Episode 34: "When Your Story Flops in Real Time"
Story-asking flops happen to every CI teacher — in this episode of Comprehend THIS!, we talk about what to do when a story dies in real time in front of your class. You'll learn how to read a room that's going silent, when to rescue a story and when to let it go, and why a flopped story feels so much more personal than any other classroom failure.
Every teacher who does story-asking has one flop they still feel in their body — the room goes quiet, the laugh doesn't land, and suddenly you're standing there wondering if you're bad at your job. In this episode, Pamela Parks and I talk about the very specific horror of TPRS story-asking when it stops working, why it hits differently than any other kind of classroom failure, and the actual in-the-moment moves for saving a story or letting it die with some dignity. Pamela brings her own perspective as a former professional film and TV translator turned world language teacher, which means even people who are supposedly great at language stuff still bomb a story now and then.
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Karen Rowan - https://fluencyfast.com
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Transcript
Hello everybody and
Speaker:welcome to episode 34.
Speaker:We are, I can't believe,
Speaker:almost at the end of July.
Speaker:It's almost back to school season.
Speaker:And so we're going to talk today about
Speaker:those story flops that we have.
Speaker:So you know that silence, the one where
Speaker:you ask a story, wait
Speaker:for a laugh or the shout
Speaker:out suggestion, and instead get a room
Speaker:full of teenagers
Speaker:staring at you like you just
Speaker:need to sell them a timeshare.
Speaker:That's episode 34 of Comprehend This.
Speaker:I'm here with co-host Pamela Parks who
Speaker:spent years as a
Speaker:professional film and TV translator
Speaker:before she became the kind of teacher
Speaker:who's also died in front of a class.
Speaker:And we're not pretending otherwise.
Speaker:We're also joined by Karen Rowan who has
Speaker:taught CI at literally
Speaker:every level including one
Speaker:elementary year she'll happily describe
Speaker:as disastrous and who now
Speaker:writes CI novels, trains
Speaker:runs a CI reboot conference and owns
Speaker:Command Performance Language Institute.
Speaker:So between the three of us, that's a lot
Speaker:of accumulated flopping.
Speaker:This episode is about the flop, the one
Speaker:you'll think about, why
Speaker:it feels so personal, and
Speaker:the actual moves for either saving a
Speaker:dying story or letting
Speaker:it go without making it a
Speaker:whole funeral.
Speaker:If you've ever stood in front of that
Speaker:silence wondering if
Speaker:you're bad at your job, this
Speaker:is for you.
Speaker:And we'll be back
Speaker:after these short messages.
Speaker:You know what would
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Speaker:But you know what would
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Speaker:you actually leave feeling refreshed.
Speaker:10 pre-recorded lessons all about
Speaker:comprehensible input strategies,
Speaker:activities, and mindset
Speaker:shifts you can binge in your hammock, on
Speaker:your couch, or while
Speaker:hiding from back to school
Speaker:displays in July.
Speaker:One full year of access, zero pressure,
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Speaker:with 200 slides and zero
Speaker:snacks.
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Speaker:No bug spray required.
Speaker:Welcome to Comprehend This, real talk for
Speaker:real language teachers.
Speaker:No drills, no dry theory, just honest
Speaker:stories, practical ideas,
Speaker:and a reminder you're not
Speaker:alone in the CI trenches.
Speaker:Let's dive in.
Speaker:Good morning and
Speaker:welcome, Pamela and Karen.
Speaker:How is everybody doing?
Speaker:Good morning, Scott.
Speaker:Good morning, Karen.
Speaker:We're so happy you're joining us today.
Speaker:We're glad.
Speaker:Good morning.
Speaker:Good morning.
Speaker:And I'll tell everybody that I, she
Speaker:didn't know of me at the
Speaker:time, but I learned from
Speaker:Karen Rowan way back when in 2002.
Speaker:She did a presentation for Paso A Paso,
Speaker:which was the
Speaker:textbook that we had adopted.
Speaker:We had just adopted.
Speaker:It was in its final year.
Speaker:They didn't tell us that
Speaker:when they adopted it, though.
Speaker:And she had written the
Speaker:supplement TPRS materials for that.
Speaker:So she did a presentation, it's kind of
Speaker:where I got my first
Speaker:subtle training of TPRS way
Speaker:back when.
Speaker:And I remember I dumbfounded her because
Speaker:she asked about a soap.
Speaker:What kind of soap do you use?
Speaker:And that was when shower
Speaker:gel was just coming out.
Speaker:And I didn't know what it was called.
Speaker:I was describing it and she's looking at
Speaker:me like, "What are you talking about?"
Speaker:I just remember that way back when it was
Speaker:in, I think it was in Long Beach.
Speaker:It might have been in Long Beach, I
Speaker:think, where it was.
Speaker:But it was, that's
Speaker:where I met Karen Rowan.
Speaker:I met her many times after that.
Speaker:But she is a wonderful TPRS CI teacher
Speaker:and wears many, many hats.
Speaker:She's a great author.
Speaker:I've used many of her books in class.
Speaker:They're also in my free reading library.
Speaker:So I welcome Karen to join us.
Speaker:And we all know Pamela
Speaker:from many episodes now.
Speaker:So we're glad to have both of you here
Speaker:this morning talking
Speaker:about story flops that we've
Speaker:had.
Speaker:It's not just like that.
Speaker:We also, we've walked
Speaker:around Paris together.
Speaker:Oh, yes, we did.
Speaker:We've had lots of times.
Speaker:Yeah, we've been to Paris.
Speaker:We've been to Agin.
Speaker:I've had a couple of
Speaker:other trainings with her.
Speaker:I think I did one in Orange County with
Speaker:her way back in the early
Speaker:2000s and TPRS together.
Speaker:Yes, we've done lots of stuff with Karen.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Yes, I've known Karen
Speaker:for many, many years.
Speaker:Yeah, it's amazing how we start running
Speaker:around in all the same
Speaker:circles and big fish and small
Speaker:pond, right?
Speaker:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker:We did that first day together in Paris
Speaker:where you're trying to
Speaker:stay awake, like trying to
Speaker:keep yourself awake and as late as you
Speaker:can so you can adjust.
Speaker:And I sat down to tie my shoe and said,
Speaker:oh, no, we have to keep going.
Speaker:That was enough sitting that
Speaker:I won't get to fall asleep.
Speaker:So we walked.
Speaker:We walked all day.
Speaker:Yeah, because we only planned that day.
Speaker:I think we only had like a day or two in
Speaker:Paris before we went to Agin.
Speaker:We flew into Paris and then we were going
Speaker:to take the tour, go on into Agin for the
Speaker:Agin Workshop Conference,
Speaker:which is an amazing conference.
Speaker:You get a chance to do always in late
Speaker:July in Agin, France, which is just
Speaker:outside of Toulouse.
Speaker:But so I didn't think I
Speaker:was going to like Paris.
Speaker:You know, everybody has the bad ideas
Speaker:about Paris and all of
Speaker:that, you know, about how
Speaker:they're not nice to foreigners,
Speaker:especially English speakers.
Speaker:And so I only planned
Speaker:like a day and a half there.
Speaker:I figured I'd just go through.
Speaker:I'm not going to like it.
Speaker:Let's just move on.
Speaker:And I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Speaker:And the Parisian people were incredible.
Speaker:I got to use my horrible French because
Speaker:I've taken French
Speaker:classes with Karen's company,
Speaker:Fluency Fast before.
Speaker:And so I use my horrible French and they
Speaker:didn't try to correct me
Speaker:and they spoke back to me
Speaker:in French.
Speaker:So I was kind of impressed.
Speaker:And then we also have a good story
Speaker:because we were at a
Speaker:restaurant one evening in Paris
Speaker:and the Algerians won, I guess there was
Speaker:like an Arabic version
Speaker:of the World Cup and the
Speaker:Algerians won.
Speaker:And so they were riding on the streets of
Speaker:Paris and the
Speaker:restaurateur told us to get out.
Speaker:He said, get out
Speaker:because we're closing down.
Speaker:All the subways are closed.
Speaker:You're going to have
Speaker:to find your way back.
Speaker:And we were like, oh my gosh.
Speaker:And we found it.
Speaker:It took us a while to find an Uber and
Speaker:the streets were all covered.
Speaker:You couldn't get anywhere.
Speaker:It was.
Speaker:That sounds very typical.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So that was our experience.
Speaker:And then we had another
Speaker:experience with a poor woman.
Speaker:I remember Karen's
Speaker:telling me, don't do anything.
Speaker:Don't do anything.
Speaker:Don't say anything because there is a
Speaker:Muslim woman and she wasn't.
Speaker:I guess France has a law that you can't
Speaker:cover your complete face.
Speaker:You know how some Muslim, depending on
Speaker:the type of, I don't
Speaker:know, I'm ignorant about this.
Speaker:So forgive my ignorance.
Speaker:But there are different
Speaker:types of Hijibs that they wear.
Speaker:And the ones that have the ones that only
Speaker:the eyes show are not legal in France.
Speaker:This lady was being harassed by local
Speaker:people as we were walking through.
Speaker:And I felt like, oh my
Speaker:gosh, that's horrible.
Speaker:She's an elderly woman and you're
Speaker:harassing this woman
Speaker:because she's got her religious
Speaker:freedoms.
Speaker:But so we have some wonderful experiences
Speaker:in that little 24 to
Speaker:48 hours in France that
Speaker:we were at.
Speaker:It was a great time.
Speaker:So let's get back to our topic here.
Speaker:So when our story flops in
Speaker:real time, we've all had it.
Speaker:All of us who've ever done a story in
Speaker:class has had those
Speaker:moments where we get the blank
Speaker:stares and kids just have nothing to say.
Speaker:And you're like, whatever
Speaker:I'm doing is not working.
Speaker:I've lost them along the way.
Speaker:So anybody want to start with their one
Speaker:of their big faux pas or
Speaker:one of their big errors
Speaker:that they had when they did this?
Speaker:The one of their stories?
Speaker:Oh, I was trying to think of specifics
Speaker:because it's happened so many times.
Speaker:It's kind of a common occurrence.
Speaker:Last year I had one class that it was
Speaker:just really difficult.
Speaker:If I get more than three barometer
Speaker:students, I know I'm
Speaker:doing something wrong.
Speaker:So barometer student is you're looking
Speaker:for who's not getting
Speaker:it, who's not engaged.
Speaker:One barometer student is all I need.
Speaker:If I've got three,
Speaker:that's too many for me.
Speaker:So it's time to switch tactics.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And I'll tell you a story that I had.
Speaker:It just happened to me recently.
Speaker:I can't think of one, you
Speaker:know, one's way back when.
Speaker:Oh, actually I will.
Speaker:Oh, I've got one.
Speaker:I remember from middle school.
Speaker:I taught middle school.
Speaker:We were going really strong with a story.
Speaker:It was about an elephant.
Speaker:And this girl was playing the elephant.
