you could use a real can of soda for this – it would be very funny in the hands of the right actor).
PQA in a Wink page 146 And then in location 3 he can burp it up (look how funny verbs can be!) - he gets the burp, a massive one, that occurs, if your kids are like mine, just before the bell rings.
Critics of TPRS love to see in this kind of humor a kind of drifting from real learning. I counter that when CI carries real meaning to the kids, they will aggressively wrap their minds around every detail of a story, and thus around the language, highlighting a fundamental premise of TPRS, that language is only acquired if it is delivered in an interesting and meaningful way.
Its critics woefully miss the point – TPRS is not about stupid animals running around the room, but about tricking the kids into acquisition. It is about knowing what is fun and interesting to kids and motivating them to learn by presenting language that is fun and interesting to them instead of lists of adverbs, double object pronouns, and, my favorite, IR verbs.
Please find the questionnaire on page 111. It has been purged of boring questions. Notice how practically anything on there could be used to create a cool sentence as per our formula of:
Class, kid X wanted + any infinitive + any noun!
When kids hand to me their finalized, carefully answered, questionnaire, I notice that, sometimes in handing it to me, they can’t resist making little advertisement comments about what they wrote, hoping that I notice what they wrote. I always do. When I do this, I send my student the message that they are important to me, and that I care about the things they came up with.
I recently went to see my twenty-two year old son play a guitar class recital at Metro State University here in Denver. I didn’t go for the music - I went to see my son. I firmly believe it is the job of adults to go out of their way to show interest in younger people, whatever their position in life, and not fake it by falsely claiming to the world that what they teach, not whom they teach, is more important.
When we put a kid’s questionnaire down and leave it in some stack of papers on some counter in the classroom, or put it in a drawer, we are sending the kids the message that they are not all that important to us. To them, we become just another teacher with just another questionnaire filled out and filed in just another stack of paper, never to be taken seriously enough to get into a story, like those of the other “clever” kids.
For the most part, kids are bored in school, and here is a chance for them to cut loose a little and move further away from the boredom and more towards a sense of inclusion and fun, with learning naturally flowing from it. What the kids provide us on their questionnaires is clearly valuable to us.
So how far can personalization be pushed into a story? It is for each of us to experiment with. Personally, I am already seeing that my new imagination-based questionnaires will enable me to increase personalization in my stories, when used in conjunction with the above-described formula for creating structures for stories without relying heavily on materials.
PQA in a Wink page 147 Really, there is nothing new hear that Blaine and Susie haven’t already said. It’s vintage TPRS! You focus on the kids, and in the case of a story you do your best to bring them in while circling questions around a problem needing three locations to solve.
Most experienced TPRSers have known for years that if we place an infinitive and not just a noun after the word “wanted” in our base structure, we can make our stories more personalized. The only wrinkle I am throwing in here is that if we draw the structure from slightly whacky questionnaires our kids have filled out, instead of pre-fabricated materials, we can make our stories more interesting.
Doing CI is of course always required. We have to learn how to circle and all that. But that is just the mechanical part of TPRS. The art lies in the personalization (P). In personalization lies the answer to the mystery of TPRS. I just sense that.
It is like in the Wizard of Oz when the film goes from black and white to color. This is what personalization does for a story. And this is a good question. What kind of mystery do we need to unlock about personalization in order to be able to move our stories into living color?
What, after all, is meant by personalization and PQA? I tried to describe above how talking about Jenny’s grey and lazy cat was indeed PQA centered around that student, but that is was boring. At least it was some kind of ultra low level of PQA.
Then I suggested to you that adding in bizarre details, furnished by the class via the magic of circling, would make the PQA more personalized. So circling got us a mean and ugly cat, and with it, a heightened sense of interest. So that would be a kind higher level of PQA. But still not living color.
A lot of experienced TPRS teachers function at that level of the slightly bizarre to the very bizarre in their stories. The class takes the PQA around Jenny’s cat and makes their own cat. They “extend” the PQA.
But the area that interests me, and I think one that interests a lot of people, is how to get more personalization beyond the extended PQA into a story. This is the question du jour, at least for me, at the time of the writing of this book. It is the question I most love to talk about with my colleagues. It is why I often (not always, because I love to work from story scripts as well) go to the Realm, where personalization is so heightened.
