Practical Proficiency Podcast
Where world language teachers gather to transition to proficiency oriented instruction through comprehensible input. All through practical, real-life, teacher-friendly ideas that make teaching language more joyful! Hosted by Devon of La Libre Language Learning.
Practical Proficiency Podcast
Middle School Magic: Teaching Tips & Curriculum Must-Haves for Middle School with Sonrisas Spanish
Ever wondered why teaching Spanish to middle schoolers requires such a unique approach? In this episode, we dive deep with Brooks from Sonrisas Spanish into the fascinating developmental sweet spot of middle school language learning.
Brooks from Sonrisas Spanish is here today to chat all things middle school Spanish curriculum and classroom techniques like TPR Storytelling to promote acquisition in a way that works for younger learners, from Pre-K, Elementary, and middle school Spanish.
Sonrisas Spanish has gained this experience through providing unique Spanish curriculum tools designed especially for elementary and middle school Spanish.
Get a free sample Spanish curriculum unit from Sonrisas Spanish: https://www.sonrisasspanishschool.com/request-free-sample/
WATCH THE EPISODE VIDEO HERE ON YOUTUBE: https://youtu.be/ujRAGr7M6LY
Find out more about Sonrisas Spanish:
Sonrisas Spanish empowers you to improve student outcomes, increase student engagement, and have fun teaching Spanish—while you save time planning.
The journey begins with Brooks sharing how he and his wife transformed their bilingual education background into a Spanish curriculum that has evolved over decades of classroom experience. What started as after-school programs blossomed into a comprehensive K-8 curriculum built on sound pedagogical principles and real-world efficacy.
Middle school students exist in that remarkable transition space—no longer responding to elementary methods but not yet ready for high school approaches. Brooks reveals the "acquire, develop, learn" methodology that guides the Sonrisas curriculum, explaining how younger students naturally acquire language through play-based activities before middle schoolers are developmentally ready to learn the "how and why" behind grammar concepts they've already internalized.
The magic of their middle school approach lies in thoughtful structure combined with engaging teaching methods. Each thematic unit follows a consistent 10-lesson sequence incorporating culture, grammar instruction, and TPR storytelling—a method that Brooks describes as transformative for student engagement. When middle schoolers contribute bizarre, funny details to stories, they take ownership of the language and create memorable anchors for vocabulary and grammatical structures.
Perhaps most compelling is Brooks' insight on creating safe spaces for language risk-taking during an age defined by social pressure and self-judgment. By normalizing mistakes and sharing honest reflections about language learning challenges, teachers can cultivate classrooms where middle schoolers feel comfortable experimenting with Spanish.
Whether you're struggling with traditional textbooks that feel overwhelming or searching for activities that speak directly to this unique developmental stage, this episode offers practical wisdom for bringing joy and effectiveness to middle school Spanish. Visit sonrisasspanish.com to explore free curriculum samples and discover how this blended approach might tr
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What's up? Que lo que Et salut world language teachers. Welcome to the Practical Proficiency Podcast, where we make the transition to proficiency-oriented instruction in your world language class in a way that works for you, your unique context and teaching style, and doesn't sacrifice your well-being along the way. I'm your host, devon Gunning, the teacher author, conference host, curriculum creator and consultant behind La Libre Language Learning. This podcast is for the creative world language teacher like you who's ready to ditch the overwhelming pressure of switching to acquisition-driven instruction and CI overnight. You're ready to discover how using more target language in class can actually bring you and your students more joy instead of adding to your plate. With practical, authentic and down-to-earth strategies that don't require reinventing the wheel or more training, we'll work together towards the magic of a community-based, target language-rich classroom, rooted in the power of community and comprehensible input.
Speaker 1:Let's go to bring to you an expert in middle school Spanish, the area that certainly needs more attention than it gets. All the middle school teachers know that this is the absolute age to be at, so I'm very excited to bring to you Brooks from Sonrisa Spanish to talk to us all things middle school programs, middle school curriculums, teaching tips and ideas. Brooks, thank you so much for being here. Can you tell us a little bit more about your teaching experience and how you serve teachers now with Sonrisas? Give us the scoop.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, you're welcome. Thank you so much for having me Devin Really pleased to be here today talking to people about middle school Spanish. And, yeah, we got our start. My wife and I, we co-created Sonrisa Spanish and we co-authored the curriculum together. We got our start in the public schools in the Austin Independent School District back in the early mid-90s and this was a time when bilingual education there was really a movement around that, and so we got trained to be bilingual ed teachers and so we learned lots of methods for teaching ESL and for teaching bilingual ed. And we were in the public schools.
Speaker 2:But then one year in our local neighborhood a school approached us and asked if we would be interested in teaching some after-school Spanish programs and we said, sure, that sounds interesting. And so we did that and we translated a lot of these ESL techniques and these bilingual ed techniques and methodologies that we had used to Spanish, essentially doing SSL Spanish as a second language. And after a year of doing that word got out and we had other schools start to call us and say, hey, could you do something similar at our school? And we thought, wow, there's a market here for these classes. And so we just took a big leap. We quit our public school jobs and we started Sonrisa Spanish, where we would go into elementary schools and offer our classes an afterschool Spanish class and we would go into preschools and offer our class as a. We usually in the preschools would teach during their day, and so after a number of years of doing that, we realized that we had a methodology and a structure to our lessons and to the way that we were teaching and we thought, wow, maybe there is a market for this, maybe other teachers could benefit from using these lessons. And so we took a couple of years and we wrote all this down and we formatted it and we had a graphic designer friend help us. And we first published in 2002.