Speaker:She was fine and she was doing the acting
Speaker:and everything was great.
Speaker:But I like to stretch my
Speaker:stories to be at least two days.
Speaker:I like them to be at least two days so
Speaker:that I can get more of
Speaker:that or that listening input
Speaker:in their heads before we do something
Speaker:else with the story.
Speaker:So I try to on day one
Speaker:establish the character.
Speaker:That's all that we do on day one is I
Speaker:work on getting that
Speaker:character as three-dimensional
Speaker:as possible.
Speaker:And that's all that we work on is getting
Speaker:that character there.
Speaker:We might introduce a friend or a family
Speaker:member, but we don't hit
Speaker:the plot of the story or
Speaker:the problem of the
Speaker:story till the second day.
Speaker:I find that works
Speaker:better than a cliffhanger.
Speaker:I used to do cliffhangers and end on a
Speaker:cliffhanger, but then that
Speaker:momentum got lost over the day.
Speaker:So they would be like, can
Speaker:we stay to finish the story?
Speaker:I'm like, no, you got
Speaker:to go to third period.
Speaker:But if I did it the next
Speaker:day, they completely lost it.
Speaker:But the character and then the
Speaker:plot was a good intersection.
Speaker:I didn't have to bring back momentum
Speaker:anyway for whatever reason.
Speaker:The next day I called her back up to play
Speaker:the part and she just refused.
Speaker:Absolutely refused.
Speaker:I don't know if I had done something
Speaker:prior to that, that like
Speaker:during the story part that
Speaker:she didn't like.
Speaker:There was nothing like that put her in a
Speaker:bad light, nothing in there.
Speaker:And she had
Speaker:volunteered to play the elephant.
Speaker:I had a little
Speaker:elephant hat that they wore.
Speaker:But the second day, I
Speaker:don't know what it was.
Speaker:She just openly refused.
Speaker:And I'm like stuck.
Speaker:I'm like, I froze in headlights because
Speaker:I'm like, yeah, the
Speaker:easiest answer would have
Speaker:been just pull up somebody else.
Speaker:But we had spent so much time and she had
Speaker:acted it out so great that I just thought
Speaker:a whole new story, bringing somebody else
Speaker:is kind of like when a
Speaker:sitcom has been going
Speaker:for a few years and
Speaker:one of the people quit.
Speaker:They do that a lot in soap operas.
Speaker:They replace the actor for the character
Speaker:and you're like,
Speaker:that's not the right person.
Speaker:That's kind of how I felt.
Speaker:So that was one of my really big flops.
Speaker:I never found out why she
Speaker:didn't want to do it after that.
Speaker:But she volunteered for other stories,
Speaker:but she just did not
Speaker:want to play that character
Speaker:the next day.
Speaker:And I never had that
Speaker:been a problem before.
Speaker:So I didn't know how to handle it.
Speaker:In the moment when you've got 30, you
Speaker:know, preview best in
Speaker:teenage middle school kids
Speaker:in front of you, you
Speaker:freeze in the moment.
Speaker:And so that that was a definite freeze
Speaker:for me because I've
Speaker:never had that problem and
Speaker:I haven't had that one since either.
Speaker:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker:How about you, Karen?
Speaker:I'm having so many thoughts
Speaker:that I don't want to interrupt.
Speaker:I'm taking notes.
Speaker:I just sat down and
Speaker:realized I don't have a pen.
Speaker:It's off camera.
Speaker:So I'm telling you.
Speaker:I type on my notepad here too.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:I had to pull something out to be like,
Speaker:oh, I don't want to forget this.
Speaker:So two things.
Speaker:I wanted to talk about the like the self
Speaker:analysis that you do afterwards.
Speaker:Where did it break down?
Speaker:What did I miss?
Speaker:Which is, which is I think the thing that
Speaker:makes it happen less often.
Speaker:But the other part is
Speaker:what do you do in the moment?
Speaker:So in the moment, keep remembering that
Speaker:comprehensible input leads to language,
Speaker:language acquisition,
Speaker:comprehensible input leads to language
Speaker:acquisition, even when the story is bad.
Speaker:So if you're focused on the like what
Speaker:you're teaching and you
Speaker:just go, okay, well, this
Speaker:story didn't work.
Speaker:Does it matter if you stop right at the
Speaker:end and you're like in
Speaker:the middle of the story
Speaker:and you go, is this working?
Speaker:And have them be like, no,
Speaker:this is a really dumb story.
Speaker:Like, okay, let's stop.
Speaker:So how would we fix it?
Speaker:It's not real.
Speaker:You can interrupt it at any time.
Speaker:But the other thing is you are absolutely
Speaker:right that a lot of
Speaker:times when it's not working
Speaker:and you've got that zero response, it's
Speaker:lack of comprehension.
Speaker:And there's, you know,
Speaker:they're not understanding you.
Speaker:So you're asking questions and they're
Speaker:not answering because
Speaker:they have no idea what's
Speaker:going on.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So that's one.
Speaker:That's the end the moment.
Speaker:But the analysis part of like going back
Speaker:afterwards and figuring out
Speaker:what does not work for me.
Speaker:One of the things that does not work for
Speaker:me is if I know the
Speaker:story already, that doesn't
Speaker:work for me.
Speaker:If I wrote the story, I
Speaker:can't teach the story.
Speaker:So I work really hard at it because I
Speaker:only have one sense of humor.
Speaker:I will tell the exact same story and then
Speaker:we'll get to the
Speaker:reading and I'll go, that's
Speaker:exactly how I wrote it last time.
Speaker:That's boring.
Speaker:So I will pull the words
Speaker:out and not read the story.
Speaker:Like we're going
Speaker:somewhere, but I won't read it.
Speaker:So I pull the vocabulary out.
Speaker:I teach the vocabulary and
Speaker:then we'll see what happens.
Speaker:And then when we go to read it.
Speaker:Oh yeah.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:That's completely different.
Speaker:But if I'm guiding it and they're not,
Speaker:I'm not letting them
Speaker:answer, I'm telling the story
Speaker:or I have an idea of like, I
Speaker:know where I want it to go.
Speaker:I don't let that their responses, the
Speaker:personalization guide it.
Speaker:And that's what makes it work.
Speaker:And I forget that sometimes like I'm in
Speaker:the moment and I'm
Speaker:going, why isn't this working?
Speaker:And I remember I'm not funny.
Speaker:It's not me.
Speaker:It's me listening.
Speaker:When I listen to them, they're funny.
Speaker:That's very true.
Speaker:You are absolutely right when you say,
Speaker:okay, is this working?
Speaker:No, it's not.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Let's it took me a hundred years to get
Speaker:to that point where I
Speaker:could pivot because I had
Speaker:taken out the words.
Speaker:I was like, this is
Speaker:what we need to work on.
Speaker:I'm one of four Spanish
Speaker:teachers in the district.
Speaker:We all have to do the same thing.
Speaker:These are the words we need to work on.
Speaker:And then I had slaved
Speaker:over the bones of the story.
Speaker:And then when it blows up in my face,
Speaker:like it took so long
Speaker:before I could let go of my
Speaker:preconceived ideas.
Speaker:Like that was a skill I had to learn
Speaker:that, oh, it's okay
Speaker:that it's not working.
Speaker:It's not me.
Speaker:It's class dynamics.
Speaker:It's the temperature outside.
Speaker:It's whatever's in the water
Speaker:that they're drinking today.
Speaker:I don't know.
Speaker:But to get to that point where I could
Speaker:let go of something
Speaker:was like a huge moment of
Speaker:growth for me, I guess.
Speaker:But it took a long
Speaker:time for me to get there.
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:And I will say, I think, Karen, you put
Speaker:it on, you put a good
Speaker:viewpoint on it about that
Speaker:personalization because in the beginning,
Speaker:when I was doing
Speaker:stories at the beginning,
Speaker:I scripted them out.
Speaker:I was like Oprah Winfrey.
Speaker:I printed out on half sheets of cardstock
Speaker:in like 16 fonts so I
Speaker:could read it from there.
Speaker:And gosh darn it, it was going to be a
Speaker:rabbit in the story.
Speaker:I didn't care what color the rabbit was.
Speaker:I didn't care how big his ears were, you
Speaker:know, that stuff you could change.
Speaker:But it was going to be a rabbit and he
Speaker:was going to Target.
Speaker:That's the places I didn't vary that
Speaker:because I didn't have
Speaker:that comfortability.
Speaker:But now I like you, that becomes telling
Speaker:the story and not asking the story.
Speaker:So the engagement is not really there.
Speaker:So now I go in with all I need to do is
Speaker:get a character and get a problem.
Speaker:So somebody wants something.
Speaker:What do they want or
Speaker:what do they don't have?
Speaker:Something like that.
Speaker:And all I'll do is I won't have anything
Speaker:else pre-configured in my brain.
Speaker:I don't have a backup
Speaker:if something goes wrong.
Speaker:So I just write my keywords on the board
Speaker:so I can see them at
Speaker:any moment wherever I am
Speaker:in the room to make sure I'm getting
Speaker:those words in the story.
Speaker:And then I let them go from there.
Speaker:I'll ask, you know, what kind of
Speaker:character do we want?
Speaker:Do we want an object,
Speaker:a person, an animal?
Speaker:And I like the objects because objects
Speaker:work well for me because
Speaker:stereotypes don't attach
Speaker:to me.
Speaker:So if you do it with even animals, they
Speaker:have stereotypes in
Speaker:there and that usually brings
Speaker:in biases.
Speaker:I don't want to bring that in.
Speaker:So I like objects because, you know, if
Speaker:you have a coffee cup or
Speaker:one of our best stories
Speaker:was a water bottle, a
Speaker:dented water bottle that we had.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So they just you can do anything to those
Speaker:and nobody can be offended because it's a
Speaker:water bottle.
Speaker:So it works out really well.
Speaker:The stereotypes don't work in there.
Speaker:And then we start with a problem.
Speaker:And I've done in the past where I ask
Speaker:kids, this is how I get a problem.
Speaker:It's like I remember I told you we just
Speaker:developed the character on the first day.
Speaker:So my exit ticket is we've determined
Speaker:what how this character is feeling.
Speaker:Is he angry?
Speaker:Is he sad?
Speaker:Is he embarrassed?
Speaker:Whatever the emotion is.
Speaker:So my exit ticket that they answer
Speaker:digitally so that I can
Speaker:get them and gather them all
Speaker:for the next day is what is why is the
Speaker:character of that emotion?
Speaker:Why are they angry?
Speaker:Why are they embarrassed?
Speaker:Whatever it may be.
Speaker:And this is the really key one.
Speaker:What's the deepest,
Speaker:darkest secret of that character?
Speaker:So then everybody types it into a Google
Speaker:form and then that night
Speaker:I'll go through and I'll
Speaker:tally them all up.
Speaker:And some of them are very similar.
Speaker:Not the different words
Speaker:but the very similar things.