So I ask myself, what is it about the Realm that makes the kids so riveted to the CI? What is the nature of personalization in the Realm, and how can that be applied to regular stories? I would like to make that link.
Molière had this word “vraisemblance”, or “believability”. His genius was to focus on only one human flaw, like avarice, and exaggerate it in his character, but not so much that it became unbelievable. He twisted a character into a level beyond normalcy, but not too far into the bizarre. Harpagon was really quite normal, except for one thing. Molière wanted to instruct his audience in this way (“elle corrige les moeurs en riant…”).
Applied to our stories, that would mean that we might be able to create real interest in our stories by creating this same kind of blend in our own actors. I am not talking about plot, PQA in a Wink page 148 here, which can become completely whacky and usually is totally unbelievable. The plot may become crazy, but the character, in this line of inquiry, might need to contain some element that links it to the real students in the room.
Look at other literature that interests kids. If Harry Potter were some kind of phantasmagorical figure it wouldn’t be that interesting to kids. He is a normal kid, but he has magic powers. Look at anything that really captivates kids these days. The characters in the Tolkien trilogy are, like Harry Potter, just beyond real, but not just beyond believable.
What if we took a quality of a real kid, just one thing, and magnified it in our stories? It might work. Do we really want to try to take a story, with all the totally crazy plot events going on that define TPRS, and build it around Jen and her cat? No, but we might want to build it around Jen’s habit of making both her cats wear wigs, and work that into a story like Amy Catania’s The Hairdresser.
That is why I ask, in my new questionnaires, that my kids answer the questions about themselves with partially make believe answers. I am still testing it, so I’m not sure how it will work.
Actually, I have two questionnaires, one for regular stories and one for the Realm. The kids are to answer the questions with a small degree of real world accuracy and a lot of make believe. You should see the answers!
The boy who works at the bakery has created a hilarious thing around bread. His goal in life is to win the tri-annual village bake-off against Fisho, the rival baker across town. He wants also to bake the biggest loaf of bread ever baked, a kind of super baguette, one that, as he says, is bigger than Dallas.
I have actually laminated those questionnaires because they get all crinkled if I don’t. If a kid is involved in a story, I grab their questionnaire and try to work it in, but that is hard because of all the other stuff going on.
Perhaps, once you get the PQA down, maybe you will want to explore this area of how to effectively personalize a story. It is one area where I feel I need support from colleagues, and why I am interested in TPRS Learning Teams that meet together often.
Ultimately, books about TPRS are great for understanding things in the mind, but now that you have read this book, it is time to practice the ideas in your classes. For real teaching, the kind that reaches kids, is about standing on your feet and doing it.
Thus, I strongly recommend joining a TPRS Learning Team, or starting one if there is not one in your area, rolling up your sleeves, and getting to work!
The results of the hard, emotional work are worth it. There will be a moment, and I would love to be there when it happens, when your story, because of personalization, goes from black and white to living color, and you will be in the Land of Oz. Bon Courage!
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About the Author
Ben Slavic is a teacher of French in Denver, CO. He has taught for thirty years at the middle and high school levels, including Advanced Placement French Language and Literature, as well as at the university level. He has been recognized by the U.S. Department of State twice as a Fulbright Teacher Exchange ambassador in addition to being recognized as a South Carolina finalist for the prestigious Rockefeller Award. Ben’s students consistently win state and national awards in competitions testing listening and reading skills.
One of Ben's students, a ninth grader, recently passed the Advanced Placement Exam in French language with a score of 4, which according to the College Board means that the candidate is "highly qualified" in French. The student had no prior background in French. That score, according to Ben, is a "direct result of the vision, hard work, and leadership of Blaine Ray, Susan Gross, Dale Crum, Joe Neilson and the other pioneers of TPRS who are radically changing the concrete outcomes for language learners everywhere. I have been waiting for something like TPRS to come along for most of my professional life. Finally, a new era in foreign language education has arrived!"
Ben lives in Littleton, Colorado with his wife Holly and their four children, Evan, Landen, Luca, and Jett.
