Pre Story Telling Activities (Ideas on ways to introduce the target structures (vocabulary) necessary for student comprehension of the up-coming story)
Reverse Bingo – Danielle Horne
Word Race Stories – Martina Bex
Mime sentences/words – Carol Gaab: Student stands in front of board with their back to it. Point to a word/sentence and class has to mime/gesture the word/sentence while student has to translate.
word bop – tprs teacher
Two Truths & a Lie Martina Bex
Bingo – Senora Dentlinger (many Bingo variations)
Dictation – Keith Toda
Three Ring Circus – Keith Toda
Quick Draw from Lauren Watson – (Silent Pictionary)
- Students are in pairs, and each have a dry erase board with markers.
- Designate Partner A and Partner B.
- Each partner divides his/her dry erase board in quads with a marker. Number the quads 1-4
- For Round 1, Partner A faces the screen and Partner B turns their back to the screen. Project the PPT. I tell everyone the category for each round.
- Partner A looks at the list of words on the screen and draws a picture for each vocab. word. S/he draws picture 1 in quad 1, picture 2 in quad 2…etc.
- Partner B writes the vocabulary word which s/he thinks the picture represents in the appropriate quad.
- They can’t talk or gesture or write words/numbers – ONLY pictures.
- The round ends with the first pair who successfully finishes all 4.
- Switch roles between partners for the next round
The Eraser Game (similar to Bop!) The Active Learner
Secret Agent Sketch – Two Ciceros (Follow link for examples)
Preparation:
This is a low-prep activity, at least the way I use it. All you need are:
- Student hand-held whiteboards
- A list of vocabulary words that are easily ‘drawable’
Procedure:
1. Give students a word to draw – make sure it is spelled out on the board / projector / word wall.
2. Give them 2 minutes to draw a picture of the word (i.e., what the word means).
3. They should also hide ‘secret agents’ in their sketch – the letters of the Latin word.
Backwards Charades – La Maestra Loca – would also be fantastic as a post story activity!
Story asking:
Le Da Game – Leslie Davidson via Senora Mitchell
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Post Story Telling Activities
Choral Reading – Keith Toda
strip bingo – Martina Bex
stultus – (gila) – Keith Toda
read and draw – Keith Toda
parallel universe – Keith Toda
word chunk game Latin Best Practice
popcorn reading Latin Best Practice
Freeze Frame Martina Bex
Story Strips Activity Martina Bex
Runnning Dictation & a truly cool extension suggestion Martina Bex and another by SRAK Spanish
Long Distance Dictation SRA Dentlinger
Pick The Pic: Martina Bex
Sentence Flyswatter – Jason Fritze via Keith Toda
Wordchunk Game – Keith Toda or Pomegranate Beginnings
Freeze Frame (& several others) – Niki Tottingham
Nugas (nonsense) – Keith Toda
Blind Retell – Martina Bex
improv – Dianne Neubauer
Smack – Dianne Neubauer
Partner Marker Game – Cynthia Hitz
Bingo –
Whiteboard retells – Lance Printer
dictation – Ben Slavic,
Numbered Heads Together – JSNoble
Find the sentence – Keith Toda
Picture Story Retells – Keith Toda
Fan & Pick – students in small groups illustrate sentences from the text. Then swap images with another group and match the new images with sentences from the text.
Read Aloud – (Keith Toda) Split students into pairs of two and provide each with a copy of the text. Have them take turns reading each paragraph out loud to each other. Here’s the kicker—make two copies of the text that slightly differ from one another. As students read out loud, their partner must listen and highlight the differences between what they’re reading on the paper and what their partner is saying out loud.
