Middle School Magic: Teaching Tips & Curriculum Must-Haves for Middle School with Sonrisas Spanish

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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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Que lo que Et salut worldlanguage teachers.
Welcome to the PracticalProficiency Podcast, where we
make the transition toproficiency-oriented instruction
in your world language class ina way that works for you, your
unique context and teachingstyle, and doesn't sacrifice

(00:21):
your well-being along the way.
I'm your host, devon Gunning,the teacher author, conference
host, curriculum creator andconsultant behind La Libre
Language Learning.
This podcast is for thecreative world language teacher
like you who's ready to ditchthe overwhelming pressure of
switching to acquisition-driveninstruction and CI overnight.

(00:42):
You're ready to discover howusing more target language in
class can actually bring you andyour students more joy instead
of adding to your plate.
With practical, authentic anddown-to-earth strategies that
don't require reinventing thewheel or more training, we'll
work together towards the magicof a community-based, target

(01:05):
language-rich classroom, rootedin the power of community and
comprehensible input.
Let's go to bring to you anexpert in middle school Spanish,

(01:29):
the area that certainly needsmore attention than it gets.
All the middle school teachersknow that this is the absolute
age to be at, so I'm veryexcited to bring to you Brooks
from Sonrisa Spanish to talk tous all things middle school
programs, middle schoolcurriculums, teaching tips and
ideas.
Brooks, thank you so much forbeing here.
Can you tell us a little bitmore about your teaching

(01:50):
experience and how you serveteachers now with Sonrisas?
Give us the scoop.

Speaker 2 (01:57):
Well, yeah, you're welcome.
Thank you so much for having meDevin Really pleased to be here
today talking to people aboutmiddle school Spanish.
And, yeah, we got our start.
My wife and I, we co-createdSonrisa Spanish and we
co-authored the curriculumtogether.
We got our start in the publicschools in the Austin

(02:20):
Independent School District backin the early mid-90s and this
was a time when bilingualeducation there was really a
movement around that, and so wegot trained to be bilingual ed
teachers and so we learned lotsof methods for teaching ESL and

(02:41):
for teaching bilingual ed.
And we were in the publicschools.
But then one year in our localneighborhood a school approached
us and asked if we would beinterested in teaching some
after-school Spanish programsand we said, sure, that sounds
interesting.
And so we did that and wetranslated a lot of these ESL

(03:03):
techniques and these bilingualed techniques and methodologies
that we had used to Spanish,essentially doing SSL Spanish as
a second language.
And after a year of doing thatword got out and we had other
schools start to call us and say, hey, could you do something
similar at our school?

(03:23):
And we thought, wow, there's amarket here for these classes.
And so we just took a big leap.
We quit our public school jobsand we started Sonrisa Spanish,
where we would go intoelementary schools and offer our
classes an afterschool Spanishclass and we would go into

(03:43):
preschools and offer our classas a.
We usually in the preschoolswould teach during their day,
and so after a number of yearsof doing that, we realized that
we had a methodology and astructure to our lessons and to
the way that we were teachingand we thought, wow, maybe there

(04:07):
is a market for this, maybeother teachers could benefit
from using these lessons.
And so we took a couple ofyears and we wrote all this down
and we formatted it and we hada graphic designer friend help
us.
And we first published in 2002.

(04:29):
And we continue to be full-timeteachers for many, many years in
various situations, not onlydoing our own private classes
but also teaching in privateschools.
I was in and out of the publicschools a little bit.
My wife taught at the AustinWaldorf School and that informed

(04:50):
some of the methodologies ofour curriculum as well.
But really teaching was ourbread and butter for many, many
years and the publishing wassort of this side gig that we
did.
That we knew we wanted to growat some point and so really
around 2010, we really startedfocusing more on growing the

(05:13):
curriculum, adding more levels,adding more ancillary
supplemental materials forteachers and really fleshing it
out and making it a full, youknow, comprehensive curriculum
for elementary Spanish and theneventually, after doing the
elementary Spanish for manyyears, we got to where we were

(05:36):
doing middle school Spanish aswell.
But I think we're going to talkmore about that in a little bit
.

Speaker 1 (05:41):
Yeah, definitely Wow.
So this is a really layered,rich experience that you have of
moving from the program thatyou were working with, making it
, into an SSL program that moremirrors what it looks like to be
in a dual language environmentand using and borrowing a lot of
immersion tactics for howyou're teaching your very young,
your littles learners thatyou're working with.

(06:03):
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 youwould work with students of this
age and what does that looklike in your curriculum?
So what are the big methodologypieces that you know has to be

(06:23):
in a classroom of this age group?