Speaker 2:And we continue to be full-time teachers for many, many years in various situations, not only doing our own private classes but also teaching in private schools. I was in and out of the public schools a little bit. My wife taught at the Austin Waldorf School and that informed some of the methodologies of our curriculum as well. But really teaching was our bread and butter for many, many years and the publishing was sort of this side gig that we did. That we knew we wanted to grow at some point and so really around 2010, we really started focusing more on growing the curriculum, adding more levels, adding more ancillary supplemental materials for teachers and really fleshing it out and making it a full, you know, comprehensive curriculum for elementary Spanish and then eventually, after doing the elementary Spanish for many years, we got to where we were doing middle school Spanish as well. But I think we're going to talk more about that in a little bit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, definitely Wow. So this is a really layered, rich experience that you have of moving from the program that you were working with, making it, into an SSL program that more mirrors what it looks like to be in a dual language environment and using and borrowing a lot of immersion tactics for how you're teaching your very young, your littles learners that you're working with. So I'm curious to know, as, especially since both of y'all have so much teaching experience, what are some of the tenets that inform the way that you would work with students of this age and what does that look like in your curriculum? So what are the big methodology pieces that you know has to be in a classroom of this age group?
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, we know that young learners are very adept at language acquisition, right, and sometimes people talk about the idea that, oh, young learners, they can just naturally absorb language. Well, it's not really that simple. They are more adept at acquisition, but there has to be a lot of planning and intention behind that. So, to answer your question, a lot of the methodologies that we used, as I said, we learned in our own education for being bilingual and ESL teachers. So things like total physical response, developed by James Asher, and what we know about total physical response is really we're putting the language into a physical context which helps a learner to understand it. Physical context which helps a learner to understand it Asher would talk about having language-body conversations. Total physical response works really well with young learners and it can also work well for older middle school learners too. And then, of course, dr Stephen Krashen was a huge influence on us with his research and theories about acquisition-based learning and comprehension-based learning.
Speaker 2:All of our lessons really thrive with the idea of comprehensible input and using that in each segment of the lesson so that the learner is understanding the language that they hear. You're putting it in context for them to understand it. And then the idea of getting lots of communication with that comprehensible input. And then, of course, the idea of doing play-based instruction for young learners. Of course the idea of doing play-based instruction for young learners we talk a lot about in our teacher trainings being developmentally appropriate for those young learners, and one of the things that that means is that they do not need explicit grammar instruction. It's not really developmentally appropriate for them, but they can gain an inherent understanding of many grammatical concepts through these other methodologies.
Speaker 2:And then, as I mentioned before, the Waldorf foreign language approach really informed some of our teaching too. What's really neat about that approach is it's less concerned with meaning, with comprehension, and it focuses more on the idea of the emotional content of the language and how, yeah, and how young learners are really able to connect to the language just through the sounds and the feeling and the emotional content of it. And we have found that that's really true with, especially with, really young learners like preschool students. You know you can do verse and rhyme and music with them and they don't really understand what they're singing. And they don't need to, because they're making a connection with the language through the sounds of the language and through the beauty of the language and it's really fun to think about that idea. I think, just yeah, bringing the sounds and the beauty of a language to a young learner.
Speaker 1:That's a really valuable perspective to think about too, because we know that children under 10, even over 10, they love rhyme and they really respond to rhyme, rhythm, anything to music, and you kind of always wondered why, especially if they're able to spout out these long verses that they might not know what the words are. And on the other hand of that too, with some of the teachers that I've worked with that are in like, especially like a K through 8 setting, worked with, that are in like, especially like a K through eight setting, I find on the other side that sometimes there are teachers who struggle to spend a lot of time in the target language with elementary learners because they think like, oh, that's, they're not developmentally there yet for that. Do you ever encounter that when you're working with teachers and teacher trainings of you know like, well, let's just do the calendar because that's what they're ready for, and we'll sing a song about the calendar.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure. You know it's kind of a daunting thing to think about staying in Spanish, staying in the target language, throughout your whole lesson. In our teacher trainings we talk about one of the best practices for the Sonrisa Spanish curriculum, which is a recommendation from Actful, is to use the target language, use Spanish, at least 90% of the time in your lessons. And our lessons are formatted, they're designed so that this is achievable. But we talk about taking that leap of faith and really trying to do that. And you know, comprehensible input helps with that, structure helps with that. And you know, one of the things that we mentioned to teachers too is hey, you know you're teaching Spanish. The best way to do that is to speak Spanish and to do all these different activities that you're doing in Spanish.
