[ola] ideas on conversation...
- From: Nanosh Lucas <nanoshlucas@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: ola@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 28 Feb 2012 21:13:47 -0800
¿Cómo estás? is such a great question for Spanish 1.
¿Qué pasa/Qué honda? is a great question for Spanish 2.
I realized that with these two starter questions, I can push students to
converse for a long time about almost anything.
Here is what happened today:
1st per: Spanish 1 - I asked students: ¿Qué pasa/Qué honda? Algo interesante?
Blank stares. Horrible. Wrestling with the class all period. Wrong question for
this class, at least for now.
5th per: Spanish 2 - I asked students: ¿Cómo están/Qué pasa? Algo interesante?
Some students participated; others didn't. After a few minutes, I asked who was
speaking Spanish - students raised their hands. I told them to make a new
circle in the middle - the rest could watch. The middle circle went on almost
oblivious of the outside observers for a good while. Then, pockets of outsiders
spontaneously began conversing in Spanish when they realized I and everyone
else was going to ignore them until they participated. I invited those groups
to join. After a while, I had almost everyone from the outside observers. I
kicked out two of the outsiders for speaking English and told them to sit in
the hall until they were ready to observe again. The principal walked in 5min
later and let me know that the two gentlemen were speaking 100% Spanish in the
hallway. I invited them back in. After we pulled back to the big circle, I
noticed students were looking emocionados and others were looking
aburridos/miserables. We switched spots in the circle and put the tired ones in
the office next to my room. The emocionado circle kept going, and the
bored/miserable ones I worked with. One student talked about how his dad was
making him angry because he was so strict, and how he used to be a drug addict.
Another student jumped right in with how strict his dad was. Another student
was doubled over in some kind of physical agony, so I asked her what the matter
was. She explained (in Spanish) how she didn't have a phone at home and the
stupid office wouldn't let her go home because nobody answered. I told her I
appreciated her doing her suffering in Spanish, but that she could lay down in
the school's office until she felt better.
I asked them if they could keep going on their own, and they said yes. So, I
went back into the main room. One of the two or three circles in the main room
had stalled, so I told them what we were talking about in the other room. They
went crazy after that; talking about their crazy parents, etc.
We pulled everyone back into the big circle, and people talked about their
crazy parents - students had funny crazy stories and not-so-funny crazy
stories. It was loads of fun.
As the 1.5 hour class came to an end, I had students divide themselves into
those who had enjoyed the class and those who hadn't. There was a considerable
minority of students who sat themselves in the side that hadn't enjoyed it. So,
I began asking them about why. I queried one student, and she said, "Oh.. No!
Me gusta!" Once the other students realized they were on the wrong side, they
moved. I believe there was only one person who didn't enjoy himself.
This was probably one of the most successful conversation classes, with almost
100% Spanish in the room for almost 100% of the time.
Per 7: Spanish 1 - I asked ¿Cómo están? I asked people why they were in a good
mood or why in a bad mood. Smooth class. We had a couple of presentations about
self, family, friends, food, etc. I couldn't help thinking about how
differently I view the presentations now - where I honed in so meticulously on
grammar/verb conjugations/general perfection and considered students' creative
effort and ability to communicate an idea an irritating irrelevancy.
Thanks for your support, everyone. See you on Thursday.
Nanosh
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