A BVP-style "Task": Weekend Talk Task

I am finally reading Bill Van Patten's book While We're on the Topic and it is excellent and making me think a lot! I highly recommend it. It is definitely a paradigm shift.

Reading this book has been good for two reasons: 1) it is reaffirming a lot of what I do in my classroom and 2) it is challenging me to think deeper about some of the things I do... and make some changes. I am about 87% through the book. I have highlighted a ridiculous amount of passages and will go back and reread those!

You can purchase the book here from ACTFL. (Note: the eBook .mobi version is a not easy to actually get it onto a Kindle, so I would buy the print version.)

One thing that I read about, and have been thinking a lot about, are Exercises, Activities, and Tasks. BVP defines them as the following:

• Exercises: Not communicative. There is no focus on the interpretation and expression of meaning. The purpose is to practice language.
• Activities: Partially communicative. Seems to have a focus on the expression of interpretation of meaning, but it lacks purpose other than to practice language.
• Tasks: Communicative. Tasks involve the expression and interpretation of meaning. Tasks have a purpose that is not language practice.

So, with that in mind and following his "Active or Sedentary?" Task, I am going to have my students do a similar Task, but to talk about the weekend.

Here are the Tasks (see this document for what students will have):

• Students read 20 activities (in the first person) that they may have done over weekend (I got these from this presentation from Christy Lade) and put a check or an ✘ o ✔ in the column next to each one. Note: This is an input activity. Novices could not do this Task without the input.
• Then, they will ask their classmates if they did some of the activities. They will have the questions (in the second person) in front of them on the paper. I will set them up in lines or a circle facing each other and then rotate on a 10-20 second timer. They will write down the names of people who did certain activities. I will encourage students to ask a variety of questions throughout this process. Note: This is also an input activity. Novices could not do this Task without the input.
• Then, I will project the activities (this time in the s/he form) students will share the information about their classmates. We will discuss what the most popular and least popular activities were. We will discuss what type of activities are most popular (tech, active, or sedentary) We will also discuss certain activities and people, including myself, in more detail. Note: This is another input activity. Novices could not do this Task without the input.

This could also be considered Input flood, in which you "saturate your input with whatever you want to push along." As BVP writes, "We know, for example, that the internal mechanisms for language partially respond to frequency... One way, then to push past along is simply to use it more."

And, if use the version with the endings bolded and underlined (see doc), this could also be Input enhancement, which draws the learner attention to more difficult aspects of language by manipulating input. BVP states that one way to "manipulate input is to bold, color code or otherwise "highlight" articular things in written text."

Here is another similar Task:

• Students will read 20 sports and mark if they if they have never done it ✘, used to do it o ✔P (en el pasado), and/or still do it ✔T (todavía) 
• Then they will interview a classmate or classmates. 
• Then they will share their information and we will discuss and answer the question: ¿Jugamos más deportes ahora o jugábamos más cuando éramos niños? I am interested to see if they are more active now or when they were kids! 
• This will also be the first time they see and hear the imperfect. You will notice the Input enhancement with the imperfect in italics.

Here is the template in case you want a time saver.

La Rutina Diaria... otra vez

In Spanish 2, I am tied to certain units and one is the Daily Routine, but instead of the long vocabulary list with tons of reflexive verbs, I have used five stories (and blogged about it here).

This semester we are focusing on one story: "No voy a levantarme". We will use an embedded reading and students will do all the nuggets.

I am not going to spend a lot of time on the other stories. I will quickly do a "Listen and Draw" for one or two or them, probably in the past tense. Students will listen and draw, watch the videos, and then do a Textivate to read the text.

This year I am adding three Edpuzzles (with Pablo from Dreaming Spanish) and a BVP style Task to the unit. Students did the first Edpuzzle to learn about Pablo's day and to get lots of CI! Sharing them here in case anyone can use them!

And then they did this Task (make a copy here). Recommended: Read more about BVP's Tasks here.