Speaker:So I'll pick four or five choices and put
Speaker:them on a warm up for the next day.
Speaker:So now I've got the four.
Speaker:Now they vote on the ones that they like.
Speaker:But they don't get the
Speaker:results until we tell the story.
Speaker:I look at the results right away and then
Speaker:I know how to guide
Speaker:the story towards those
Speaker:results.
Speaker:And so that's kind of a really great way
Speaker:that I can still keep a
Speaker:little bit of control about
Speaker:the story but it's
Speaker:completely driven by the kids.
Speaker:And then obviously as we develop the plot
Speaker:part of the story I'm
Speaker:getting the ideas from
Speaker:the kids.
Speaker:We're voting on them or
Speaker:we're spinning a wheel.
Speaker:If we can't decide if it's equal I'll put
Speaker:it in a wheel to spin
Speaker:around and then whatever
Speaker:the wheel decides that's what happens.
Speaker:But that keeps them all engaged in that.
Speaker:But I have found that what
Speaker:Karen says is absolutely true.
Speaker:It comes from a curriculum that you're
Speaker:using or you pre-wrote
Speaker:the story and you thought
Speaker:it was hilariously funny but you are
Speaker:three generations you
Speaker:know 30, 40 years older than
Speaker:these kids and they don't think what you
Speaker:think is funny anymore.
Speaker:And even if you went on a trend of theirs
Speaker:as soon as you use it
Speaker:it's no longer funny
Speaker:at that point.
Speaker:So I think that's a real big thing.
Speaker:Scott that was I wish I talked to you
Speaker:like five years ago
Speaker:because that was a game changer
Speaker:for me when I suddenly realized like the
Speaker:story just flop like
Speaker:fizzle fizzle fizzle and I
Speaker:was like alright grab a sheet of paper
Speaker:everybody write down what
Speaker:you think should happen in
Speaker:the story.
Speaker:And then that night I could look through
Speaker:it and I put them up on
Speaker:the board and I secretly
Speaker:corrected the bad grammar and I added a
Speaker:couple of my own ideas
Speaker:and then I had them vote
Speaker:and I even said okay you guys get three
Speaker:votes vote for you you
Speaker:can put all three in the
Speaker:same one if you want and so they couldn't
Speaker:really count the
Speaker:votes too much they could
Speaker:just say oh this was a really popular one
Speaker:this was a really and
Speaker:so I still had a little
Speaker:bit of control over it like oh okay well
Speaker:this is the kind of the
Speaker:direction I think we should
Speaker:go in you know.
Speaker:So but they had the sense of that they
Speaker:had invested themselves
Speaker:they were now connected
Speaker:and that that really like it was like now
Speaker:I do that all the
Speaker:time but I started it out
Speaker:of a moment of complete desperation when
Speaker:I first did it so I'm
Speaker:glad I got to it finally
Speaker:Karen I'm sorry I spoke over you.
Speaker:No not it no not at all I was just saying
Speaker:that sometimes that it worked last period
Speaker:or it worked yesterday.
Speaker:Yeah and now it's not working so it's you
Speaker:know it works it just worked why isn't it
Speaker:working in this this class and one of the
Speaker:things that I do with
Speaker:personalization like
Speaker:Scott does and I don't use Google Forms I
Speaker:use little tiny
Speaker:pieces of paper and I throw
Speaker:them away so sticky notes or whatever and
Speaker:like grab a sticky
Speaker:note or an index card and
Speaker:I ask one question so everyone's
Speaker:answering the same
Speaker:question and then I have that not
Speaker:just for the next story but for lots of
Speaker:them so it's different
Speaker:questions but it's like
Speaker:what secret talent do you have and then
Speaker:when I go and I pull an
Speaker:actor I'll be like okay
Speaker:this will work like who knows how do you
Speaker:and so then but then
Speaker:it doesn't it's not like
Speaker:trying to fill one story it's like I'm
Speaker:looking for ideas and
Speaker:then what works for me and
Speaker:when stories aren't working is finding
Speaker:that one piece of
Speaker:personalized information that
Speaker:no one remembers about someone in class
Speaker:and is the perfect
Speaker:solution to a problem and like
Speaker:so I think that there are some like in
Speaker:the list of techniques
Speaker:that we have used for a
Speaker:long time that will solve a specific
Speaker:problem but mostly it's about being
Speaker:willing to abandon it I
Speaker:can always write the story after so this
Speaker:is how it should have gone
Speaker:it didn't quite work but I'll
Speaker:fix it for tomorrow and tomorrow one of
Speaker:the things that I always do
Speaker:is I miss a word so I had like
Speaker:three words up there and I got lots of
Speaker:repetition and lots of
Speaker:inclusion in the first two and the
Speaker:third one just it didn't work it didn't
Speaker:work its way into the story
Speaker:as much right so I rotated
Speaker:into the next day and into the reading so
Speaker:that there are a lot more
Speaker:repetitions in the reading
Speaker:and then like I get it right once I have
Speaker:time to write it down yeah so I mean
Speaker:there's always a way
Speaker:to fix it yeah there's always exactly the
Speaker:aftermath and and I find those
Speaker:personalization days go ahead
Speaker:Karen how many days do stories normally
Speaker:last well I teach classes
Speaker:differently I do three straight
Speaker:days of fluency fast classes so it's like
Speaker:we it's three three full
Speaker:days or I do online once a week
Speaker:right now I'm doing online three times a
Speaker:week the same class three times a week
Speaker:and that's been a lot
Speaker:easier because I can we can build the
Speaker:story more but when I yeah when it's a
Speaker:the big class of the
Speaker:long classes it's the equivalent of a
Speaker:class period to build to it and then once
Speaker:I start going because
Speaker:it's a longer period of time I can go
Speaker:what would have been two class periods
Speaker:because you just like
Speaker:keep going we take breaks in the middle
Speaker:but I just keep going and
Speaker:going and going because all of that
Speaker:personalized information that I gathered
Speaker:the more that can go into a
Speaker:story the more everyone feels
Speaker:included yeah and I think that's really
Speaker:the problem is that we're
Speaker:not talking about a story
Speaker:not working we don't really care if the
Speaker:story works we care if
Speaker:they're engaged exactly yeah
Speaker:the key idea that is a very key idea yeah
Speaker:if they're not engaged and
Speaker:they're not paying attention
Speaker:like they're not acquiring anything
Speaker:because it doesn't matter if it's
Speaker:comprehensible yes they
Speaker:understand it but they're not they're not
Speaker:paying attention all the
Speaker:things that we used to do in
Speaker:TPR storytelling on all the you know the
Speaker:the old rules for how to
Speaker:make a story work all of those
Speaker:things happen naturally in classes like
Speaker:Jason Fritz once said if
Speaker:he couldn't get the answer
Speaker:that he needed he would point to the
Speaker:middle of the room and say
Speaker:yes exactly to an imaginary
Speaker:student who shouting the answer but here
Speaker:one student and it's an imaginary student
Speaker:and then he got what
Speaker:he needed like we learned all these
Speaker:techniques but but but but what we what
Speaker:we forget or what I'm
Speaker:sorry not what we forget but what we know
Speaker:now that we didn't know then
Speaker:is that all that stuff can be
Speaker:backed up now with brain research yeah
Speaker:yes absolutely absolutely
Speaker:and I will tell you um one
Speaker:of the things that I learned from Karen
Speaker:Rowan years ago in one of
Speaker:her workshops that she did
Speaker:and I've used it ever since is you know
Speaker:that quiet kid is in the back
Speaker:of the room they're following
Speaker:you they understand but they don't ever
Speaker:engage and you want to
Speaker:include them so I modify what she
Speaker:gave which she taught me in that class
Speaker:years ago in the early
Speaker:2000s where I'll give them some
Speaker:weird obnoxious word that just doesn't
Speaker:fit in anything and I
Speaker:remember the one she used in class
Speaker:was albondigas meatballs and so she gave
Speaker:it to a student and said
Speaker:your job your you have one job
Speaker:today get that word into the story and so
Speaker:I like to pick my part of it
Speaker:was giving it to this quiet
Speaker:kid because that allowed them a way to
Speaker:get into the story that they
Speaker:couldn't get in any other way
Speaker:because they weren't you know the one who
Speaker:always puts their hand up
Speaker:and they're not the ones who
Speaker:can shout out but this gave them a way in
Speaker:there and so um I love
Speaker:doing that aspect of it and I
Speaker:give one word that's randomly and this is
Speaker:one of the areas where I
Speaker:use chat gpt a little bit
Speaker:because I because I I get stuck on like I
Speaker:always pick the same words
Speaker:like we get in a rut of the
Speaker:kind of words and so I will say okay I
Speaker:need a really weird word
Speaker:in Spanish give me some
Speaker:school appropriate word that is really
Speaker:really weird and they give
Speaker:me a list I say give me a
Speaker:list of 10 and then I can pick from them
Speaker:which one I think would be a
Speaker:really funny word to enter in
Speaker:and an extension of that is I have
Speaker:rejoinder cards and so I give I give
Speaker:those cards out to kids and
Speaker:their job is to hold up the rejoinder
Speaker:card and then shout out when it's
Speaker:appropriate for the story
Speaker:whatever it might be you know que la
Speaker:steema what a shame or you know how
Speaker:interesting or something
Speaker:like that and again I give those I give
Speaker:to my ADHD kids or what I
Speaker:just call boys and they work
Speaker:really well to keep them um engaged in
Speaker:the story because they're
Speaker:just trying to find a way
Speaker:to get that attention that they want and
Speaker:they have to focus on the
Speaker:rest of the story to be able to
Speaker:show the rejoinder up and it's really
Speaker:really funny when they get
Speaker:it wrong they they misread
Speaker:something and they they like I go oh yes
Speaker:muy bonita she's very pretty
Speaker:they go que la steema and it's
Speaker:holding their own card yeah and so we get
Speaker:a real fun because that error we
Speaker:celebrate errors in my
Speaker:class but then I don't even make that as
Speaker:an error I go so why is it a
Speaker:shame that she's pretty and
Speaker:we can go on that kind of thing and
Speaker:they're like wait that's
Speaker:not what I meant to say I go
Speaker:fine we're okay we're going with it now
Speaker:so it's just kind of a
Speaker:funny thing that's a student has
Speaker:all the cards no no I give like three
Speaker:cards out to three different students
Speaker:okay so I'll pick them
Speaker:as they come into class I go here is your
Speaker:card today here's your
Speaker:because I try to give jobs
Speaker:these little bit of jobs that require
Speaker:kids to pay attention so I
Speaker:don't get those blank stares
Speaker:like Karen was talking about the I didn't
Speaker:use that word enough so
Speaker:I'll give um the kids I used to
Speaker:I have those little clickers that click
Speaker:and keep count but that is not a good
Speaker:thing to give to ADHD
Speaker:kids because they just click just to
Speaker:click it and then they're like
Speaker:I'm trying to get to a certain