Speaker 2:And you know, one of the things I wanted to touch on from your previous question too, is also this idea with young learners of play-based learning and just providing lots of different activities, so you're covering different modalities of learning. So, for example, with our lessons, you know you have music, you have role play, you have games, you have stories, authentic Spanish literature, and you have art projects, and you have art projects and you have drama, and so it's taking all these different activities, having comprehensible input in those different activities and then having communication happen in all those different activities. It's amazing how much ground you can cover, how much communication you can get with students through this diversity of activities and how a lot of that becomes natural Because really you're just, you're playing, you're doing all these different age-appropriate activities, you're communicating in Spanish throughout and students have that opportunity to acquire the language.
Speaker 1:I would imagine, with something that already sounds that fun, like if you're switching activities every 15 minutes and doing something like first we're going to do a storytell with this cute stuffy and then we're going to play dress up and somebody's going to be this character and that character that they get to focus in the kids are focusing in on, like they have so many visuals to work with as you're talking to them in Spanish that they're not as intimidated by what you might be saying or even focused in that much on it. They're just here to play and if you're requiring that they play in Spanish, they're going to be right there along with you.
Speaker 2:Totally. Yeah, we talk about that all the time. Is you know if you are in that mode? You know, students don't really even think about that. They're learning Spanish.
Speaker 2:They're just having fun. They're just doing all these different activities in Spanish. But again, it does. That takes a lot of intention and a lot of planning behind it. It's not like you can just go into a classroom with a group of intention and a lot of planning behind it. It's not like you can just go into a classroom with a group of kids and start speaking Spanish and playing games. You know there is all that intention and planning behind it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I'm sure they're going to need a lot of scaffolding too, so that it's easier for them to be with you on that.
Speaker 2:For sure, and something you said made me think too, that another big part of it, and which is a big strength of the Sonrisa Spanish curriculum, is structure. Yeah, essentially, what you're doing when you have a consistent structure is you are making the learner feel comfortable and feel safe in their learning environment, and we know that we want students to take risks with language. But in order to take risks, feel comfortable. They feel safe, so they can take risks with the language, and we just feel that it's a really important part especially with something like a second language class, a foreign language class, which can be really intimidating for some students to have that structure where they feel safe and comfortable.
Speaker 1:It just is a huge benefit to their learning process. So, with structure, does that mean to you and when you're working with other teachers as well I'm imagining somebody like who's in a K-8 program does that mean that if they maybe see their kids three times a week, that they're using similar classroom routines every time that they see them?
Speaker 2:Yes, exactly All of our lessons have the same routine, the same structure. For our elementary classes it's circle time, story time and art time and you do that in every class. Now, within that structure there's a lot of diversity of activities but you have that structure that's providing that consistency that you know, structure where the student can know what to expect, feel safe, feel comfortable in their learning environment. We do that, you know all of our lessons follow that and you know, for some teachers who want more diversity, maybe they're a little challenged with that, but we really try and reassure them that, hey, this is something you know, especially with this language class, that can really help.
Speaker 1:And circle time is something that's already so familiar for elementary students that now you're taking something that they already know how to do, kind of like we would I would do in a high school classes. This is a show you've already seen. Now we're going to do it in a, in a different language format or a different activity. So you've got circle time first. Then you dive into story time, which is something that you know with. You could talk about forever. That's like a whole. Nother podcast is the power of story time you could talk about forever.
Speaker 1:That's like a whole nother podcast is the power of storytime. But would you say that with your elementary learners and your middle school learners? This is something I feel like you could especially dive deep into, because they're so ready for storytime and they're very engaged in storytime. This is like big time opportunity here to get a lot of good input.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we like to talk about using a method called shared reading, which you know. Probably anyone out there that has ever read stories to children has done shared reading. Shared reading is really nothing more than the listener being able to hear a fluent speaker use tone and expression and inflection to bring the story to life. And shared reading is also being able to use the story to extend your interpersonal communication.
Speaker 2:Now, what I mean by that is you're never going to take the story and just read it from front to back and call it good.
Speaker 2:You're going to use that story as a tool to get more communication with your students. So you're going to pause from time to time throughout the story and ask clarifying questions about the story, ask questions about the illustrations, and this can be so effective. You can get so much more communication in. And it's also beautiful because you can differentiate your communication with learners at different levels. You can ask those very beginner level students simple yes or no questions about the story or about the illustrations. Those more advanced learners, you can relate the story to their daily lives or to their home lives. So, yeah, the story time part is a huge part of our lessons and you know we the storybooks that accompany our lessons. We've chosen them based on elements that lend to that effectiveness of communication and comprehensible input. So all the storybooks in our curriculum have things like vivid illustrations that convey the meaning of the text, verse that includes I'm sorry, text that includes verse and rhyme, like we talked about earlier, text that is repetitive and stories that have familiar themes for young learners.
Speaker 1:Oh, I already feel more relaxed just hearing that, because I know that's a huge challenge for middle school and elementary teachers is like I know I want to use real books, but which ones do I select? That's huge.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So you have this nice foundation working with young learners for elementary school. Tell us about going into middle school Spanish and this very unique group of learners that has all of these strengths and I feel like get really misunderstood in the language teaching context. So tell us about what are some things as you were working on this middle school curriculum that you now have with Sonrisas levels two and three that cover both of those. What are some things that you noticed were some common issues with middle school Spanish and how did you get into that realm?