Students will also do these two Edpuzzles (here and here) where Pablo's friend Adrià talks about his daily routine. One, or both of these, will be Interpretive Listening Assessments.

BVP Style Task Talk for La Lotería Navideña

I have blogged about Bill Van Patten's book While We're On The Topic before. I, again, highly recommend it! One thing that I really like are what BVP calls "Tasks". BVP explains the difference between Exercises, Activities, and Tasks in detail in his book, but I super-simplified it in this post.

I also shared two examples of Tasks: one for Weekend Talk and one for ¿Jugamos más deportes ahora o jugábamos más cuando éramos niños? These Tasks, in addition to being communicative, are also giving lots of INPUT and building community in the class because of the wrap-up class discussion where they share about what they learned about their classmates.

I like Tasks so much, that I decided to create one to use as starter activity at the beginning of my Lotería unit (or this smaller unit with the new "22 otra vez"). See the doc below and/or click here to make a copy of it.

Los 3 Ps relacionados con la salud: a Task and a Song/Story

I have used the song "La Curandera" by Elastic Bond many times. Students usually like it and there are a lot of health related cultural products, practices, and perspectives in the song, so it can lead to students doing una comparación cultural as an evaluación. If you have AP at your school, this is a good one to do in level 3!

I am using "La Curandera" again to start my health unit in Spanish 3, but this time I have a story to go along with thanks to Mike Farkas, who shared a story to go along with the song. Then, I took what he gave me and together, we came up with this slideshow. He also made this activity for the story.

However, before we get into the story, to start the unit, we are going to start with this BVP-style Task (see theses posts to learn more about what I am referring to) to talk about our cultural products, practices and perspectives related to health.

Then, I am going to tell the story and then have students read and illustrate. I want them to just listen and see images first. You will see that they text fades in on the click, so I can just tell them, but then use the text if I want to. After that, they will work with the text and do some of these activities.

Students will also learn about dengue with some infografías and a PSA. Click here to find those free resources.

La Lotería de Navidad... versión 2019

Oh how I love teaching with stories! And I particularly love the seven stories that I can now choose from for my La Lotería de Navidad unit!

Last year, I used four stories, but this year I am adding three more. Wait... can I do that? Will I have time? I think I will! I have decided that I am going to spend the three weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas break to do the unit.

To start and introduce the la Lotería de España, I am going to use this Edpuzzle (or here is Novice version). Then, we will do a running dictation to review the information (in TPT product). I might have them look at two infografías and do these (free) activities. Then, we will do this BVP style Task. That "Task" is designed to give students input, so they can output and we can discuss the preferences of the class.

Then, we will get into our stories! I will probably start with Justino (thank you Martina Bex!), then 250th aniversario, then 22 otra vez, and then Carmina. And, then we will do the three stories from this year's ad campaign. Finally, (time permitting) we will do Danielle. This TPT product has resources for the 250th aniversario, or Carmina, Danielle, 22 otra vez and this year's 3 stories: Pilar y Félix, Emilio y Gloria, and Ramón y José.

So, this year's stories are unique from all the other stories, in that no one wins. In all the other stories, there is a winner (well at least Carmina thinks she is a winner). The lema for this year is "El sorteo que nos une" and the hashtag is #UnidosPorUnDécimo... so the message is not really focused on winning lots of money, but rather on sharing.

There are actually four stories in this ad campaign, but I am only using three, because the fourth one, Carmen y Víctor, is a bit too sad for me to use.

This slideshow has a preview of what I am planning on doing with the three stories. If you would like to use the entire unit, you can purchase it here on TPT. Or buy resources, activities, and readings for a whole bunch of Lotería de Navidad stories here on TPT.

I set the slideshow up with Peardeck slides, but you don't have to use them. But for those of you who do use Peardeck, how convenient!

Pilar y Félix

Emilio y Gloria

Ramón y José