Speaker:number like 999 so they're trying to go
Speaker:so now I just give sticky
Speaker:notes with the word that they
Speaker:have to listen for and they have to put a
Speaker:hash mark for every time
Speaker:they hear that word so then I
Speaker:at the end it's helpful for me but if
Speaker:they don't get all of them that's okay
Speaker:you know it's getting
Speaker:focused on the story as we go along and
Speaker:pay attention because to
Speaker:hear that one word they
Speaker:have to pay attention to everything so
Speaker:those are kind of some
Speaker:adaptions that I got from Karen
Speaker:years ago so now we're talking about how
Speaker:to fix it which is yeah I
Speaker:like I like that conversation
Speaker:about how to fix it but I do want to
Speaker:confess that the some of
Speaker:the biggest failures have been
Speaker:because because I did not understand what
Speaker:they were trying to get me to do
Speaker:so something that I didn't under
Speaker:understand I'm a French teacher who we
Speaker:know very well was doing a
Speaker:workshop and someone tried to put the
Speaker:word commando into a story but being a
Speaker:French speaker she did
Speaker:it meant so she circled it like it was a
Speaker:color do you wear commando
Speaker:and like it just didn't work like that's
Speaker:what I mean is like you
Speaker:don't know what it is you don't
Speaker:know what it is and for me that word was
Speaker:ratchet which I did not know they
Speaker:explained to me in a
Speaker:way that sounded fine and then I put a
Speaker:story and later they were
Speaker:like wow do you do you know what
Speaker:you said do you know what you were
Speaker:circling in the story yeah so
Speaker:like if you don't when they're
Speaker:trying to kind of get you off on a
Speaker:tangent of putting something
Speaker:in the story that's where I
Speaker:that's where my big failures are they're
Speaker:very public failures of
Speaker:that was high school and
Speaker:and the story just went off the rails
Speaker:because everyone was
Speaker:laughing but not because of my
Speaker:story because of the boys who were acting
Speaker:the parts of the ratchets
Speaker:yeah look back up it's not
Speaker:a good word no so I have advocated that
Speaker:they open up the website I
Speaker:always forget the name of the
Speaker:website it is what it's something
Speaker:dictionary I forgot the
Speaker:urban dictionary they block it
Speaker:urban dictionary they block it I said you
Speaker:need to open up for
Speaker:teachers because when kids put in
Speaker:these words like when they said what was
Speaker:the word they used a couple years ago um
Speaker:alpha beta it's when it's in there it was
Speaker:a some kind of word yeah but
Speaker:it wasn't alpha beta it was
Speaker:like started with an s I forgot what they
Speaker:used but I didn't know if
Speaker:that was an appropriate word
Speaker:or not because I didn't know so I go to
Speaker:the urban dictionary to do
Speaker:it but it was blocked so I'd
Speaker:always have to go on my phone and go on
Speaker:urban dictionary to look
Speaker:it up because sometimes they
Speaker:put in words and they slide by because
Speaker:they sound innocent enough but yeah
Speaker:they're not and I'll tell
Speaker:and it's funny because it's a lady that I
Speaker:I had I've had both of her
Speaker:kids and she she was an aid
Speaker:at my school at my old school at the
Speaker:middle school and then I
Speaker:just reunited with her again
Speaker:because she's now got a new puppy and
Speaker:she's at the dog park with me but she we
Speaker:always remind because
Speaker:um she was an aide and her son was in my
Speaker:class he was it was the
Speaker:year of co before we went out
Speaker:on covid so it was the 2019 2020 school
Speaker:year and we went out in march 13th of
Speaker:2020 is when we went
Speaker:out and I had this kid in the class and
Speaker:we were talking about
Speaker:getting a character and so um we
Speaker:made a letter ahead of it was a lettuce
Speaker:that's what we had and then the kid said
Speaker:yeah the kid said um
Speaker:he goes oh it's the devil's lettuce well
Speaker:I just thought of devil's
Speaker:lettuce was a lettuce head
Speaker:horn so I had a kid draw a head of
Speaker:lettuce with horns and a tail and we went
Speaker:on for a whole class
Speaker:period talking about devil's lettuce and
Speaker:then the mom comes to me
Speaker:afterwards and she goes I need to
Speaker:apologize for my son and I'm like what
Speaker:she goes you talked about
Speaker:the devil's lettuce I go I know
Speaker:it was a great character we've we've got
Speaker:a lot of she goes do you
Speaker:know what that is I'm like
Speaker:what what is it is it not just a head of
Speaker:lettuce with horns and a tail
Speaker:she goes no that means marijuana you
Speaker:talked about marijuana the
Speaker:whole class period and I'm like
Speaker:I did not know I'm so naive in that area
Speaker:so for the whole period
Speaker:she laughed at me she goes
Speaker:it's my fault because I taught my kid
Speaker:that term and she's like
Speaker:laughing and so we still laugh at
Speaker:about it even now it's been you know
Speaker:seven years and we still are laughing
Speaker:about it today I go yeah
Speaker:you're the kid your kid brought up the
Speaker:devil's lettuce in my
Speaker:class and I had to go to the
Speaker:principal and tell him I'm sorry I had no
Speaker:idea what we were talking
Speaker:about and you look at our
Speaker:picture it had nothing to do with five
Speaker:leaves on a plant it was a
Speaker:literal head of lettuce with
Speaker:horns and a tail so if anybody starts
Speaker:complaining you know it was innocent
Speaker:enough but it was so
Speaker:um and then I got one other one about
Speaker:that a story flop and
Speaker:this is when I lived in Vegas
Speaker:for seven years I stopped asking what did
Speaker:you do over the weekend
Speaker:because I got hoodwinked
Speaker:big time and we were on block so for 90
Speaker:minutes I talked about
Speaker:this I asked what a kid did
Speaker:over the weekend and he said he went to
Speaker:the bunny ranch well I
Speaker:thought the bunny ranch was a farm
Speaker:rabbits that they went to go see like a
Speaker:petting zoo you know you go
Speaker:and pet the little animals
Speaker:that's what I thought so whole class
Speaker:period I am asking were there white
Speaker:rabbits were there black
Speaker:rabbits were they furry were they nice
Speaker:were they big were they the
Speaker:whole time we were going because
Speaker:it was going and the kids are laughing
Speaker:and at the end of the class
Speaker:the kid no idea what this is
Speaker:yeah the kid comes to me and goes you
Speaker:have no idea what the
Speaker:bunny ranch is do you I go yeah
Speaker:it's a farm of rabbits he goes no it's
Speaker:not it's a brothel because
Speaker:in Vegas the age of consent is
Speaker:16 and it's a rite of passage that dad's
Speaker:taken to this brothel when
Speaker:they turn 16 and I had no idea
Speaker:so I had to go running to my principal
Speaker:and said and he just laughed
Speaker:at me I'm like I talked about
Speaker:bunny ranch for a whole 90 minutes and I
Speaker:thought it was a farm for
Speaker:rabbits and the kids didn't tell
Speaker:me till the end and I was just like so
Speaker:now I urban dictionary everything if
Speaker:something comes up there
Speaker:I am like oh no sigma that was the word
Speaker:that the kids added to me
Speaker:the alphabet is sigma I'm like
Speaker:okay what does that mean it was innocent
Speaker:enough so I let that go
Speaker:through but they do they try to
Speaker:hoodwink you with these words that you
Speaker:don't know what they know
Speaker:you don't know what it means
Speaker:and they think that they can get one over
Speaker:on you so urban dictionary
Speaker:is your friend if it's not
Speaker:unlocked at your school beg your
Speaker:administrators get it unlocked for
Speaker:teachers only because it has
Speaker:lots of inappropriate stuff otherwise you
Speaker:have to pull your phone
Speaker:out and use your phone but
Speaker:bookmark that that site because it will
Speaker:save your butt from
Speaker:embarrassment because those two times
Speaker:the bunny ranch and the um the devil's
Speaker:lettuce got me got me good
Speaker:oh Scott there was there was
Speaker:an entire year that I couldn't do story
Speaker:asking with my french
Speaker:classes because they always wanted
Speaker:19 seals oh because 19 sounds like these
Speaker:enough sounds like these
Speaker:nuts yeah and the word for
Speaker:seal sounds a little too much like
Speaker:something else and I was like okay well
Speaker:I'll just script the
Speaker:stories myself from now on yeah yep they
Speaker:always and that's also
Speaker:another problem where your story
Speaker:may flop is when the personalization goes
Speaker:too far and not in any inappropriate way
Speaker:but it's now getting so far out of bounds
Speaker:that you can't bring the
Speaker:story back or keep it back in
Speaker:bounds and get that back under control so
Speaker:they make it so far way
Speaker:beyond their language abilities
Speaker:and it's really hard to get back it's
Speaker:that comprehension part
Speaker:because now you wherever
Speaker:they're trying to get it to go they don't
Speaker:have the vocabulary for
Speaker:that and you can't simplify it
Speaker:enough to keep what they want going and
Speaker:so at some point you may
Speaker:have to pull it back in a way
Speaker:because the ultimate problem is the lack
Speaker:of comprehension because
Speaker:you're going to have to
Speaker:keep their ideas in there and so that can
Speaker:also be a problem going in
Speaker:the opposite direction not
Speaker:telling the story you don't want to do
Speaker:that but if you let them
Speaker:personalize it to the extreme
Speaker:you could get too far words and
Speaker:vocabulary and grammar
Speaker:that they just don't know yet
Speaker:too far out or or being able to get to
Speaker:that point the storyline that they want
Speaker:where like they want
Speaker:to be abducted by aliens i'm like oh my
Speaker:you know it's that's
Speaker:getting too far out there we can't
Speaker:keep it simple enough where every kid in
Speaker:the classroom will be
Speaker:able to understand even if
Speaker:i introduce the word kidnapped in there
Speaker:um it's you know it's i'm
Speaker:gonna lose the kids i'm gonna
Speaker:lose a lot of the kids so that's it's not
Speaker:worth going in that path
Speaker:and that's when i use blaine
Speaker:is
Speaker:another story that's a different story so
Speaker:i can still acknowledge
Speaker:that they had that idea so they
Speaker:don't feel bad but then i try to twist it
Speaker:somewhere else so that we
Speaker:can get back and stay in bounds
Speaker:i write down their idea on the board so
Speaker:that they know i'm acknowledging
Speaker:that this will happen at some time and
Speaker:maybe it never happens but
Speaker:um uh you know i write it down
Speaker:so that we can so that we can refocus
Speaker:back to the story yeah yeah i'll say
Speaker:any other ideas just to get some other
Speaker:ideas up there and then i'll
Speaker:have a vote in there and yeah
Speaker:and i'll count wrong if i know that one
Speaker:that they put up there i do
Speaker:kind of like the jason fritz
Speaker:thing where if um i know they're all
Speaker:gonna vote for that one and
Speaker:i'll go okay but one i got 15 of
Speaker:you okay and then the other one that
Speaker:they're not going for but it's
Speaker:the second popular one i go oh
Speaker:there's 18 18 they're like that doesn't
Speaker:add up in the class that