Kursi Panas (Señorita’s Baker’s Spanish Classroom) It goes like this: divide class into teams of 3-5 players. Give everyone the same reading. As a team they have to read and make sure everyone understands the reading. Then at the front of the room I have 1 chair for each team with a whiteboard. One member of each team comes up, (so there’s 6 or so representatives up front) and I’ll ask them a question in Spanish about the reading. They all write their answer on the board, and they show me when I count to three. Everyone who is correct is eligible for points- now the fun part: I have a deck of cards, and each person with a right answer gets to draw a card which represents their points (ace=1 point, every thing else is worth card’s value, and any face cards= 10 pts) then all the representatives return to their team with their card, another rep goes up front and we begin again with the next question. This game is great for a few reasons: I ask questions in order of the text, so kids are re-reading before their turn to try to predict my question, no one really knows how many points the other teams have, so no one gives up.”
Clever reading idea – Barbara Horváth (Facebook iFLT/NTPRS/CI Teaching) I gave everyone a copy of the story we’d been working on and asked them to use a corrector to white out 16 (there are 16 kids in the class) content words in the story. I also asked them to write the deleted words in random order at the bottom of the page. Kids then passes their stories to the kid sitting to the left and had to fill in ONE of the gaps in the story. I also asked them to read all the gaps filled in and see if they had the correct words in them. The papers got passed around until everybody got their own stories back (a good 25 minutes). The kids enjoyed the task a lot and had a fair amount of reading practice too. The activity was differentiated because each student got to choose the gaps they could handle, plus the fast processors didn’t need to use the list at the bottom of the page.
Thumbs up/ thumbs down (AnneMarie Chase – iFLT/NTPRS/CI Teaching) – Inspiration stuck during class today! I wanted to ask questions to review a story we read previously. I asked the question, then waited a few seconds, then gave the class a thumbs up or thumbs down. If I gave them a thumbs up, they had to answer truthfully (what really happened), if I gave them a thumbs down, they were to answer my question with a lie. It was fantastic and hilarious and something that made answering review questions feel brand new 🙂
Write – Draw – Pass – Martina Bex
& AnneMarie Chase (iFLT/NTPRS/CI Teaching) – Everyone has a whiteboard and marker. We establish the details, circle, etc for the first scene. Then, teacher repeats the story slowly and students only illustrate what the teacher says. After 3-4 sentences, all students pass their whiteboard to the student sitting next to them. Teacher repeats the first few sentences and students have to point to that detail on the board they just got, and if it’s missing, draw it in. Then teacher tells the next few lines of the story while students add those details to the board they got. Then everyone passes, teacher repeats the previous lines, students look for and add in those details and then teacher tells a bit more of the story, then they pass again. It’s hilarious because the pictures become a jumbled mess and awesome because they hear so many reps! In the picture, it’s the first scene of the story, illustrated by 3 different people before we ran out of time.
Sentence Strips – Palmyraspanish
The Unfair Game/ Word chunk Team Game – Rebekah on CI Liftoff (Facebook) posted her version and Martina Bex also has a post about other versions of this game as does Keith Toda.
1. Each student works with a partner/group of three.
2. Each team gets one whiteboard and one marker.
3. I ask them to hold the marker in the air over their head (while they sit up straight and the white board stays on their lap/desk)
4. I tell them the phrase/sentence. They cannot start to write until I say “ayo/vamos”.
5. They write or translate the phrase and then flip their board to me and put hands in the air saying “sudah”
6. First group/pair finished & correct gets 10 points and stands up. All other teams with the right answer get 5 points.
7. The team standing “spins” the “roda”. http://wheeldecide.com/index.php…
8. Chaos ensues.
If they roll points (positive or negative) teams keep track on their whiteboards.
Trade/Tukar: I tell all the teams (in TL) to write their points total in large writing on their white board -no lying or deception- and show the team standing. The winning team then chooses which team they want to trade whiteboards with, and thus points.
Sacrifice/Serah: I tell all the teams (in TL) to write their points total in large writing on their whiteboard -no lying or deception- and the winning team decides which team, or teams, they want to give their points to.
Steal/Maling: I tell all the teams (in TL) to write their points total in large writing on their white board – no lying or deception- and the winning team decides who they want to steal points from to add to their score, reducing that unlucky team to zero.
