Description

Using Total Physical Response strategies, students learn additional body parts in the target language (Spanish).

Materials

-White board
-Vocabulary Quiz sheets, set up in columns of ten with sections for date and number. I usually use colored paper.
-Student provided binder that will be their dictionary (optional see Extensions).
-Ray, Blaine. Fluency through TPR Storytelling. Bakersfield, CA: Blaine Ray workshops and Command Performance Language Institute, 1999.
-Ray, Blaine and Susan Gross. TPRS Gestures and ESTURES AND Mini-Situations. Bakersfield, CA: Blaine Ray Workshops, 1999.

Procedures

1. Write thirty vocabulary words on the white board in Spanish. DO NOT WRITE TRANSLATION!

EXAMPLES: Buscar (to look for) bailar (to dance) correr (to run) guapo (good looking) boca (mouth) Codo (elbow) dedo (finger) hombros (shoulders) mejilla (cheek) pierna (leg) talon (heel) trasero (rear) estmago (stomach)

2. Say that from this point, you may only speak in Spanish. Raise your hand to speak English. Say you must participate. Do what I do. Keep your lesson plan in front of you.

3. Introduce the vocabulary orally and with gestures (when possible). You may point to the various body parts. Mass practice the gestures.

4. Attach memory devices to works when possible. Students may come up with some on their own.
a. Bailar sounds like ballet.
b. Correr reminds one of corridor. (You run in the corridor.)

5. Check comprehension with the whole class by calling out the word in Spanish and have them gesture, first with their eyes open and secondly with their eyes closed. Observe students doing gestures. If you notice a student does not comprehend, ask a group of three, including that student, to perform the gestures in the same manner.

6. Create a mini-situation using the vocabulary. Personalize this (first = get to know your students, give them names using adjectives or animals in Spanish). Name local neighborhoods, stores, etc., that your character is looking for, dancing in, or running to. Exaggerate your story. The more bizarre, the better. Make the situation about them.

a. Determine how many character/places you will need for your situation. Select students to play the roles.
b. You may whisper instructions to get them to do what you what. Don't go on if the actors do not act it out.

Sample mini-situation. Four good looking legs run to the new Office Depot. (Have a student stand in a spot, looking for some good looking elbows to dance. As they are running, the heels on the legs begin to hurt. They look for fingers to massage their heels, but instead the fingers massage the elbows, the shoulders, the cheeks, and the stomach.)

7. Ask questions in Spanish, based on the mini-situation, usually yes/no answers. Is it obvious, ridiculous, and phenomenal, etc.? Fish for more details using familiar vocabulary. How many legs are running? Where is Office Depot located? (Have students return to the spot from the story.) What do the fingers massage??

8. Have each student retell the situation to a partner.

9. Ask for volunteers to re-tell the situation to the class.

10. Assess the activity. (See Assessment.)

Extensions

1. This is Lesson 2 on body parts. Follow up on day 3 with additional vocabulary body parts, verbs, and adjectives. Follow the same procedure, creating different mini-situations. On day 4, create a mini-story using the vocabulary from all three days.

2. Click here to view the Day 1 lesson plan, Body Parts, taught prior to this lesson.

3. Students create a dictionary for each vocabulary word. They may draw the word or use magazine pictures. Give them time to work on this one day a week and spot check it. Students will turn this in at the end of the marking period for assessment.