Speaker:no that's how it is let's go
Speaker:i'm allergic to math i can't count
Speaker:yeah i have fudged many a vote so yeah
Speaker:that's why i like the
Speaker:google forums too because i can
Speaker:fudge it that way too because it's
Speaker:private they can't see in there and if
Speaker:there's any inappropriate
Speaker:because there's always a kid who puts
Speaker:something inappropriate i'm
Speaker:like and you wrote this down
Speaker:attached to your name on a google form
Speaker:you do realize that yeah
Speaker:but i can hide it right away
Speaker:nobody hears it nobody sees it just me
Speaker:and i can filter it right out so that
Speaker:works out well for me
Speaker:so let's talk about we've talked about
Speaker:the the problems that
Speaker:we've had some bad stories that
Speaker:we've had let's look at some solutions or
Speaker:things that we can work on
Speaker:to to turn them around or
Speaker:as karen says it's okay to just say this
Speaker:isn't working let's do
Speaker:something else right now
Speaker:or let's put this story away for a day
Speaker:and we'll come back to it
Speaker:because maybe we can have some
Speaker:ideas fostered through that or just leave
Speaker:it it just didn't work so
Speaker:yeah so one of the things
Speaker:is the diagnosis what happened how did it
Speaker:go wrong and that might
Speaker:not happen in the moment
Speaker:but i i think the most important one is
Speaker:not about techniques it's
Speaker:about trust have you built the
Speaker:trust and so the the from the beginning
Speaker:you're training them to
Speaker:know how to do stories because
Speaker:a lot of them didn't come from a class
Speaker:that has all those like
Speaker:this is what i'm expecting for
Speaker:for you you have to build that at the
Speaker:beginning with your
Speaker:routines and your modeling and your
Speaker:rewarding and complimenting people who
Speaker:give you the right answers
Speaker:but also once you pull an actor
Speaker:up and this goes to one of the other
Speaker:problems is that you might
Speaker:not be asking enough questions
Speaker:so if you're making statements you can
Speaker:even have someone have
Speaker:that be their job to tally
Speaker:how many times you're making a statement
Speaker:and how many times you're asking a
Speaker:question i do that in
Speaker:my self-coaching workshop it's a book
Speaker:where you go and you evaluate yourself
Speaker:and then we come back
Speaker:talk about it but the how many questions
Speaker:are you asking and then
Speaker:when you have an actor up
Speaker:and you ask the class a question you have
Speaker:to come back and verify it
Speaker:with the actor every single
Speaker:time and that is a step that if you skip
Speaker:that the class is making
Speaker:decisions for your actor
Speaker:and your actor cannot trust that it's not
Speaker:going to go sideways and
Speaker:this is when you end up with
Speaker:kids being made fun of and you like we
Speaker:were talking about we
Speaker:don't know what all these words
Speaker:are we don't know what the inside jokes
Speaker:are that's where they
Speaker:get made fun of and and we
Speaker:don't understand what they're being made
Speaker:fun of for or whatever
Speaker:bullied for even so you pull up
Speaker:an actor you ask the class a question you
Speaker:get their answer and then
Speaker:you come back to the actor
Speaker:and you verify is it this or is it this
Speaker:and they get to choose every
Speaker:single time and they that if
Speaker:the last choice yeah well the class can
Speaker:make suggestions but even
Speaker:i'm not the authority on
Speaker:the answer the actor is the authority on
Speaker:the answer because it's
Speaker:about them even if they're
Speaker:not playing themselves yeah they're
Speaker:playing a different
Speaker:character it's it's still the truck
Speaker:you're building trust and you're not just
Speaker:building trust with that
Speaker:actor but you're building trust
Speaker:with all the other people in the class
Speaker:who are who know no matter
Speaker:what happens no one's gonna
Speaker:you know take this take this and make to
Speaker:make fun of me absolutely
Speaker:and i have a perfect story
Speaker:about that where i had a girl who was up
Speaker:there and the i didn't
Speaker:know who this kid it wasn't a
Speaker:kid in my class um we had a it was gonna
Speaker:be like a boyfriend
Speaker:girlfriend type situation and they
Speaker:threw out a name and um i had no idea
Speaker:what this kid was and so
Speaker:what kind of status this kid had
Speaker:on campus or anything like that and so i
Speaker:turned to the actor and i
Speaker:said is that your boyfriend
Speaker:and she said no right off i mean it was
Speaker:emphatic so we used that and
Speaker:it was that safe space like
Speaker:because she got to make that ultimate
Speaker:choice and then i had a follow-up
Speaker:question and i said so then
Speaker:who is the boyfriend in here and let her
Speaker:choose that person in there
Speaker:so she could pick whoever she
Speaker:wanted and she picked a movie star which
Speaker:was even better um than
Speaker:having um you know a person in
Speaker:school that i didn't know but it's so
Speaker:very important not only
Speaker:for the reasons karen talked
Speaker:about that trust issue and letting the
Speaker:actor have that final
Speaker:decision making process but it also
Speaker:allows you to get in other persons other
Speaker:than third person we're
Speaker:always talking about the actor
Speaker:because now i can give a u-form and i get
Speaker:an i-form in in response
Speaker:back so we can hear those
Speaker:other forms in there as well within the
Speaker:story so i always like i
Speaker:know blaine calls it verify
Speaker:the details i i like to call things
Speaker:exactly what they are so i
Speaker:don't have to explain what verify
Speaker:the details mean i say just interview the
Speaker:actor so after we said oh
Speaker:you have the character has
Speaker:15 years i'll go to the kid i'll go do
Speaker:you have 15 how old are you
Speaker:do you have 15 years or you're
Speaker:16 years and i'll get those in there so
Speaker:they can hear the u and then
Speaker:the i-forms coming back and
Speaker:if my kid doesn't have the ability to say
Speaker:it back in the correct form
Speaker:i will either play a little
Speaker:voice behind them i'll make a little
Speaker:funny voice or i'll write it
Speaker:on the board and have them read
Speaker:it or i'll just feed in the lines in
Speaker:their ear and then they just
Speaker:repeat after me because i want
Speaker:them to hear the correct forms i don't
Speaker:want to hear the you know
Speaker:the the messed up forms i don't
Speaker:want that to get into their brains but i
Speaker:want them to be able to hear
Speaker:the i and the u and i think
Speaker:that interviewing the actor after you
Speaker:establish a fact is a good
Speaker:way to see is that really true
Speaker:because i let the actor choose so if
Speaker:everybody said he was 15 the actor didn't
Speaker:want to be 15 he goes
Speaker:no that's not true i'm actually 23 okay
Speaker:you're now 23 so allows it
Speaker:in there but getting that
Speaker:interaction in there and it shows me that
Speaker:the actor understood
Speaker:because they're not agreeing
Speaker:with what's going on which is a higher
Speaker:form because not only do
Speaker:they have to understand
Speaker:but now they're forming a way to argue
Speaker:back and so it's a higher value of
Speaker:comprehension along that
Speaker:way so i think that's very true karen
Speaker:about having that trust there's an
Speaker:extreme example of this and i
Speaker:i i don't want to take a lot of your time
Speaker:with this but there's a
Speaker:teacher who take our time
Speaker:she just lost her job because of this um
Speaker:you know the improv rule
Speaker:yes and like you're trying to
Speaker:that that has to have a limit on it
Speaker:because in this is the
Speaker:trust is the trusting that the
Speaker:students are getting to control their own
Speaker:environment and what
Speaker:is said about them and
Speaker:when she was directing you could tell
Speaker:from the description of
Speaker:what happened when they were
Speaker:talking about skits in class that this
Speaker:was definitely a tprs
Speaker:teacher and and she was asking
Speaker:actors to do things and insisting that
Speaker:they follow through on them
Speaker:when they were uncomfortable
Speaker:doing them and that was it that's how she
Speaker:lost her her job and it and
Speaker:and when you you know scott's
Speaker:been talking about going to the principal
Speaker:we can lose control of
Speaker:something unintentionally
Speaker:but the building that trust is where the
Speaker:students are like yeah you
Speaker:really messed up but it's fine
Speaker:that kind of uh they're gonna let it
Speaker:they're gonna let it go
Speaker:they're not gonna go to the
Speaker:principal it's a report on you that you
Speaker:made them feel uncomfortable
Speaker:they're gonna go to you and
Speaker:say i i don't want to be in this story
Speaker:yeah i'm not comfortable
Speaker:yes it's the it's the building
Speaker:of the trust yeah exactly because yeah i
Speaker:don't have you the
Speaker:students report on me but i like
Speaker:just to get to front load it with the
Speaker:principal in case someone is innocent
Speaker:they don't even know
Speaker:they're like the girl who's innocent and
Speaker:didn't know about the
Speaker:devil's lettuce either and so she
Speaker:didn't get the joke and she goes mom we
Speaker:did a whole story about the devil's
Speaker:lettuce and completely
Speaker:innocent and mom knows exactly what that
Speaker:is and then calls the
Speaker:principal so that's the kind of
Speaker:thing that i'm afraid of not that i'm
Speaker:gonna get reported on but i
Speaker:want to protect but it's my
Speaker:activity that i didn't know what that was
Speaker:and i'm honest and
Speaker:i'll tell the kids and go
Speaker:ah you pulled a fast one over me
Speaker:yesterday oh boy but it i'm gonna pull
Speaker:out a rotary phone and
Speaker:see if you can function with that today
Speaker:you know get them back it's also
Speaker:projecting that right is
Speaker:the phone that's a prop the kids you guys
Speaker:you guys know this is my
Speaker:kindergarten learning how
Speaker:to use this yeah props are a great i'm
Speaker:sorry no props are a
Speaker:great way to put things in the
Speaker:stories too scott was talking about
Speaker:planting props in uh or
Speaker:sorry planting words in a class
Speaker:you can also plant props like it's your
Speaker:job to get this into the
Speaker:story and if it has to be
Speaker:appropriate it can't be random and that
Speaker:you know anything can be anything but
Speaker:that especially when
Speaker:a story is not working uh a little tiny
Speaker:cardboard box that you make
Speaker:someone stand inside of and call
Speaker:it a boat changes the whole story you
Speaker:know just like yeah using
Speaker:something that doesn't belong
Speaker:in that way uh but you know having a prop
Speaker:having lots of props to
Speaker:choose from but only pulling out
Speaker:a few at a time like yeah it's kind of
Speaker:like kids and toys you don't
Speaker:they don't play with them if
Speaker:too many yeah that's and that is that is
Speaker:a very true statement
Speaker:because i have lots of props
Speaker:and so i used to have a big old like toy
Speaker:box in the front of my room
Speaker:and then so many props come
Speaker:out and i found what the best thing was
Speaker:is to pick one or maybe two
Speaker:props before the story even