9. Repeat until time runs out, or set up the roda/wheel to remove the options that have been used and play until the end (don’t tell them the options are disappearing and enjoy the resentment when they figure it out).
10. Go home and eat chocolate to recuperate
Variation – students had to answer a question correctly to get a playing card. Then before I gave them a card they had to decide if they wanted to keep it it give it away. If it was red they lost the value of the card, if it was black, they gained it.
Extension Activities – Susan Gross
Gallery Walk – Divide the students into small groups or pairs and give each group a large sheet of paper. Ask each group to illustrate the main ideas of the story or a chapter. Post the sheets up on the wall around the room and students walk from sheet to sheet retelling the story using the pictures.
Optional Twist 1 – Put in Order: If groups have been assigned a different chapter or part of the story, students must put them in order.
Optional Twist 2 – Take it outside: Use chalk to draw scenes outside when nice weather. Misclaseslocas
Wordclouds – Martina Bex
Paper Plane Reading – TPRS Q&A
Comprehension Twist Take the comprehension questions from the teacher’s guide, make enough copies so there is one question for each kid in class. So, if 10 questions and you have 30 kids, make 3 copies. Cut the questions apart and give one to each kid. Have them ask each other in a “mixer” format or in an inside/outside circle. Have them trade questions with each kid they talk to. It is a quick and fun way to review and a nice chance to move around! Kristy Placido (Facebook) variation- quiz, quiz, trade
Word Cloud Cloze Sentence Activity A twist on the way to use word clouds. Great way to get more input!!
Collaborative mural – Drawing scenes from the class story – one scene at a time – to rpresent the story. Can be done either as a whole class or in groups.
Silent True/False Reading (shared by Alina Filipescu)
In pairs, students read silently for X minutes, then each draw 2 pics about the text (1 true, 1 FALSE). Students swap papers, and partner points to the True pic. Pairs now trade papers with another pair, and determine the new True pics with partner.
Mind Reading – Martina Bex & Dr Gianfranco Conti
Musical readings – students in pairs each reading a sentence each one by one with each student double checking the sentence was read correctly & if not, the sentence is reread. The teacher plays music and when the music stops, whoever is not reading gets a point.
Reading Bingo – each student has a 3×3 =grid. In each box, the student writes a different word from the story in each square. Students cross out the word when they hear it.
Stupid Teacher (Guru Gila?) teacher reads the story and deliberately says a word not in the story or changes one word. Students in pairs, competing against each other, tally up the mistakes and compare tally at end of reading.
Comprehension Questions – to measure comprehension, ask the questions in English. They could include true/false questions, short answer questions, multiple choice questions, cloze from story with multiple choice options for each cloze empty space.
Hot Potato – Keith Toda
Snap, Click, Stamp – Facebook post from Shelly L- A student reads aloud the text. Every time they snap their fingers, the class has to read the next word. My wild little class was focused and enjoying themselves. The reader picks the word … And each reader will automatically develop their own pattern – maybe if it’s a difficult word to say, they snap so the class has to say it, or they get in a rhythm, etc. NB the title is mine – because I believe the way the student signals will vary according to student/ class suitability. Many of my students can’t snap, so a foot stamp may work better.
Other TCI Fun
mafia – michele – MJ’s Comprehensible Input
Siapa punya monyet dari Indonesia (or similar) Fun For Spanish Teachers
Blackout Poems Martina Bex
Drawing dictation – Keith Toda
Cutting up the Evidence – Senora Jota Jota
Texta Grab – (Facebook ) – after a reading, students pair up with a marker or pencil between them. The teacher makes a true or false statement about the reading. If it is true, the students try to be the first to grab the marker. If they get it first, they get the point. If the statement is false, they do not touch the marker. If they grab it for a false statement, they lose a point. It was a super interactive way to assess listening comprehension.
Indonesian Teacher Reflections 
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