Let's steal activities from SEI! Ping Pong Sentence Frames

I'm taking a very short SEI course on PD days at school. I'm actually finding it vaguely interesting and useful, which is nice! Here's a thing I just learned and then immediately turned around and used for Latin.

It was presented as one option for Step Six in this Seven Step model for vocabulary introduction, which is designed to take less than 3 minutes per word and be usable for any subject. The instructor didn't really give it a name but she did use the word "ping-pong" and it involved a sentence frame kinda thing so we'll go with that.

Ping Pong Sentence Frames

1. Teacher provides some kind of sentence frame. We were practicing with "transform," and she used the frame, "A __________ can transform into a __________."

2. Teacher sets a one-minute timer, and starts: "A caterpillar can transform into a butterfly."

3. Designated student gives their own version, "A tadpole can transform into a frog." Teacher & student continue, giving as many examples as possible in one minute.
"A bad student can transform into a good student."
"A bad teacher can transform into a good teacher."
"An ice cube can transform into a puddle."
"An egg can transform into a chicken."

etc. They don't really have to even be true, so long as they follow the pattern and make SOME kind of sense.

The next day, I tried it with my kids. I didn't time us (mistake- the urgency would have helped) and I didn't make it one versus one. Instead, I took answers from anyone who was ready. Some classes got into it more than others, but it totally got in reps and we had fun.
___________ contra _____________ bellum gerit.
Americans contra British bellum gerit.
Trump contra Hilary bellum gerit.
Japanese contra Americans bellum gerit.
America contra terrorism bellum gerit.
etc.

We also did some with servat: Superman Lois Lane servat. Spiderman "that ginger" servat. Batman his parents NON servat. Tom Brady Patriots servat. etc.

And some with vincit: Patriots Falcons vincit. Trump Hilary vincit. amor omnia vincit (okay, that was mine). etc.

It was a good way to kill a few minutes and get some nice contextual reps in of some new terms. All in all, totally worth adding to the toolbox.

How to develop a brand new CI activity without even trying

Here is something that happened by accident one day..

1st class PQA: what do you make & bring to a party? qualem cibum facis et ad festam fers? K says salad. I ask her if there are vegetables in the salad. No. I ask if there is fruit. No. I ask if there is meat. No. I ask if there are sweets. No. I ask if she had anything in mind at all. No. Okay, I say, let's make a salad together then. What does K put in her salad everyone? A few ideas. Not much response.

2nd class: Let's make a salad. What do you want to put in it? One idea each. I write them on the board. A few ideas, then one kid says 'broken glass.' Okay, new rule, you can put something in OR take something out. visne aliquid imponere an extrahere? The world's worst salad thus forms and is fixed and forms anew. Someone chooses to remove shrimp rather than the broken glass. We get lots of reps of imponere and extrahere. After kids add things, others respond with "bene sapit!" or "male sapit!" Everyone is delighted. And LOUD.

3rd class, boy this would be easier if I had Latin terms for all the food oh hey VERBA cards what's up. I pick out cards with foods and a bunch of animals and also stuff like tears, paint, love, etc.: Also, we've been using the word for soup this week, so we make soup instead. We sit on the rugs. Everyone has four randomly dealt cards. Same deal. They make a terrible soup but seem fairly pleased with it.

4th class, smallest class, things go smoothly. Not much to say. They mostly make a pretty decent soup, except for the time when someone puts in a heart, and the next person puts in love, and then the third person takes out love (but leaves the heart...).

5th class, my largest & most troublesome class. Not as much listening going on, but even the kid who literally never does anything says imponere in Latin when I ask him visne aliquid imponere an extrahere? and then he adds some batteries. I call that a win.

You can't plan this stuff. Thanks, K, for not having a plan for your salad.

Getting teenagers interested in conjugation

Yesterday I was absent and the sub was-- well. I was absent. Anyway, so my Latin 3 class were apparently all on their phones. The principal walked into the room. One of my students whipped her phone away, and began loudly singing, PORTO, PORTAS, PORTAT and the entire class sung along, through all four conjugations, in sync. Although I don't know if he fell for it as them NOT being on their phones, I bet it was funny to witness. They do, for the record, know what they're saying, too- it's not just rote. Why am I telling you this? Because sometimes (a lot actually) I break the rules and do non-CI stuff. This technique for dealing with verb endings is one of my favorite things, and I strongly recommend it so long as you're willing to put away that pesky dignity and have fun with your kids.

Actually acquiring endings enough to use them for output is probably one of the hardest things we try to achieve through CI. CI-wise, I make an effort to use the other forms and clarify who the subject is by pointing at myself, at "you", at "y'all" etc. I'll still point at "portat - carries" (or better portare - to carry") on the board even as I say porto and point to myself, and the meaning gets through. TBQH, the kids don't really "hear" the endings for the most part anyway, especially -t vs -nt, so doing this doesn't confuse them. If you're having trouble fitting non-third person singular entries into your CI, it helps to make sure your stories, whether written or acted out,  have dialogue. Circling by subbing in multiple subjects also helps for plurals. Once they've heard the other endings some, I also use them in written stories and usually gloss them.

Then when they've heard the different endings a lot, I take a page out of my non-CI background and I teach them the present tense active indicative charts for all four conjugations. nefas! 