Speaker 2:Yeah well, through the years of, you know, selling our curriculum to elementary Spanish teachers, we realized that we needed something for those upper grades, because usually we found that when students got to about fifth grade or sixth grade depending on the curriculum, curricular programming at their school and what they were used to, but generally around those grades they would start to not connect to that mode of instruction where you were doing circle time, story time and art time. Essentially they think it's little kiddie stuff.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So they were no longer really interested in that and so we knew we needed to develop something for those older learners. And so we knew we needed to develop something for those older learners. It just so happens that in about when was it 2006, I did take a high school Spanish teaching job and first time ever teaching high school and the teacher that was there before me had been there for 30 years, a very traditional type teacher. But just in her last few years of teaching she went and got trained in TPR storytelling and it revolutionized her teaching. After decades of teaching in a very traditional direct instruction kind of strict way, she just got opened up to this whole new way of teaching. So she recommended to me that I get trained in TPR storytelling to continue what she had been doing with those high school classes.
Speaker 2:So I did. I thought it was brilliant, I loved it. I started teaching it in this high school class, worked really well, and then the light bulb kind of went off. Oh, maybe this could work well for those older elementary and those middle school students too. So, as well, they wanted to do a multi-age fifth through eighth grade class and I thought, great, that sounds awesome, I'll do that, and so I did that and what I did is I kind of adapted, I did more of. I did the TPR storytelling, but I continued some of the things from our levels one and two curriculum, some of the calendar type activities. I continued doing TPR and we continued to do role play and anyway it worked really well. And so then that gave us the opportunity to author some of those lessons and bring that forward for the middle school Spanish and adding that to our elementary Spanish and really thinking about getting a full like K through eight scope and sequence, articulated sequence for instruction for K through eight.
Speaker 1:Oh the dream. So many people ask that, so that's awesome. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So many people ask that, so that's awesome oh yeah, yeah, yeah. So with these sixth through, eighth graders what? Did you notice were some you talked often about with Sun Resist that the structure is really relying on routines to make kids feel safe. So what do sixth through eighth?
Speaker 2:graders need to feel safe when you're doing instruction with them. Yeah, as we know, probably your biggest issue with middle school students can be simply put as hormones, right. But what that means is you know they're exploring, they're trying to find themselves, they're trying to become themselves, and so you know, really there's a lot of, you know, uncertainty and maybe insecurity there with those learners right, and so, again, the structure can be really helpful, just to have, I think the idea of continuing that structure in middle school is really helpful for those learners. But then there's also an element where you know they still want to have fun, but they're ready for a more like concrete learning style.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, that's a good way to put it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and they're ready for more intellectual learning, really intellectual learning, really. In those elementary grades, you know, students aren't really learning in an intellectual style, and what I mean by that is they're not studying rules, they're not studying grammar, they don't need to, it's not really developmentally appropriate for them. But when those students get into those middle school grades, you know they're ready now for more of a concrete intellectual learning, the how and why of some of these. You know, if they've had instruction in Spanish through the elementary grades and they've gained an inherent understanding of a lot of grammatical concepts, well then in those middle school grades they can start to learn the how and why of many of these concepts that they already understand.
Speaker 2:And it's actually we didn't really talk about this before Devin, but I want to mention this because we did develop a methodology that guides the different way, the different levels of our curriculum work. We call it acquire, develop, learn, and each of those words corresponds directly to each level of our curriculum. So what that means is that in Sonrisa's level one, we're giving students the opportunity to naturally acquire Spanish much as they would their first language, through all these age-appropriate fun games and activities where there's lots of opportunity for communication. Then in Sonrisa's level two, we take that acquired language and we develop it. We take that acquired language and we develop it. We develop it by adding more complex performance targets to the lessons and by adding a partner time segment to the lessons where students begin to interact in a peer-to-peer mode.
Speaker 2:And with levels one and two there's no explicit instruction in grammar. As I've said, it's not really developmentally appropriate. So it's not until Sonrisa's level three that we weave in explicit grammar instructions. So students now begin to learn the how and why of many of these concepts that they already understand from levels one and two. So acquire, develop, learn. That's the sequence, that's the progression through our whole curriculum that really guides the way that the they're curious, they're ready to think about like why does it look like that?
Speaker 1:I've been seeing it like that, and now they're ready to explore a little bit of what that development could look like for them. So, with that in mind, what are some of the routines that I know? You mentioned that they start getting into peer-to-peer mode and partner time, so tell us a little bit more. I'm curious about what these routines look like in the level two and then to the level three. What are the classic routines that you're training teachers on for that age group?
