We did the cutest Clip Chat (AKA Movie Talk) this week and I tried something I’d never done before and they informed me it was “way better” than our normal way😂 Rather than the typical watch, pause, ask, discuss details, review information and begin again sequence I usually follow when I’m sharing a clip with my Little Darlings, I told them the story before they even knew there was a video.

My fantastic Japanese teacher Kathryn Tominaga showed me this variation in the fall when she told me a cute story about a hippo who loves watermelon. As she slowly and comprehensibly told me the story, she asked me to illustrate it on a mini whiteboard. After she told me the sweet story, she played the video and it was just delightful to see the story come to life!

So that’s what I tried with my Spanish 1 Little Darlings, using this commercial:

First, before class, I decided which structures I wanted to focus on, wrote out the story and added in the details since I was not going to be asking them for story suggestions. If you’re a Spanish 1 teacher, you’re in luck: Here’s my story

Then, in class, I got everyone set up with mini whiteboards, markers and erasers. I told them I would tell them a story and their illustrations would show me what they understand.

Important: I made no mention of a video. They had no idea what my story was based on.

Also important: While I told a segment of the story, their markers were capped and they listened only the first time. This gave me their full attention and this helped the rest to go smoothly.

After I told a bit of the story, I gave them they signal and they uncapped their markers and started drawing. As they illustrated, I retold that segment, slowly, sometimes adding in more details, sometimes highlighting a particularly awesome student drawing by showing the class and pointing to the details while retelling it again. As they wrapped up their first segment of drawings, I counted down to give everyone a bit of time to finish up, then they capped their markers, and showed me (and their friends) their whiteboards. The giggles! I retold the segment again while they pointed to the detail I was describing, while I looked carefully at everyone illustrations as I praised their fantastic masterpieces, in comprehensible Spanish, obvio. Finally I selected one student’s board to display up on my whiteboard ledge. Everyone erased their boards and we started again with the next segment. See what’s happening here? They’re getting lots and lots and lots of comprehensible input.

I divided the story into six segments and here are a few of their fantastic illustrations:

They were so invested: How embarrassing, arriving to class late on your first day of school! 😬They whole class turns around to look at you walk in the door, I’d cry!! 😳 She doesn’t have a pen- Get it together, Valentina! Come on, Marcos make your move! ¡Marcos tiene rizz! 😍

Then I asked, “Want to watch it?” and they were like WHAAAAA??? So we watched and they loved it!

Then, because, more input = more better: I passed out the story and they read it together with a partner: (In my class, we use animal sheets to partner up)

Once everyone had read and translated it with their partner, we did the easiest reading quiz known to man. I moved my cursor on the YouTube video to pick a random scene, announced “Número Uno“, and they re-read the story on their own to highlight the portion of the story that was displayed on my screen and wrote a corresponding #1 next to it. I did that a few times, they highlighted 5 parts of the story. Easy peasy, no stress.

We usually follow up a Clip Chat with Write and Discuss but I had something new up my sleeve that turned out to be the most fun we’ve had all semester. Stay tuned because I’m excited to share it with you (but I need one more class period to finish up the example- you’re going to love it!

Hope you’re having a relaxing weekend and ¡Vamos novio de Taylor! 🏈💖😂