1. I am the one talking for the majority of the class period. Students will get one or two word phrases for ideas for the story, but for the most part it is me that is talking (Which I know they need to hear the language as much as possible but in a 50 minute class the technique leaves little time for my students to talk after we spin a story together)
2. Students (and myself) are losing interest in the stories and the entire routine. We have told 10 stories now and it is only half -way through the year!
3. I have a hard time balancing the stories with the required content. I get behind in the curriculum content often because we spend 2 or more days on TPRS stuff. Luckily our stories do have phrases and grammar that show up later in the textbook so it is like front-loading, but I am behind at the moment on where I should be for the my class in the curriculum.
4. We have pre-written stories and as the class and I spin the story I hate having to direct their story to be more like the written story as this does not really feel like their story in the end. Also, I think the students are starting to think that it doesn't matter what they suggest for the story telling as I will direct the story a certain way anyways.
With that said, here are the things I really like about the method:
1. The students get to be funny and creative using the language in context.
2. Students get to hear a lot of target language in one class period and it isn't just grammar and new vocabulary the entire class period.
3. It gives teachers a non-traditional method to do grammar highlights instead of having the students do exercises or worksheets out of a book.
4. Students get to learn vocabulary that is important/interesting to them by asking for certain words to add to the story.
So after looking online for the knowledge and advice of some TPRS pros I decided to try to come up with an activity that would involve story telling but not have me do any of the speaking. Here is what I came up with:
FREEZE FRAME!
The activity is played as a class (but you could do it in small groups of 5-6). You pick a random student to be an actor and another student to be the first narrator. These two students stand in the front of the classroom and begin a story. The narrator starts telling the story and the actor has to listen and act out whatever the narrator is saying. (I did a practice run through of this activity in English so that they had an idea of what it would be like in French and this seemed to really help the students understand what was expected of them) The narrator is required to speak at least 1 full sentence before anyone is allowed to interrupt them. Why would people interrupt them you ask? Because as the narrator is telling the story the class is listening and trying to find a way to insert their own ideas into the story. They do this by calling out "Freeze!" ("Congèlez" en français). When the student calls out "Freeze" the narrator stops talking and the actor continues to do the action that they were doing last. The student that calls freeze then comes up to the front of the room and takes the place of the narrator and continues the story adding in new actions/details and the actor must follow along. I required that every student in the class must be the narrator at least once and that when everyone has been the narrator it is the actor that gets to decide the fate of the story. As a side note I did offer myself up as a tag-team helper if a narrator got stuck in front of the class and ran out of things to say. The students were warned though that if a narrator had to tag-team me into the story the entire class would have a pop quiz right after the Freeze Frame activity. This was just a little motivation for the class to not allow one of their classmates to get stranded up front without anything to say. If a student came up front and could not put together an entire sentence and was just standing their I would start making my ways towards them to give them the opportunity to tag me in but this usually just spurred the student to get their thoughts in order and say at least one sentence. None of my classes had to tag me in.
My first group of students did a pretty good job with this. They focused on the vocabulary that we were learning at the time so their story was not as cohesive or as interesting as I was hoping but they did speak all in French for about 15-20 minutes without my help. My second group of French 1 students though rocked it! Their story was cohesive and continued smoothly. They used a lot of other vocabulary instead of what I was aiming for, but I didn't care about that when I had 4 students not using their note cards and just improvising completely in French! (I assigned them homework of writing a few sentences down that could be added to the story on a note card and then they could use that notecard if they needed when they went up to add to the story) This group spoke completely in French for about 30 minutes and really kept the story going! I was giddy with excitement all the way home that night as I was so proud of my students!
What I liked about the activity:
1. This gives me a chance to hear everyone speak and grade their proficiency level.
2. Everyone is included in the story telling process.
3. It requires students to be able to listen and comprehend the story and then think of ways to extend what they are understanding with more details.
4. It allows some of the more advanced students to push themselves (my improvisers!) but it doesn't put too much pressure on my students with special needs.
If you have questions about this activity or you do it in your classroom I would love to hear about it! I did this activity with a French 1 group about half way through the year but this would be a great activity for more advanced students so that they could practice the different tenses (maybe have signs for the actor to use to show past, present, and future)
Thanks for reading and hope to hear some ideas/feedback/or experiences with this method!
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