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, the level two continues with that same structure from level one, with the circle time, story time and art time, with the addition of partner time.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And then level three is completely different in structure. No more circle time, story time, art time. As I said before with those older students they start to think that's little kiddie stuff. So instead of that the lessons are organized into thematic units. Yeah, and every unit has 10 lessons, and so part of the structure is in each unit. Those 10 lessons always follow the same sequence. So the students become comfortable with this sequence of lessons in each unit. And what that sequence is is that in the first lesson of every unit we introduce a cultural theme. There's a cultural reading that students can either do individually or the teacher can do as a whole group, and then there are guiding questions for the teacher to have a discussion about that cultural theme. So we put the culture right out in front at the beginning of the unit. Then in lesson two of each unit the teacher teaches a grammar concept, and this is much more of an old school direct instructional style. She's in English, teaches the grammar and then the students get the opportunity to practice it in a grammar exercise. But then in lessons three through eight the majority of each unit the students can use the grammar because it's woven into a TPR story. And so for lessons three through eight. We use the TPR storytelling method to not only have the students be able to use the grammar, but also learn more vocabulary and phrases and build their comprehension and build their speaking skills.
Speaker 2:I don't know how much your listeners are familiar with TPR storytelling, but it's just so effective for that middle school group. Because, number one it's super fun. Number two, it's really engaging because the students are coming up with the details to the story, so they start to take ownership of the story, so they get really engaged with this. They love it. They're like, oh wow, this is our story. And then, number three it's really good for retention of vocabulary and phrases and concepts because it's their story and because you have a way, when you do this method, of really trying to latch on to the most sort of bizarre and funny details that are done in the story. The students love that and so you can get these crazy stories going Um, and they just think it's so funny. And again it's almost like they're back in that play mode. They're playing with the language in this storytelling experience. They're creating these details, they're taking ownership of it, and I can't remember what your question was and if I answered it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's it. Routines about what middle schoolers really respond well to and you really hit it on the head there with the. They're responding well to ways to engage and interact with language. That's really fun and gets to bring out, you know, the stuff that they love about class which is making sense and being the center of attention.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think you were.
Speaker 2:You were asking me too about how you know how. How is their structure in these, in these level three lessons? So again, it's, it's the units, it's the lessons in the unit, following the same sequence. When they're done with the TPR story, in lesson nine of each unit, the teacher teaches a communication strategy which these are things that help students bridge the gap between language and culture, Things like getting meaning from context, cognates, all of that kind of stuff. And then in lesson 10 of each unit, everything comes together in both a whole group reading activity and a partner time activity. And then all of the lessons also have an introduction section where the teacher can do an optional calendar routine. Where the teacher can do an optional calendar routine, there's traditional TPR to warm up students and there's a spelling activity too.
Speaker 2:And I have to say something about this spelling activity because it's so funny to me, but students love to like try and spell words in Spanish. I mean it sounds funny, but we just always incorporated this. It was really my wife that discovered this, where she started doing a spelling activity with her middle school students, and she's like I can't believe it. They love it. We turn it into a little competition. You know, see who can spell the word the fastest they do it on, you know whiteboards. Spell the word the fastest they do it on you know whiteboards. And then they hold it up. For me and I think it's just sort of like the novelty of trying to spell in a different language, but it's a great way to create phonic awareness, you know, and to create awareness of the alphabet and spelling and pronunciation. So that's part of the introduction to those level three lessons as well.
Speaker 2:So again back to your question. It's structured throughout the whole unit and that's the way each unit works. Each unit follows that same sequence with the lessons. And again it's about giving students that familiarity with the content, with the sequence and with the lessons. And again it's about giving students that familiarity with the content, with the sequence and with the structure. I'm just a big fan and I think you know. I have to mention too that it's helpful for teachers as well, because you're not trying to reinvent the wheel, each unit and each lesson. You get accustomed to this sequence as well and you start to get your rhythm with and you start to get your rhythm with it and you start to get your confidence with it, and so it's a good thing for teachers, too, to have all that structure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because you're providing all of the materials that they don't have to come up with themselves, and the routines to follow, so that they have the freedom of mind to be creative when they want to to.
Speaker 1:And there's so much creativity. Many teachers are very creative and enjoy that aspect of it. But, like there's so much on the fly stuff, that happens with TPR. But when you have a structure in place of, these are the terms I want to use. It's not that scary blank slate of oh my God, what am I doing today. It's the. These are the things that we want to talk about. These are the terms that we're going to make our story about, and now the kids get to run away with it and be totally creative with it. And then you have to this nice circling back, bringing it all together, consolidation moment with what they do at the end of their routine, with having a communicative activity that pairs it. So it's a nice transition where you don't have to think about how am I going to put all of this material together and have it make sense, which is really nice to think about.
Speaker 2:Have you? Sorry to interrupt, but have you done TPR storytelling as well? I have, I have a little bit.
Speaker 1:I used to do it with high schoolers and I found that and I was doing it with zero training, so I was really just like flying with it to see how it would go. I found with my high schoolers that it's definitely something that I needed more training with to make it work, because that's how I felt is almost every lesson. I was going up and thinking of like, wow, I have to think of a lot of things right now. I have to come up with a lot of these ideas myself.
