Professional

Literature

Content

Shorack, K. & Gaab, C. (2011). Cuntame! Teachers manual: Premium edition.
Chandler, AZ: TPRS Publishing.
https://tprstorytelling.com/download/4th-6th-spanish-cuentame-teacher-manual/


This book is written for 4th to 6th grade Spanish teachers who would like to
use TPRS method in their classes. This manual begins with the introduction to the
TPRS instruction and describes the teaching methodology of TPRS, specifically the
three main stepsShow, Tell, and Read.
This book is helpful to set up the contents, because it includes a set of
vocabulary for TPR and storytelling. Total of 25 episodes are included in this
curriculum, and for each story, different sets of vocabularies are listed before the
story. At the beginning of each chapter, the manual describes gestures for all the key
words. Each episode introduces about five to six new vocabulary words and about
10 phrases. One of the benefits from this material is that the words continue to build
up; hence, the words from one episode are still used in the next episode so that the
students can be more familiarized. Moreover, the material includes some TPR
practice activities, such as student role-play using the props included and a set of
questions that can facilitate more personalized conversations among the students.
The vocabulary words and phrases will be included in the unit plan, and
some of the activities will be incorporated in the lessons. Furthermore, since the
class for this unit already uses TPRS method, this material can serve as a great aid
for planning the unit plan and setting up the pace for the class.

Teaching Strategy

DeNicolo, C. (2014). Fantstico! Valuing student knowledge through the morning
message. The Reading Teacher, 68.

This article is from a research on the importance of the morning message in
an elementary school bilingual Spanish and English language classes. In this class,
the teacher uses the morning message as a way to model literary skills and
introduce vocabularies from different fields such as science and social studies. She
alternates between Spanish and English each day, in order to observe how students
in an elementary classroom engage in the literacy event across languages.

In the method of the morning message, the teacher writes a message to the

students, sometimes about the weather or a historical fact of that day. After one
student reads the message, the teacher asks some questions to the students, and
they talk about the topic for the day in both languages. This provides a time for the
teacher to show how to listen to others and allow the space for the students to also
listen to each other. Furthermore, this provides the teacher an opportunity to
identify the range of literacy of the students, and in response, the teacher can
provide a feedback. The goal for this activity is modeling the writing process,
provide exposure to new vocabulary, and guide discussion among the students.

The key benefit of the morning message as the literacy event is that it

encourages the practice of listening and speaking in different languages, in addition

The implementation of this method will be not in the unit plan but in the

lesson plans. The lesson plan will include a short sharing time at the beginning of
the class, with a topic that is relevant to the content instruction. The message will be
written in different ways everyday, such as using the SMART board or writing a note
card. The teacher will facilitate the conversation through questions and will respond
by recognizing and validating the responses. The objective of this activity will be to
enhance the conversation and writing skills of the students, and based on the
response of the students and the use of time, this may take place once in a week.


Mosquera, L. (2012). Using tasks to assess Spanish language learning. Gist Education
and Learning Research Journal, 6.

This article presents a teaching methodology called Task-based teaching
(TBT), whichaccording to the authorhas been implemented and greatly
recognized in ESL (English as a Second Language) classrooms, mainly in advanced-
level classes. Task, in this methodology, refers to almost any non-verbal event or
action ranging from borrowing a library book to buying groceries. For TBT, there
must be a focus or objective on meaning, and the interactions must serve as means
to meet the objectives. In the Spanish class from this article, the communicative
assessment tasks were designed in a way that better resembled real-world
communicative events.
This article studied the TBT methodology using quantitative research
method. The research in this article applied TBT method in a beginning Spanish
class of students with ages between 11 and 14. The participant students from the
TBT Spanish class and other regular classes took an entrance exam of speaking and
writing. Then at the end of the semester, the two groups again took the semester
exam in both areas. The results indicate that the class that implemented TBT
showed higher performance on both exams and more improvement compared to
the entrance test. The most significant improvement was shown in the oral
component of the exam. Hence, this method can be implemented in language
classrooms other than ESL and be effective.
In the unit plan, the lessons will incorporate some TBT components such as
practice buying some groceries. Using the vocabulary words from the list, the lesson

can incorporate an activity or a task with a scenario. Some useful phrases can be
provided and practiced. Then, students can get into pairs or groups, select their
roles (or the teacher can assign them) and act out the scenario using the phrases.
TBT can also incorporate some gestures from TPRS, which can enhance the learning
process of the students by actually using them in a more real-life like situations.