Speaker:starts and give them to kids and have
Speaker:them work them in because one
Speaker:good prop is much better than
Speaker:bad props and one of the ones i got
Speaker:because when i didn't have a lot of props
Speaker:i asked kids to do this
Speaker:um bring me donate some props to me find
Speaker:whatever you have and i got
Speaker:lots of good props i got a fire
Speaker:truck i got all kinds of these props but
Speaker:one of the best ones i
Speaker:got was this gaudy opal ring
Speaker:it was one of these big huge opal rings
Speaker:probably from like the 70s
Speaker:and it came in a ring box
Speaker:and so every day before class i stuffed
Speaker:that in my pocket and then
Speaker:it may take months before it
Speaker:comes out but once it comes out the kids
Speaker:always ask for it so i have
Speaker:it in my pocket and whenever
Speaker:there's a point where two characters can
Speaker:get married i have one
Speaker:character get down on the
Speaker:knee and i give them the ring box and
Speaker:they open up the ring box
Speaker:with that so it could be you know
Speaker:a tree with a bush they're going to get
Speaker:married and so we have that
Speaker:funny thing and then whenever
Speaker:the kids see that coming up they know
Speaker:i've got the ring box they're like ring
Speaker:ring ring and they want
Speaker:to put that in into the story and so it's
Speaker:just one one of those
Speaker:really good props that you have
Speaker:so you don't have to have a lot of props
Speaker:and you don't have to
Speaker:have a toy box full of props
Speaker:but have a few good ones that you can use
Speaker:and have one that you
Speaker:have a like a go-to prop that
Speaker:was my ring that was my go-to prop and it
Speaker:always made a story better
Speaker:but they're really good ones
Speaker:you have to save them you can't have them
Speaker:out all the time like i have
Speaker:a you know how we used to like
Speaker:do that she wants a and there'd be this
Speaker:little hamburger prop yep
Speaker:i found a halloween costume
Speaker:that is a hamburger so you wear it it's
Speaker:an entire hamburger it'd
Speaker:be the entire hamburger
Speaker:yeah and so having people standing for
Speaker:props really yeah i
Speaker:think yeah and i have some of
Speaker:those too because in middle school we did
Speaker:um you know a lot of the
Speaker:spirit days so um i bought a
Speaker:lot of costumes so i have a mr potato
Speaker:head because um it was
Speaker:couch potato day and i'm like
Speaker:what's a couch potato look like so i
Speaker:brought in a whole mr potato
Speaker:and he's got velcro body parts
Speaker:that you can stick on the different parts
Speaker:just like a potato head
Speaker:so i have that one the kids
Speaker:always like to wear that one they always
Speaker:like to get that in the
Speaker:story and then um i have for i
Speaker:started it with um covid when we came
Speaker:back so we went three months
Speaker:you know we went out that one
Speaker:2020 and then 2020 21 school year we
Speaker:didn't go back till november we were
Speaker:online for the first
Speaker:three months of school so i wanted to
Speaker:welcome my kids and we
Speaker:were coming back on a tuesday
Speaker:and so taco tuesday well i went on amazon
Speaker:and i bought a taco
Speaker:costume and so i i have a taco
Speaker:costume and so we have taco tuesday so
Speaker:every tuesday i wear this
Speaker:taco tuesday thing and they're
Speaker:always like put that on like it's too hot
Speaker:today it's because it's
Speaker:hot to wear the dang thing
Speaker:they'll go i'll wear it i'll wear it and
Speaker:so we have lots of fun with
Speaker:those those little costumes
Speaker:really really can come into play and i've
Speaker:only got a few of them and i've got a
Speaker:couple others that are
Speaker:pajamas because i'm i love pajama day
Speaker:that's my favorite day for
Speaker:spirit day and i have a shark
Speaker:one and i have a reindeer one rudolph one
Speaker:that we use so sometimes
Speaker:i'll have those um and they'll
Speaker:so sometimes we'll have kids you know
Speaker:just dress up for the heck of it they
Speaker:just want to dress up
Speaker:in class and i'll tell you one little
Speaker:quick story years ago um we
Speaker:had a class and it was like the
Speaker:first week of school we didn't know each
Speaker:other very well and i had
Speaker:all these it started in san
Speaker:antonio years ago we got all these funny
Speaker:hats so i had a whole like
Speaker:hooks on my wall of all these
Speaker:funny hats hanging up there so we could
Speaker:grab them whenever we
Speaker:needed i had like a dozen of them
Speaker:and i the principal called me out to talk
Speaker:about a student about
Speaker:something so i was just outside my
Speaker:room and i come back in and remember we
Speaker:had not established any
Speaker:relationship yet with the kids
Speaker:it's the first week of school and the
Speaker:kids are all sitting there
Speaker:quiet and they all have a hat on
Speaker:their head and you just couldn't i mean
Speaker:there isn't they're like
Speaker:nothing like nothing happened
Speaker:and they're just waiting there and they
Speaker:all have a different hat on their head
Speaker:and you just couldn't
Speaker:help but laugh you just could not help
Speaker:but laugh it was just it was
Speaker:funny and those those things
Speaker:that build those relationships go ahead
Speaker:karen so the opposite of all
Speaker:these things that are going
Speaker:wrong is the home run story yeah which i
Speaker:think probably came from
Speaker:jim trillese's he had a quote
Speaker:in there about a home run book uh like
Speaker:that's where the term
Speaker:that's where we yeah the reading
Speaker:handbook teaching the read aloud handbook
Speaker:jim trillese but he didn't
Speaker:say it it was a quote from
Speaker:someone else but joe nelson used to talk
Speaker:about his home run stories
Speaker:he was one of the early early
Speaker:tprs trainers and uh i was just
Speaker:remembering some of the ones that really
Speaker:worked um when you want to
Speaker:when like drugs or substances or anything
Speaker:work themselves into class
Speaker:someone tried to feed that
Speaker:i don't mind because what i want to do is
Speaker:do a this is bad i don't want to do it
Speaker:right like ignore it
Speaker:just like right okay we don't we don't
Speaker:want bad drugs are bad bad
Speaker:things will happen but the drug
Speaker:is novocaine someone who's addicted to
Speaker:novocaine and then they okay
Speaker:they said novocaine in their
Speaker:leg and then they're they can't walk
Speaker:because they can't feel their leg and
Speaker:then they put it in their
Speaker:arm they can and so you're like drugs are
Speaker:bad like this is a really
Speaker:bad addiction and then it's in
Speaker:their face and that kind of that was a
Speaker:home run story because the
Speaker:acting of it was so fun that's
Speaker:great i turn i always turn drugs either
Speaker:into kool-aid or french
Speaker:fries so you smoke french fries
Speaker:and then you drink the kool-aid you drink
Speaker:the kool-aid so i always
Speaker:turn it around that way
Speaker:if the kid's acting goofy i go you need
Speaker:to stop smoking those french
Speaker:fries and so we just we have
Speaker:fun with that and i have a little package
Speaker:of plastic french fries
Speaker:and so they'll you know
Speaker:hold them up like that and we talk about
Speaker:like like you said it's
Speaker:bad why we don't want all
Speaker:that cholesterol we don't want all that
Speaker:all that salt in our diet but
Speaker:what's your home runs that's
Speaker:one of them i remember from a high school
Speaker:class really early like
Speaker:really early on and it was last
Speaker:year i was fumbling um just had a class
Speaker:not responding and we
Speaker:were you know i needed to
Speaker:teach the kids some clothing and um so i
Speaker:had some kids were shopping
Speaker:and they they made it into this
Speaker:big soap opera and the kid who got
Speaker:selected for one of the you know one of
Speaker:the actors they kept
Speaker:really horrible stuff and he was totally
Speaker:cool with it like he was
Speaker:a quiet kid but i was like
Speaker:you know you know you asked the actor oh
Speaker:are you wearing a bathing
Speaker:suit or are you wearing um your
Speaker:tuxedo and he chose bathing suit you know
Speaker:and like oh are you wearing a
Speaker:bridal veil because they kept
Speaker:they kept asking for stupid stuff a
Speaker:bridal veil or sunglasses oh i'm wearing
Speaker:a bridal veil and it was
Speaker:cool about it that i pulled out i have a
Speaker:suitcase full of ugly clothes and
Speaker:eventually he was acting
Speaker:it out with the clothes on which was just
Speaker:it was wonderful i had like 100
Speaker:engagement finally but
Speaker:it took like i don't know a good four
Speaker:months to get this class to
Speaker:get to that point because i'd
Speaker:had so many failures up to then i'd had
Speaker:to pivot so many times i'd
Speaker:had to switch like okay you guys
Speaker:you can't choose each other anymore you
Speaker:gotta just choose
Speaker:celebrities okay you can't choose
Speaker:celebrities anyway and then we got back
Speaker:to choosing each other
Speaker:and i don't know how because
Speaker:it had failed so much earlier but we got
Speaker:back to choosing each other
Speaker:and it went great and i had i
Speaker:had engagement and it was just sometimes
Speaker:it's just class dynamics
Speaker:you know sometimes it's just
Speaker:like the time of the year or just the
Speaker:building that trust with them but you
Speaker:know this was second
Speaker:year so they already knew me for a year
Speaker:so um yeah i yeah but
Speaker:when you have those successes
Speaker:man you feel really good about it you're
Speaker:like absolutely hear the
Speaker:kids walking out the door
Speaker:and they're like oh i learned so much
Speaker:french today and you're
Speaker:like oh thank goodness i've
Speaker:been trying so hard so yeah i have a
Speaker:funny one in my level threes i have to
Speaker:teach the conditional
Speaker:and so i i started off with two phrases
Speaker:if i were and if i had
Speaker:and it brings in the passive
Speaker:in spanish and so i i instead of trying
Speaker:to teach all of the
Speaker:conditional i start with these phrases
Speaker:and then i tell them because it was
Speaker:middle school so i had this idea i go to
Speaker:make the conditional
Speaker:just make it rhyme with diarrhea if you
Speaker:can make the word rhyme with
Speaker:diarrhea you got the conditional
Speaker:and so my kids were rolling the the
Speaker:conditional off without a
Speaker:problem because they can make them
Speaker:rhyme with diarrhea not a problem they
Speaker:could go oblariya kantariya
Speaker:you know they could just make
Speaker:them all rhyme with diarrhea and it works
Speaker:it even works with high
Speaker:school kids so my question was
Speaker:and it wasn't it wasn't you know i ask
Speaker:these questions and i hope
Speaker:they lead the stories but
Speaker:they don't always lead the stories but
Speaker:this one did i go so what would you do if
Speaker:you had a hippopotamus
Speaker:and so normally it's boring to like it's
Speaker:a pet i i had to get a big bathtub he
Speaker:lives in the bathroom
Speaker:or he lives in my pool or something like
Speaker:that this kid goes no
Speaker:if i had a hippopotamus
Speaker:i would cut it up and i would cook it and
Speaker:i'm like where are we going
Speaker:with this this is really bad
Speaker:and he's like i am a poor student and i
Speaker:need to pay for college and