Speaker 1:Before you can get into the fun, part of creativity and student participation is like you said earlier, there's there's a huge intentionality and planning piece to it that, in order to make it fun for the students and to get that buy-in, you need to have that, that solidarity, that um spend all that creative thinking, that brain time as a teacher, you want to spend it on the actual creation of the story rather than, like, setting it up, which can be can be difficult. So I have a question, too, that that goes along with, when you, when you work with teachers adopting this curriculum, you provide a lot of training for them, which is huge. So I want to know what are some of the common things that you find that almost that you would say you've prioritized when working with middle school teachers. Like, what are the things that you know? Like, oh, we're definitely going to be training on this, this and this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Well, specifically to our lessons, to the Sonrisa's level three lessons. We want to make sure that they really understand the TPR storytelling method.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Because it is challenging and, as you just alluded to, it does take practice. To that end, we do offer we have training videos that are included with the curriculum. We have training videos that are included with the curriculum, but then we also offer targeted individual training if necessary, because it just is much more effective when you go into it, you know, having a little practice and knowing how you're going to do it. You had mentioned, you know, trying to come up with the story on your own. That's not something that teachers have to do. We script in our lesson plans, we script out the story for the teacher. What's missing are those details that the students are going to provide for you. But yeah, we really try and focus a lot on that. But then also, you know, making sure that teachers understand that sequence of lessons and how they can help their students to feel comfortable with the different. You know there's direct instruction, then there's the TPR, storytelling, there's the culture, all these different elements of it. Really, it's like a blended approach which you know works really well in that middle school grade level Because, as you know, in middle school you have some students that are still. They still are connected to that younger mode of learning, and then you have others that are ready to move on.
Speaker 2:Another thing that we've done with a lot of the lessons, or rather with a lot of our classes, is, once you're done with the TPR story, if you want you can have students act it out, or nowadays, you can have them make like a video of it or a movie of it, and they just love that. They love doing that. So that's another thing that we talk to teachers about too, like how you can extend the learning by, you know, not just doing doing the story, but then letting the students take the wheel and say, hey, if you want, you can create a play out of this or you can create a movie, a video out of this, and most of the time they do want yeah, they want to do that yeah like about like huge community building and ownership all the things that you're looking for yeah, an integration of language.
Speaker 2:You know, when they have to take the language that they've learned and then integrate it into you know performance. That's really, that's really strong learning that they have to do. That's, you know, synthesis and creation.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So I would like to know as well with the, with how you, how you designed this program for with level three for this age group, there can be some big frustration with big publishers who are serving the same age group that I know that a lot of teachers who are middle school teachers listening to this can relate to. So what are they, how are they causing problems and what are some of the ways that we can move away from that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think you know, for me, when I started teaching high school Spanish and then thinking about doing middle school Spanish with the big publishers, what was most frustrating was just it was almost like they were trying to do too much. Because, you know, as teachers, we always you know, we're always looking for more materials, more content. But I mean almost more specifically, like the way the lessons are presented. You get this you know big hardcover book Looks great, it's got all these different elements, it's got, you know, maybe there's an audio element, there's a video element, there's an online element, but, like, when you're looking at the lesson plan in the book, there's also like all this sidebar material where there's material at the bottom. You know, after you do number three in this part, go to this you know section and do this.
Speaker 2:And just for me personally, it was always kind of like wow, I don't even know where to start, like it seems like just like too much.
Speaker 2:And I think a lot of teachers have had the experience where they get one of these curriculum from a big publisher and it's got all these different components to it and they end up doing like one or two components right, they just take the thing that like makes sense to them or feels comfortable, and they just do that, and so it's kind of like really sort of you know inefficient and wasted material. So when we started thinking about, you know, creating our materials for teachers, we like we were like we just want this to be really user-friendly, a really simple presentation, and that structure and that consistency was a big part of it. Like, do something where, as they move through the lessons, they start to get a rhythm and they start to know what to expect and and what to do, and so then within that, they can use, as you were alluding to earlier, they can use their creativity and use you know whatever to to, you know, make their learning fun for students.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Did I answer your question.
Speaker 1:Yes, definitely, because when you're comparing the two approaches, this approach here is a very dialed in approach where there's opportunity for exploration and play because you know what's coming and you know you don't have to provide those materials here, whereas looking at the, because I know what you mean when you know you don't have to provide those materials here, whereas looking at the, because I know what you mean when you're looking at it. My first experience with teaching was my the middle school classroom that I was in for my student teaching class, and it's you get a big textbook that has all of these options for you. And it's also like this dual anxiety of well, I'm never going to get to cover all of this. So am I actually teaching the material as well? As? This somehow feels like it's for high schoolers because they're moving at this pace and doing so much direct instruction like more direct instruction than anybody should ever do, ever.
Speaker 1:And there's not enough of that, that cultural element or that play element where middle schoolers are that beautiful in between, where they're exploring what it means to be an adult learner, but they're still kids and they're in that stage, and so you need both.
