Our second week of remote learning is underway and we wanted to share with you what we’ve been up to.

My set-up

All my students are working from home. I have the option to work from my classroom and I have my laptop for presenting. I also have the classroom computer logged in to the Google Meet grid view (and projected on the board for me to see my students and what the presentation looks like).

Most of my students have their cameras on (a district mandate that I don’t enforce) but I do tell them that having them react I can tell if they are understanding the story or not. The best way was to ask yes/no questions and have students nod or shake their heads. I would call on students to turn their mic on (using the shortcut of “control+ d” on keyboard is a timesaver!) and answer more specific questions. I used the chat to type in translations of key words that I would normally write on the board or point to on posters in my classroom. I also have these Zoom TPRS labels to hold up.

First lesson:

I’ve adapted this FREE movietalk by Martina Bex to use as my first lesson over the years. I continued to use this story this year by teaching it as a live session. I attempted to circle as much as I could… not as often as I would in the classroom because of the time delay in doing so, but relying on more yes/no questions certainly helped.

Adaptations that I make to the story:

I substitute the word “vaca” for “ñu” as vaca will be a more useful word to know. I also reduce the story down to 2 versions. At the end of version 1, we translate as a class sentence by sentence. We then move on to a second version with more details and the full ending. We then translate that version as well.

Second lesson:

The second lesson incorporates the main structures and storyline from Wildebeest and adds in a few new structures such as busca, ve, and tiene hambre. Traditionally we use TPRS to gesture those new structures in class and then act out the story as a class. Instead of acting out the story, I projected the illustrated booklet presentation and recorded a video telling the story. Here’s an example from our YouTube channel (Are you subscribed to our channel yet??)

Watch the video on youtube

Students watched the video on their own and then students worked in small groups in breakout groups to do a volleyball translation.

We’ve updated our El Tigre Tiene Hambre story, so if you own it download the latest version. Similar stories with illustrations that you could present and record yourself telling the story include our popular Miguel tiene que estudiar and our fun Erika quiere un unicornio.