Embedded Reading Win
Every so often, it seems like my students aren’t getting anywhere. I know, academically, that is, that acquisition is a slow process and it’s even slower for my students because I only have 90 minutes per week with them. It can get frustrating to feel like there is no day-to-day progress. But every once in a while, a kid has a light bulb go off in his or her head. It happened last year with the girl who was completing her activity (in almost perfect Spanish) and told me, “I like that we don’t learn anything.” And now, it has happened this year. Every time something like this happens, it reaffirms why I do what I do.
Let me start at the beginning. 4 class periods ago (which, because of my schedule with the kids means almost 3 weeks ago), I handed out the first embedded reading assignment for a story called, “Necesito Cafeína, which I found on another TPRS teacher blog (but I can’t seem to find the link, if you know where it is or what I’m talking about, please let me know in the comments!). The students read and they did pretty well. It was their first reading assignment in Spanish coming back after the summer, so there were some cobwebs, but understood more than I was expecting (thanks, TPRS!). They understood almost everything really well and could answer the Circling questions that I asked about the reading and they did really well with acting out the story and with volleyball reading.
After that, we did some more story-asking, conversation activities, and PQA for 2 class days. Today, we read again. We read the second, more in-depth version of the story from the first week of school. I handed it out and there were complaints (8th graders during first period…what’re ya gonna do?), but they all got to work.
One student, who has been in Spanish class with me he was in the third grade, said this to me:
“I get it! It’s weird, I understand it even though I don’t speak Spanish. I read it one time and I know what it says.”
I told him, “I guess you’re wrong, it looks like you know a lot more Spanish than you thought you did.”
“I guess so. Thanks, Señor.”
He was truly amazed that he could decode and understand all the words on the page and understand the message of the story the first time through. I hope that this post doesn’t come off as bragging or self-congratulatory, but I’m so proud when moments like this happen. That kid gets it. I have a whole year to get the other 23 kids in the class to the same place.
Building Every Student’s Confidence and Fluency
I have my work cut out for me, but the one thing that I know for sure is that as hard as it can be, it will still be really fun and they will be learning, regardless of how it looks on a day-to-day basis. TPRS can go really slowly and it can seem like there is no light at the end of the tunnel, especially for those who (like me) only get to teach each group of students a few times a week. It can seem like a Sisyphean task, but don’t lose hope because, eventually (and unlike Sisyphus) you will get the rock up the hill and you will get the kids ahead in their language comprehension and use.
They will get it. One day, it will click in their heads and they will understand what all the silliness and stories have really been about: getting them to understand the TL without even realizing it.
senor fernie 
My third graders got to pick their favorite class to write a description about for their Language Arts class and four students picked Spanish. I was excited to read how much fun they had in my class but at the end they mentioned their Spanish was not that good and they wanted to learn more. My first reaction was sadness but my husband made me realize they are interested in improving and learning more. Students measure their progress in their ability to speak and do not notice their progress in understanding oral Spanish.
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