Speaker 2:I agree. Yeah, you really do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so with that in mind too, this approach is a very blended approach of making sure that middle schoolers get exactly what they need here. So I'm sure I'm really excited about this whole idea of having like a K through 8 full scope and sequence, where students get to go through the entire like the full spiral program of the acquisition and then development and then learning. So tell us more about what this looks like with this blended approach in level three. What are some of the elements in there and how does it serve the students that you're working with?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So what I mean when I talk about a blended approach for middle school Spanish is the idea of, you know, with our elementary lessons it's much more of an immersion, acquisition, communication based mode. But then with our Sonrisa's level three, for those older students, as I mentioned before, who are now ready for some more concrete and intellectual learning, because you're going to have those students that they want to learn by learning the rules and learning the grammar and doing some practice with that. But you're going to have other learners that are still ready to just like immerse themselves and be in that acquisition and communication mode. So we thought let's hit both of those. And so, you know, with the cultural part of the lessons, that is especially something that we have always felt can more easily be taught in English, simply because the you know the language that you need to use to discuss culture and to compare and contrast cultural practices and products. It's just, it's just easier in English. You know Um, so that part, you know, is in English. And then the grammar instruction that occurs. As I said before, this is much more of a direct instructional style You're teaching the grammar, you're teaching the rules, you're going over it and then students get to practice it. But then you bring in, you know, if you want to do the, as I said before, the calendar routine, that's still going to be in an immersion mode. The TPR is a warm-up for each lesson mode. The TPR is a warm-up for each lesson, that's back to your, you know, acquisition, immersion-type learning, and then the TPR storytelling. That is meant to be more in that immersion mode as well.
Speaker 2:But again, with the TPR storytelling, you know, a frequent question I get from teachers about our level three is well, can I use it with just beginner students? If they haven't had any Spanish in the elementary grades, you know, shouldn't I be teaching them Sonrisa's level one? And I say, well, no, you don't really want to do that because the mode of instruction isn't really designed for those older learners. The answer is that, yes, total beginner learners can use Sonrisa's level three. The reason is is because you have this splendid approach. Some of it is in English, but then the part that is not the TPR storytelling, as you probably know from having done it, part of the method is that you pre-teach all of the vocabulary and you write the vocabulary on the board. The students write the vocabulary in their notebooks. So they are working with vocabulary and phrases that they understand or that they can refer to, and so that's really helpful. And so that's really helpful.
Speaker 2:The TPR storytelling is just so effective at building that comprehension, building those speaking skills, acquisition type learning with the whole group reading, which is in Spanish, it's la lectura, that's part of lesson 10 of every unit, and then the partner time activity, that is, students are back in the peer-to-peer mode, interacting in an interpersonal mode of communication to complete some task, and then many of the partner time activities have a presentational component to them as well.
Speaker 2:So with those partner time activities we're getting the three modes of communication in, with students in that peer-to-peer mode where they're doing the interpretive mode, the interpersonal mode and the presentational mode. You know, a lot of the lessons in the curriculum that we developed came not only directly out of our own teaching but directly out of our own experience of learning language, but directly out of our own experience of learning language. And for me as a language learner, I did really well with rules and with grammar and with being able to take those and then translate them and use them in a communicative mode, and so it just made me think. You know, there are learners like me out there that don't want to always be in that immersion mode. So let's give them a blend. And so, bringing it back around to your question, you know that's why we thought this blended approach would be really good for middle school Spanish and for our level three curriculum.
Speaker 1:This is something I think the world language community could do a lot better with is this understanding that there are learners with different needs and, yes, research first but also teachers who are functioning in a rigidity model of either like entirely immersion or entirely direct instruction.
Speaker 1:Rigidity in nature often means that you die as soon as things get hard. If you're really a rigid style, it's not going to work with the ever dynamic and fluid nature of teaching as well as the different students that you're going to have in your room. So something that we've seen in the proficiency world in the CI space is that, as it's becoming more popular, people get really excited about like well, this is the only way, and the only way that I'm going to do things is entirely in this manner, or entirely input driven, where you're going to need to hit on all the different elements to hit all your different students exactly where they're at. And it feels to me like with my very limited experience with middle school, you're going to have to elaborate on this that you're going to get the whole kit and caboodle with ages six through eight, like students change every day as they're in the classroom and need different things.
Speaker 1:There's going to be days where they're going to hound you all day long on, like why does the verb do that? And there's going to be other days where they don't care at all and all they want to do is play. And there's going to also be days where they just want to. They want to listen to a story and interact with you and ask you a lot of ridiculous questions about your personal life.
Speaker 2:And then the next day they're not going to care at all.
Speaker 1:You know, like the they, they change so often that you need something that's going to serve all different levels of where they're at, and rigidity is just not going to work in there. So, with your experience with teaching middle school and then developing this curriculum for middle school kids, what do you think is one of the most important thing that you would ask middle school teachers to be doing in their classrooms?
Speaker 2:Good question.
Speaker 1:I know I gave you this one on the fly. This is a surprise one, but I've been thinking about it Like there's a lot of key points to take away from this. But middle school really is its own special deal.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, so your question is what would you be asking middle school teachers to do? Well, I think you know, piggybacking on what you just said, one of the things is just being open, right, being open to exploring different ways to teach and exploring different ways to have your students interact with the language, exploring different ways to have your students interact with the language, and just being open to trying different methodologies. You know TPR storytelling. I don't really have a good feel for how people feel about it in the larger you know, world language teaching community.