Now, calm down. I don't give chart quizzes (although I've done it before and I'm not against it really as a just for fun, make up until you get it perfect type grade), and I don't say "and this is first person present active indicative of the third conjugation, characterized by the null vowel sound which results in..." [I'm too lazy to find a picture of Ben Stein but imagine him doing his thing here]

What I do is I teach them a song, and we sing it and practice it with hand motions, and they (mostly) LOVE it. I do it partly because they love it. The other reason I do it is because now they have the endings in their brains for reference if they're confused, and they recognize that amo and amatis are "the same word" even though they look different. This is not CI. Charts in themselves are incomprehensible. It is, however, engaging, brain-sticky, and many students find it helpful and fun. The tune is the Mexican Hat Dance and the "words" are:

Pattern Sentence Scramble Game

This game is the one I mentioned several posts ago, here. When I say "pattern sentence" below, I mean the kind of sentences I described in that post. This is a game you can play without doing that method of teaching declensions, too, however.

Grammar-brained students find this laughably easy, although they'll still mix up the vocab order sometimes. I have a handful of students who do poorly with both text and listening, and this really works well for them. They felt very good about themselves, which isn't usually how they feel when we do grammar. Middle range students find it helpful, although somewhat boring because I haven't worked out how to make it competitive.

Purpose
Students practice composing English to Latin sentences with heavy scaffolding. Through this activity, they get a sense for how Latin uses endings to change meaning. The limited vocabulary and fixed syntax makes the importance of endings really clear. Once they're really good at this, you can make sentences that don't follow the exact pattern and reuse the same cards.

Rationale
Is this CI? No. It's not CI because it's not input. I tried to bear in mind the concept of comprehensibility, however, which is why all the heavy scaffolding. This really has no place in a truly "pure" CI classroom. That said...

The fixed syntactical order of the sentence removes the difficulty of figuring out which ending to use. Once the kids figure out that order, all they have to do is decide if a noun is singular or plural. The goal here is not for them to compose sentences by understanding the function of the cases; it's for them to understand the function of the cases by composing sentences.

The English on the back of the vocab cards and the case functions on the back of the ending cards are there for the same reason: this isn't an activity about showing what you've learned already. It's about having all the information and tools ready and waiting, with clear instructions (color, fixed syntax, fixed order, helpful teacher <-- necessary! not a sub plan activity!). If giving a kid a chart and a dictionary is like sending someone to a lumber yard with a picture of a night table and a shopping list, this is like sending someone to IKEA for a night table. It's still possible to make mistakes, but you'll probably end up with something not entirely unlike a table in the end.

Actual game prep, materials, and instructions follow!

How do I TPR "wage war" in the classroom? #latinteacherproblems

This past week I spent some time looking over what vocab my students had learned out of the top 200  (a fair amount) and what they still needed (lots). There's one tricky thing about Latin high frequency lists that I suspect isn't the case for most modern languages: a lot of the high frequency vocab is for war & statecraft. So I needed to teach my kids homo (human being), dux (leader), ducit (leads), bellum gerit (wages war), and vincit (conquers). I also needed caelum, navis, terra, aliquid, and aliquis (sky, ship, earth/land, something, and someone).

I did a dictatio (link) with most of those on Monday, and tried a storyask on Tuesday without much success. On Wednesday I did a madlibs (link) and read aloud & reenacted some of the kids' stories that came out of that. During the week we also read together some written stories (link and link) that incorporated a few of the words. but I wasn't getting the reps I wanted of the REALLY important words. I was kind of stuck trying to work out how to do a good story-ask where I could get reps of "wage war" and "conquer." I figured out a great way to simulate combat in the classroom: have them do rock paper scissors! Script below the cut.

A unit post-mortem

This week's "unit" (I use the term rather loosely here) was to focus on mittit (sends), infinitive + scit (knows how...), and nescit (doesn't know how...). I also wanted a ton of reps using the genitive (possessive), so mater Iuliae / Marci / Grumionis (Julia's/ Marcus's / Grumio's mother) was another target. For plot reasons we also worked with the phrase vitam bonam agere (to lead a good life).

This is an ungodly long post but I hope it'll be helpful.

Fashion Show - input activity for clothing and colors

This past week was "Spirit Week" at my school as well as Thanksgiving week, so needless to say, the kids weren't in a very scholarly mood. I decided to cover clothing since it's not super important for Latin students and half the kids were already in silly themed Spirit Week outfits. (Update, a week later: Yeah almost no one remembers the target structures from this week. Oh well. At least I can say I covered it! YMMV)

Before I did this activity, I'd already done some PQA and a story using clothing words. I'll put those up eventually.

Materials: lots of clothes, the weirder the better. Ask your drama department to borrow some if you can't gather them on your own, or ask the kids for volunteers (don't require it especially if you have a poorer population).

A small whiteboard for each judge is also helpful but you can use paper.

Roles: stylists, models, judges. Photographers optional.

Setup: Set up the desks so there's a "runway" for models to walk. Put all the clothes and accessories in one place. Put useful vocab up on the board, including colors and patterns as well as clothing terms. Have water handy because you're going to be talking a lot.

Venatio / Animal Hunt

This game is for those times when you need a lot of input on one or two structures, and you just don't have the brainpower to do another storyask. I came up with it on a day when the kids wanted to each hold a stuffed animal, and I needed a way to make that educational.

Materials:
Object to "hide" - small stuffed animals like Beanie Babies are great, but you could do it with markers or really anything. The object can be one thing, or you can have a variety of them and let the Seeker choose.

Active Players:
Teacher
Hider(s)
Seeker

Setup:
Target Structures should be on the board. The first time I played this game, I wanted to get a ton of repetitions for "s/he goes." My board had "I go," "you go," and "s/he goes."

We'd also done a lot of previous work with "s/he wants" and some with "I want" and "you want" so I peppered those in as well. You could easily add forms of "has." You can also do a version of this with prepositional phrases (see below).