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RESOURCES: TPRS CURRICULA www.bethskelton.com Putting It Together Milligan, Skelton, Gutierrez (Levels 1-2 for adults. English, Spanish) TPRS for adult learners. The Teachers Guide has lesson plans, suggested gestures, TPR commands, PQA questions, and a passive PMS for each target vocabulary word. Student book has 4 block pictures for each story & exercises for more CI. www.benslavic.com TPRS in a Year! Ben Slavic A new book developed to help teachers speed up the process of learning TPRS. 49 TPRS skills are discussed. The teacher focuses on one or two skills per week. In- depth sample stories describing how to construct stories using TPRS are presented, along with an extensive section of Questions and Answers. PQA in a Wink! Ben Slavic This book addresses personalization and the TPRS Step One skill of PQA, providing specific suggestions about PQA and classroom discipline that are easy to blend into any curriculum, not just aTPRS curriculum. TPRS in the Realm! Ben Slavic The logical direction of asking stories in class is to build episodes in a mega story that last all year. Virtual communities like the Realm are popping up all over the country in TPRS classrooms. Learn how to build your own virtual community in this book. Bucky Va à Paris Ben Slavic A program for independent learners. 14 humorous episodes teach conversational French and travel terms as Bucky the monkey travels to Paris from Denver. A 6 CD set with a 130 page book. ¡Bucky Va a México! Ben Slavic www.blaineraytprs.com Look I Can Talk Series Blaine Ray (Levels 1-3, English, French, German, Spanish) A comprehensive high school curriculum created by the founder of TPRS. Includes teacher guide, student text, mini-stories, accelerated mini-stories, extended readings, vocabulary lists, tests, accompanying novels, music by Gale Mackey, movies; also TPRS how-to books and training videos. Japanese in Action May and Kimura (Level 1, Japanese.) A student book and teacher manual containing mini-stories and other related TPR activities, including picture cards for teaching vocabulary. www.goodteachingstuff.com Fantastic Stories, Cuentos Fantásticos, Contes Fantastiques Amy Catania (Levels 1-2, English, French, Spanish) Each volume contains forty illustrated short and long stories with supporting PMS’s. Units are based on a humorous character or setting and vocabulary theme. www.sabineundmichael.com Sabine und Michael Michael Miller (Levels 1-2, German) Items available for both levels include a teacher's book, blackline masters, student workbook, a CD of songs, and a reader. www.teachersdiscovery.com Contes Historiques Michele Threlkeld PQA in a Wink page 151 (Level 3, French) 15 stories for teaching French History. Includes guide words, story line, cartoon illustrations, comprehension questions, suggestions for costumes, props and staging directions. Also available is a resource book for La Marseillaise. Includes history, culture, vocabulary and activities. www.tprstorytelling.com Hi Kids! Carol Gaab (K-3rd grade, French and Spanish) Introductory TPRS curriculum based on high- frequency structures such as greetings, numbers, family, colors, descriptions, feelings, etc. Complete with teacher notes, reproducible student pages, transparencies, and illustrations for all vocabulary items and stories. Tell Me (3 Volume Series) Gaab, Marsh, Anderson, Placido (Elem-HS, English, French, Spanish) Tell Me: introductory level for 5th graders and younger. Tell Me More: intro. level for 7th Grade and up. Tell Me Even More: level 2 for 8th grade and up. Ancillary materials: games & activities manual, test materials, overheads, blackline masters, daily readings, music by Gale Mackey. www.tpr-world.com TPR Storytelling® Todd McKay (Levels 1-3, Elem-MS, Eng., Fr., Span.) A 3 year curriculum. Illustrated stories center on 1 family & include cultural topics & games. Student, teacher manuals, testing packet, video demo., TPR cards, transparencies. www.waltmania.com Complete Lesson Plans for TPRS Jalen Waltman (levels 1A, 1B, English and Spanish) A guide to setting up a TPRS classroom with step-by-step lesson plans and supplemental materials. Each book contains 30 lessons for one semester.