Speaker 1:It's still very popular?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think so. I think, you know. I think some people maybe think it's kind of fringe or something or that it's just too unorthodox For me. Again, going back to just my own experience, I like things that work, I like things that I see results with. I like things that I see results with, I like things that I see students connecting with. And when I first got that training in TPR storytelling and I started using it with students and I saw the reaction, I saw the connection, I saw the learning that occurred, I still have students coming back to me now, you know from when I was teaching in 2006, that say, oh, remember that story we did in Spanish class, or they remember their Spanish name, you know, or whatever.
Speaker 2:Anyway, you know, direct instructional things for the grammar and for the culture and for the communication strategies, but also adding those other elements in the introductory part of each lesson where you can do calendar time, you can do TPR, you can do spelling, and just having teachers be able to have those options to see what works with their students, because it's going to be different with every class, as you said. Yeah, those kids are haywire and so they're different every day. So the real answer to your question, I think, is just you know teachers being open, whoops Open to you know teachers being open, whoops open to you know trying different things and um, but it can be really helpful to have you know this structure, have things sort of done for you that also offer you know different, different ways that you can take your class. Um, I hope I answered your question. I'm not sure.
Speaker 1:Definitely, because if you're, if you're approaching class with a plan and you have a structure, but you're also open to where that structure will take you, it allows your students to be more themselves, and I think it allows teachers to be more themselves too, without having to spend a lot of extra brain power on coming up with a lot of material or best ways to approach what a seventh grader needs in the middle of the community Like you've got that covered for them.
Speaker 2:I want to add one other thing to my answer.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that is, you know, also being really honest with students and I think with middle school, you don't really have to do this with younger learners, school students being really honest with them about the idea of taking risks with the language and how your classroom is a safe space to do that and that if somebody messes up, we're not going to make fun of them. And being honest with them about your own learning. Saying, hey, I haven't always been fluent in Spanish. I had to learn too, and I used to mess up all the time. And when I first went to my you know, the first Spanish speaking country I visited I felt to learn too and I used to mess up all the time.
Speaker 2:And when I first went to my you know, the first Spanish speaking country I visited, I felt like I didn't know anything, and I was. It was so hard to talk and by the end of the day I was exhausted, just trying to think of what I was going to say, just to buy a loaf of bread or whatever that is. And you know telling them about that and saying, hey, we're going to have fun. Learning language is fun. You have to take risks and you know helping them to understand and I think when you do that and when you set expectations around that it sort of opens them up because the rest of their middle school experience right. They're all so on edge. They feel like they're getting judged. They're maybe judging themselves.
Speaker 1:Yeah, invisible audience is so real.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and so you know it's trying to create this environment where, hey, this is something totally different from your math class and from your science class. This is language. We're going to have fun, you know, and language is fun and you're going to be opening yourself up to a whole new world. If you can speak another language, you can make different kinds of friends, you know, you can communicate with people all over the world, et cetera, et cetera. So you know, being open and honest about that and having those conversations with them, yeah, because they know you're not and they're very sharp, they're very, very smart.
Speaker 1:That's a really good reminder for all of us. All right, so my last question for you, then, is knowing what we know now about how you can best support middle school students. How can teachers connect with San Risas and find out more about how to use this in their program?
Speaker 2:Yeah, Well, the best thing is to initially visit our website, sonrisaspanishcom. There's lots of information there. Our blog is great. If you want to go on our blog, you can do a search for middle school Spanish. You can do a search for comprehensible input. You can do a search for TPR storytelling. We've got tons of content there, lots of useful practical articles for teachers, but also on our website. If you're interested in the curriculum, you can request a free sample from us. There are big buttons on almost every page where you can request a free sample and once you do that, we'll get you some sample materials For our level three curriculum. We actually offer a full unit, so we can send you out the introduction section to the teacher manual that will explain how you teach the unit. But then we'll give you a full unit of our level three curriculum and you can take that and try it with any class.
Speaker 1:Fully set. That's exciting.
Speaker 1:So, go check it out. All of the information will be below this video, too, where you'll be able to see exactly where those links are and you can go see those pretty shiny buttons for yourself. Thank you so much, brooks, for sharing with us and illuminating a lot of important topics about this often overlooked age group, especially for programs that are searching for information on K through eight, because they do it all. Y'all are amazing. I'm so happy to be able to bring this to teachers, all this useful info that they can better get to know their students and work with them exactly where they're at. That's developmentally appropriate and really fun. I want to do art in Spanish class. That sounds great, so thank you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're welcome, devin. Thank you for having me. This is really fun. As you can see, I'm really passionate about language learning. It's been my whole career and you know it really is a joy to see children learn language, why we all do it right. When you see that light bulb go off, or when they say something for the first time and really communicate with you, it's just like, yeah, that's so cool, yeah, so, yeah, thanks for having me and, uh, great to talk to everybody out there in the podcastosphere. Is that a?
Speaker 1:word, yeah, hear it echo into the void, and then all of a sudden people respond back. It's a crazy thing. So thank you for being a part of it.
Speaker 2:Okay, you're welcome.
Speaker 1:Bye for now.
Speaker 2:Adios.