"Brain Breaks"

I just finished storytelling a major story today in my level one classes.  It wasn't the easiest story, but because they were interested we were able to power through it.  It's parent-teacher conference week so I only see each of my Spanish I classes twice this week.  I was hesitant to start a new story on a short week, but in each class we were able to successfully tell and even ask the story.  I think it was possible because of the fact I gave the students "brain breaks."

TPRS is an intense learning process.  It's input, input, input.  I've found that my students desperately need breaks scattered through the storytelling to get through a longer story.  Usually I only story tell or story ask in fifteen to twenty minute intervals, but this week I was able to sustain up to thirty five minutes.  During natural breaks or transitions in the story I asked the students to do a few things to help them review the story and give their brain a break.

The best thing about these activities is they take zero prep, zero copying.  All your students need is a piece of scratch paper and pencil.

1) Music Walk

I play a song we recently have listened to and do a "music walk."  When the music is playing, students are walking.  When I hit pause, the students grab their nearest partner and share three facts about the story in Spanish.  I always have the students write them down first so they for sure have something to read when the music stops.  Today, I modified this activity by having them write down events individually and during the music walk they shared their facts and with their partner decided the order of their facts when combined with their partners.  I saw a lot of good conversation about the story and vocabulary taking place during this activity.  I let it go for about eight minutes.  By then, the students had reviewed a lot of the story and we ready to taking a listening quiz on the story.

2) Partner Talk

The students turn to their table partner and re-tell the story in English.  I don't love this activity since they aren't speaking in TL, but students that are struggling comprehension get a good confidence boost from this.  Since the goal of these activities is a "brain break" I'm okay with it.

3) Read and Act

After the story has been told I will sometimes re-read the entire script slowly and have the students act out every vocabulary term as they hear it.  Since our terms always have gestures to help learn them, the students listen for the vocabulary term and do the appropriate gesture when they hear it read.

4) True/False Quizzes

I will have the students write a series of statements about the story (usually three to five) and make some of them purposefully false.  Students read the statements to their table partner and take mini-quizzes with each other.

5) Scene swap

Students draw one scene from the story and then trade with a partner.  The partner must write in a complete sentence in the target language what is going on.