TPRS Supplements to Textbooks: Spanish: En Español (level 1 by Jason Fritze) also levels 2-3, McDougal Littell Exprésate (levels 1 - 3) Holt Navegando (levels 1-3) by Schmidt and Polito, EMC / Paradigm Paso a Paso (levels 1,2) by Karen Rowan, Prentice Hall Realidades (levels 1,2) by Karen Rowan, Prentice Hall TPRS Avancemos (levels 1, 2, and 3 by Piedad Gutierrez) McDougal Littell French: C'est a Toi (levels 1-3) EMC/Paradigm Discovering French (level 1) McDougal Littell
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RESOURCES: WEBSITES www.benslavic.com (Ben Slavic, Colorado) Books about TPRS methodology. TPRS materials for individual language learners. www.comprehensibleinput.com (Jason Fritze, Tennessee) Find out more about comprehensible input and TPRS. Access many CI links, resources and useful files. Find out about Jason's workshops. www.cqli.com (The Culture Quest Language Institute, Melinda Forward, New Mexico) CQI provides materials and services to language teachers. Access her books: French / Spanish Verb Timelines and Organizing and Managing a Language Classroom. www.educatorinservice.com (Janice Holter-Kittok, Minnesota) Download free teaching tips. Sign up for a TPRS workshop. Experience TPRS firsthand by learning Swedish. www.fluencyfast.com Fluency Fast Language Classes, Blaine Ray's adult language classes taught nationwide using TPRS and taught by Blaine Ray's TPRS Workshop presenters. DVDs of classes available in Spanish and French. www.ijflt.com The International Journal of Foreign Language Teaching A free quarterly on-line journal containing current research, articles and helpful resources for foreign language teachers. www.ritornello.com (Judi Mazziotti, New York) Purchase Foreign Language Magic 101: a DVD showing how to use magic tricks to provide comprehensible input in your second language classroom. www.kristyplacido.com (Kristy Placido, Michigan) The co-author of some of the materials in the Tell Me Series, Kristy provides many links to Spanish language TPRS materials and other Spanish language websites, including a link to the music resource Sing, Dance, Laugh, and Eat Quiche/Tacos by Barbara MacArthur. www.sdkrashen.com (Dr. Stephen Krashen, California) Access Dr. Krashen's books and articles on language acquisition, including Foreign Language the Easy Way. Learn about CI, free voluntary reading and more. www.storyask.com (http://storyask.read.fm) Storyask.com is a wiki where you can freely define the verb "to storyask". By learning to ask good questions and really hear the answers, we make more meaningful stories that really connect with language learners. www.susangrosstprs.com (Susan Gross, Colorado) Find out more about TPRS and language acquisition, get free materials, and sign up for Susie’s acclaimed TPRS workshops. PQA in a Wink page 153 http://www.teachforjune.com (Scott Benedict, Nevada) “Teach for June” isn’t a slogan to get through the school year. It’s a new attitude towards foreign-language teaching. Scott’s site is full of useful resources, links, and articles about TPRS. www.tprsource.com (Berty Segal Cook, California) Find out more about TPR. Access Berty's Basic Teacher's Guide of 102 TPR lesson plans in English, Spanish, French, German, Japanese and Russian, & the Student Books which have additional speaking, reading, & writing activities. Access the TPR Audio set of 3 CD's of all 102 TPR lesson plans in English. www.tprstories.com (Karen Rowan, Colorado) Find out more about TPRS from Karen Rowan, the author of the TPRS Supplements to the Paso a Paso and Realidades textbooks, coordinator of the National TPRS conference, and workshop presenter. www.tpr-world.com (Dr. James Asher, California) Learn more about Total Physical Response from the inventor of the method, Dr. James Asher. Order TPR books and TPR teaching materials such as Dr. Asher’s Learning Another Language Through Actions and Ramiro Garcia’s Instructor’s Notebook: How to Apply TPR for Best Results. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/moretprs/join Join the Yahoo group MORETPRS, an invaluable place to share with experienced TPRS teachers.
TPR Storytelling® is a trademark registered to Blaine Ray and is used by permission. This list of TPRS materials is not an endorsement of any particular resource.
Resources list compiled by Amy Bachman Catania www.goodteachingstuff.com PQA in a Wink page 154
thanks
holly slavic evan slavic landen slavic luca slavic jett slavic blaine ray susie gross laurie clarcq joe neilson amy catania duke crawford anne lambert rick winterstein sydney skully mark oleynick anna crocker anne warren linda duncan kim oberdick scott benedict