Speaker:hippopotamus meat is exotic
Speaker:so i could sell it for an exotic price
Speaker:there's your story and we just we had it
Speaker:was so funny we asked
Speaker:what would their name be and we just went
Speaker:you know all the way through and i said
Speaker:before you cut it up
Speaker:how much would you charge and are you
Speaker:gonna barbecue it are you
Speaker:gonna fry it are you gonna
Speaker:we just had so much fun with that and we
Speaker:we last that one we
Speaker:stretched that one out for a whole
Speaker:week because it was just so good and he
Speaker:always he was a funny kid
Speaker:to begin with and this is the
Speaker:beginning of the year because in spanish
Speaker:three this is where i
Speaker:start with with them if i had
Speaker:that's why i started him on the first
Speaker:week of school so we hadn't built any
Speaker:kind of relationships
Speaker:we're working on that and he was just
Speaker:hilarious and just kept
Speaker:coming up with the best best ideas
Speaker:right off the bat without any you know
Speaker:any prompting and not all
Speaker:of them were in the target
Speaker:language but that was okay because i
Speaker:would put it in the target language and
Speaker:make it comprehensible
Speaker:but we were all laughing and we all
Speaker:wanted to know and then how much money
Speaker:did you earn by doing
Speaker:this and what college did you want to go
Speaker:and then he picked a college
Speaker:that wasn't even that expensive
Speaker:to go to so it was just it was one of
Speaker:those home run stories that you didn't
Speaker:expect at all to come
Speaker:out of it but it was just you know when
Speaker:you have that the right kid
Speaker:in the right class and the
Speaker:right question and they all come together
Speaker:that's beautiful and that's
Speaker:what you live for and they
Speaker:don't happen very often you may get one
Speaker:of those a year and i was like i please
Speaker:don't let this be my
Speaker:first week of school we don't you know i
Speaker:don't want it to now next
Speaker:29 39 weeks to be boring
Speaker:it wasn't it was a great class but i just
Speaker:remember that one it was just hilarious
Speaker:and i always i had a
Speaker:stuffed hippo that we did and so what he
Speaker:would do is he push like when he chopped
Speaker:off an arm he pushed
Speaker:the arm back into the stuffing so the
Speaker:hippo only had three legs left and then
Speaker:he pushed the other one
Speaker:up it was so funny it was so funny and
Speaker:then he learned the word
Speaker:pumpies and says oh i had such
Speaker:a big pumpies i got lots of meat out of
Speaker:that one he goes it was a
Speaker:pumpies like jaylo i was like oh
Speaker:my god we were so we were just laughing
Speaker:so much it was such a good
Speaker:story how about you karen you
Speaker:got a good one that was my my novocaine
Speaker:one was the one that came to
Speaker:mind oh the novocaine that's
Speaker:a brilliant idea yeah i think it's uh
Speaker:it's important to like add
Speaker:when we're saying talking
Speaker:about all this silly stuff that this is
Speaker:the pre-teaching part this
Speaker:is not the content this is the
Speaker:pre-teaching of vocabulary and structure
Speaker:and then for for me at least i'm going
Speaker:somewhere and that's
Speaker:sheltered subject matter and i have been
Speaker:pulling more and more
Speaker:sheltered subject matter from places
Speaker:that i never did before there's 40
Speaker:authors now who are more than that now
Speaker:that are that are uh
Speaker:native speakers who are uh own voices
Speaker:authors and like i can
Speaker:point i can get to those uh
Speaker:books are you both in california i'm in
Speaker:california she's in the
Speaker:west okay washington state
Speaker:oh okay all right i have one for you
Speaker:scott for california book
Speaker:that just came out about school
Speaker:integration that school integration story
Speaker:that happened in um in
Speaker:california before brown versus
Speaker:board of education oh yeah yeah so
Speaker:subject so sheltered
Speaker:subject matter but pulling it from
Speaker:lots of different sources and like
Speaker:pulling in maps and geography and
Speaker:diversifying my teaching
Speaker:this is the part that's fun for me but i
Speaker:feel like if they get all
Speaker:of that and then and and
Speaker:low effective filter and they're they're
Speaker:acquiring all that language
Speaker:that went then when we go to
Speaker:something that's like okay here's what
Speaker:you can really do with
Speaker:that language that it's that's
Speaker:easier that there's just so much more
Speaker:flow yeah yeah yeah and i think the
Speaker:unplanned things are
Speaker:the best things because i'll tell you one
Speaker:other home run that i have
Speaker:years ago it was when the
Speaker:president was the president and i had
Speaker:this kid this is april now
Speaker:it's april time and this kid
Speaker:um was the most boring kid not to put him
Speaker:down not just but he was just boring
Speaker:whenever you asked him
Speaker:like in pqa sessions you asked him so
Speaker:what'd you do this
Speaker:weekend i did my homework
Speaker:what'd you do after school today i did my
Speaker:homework you know just always boring
Speaker:answers you know very
Speaker:factual even though i i explained my kids
Speaker:you can lie you do not have
Speaker:to tell me the truth you know
Speaker:if you have a boring existing nobody
Speaker:wants to know about that get make up
Speaker:something that you'd
Speaker:rather have done or something so um i had
Speaker:this kid and i asked him so
Speaker:what did you do and i do it
Speaker:randomly because i want to make sure i
Speaker:get all the kids in there so i pull out
Speaker:his name oh i might my
Speaker:my internal face went oh this is not
Speaker:going to go very far and i'm
Speaker:like oh so he call him up i
Speaker:said so what did you do this weekend and
Speaker:he goes i went to mexico now
Speaker:it wasn't a three-day week it
Speaker:was a two-day weekend but i was in vegas
Speaker:so it is possible that
Speaker:someone went to mexico for the
Speaker:weekend it is possible it's close enough
Speaker:so i said okay so where did you go and
Speaker:he's like guadalajara
Speaker:i'm like okay going to guadalajara we're
Speaker:going through and the
Speaker:kids are like they know this
Speaker:kid is boring and factual he does not
Speaker:give us anything but the
Speaker:truth so they're like he went to
Speaker:mexico over the weekend it's only been a
Speaker:two-day how did he get
Speaker:there and get back you know it's
Speaker:you know normal weekend and it's monday
Speaker:morning and he's like uh
Speaker:so i go so what'd you do in
Speaker:the morning and he goes i went to dinner
Speaker:and i go oh who did you go
Speaker:to dinner with and i knew
Speaker:that this kid his most favorite person in
Speaker:the world was george w
Speaker:bush because on the front of
Speaker:his notebook he has a big picture of
Speaker:george w bush he loved george
Speaker:w bush this is the man so um
Speaker:he just absolutely loved him so i he goes
Speaker:i went i had dinner with george w bush
Speaker:and i'm like really and the kids know
Speaker:this kid always answers
Speaker:factually so like he had dinner
Speaker:with george w wasn't george in the wall
Speaker:in the white house this
Speaker:weekend was he in mexico i
Speaker:don't remember hearing about that and the
Speaker:whole thing the whole
Speaker:story went on for the it wasn't
Speaker:supposed to be stories just pqa there was
Speaker:supposed to be 10 minutes
Speaker:with one kid and another 10
Speaker:minutes another kid it went the whole
Speaker:class period and as the bell rang and we
Speaker:still hadn't finished
Speaker:about what he did with george w bush the
Speaker:kids were like did he really meet george
Speaker:w bush and it was it
Speaker:was great it was great and it took this
Speaker:kid till april finally to
Speaker:realize that he could did not have
Speaker:to tell the truth that he could just make
Speaker:up something so he was
Speaker:holding back but when he
Speaker:finally let loose it wasn't it was
Speaker:hilariously funny it was hilariously
Speaker:funny so when we are at
Speaker:our time does anybody have any final
Speaker:words before we finish i do because we
Speaker:didn't get to something
Speaker:that you were asking at another point was
Speaker:why when we give a
Speaker:worksheet and the students bomb
Speaker:the worksheet you're like okay but when
Speaker:we have a story that we're
Speaker:creating with the class and the
Speaker:story bombs we take it so personally and
Speaker:i have an answer to that
Speaker:it's because if i were going to
Speaker:give a worksheet and the students bomb it
Speaker:that's kind of like a
Speaker:punishment to the students that's
Speaker:like ah this proves you weren't listening
Speaker:if we're doing a
Speaker:story and the story bombs
Speaker:it proves that i'm not listening so
Speaker:that's my nugget of wisdom
Speaker:i think yeah that is true
Speaker:that is so true thank you for sharing
Speaker:that because that is
Speaker:true because we have to be
Speaker:listening to our students as much as they
Speaker:are listening to us it's
Speaker:a give and take otherwise
Speaker:teacher centric instead of student
Speaker:centric so that that is a very valid
Speaker:point that is very valid
Speaker:and i always put it if the kids aren't
Speaker:understanding or if kids bomb a test
Speaker:that's not their fault that's my fault i
Speaker:did not do my job i didn't
Speaker:teach it right yeah so i that
Speaker:is very truthful and it's a hard reality
Speaker:sometimes to face that and
Speaker:take the blame and that and Karen
Speaker:talked about this a couple times today
Speaker:about the reflection piece
Speaker:to reflect after a lesson
Speaker:why did it go well why did it not go well
Speaker:or why was it just a flat
Speaker:class it didn't go bad it didn't
Speaker:go great but you know and what could you
Speaker:do to change i think that
Speaker:reflection piece i have my
Speaker:kids reflect on their learning every week
Speaker:and i think it's important
Speaker:as teachers that we reflect
Speaker:on our teaching as well because we can
Speaker:always grow we can always
Speaker:learn from it and and karen also
Speaker:what works in one class may not work in
Speaker:the next class or what
Speaker:worked last year might not work
Speaker:this year in there and so that's really
Speaker:important too and you can't
Speaker:take a lot of these failures
Speaker:personally either because it may have
Speaker:been a home run story in
Speaker:period three but period four
Speaker:it just went flat and you had you had to
Speaker:pivot and do something
Speaker:different yeah i want to just
Speaker:add one one thing about that when i was
Speaker:talking about the
Speaker:self-coaching that that came from uh
Speaker:putting a butcher piece of butcher paper
Speaker:in the back of the
Speaker:classroom and only working on one
Speaker:thing at a time so when you listen to all
Speaker:these ideas at the same
Speaker:time like we've been doing this
Speaker:for a long time and i think we forget
Speaker:what it was like to start and
Speaker:say okay i wanted to try this
Speaker:it didn't work why didn't it work but
Speaker:just to work on one thing at
Speaker:a time and if your story flops
Speaker:but it was comprehensible that is more
Speaker:important comprehension
Speaker:checks are more important
Speaker:repetition and sheltering your vocabulary
Speaker:is more important than
Speaker:having a great story but if when
