Usually we run out of time at the end of a story to do retells. However, because they are such confidence boosters, I am trying more and more to work them back into my classes. If they are o.k. for teacher demos of the method, in order to show off how effective TPRS is, they are o.k. with me!
Don’t forget to allow the student who is retelling ample time to think without being interrupted. In my view, the best way to help a student with a retell is to walk to the place the actor was in each moment of the story and gesture the word they are looking for.
Avoid supplying the word needed by the person retelling, and, when the retell is over, heap the praise on!
January 22, 2008 at 11:28 pm
Ben,
What percent of the time do you estimate you spend on student retells? Is there any pattern as far as percentage of stories told? i.e. every other story do student retells, every third story, etc.
Mark
January 23, 2008 at 12:01 am
I usually think about doing them with maybe five minutes left in class, and I stay with only one kid, letting them think through things in peace. I do them ideally every story.
I don’t think it improves their speaking much, but the way I heap on the praise, coupled with the fact that they are doing such a thing as non-memorized quality output in their first year, makes their confidence soar. That is what I want to create – belief that they can do this.