Speaker:you hear all of these techniques and you
Speaker:already have those basics
Speaker:down pick one thing and i'm
Speaker:going to work on this until i have it and
Speaker:then add one more thing
Speaker:because yeah all at the same time
Speaker:it's going to fail and all the things
Speaker:that we're talking about we
Speaker:didn't start doing all these at
Speaker:the same time so it was it was one thing
Speaker:at a time and then you can
Speaker:really assess what didn't work
Speaker:because you're not focusing on everything
Speaker:but how many times they're
Speaker:hearing how much repetition
Speaker:they're getting how slowly you're
Speaker:speaking and your
Speaker:comprehension checks are the beginning
Speaker:and without that it doesn't matter what
Speaker:whether the story works
Speaker:what i've changed in the last
Speaker:two years okay 20 years out of 30 is that
Speaker:i i i turned the stories
Speaker:upside down to be personalization
Speaker:first the content of the story comes from
Speaker:the students the story
Speaker:doesn't like add students as
Speaker:superfluous if i if i know my students
Speaker:the stories write
Speaker:themselves they create themselves
Speaker:um and i'm gonna say because you just
Speaker:brought this up and um ben
Speaker:slavik is an incredible um
Speaker:love him yeah tpres teacher and he um i
Speaker:did not do pqa but when i
Speaker:started with tpres there were
Speaker:seven steps that you had to do every
Speaker:class period and it was like how am i
Speaker:gonna get this done in 45
Speaker:minutes you know doing all these little
Speaker:steps and i always skip
Speaker:that yeah yeah when i started
Speaker:there were three oh there's three way in
Speaker:the beginning there were
Speaker:three and then we made it
Speaker:more complicated we got and then we got
Speaker:back down to three so um so when i
Speaker:started so that we had the
Speaker:seven steps in pqa i never understood
Speaker:what pqa was never not
Speaker:once i couldn't understand it
Speaker:because when you went to a training they
Speaker:never demoed that they
Speaker:went right into a story so i
Speaker:saw what that was until i read ben
Speaker:slavik's book and i just
Speaker:checked he still has it out pqa in a
Speaker:wink so that is a great one and i learned
Speaker:it and i use pqa a lot i my
Speaker:first six weeks of school is
Speaker:nothing but pqa to learn and get to know
Speaker:the students build that
Speaker:relationship i love it but
Speaker:to karen's point about learning one thing
Speaker:his other book that i
Speaker:got and it's still he still
Speaker:i just checked it in his website i'll put
Speaker:it back up is ben
Speaker:slavik.com um is tprs in a year
Speaker:and he says right in the beginning it
Speaker:doesn't have to be a year it could be
Speaker:longer than that but the
Speaker:idea was let's this is the first skill i
Speaker:want you to work on work on
Speaker:this until you feel you've
Speaker:mastered it and then here's another skill
Speaker:to work on and theoretically
Speaker:you could do it all in a year
Speaker:but he said in realistically you probably
Speaker:will take longer than
Speaker:that because you want it may
Speaker:take you longer to master some skills
Speaker:than others so i think those
Speaker:two books are really really
Speaker:wonderful he's got other books that are
Speaker:wonderful too but those two that i
Speaker:specifically read i really
Speaker:like yeah so and they really helped me um
Speaker:back in the day because i remember
Speaker:reading the pqa in a
Speaker:wink in like 2005 and then i started
Speaker:doing extensive pqa where
Speaker:i could go pqa and go the
Speaker:whole class period and i can make it last
Speaker:a whole week and i can
Speaker:make it last two whole weeks
Speaker:and i started that instead of doing tpr
Speaker:to start with because
Speaker:what i learned from tpr
Speaker:and what i love about blaine is he was
Speaker:always experimenting and
Speaker:always said tprs is the best
Speaker:i know right now and if i find something
Speaker:else that works better
Speaker:tomorrow i'm switching tomorrow
Speaker:and so he'd always have us experiment and
Speaker:we started with a hundred
Speaker:tpr words we used to have
Speaker:to teach and it took about three to four
Speaker:weeks to teach a hundred
Speaker:tpr words and they are random
Speaker:words they didn't even fit into stories
Speaker:lots of times they were
Speaker:just random words and then i
Speaker:remember one year he told me this was my
Speaker:second year of teaching he
Speaker:said i want you guys just
Speaker:to use 20 just teach 20 tpr words and
Speaker:then go straight into
Speaker:stories i'm like how is that going
Speaker:to be possible they're not going to have
Speaker:any vocabulary how are we
Speaker:going to get into a story
Speaker:and i had said i'm only going to screw up
Speaker:one class i'm not going to
Speaker:do this with all my classes
Speaker:if what if i'm going to experiment but
Speaker:it's it's going to be one class it's
Speaker:going to be sacrificial
Speaker:and the rest are not and fourth period
Speaker:was the class i picked and we went
Speaker:through the 20 words
Speaker:and we got through them in less than a
Speaker:week we do three words at a
Speaker:time 20 words comes up really
Speaker:quick but they were more poignant words
Speaker:they were more poignant
Speaker:words and so we did that we went
Speaker:right to stories and we were using karen
Speaker:roan's um tpr supplement for
Speaker:paso paso and we went through
Speaker:these stories and that's what we used so
Speaker:it worked really really well
Speaker:what i found out was happening
Speaker:my kids could speak earlier and write
Speaker:better than their counterparts who had
Speaker:the six weeks of tpr
Speaker:before we went actually into the tprs
Speaker:part of it and so what i realized the
Speaker:self-reflection that i
Speaker:did why was that well in tpr they were
Speaker:learning words that were um
Speaker:that were very uh what do you
Speaker:call it um they're isolation they're in
Speaker:isolation so it's a list but
Speaker:with actions and they weren't
Speaker:really hearing them in sentences and in
Speaker:context and so yes by
Speaker:getting them into context quicker
Speaker:they acquired quicker and so after that
Speaker:the next couple years i
Speaker:only did the 20 words and went
Speaker:right into stories and that worked until
Speaker:i read um pqa in a wink and
Speaker:i found by doing that and not
Speaker:doing tpr so now i sprinkle tpr
Speaker:throughout the year and i do this pqa in
Speaker:a wink in the beginning
Speaker:and guess what they get that microfluency
Speaker:is happening much
Speaker:quicker because they're hearing
Speaker:words and sentences right away right away
Speaker:and karen has given us
Speaker:a wonderful link to her
Speaker:book her fluency fast guide to
Speaker:self-teaching i just put it
Speaker:self-coaching self-coaching sorry
Speaker:self-coaching so i put it here i'll also
Speaker:put it in the show notes for
Speaker:everybody but um you can get
Speaker:it there um because self-reflection is
Speaker:very helpful and to look and
Speaker:analyze what went well what went
Speaker:wrong and give that self-coaching to be
Speaker:able to improve because
Speaker:lots of us teach in isolation
Speaker:and we don't always have someone we can
Speaker:bounce ideas off of um or
Speaker:there's not a local group
Speaker:and exactly other teachers is the best
Speaker:way to pick things up yeah absolutely
Speaker:absolutely so that's a
Speaker:great um thing there plus her fluency
Speaker:fast classes if you want to
Speaker:learn another language i cannot
Speaker:recommend them enough i did french for
Speaker:many years um and i also
Speaker:did and even though i'm
Speaker:not perfect in spanish by any means but i
Speaker:didn't take the class to
Speaker:learn spanish i took the class
Speaker:to learn from adriana ramirez um she
Speaker:teaches an advanced spanish class i took
Speaker:two or three of them
Speaker:and she teaches a novel in them and i
Speaker:have not seen anybody teach a
Speaker:novel like she teaches a novel
Speaker:she is amazing at it and what she does by
Speaker:bringing the culture in and
Speaker:the language in and let me give
Speaker:you a hint she does not teach the novel
Speaker:the novel you read at home
Speaker:she talks about the novel and
Speaker:brings it alive in class and it's amazing
Speaker:and i learned so much
Speaker:from that so even if you're a
Speaker:spanish speaker already don't take the
Speaker:class to learn the
Speaker:advanced spanish though that helps
Speaker:take the class to learn how adriana
Speaker:teaches novels it was such
Speaker:such a great thing so fluency
Speaker:fast classes i cannot recommend enough
Speaker:there's a little faster way
Speaker:to do that too if you don't
Speaker:have time to do the whole class we did a
Speaker:workshop last year called
Speaker:cook dance play and all of the
Speaker:authors demonstrated how to teach one
Speaker:part of their book so adriana did a
Speaker:lesson with her husband
Speaker:it's all in spanish and cooking margarita
Speaker:did the same thing but
Speaker:venezuelan arepas versus columbia
Speaker:and arepas because that's kind of the
Speaker:little war but all the all of
Speaker:the authors were like this is
Speaker:how you teach my book and you can show
Speaker:that video in your class or you can watch
Speaker:and be like okay now
Speaker:i see how you could do this in class how
Speaker:to bring to make those connections
Speaker:between the book and the
Speaker:students is always so very important so
Speaker:fluency fast i want to come
Speaker:on lots more of these podcasts
Speaker:i feel like we have so much more to talk
Speaker:about i know there is so
Speaker:much we're so glad to have had
Speaker:you today it's been awesome yes and
Speaker:you're welcome to sign up
Speaker:for any other ones where
Speaker:this is episode 34 we go to um we go to
Speaker:40 and then we take a break
Speaker:we do them 10 10 weeks at a
Speaker:time and then take a break so you're
Speaker:always welcome to join us
Speaker:again we'd love to have you
Speaker:and with that oh my gosh we went almost
Speaker:20 minutes over so let's finish this up
Speaker:here real quick here
Speaker:so thank you all for spending a long part
Speaker:of your sunday with us
Speaker:today genuinely not in the way
Speaker:people say that right before they ask you
Speaker:to subscribe although
Speaker:yes subscribe pamela karen
Speaker:thank you both for being brutally honest
Speaker:about your own flops today
Speaker:and our successes because
Speaker:nothing makes teachers feel less alone
Speaker:than hearing a professional translator
Speaker:turned ci teacher and a
Speaker:woman who's written the novels train the
Speaker:trainers and survived a year of
Speaker:elementary admit they've
Speaker:also stood in that silence if you got
Speaker:nothing else from this
Speaker:episode get this a flop is data
Speaker:not a verdict and you're allowed to let a
Speaker:story die with dignity instead of
Speaker:performing cpr on it
Speaker:in front of 30 kids if this has helped
Speaker:you in any way leave a review
Speaker:share it with a teacher down
Speaker:the hall who's still cringing about the
Speaker:last tuesday and hit
Speaker:subscribe so you don't miss the
Speaker:next one catch us live on youtube or on
Speaker:the replay wherever you get
Speaker:your podcasts ditch the drills
Speaker:trust the process and i'll see you next
Speaker:time on comprehend this
Speaker:bye everybody bye everyone
Speaker:bye
Speaker:you