Speaker 2 (06:26):
Yeah, well, we know that young learners are very
adept at language acquisition,right, and sometimes people talk
about the idea that, oh, younglearners, they can just
naturally absorb language.
Well, it's not really thatsimple.
They are more adept atacquisition, but there has to be

(06:49):
a lot of planning and intentionbehind that.
So, to answer your question, alot of the methodologies that we
used, as I said, we learned inour own education for being
bilingual and ESL teachers.
So things like total physicalresponse, developed by James

(07:11):
Asher, and what we know abouttotal physical response is
really we're putting thelanguage into a physical context
which helps a learner tounderstand it.
Physical context which helps alearner to understand it Asher
would talk about havinglanguage-body conversations.
Total physical response worksreally well with young learners

(07:38):
and it can also work well forolder middle school learners too
.
And then, of course, dr StephenKrashen was a huge influence on
us with his research andtheories about acquisition-based
learning andcomprehension-based learning.
All of our lessons really thrivewith the idea of comprehensible

(08:00):
input and using that in eachsegment of the lesson so that
the learner is understanding thelanguage that they hear.
You're putting it in contextfor them to understand it.
And then the idea of gettinglots of communication with that
comprehensible input.
And then, of course, the ideaof doing play-based instruction

(08:23):
for young learners.
Of course the idea of doingplay-based instruction for young
learners we talk a lot about inour teacher trainings being
developmentally appropriate forthose young learners, and one of
the things that that means isthat they do not need explicit
grammar instruction.
It's not really developmentallyappropriate for them, but they

(08:44):
can gain an inherentunderstanding of many
grammatical concepts throughthese other methodologies.
And then, as I mentioned before,the Waldorf foreign language
approach really informed some ofour teaching too.
What's really neat about thatapproach is it's less concerned
with meaning, with comprehension, and it focuses more on the

(09:08):
idea of the emotional content ofthe language and how, yeah, and
how young learners are reallyable to connect to the language
just through the sounds and thefeeling and the emotional
content of it.
And we have found that that'sreally true with, especially
with, really young learners likepreschool students.

(09:29):
You know you can do verse andrhyme and music with them and
they don't really understandwhat they're singing.
And they don't need to, becausethey're making a connection
with the language through thesounds of the language and
through the beauty of thelanguage and it's really fun to

(09:49):
think about that idea.
I think, just yeah, bringingthe sounds and the beauty of a
language to a young learner.

Speaker 1 (09:57):
That's a really valuable perspective to think
about too, because we know thatchildren under 10, even over 10,
they love rhyme and they reallyrespond to rhyme, rhythm,
anything to music, and you kindof always wondered why,
especially if they're able tospout out these long verses that
they might not know what thewords are.
And on the other hand of thattoo, with some of the teachers

(10:19):
that I've worked with that arein 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 whostruggle to spend a lot of time
in the target language withelementary learners because they
think like, oh, that's, they'renot developmentally there yet
for that.
Do you ever encounter that whenyou're working with teachers

(10:40):
and teacher trainings of youknow like, well, let's just do
the calendar because that's whatthey're ready for, and we'll
sing a song about the calendar.

Speaker 2 (10:47):
Yeah, for sure.
You know it's kind of adaunting thing to think about
staying in Spanish, staying inthe target language, throughout
your whole lesson.
In our teacher trainings wetalk about one of the best
practices for the SonrisaSpanish curriculum, which is a

(11:08):
recommendation from Actful, isto use the target language, use
Spanish, at least 90% of thetime in your lessons.
And our lessons are formatted,they're designed so that this is
achievable.
But we talk about taking thatleap of faith and really trying

(11:28):
to do that.
And you know, comprehensibleinput helps with that, structure
helps with that.
And you know, one of the thingsthat we mentioned to teachers
too is hey, you know you'reteaching Spanish.
The best way to do that is tospeak Spanish and to do all

(11:48):
these different activities thatyou're doing in Spanish.
And you know, one of the thingsI wanted to touch on from your
previous question too, is alsothis idea with young learners of
play-based learning and justproviding lots of different
activities, so you're coveringdifferent modalities of learning
.
So, for example, with ourlessons, you know you have music

(12:12):
, you have role play, you havegames, you have stories,
authentic Spanish literature,and you have art projects, and
you have art projects and youhave drama, and so it's taking
all these different activities,having comprehensible input in

(12:34):
those different activities andthen having communication happen
in all those differentactivities.
It's amazing how much groundyou can cover, how much
communication you can get withstudents through this diversity
of activities and how a lot ofthat becomes natural Because
really you're just, you'replaying, you're doing all these

(12:56):
different age-appropriateactivities, you're communicating
in Spanish throughout andstudents have that opportunity
to acquire the language.

Speaker 1 (13:06):
I would imagine, with something that already sounds
that fun, like if you'reswitching activities every 15
minutes and doing something likefirst we're going to do a
storytell with this cute stuffyand then we're going to play
dress up and somebody's going tobe this character and that
character that they get to focusin the kids are focusing in on,
like they have so many visualsto work with as you're talking

(13:30):
to them in Spanish that they'renot as intimidated by what you
might be saying or even focusedin that much on it.
They're just here to play andif you're requiring that they
play in Spanish, they're goingto be right there along with you
.

Speaker 2 (13:43):
Totally.
Yeah, we talk about that allthe time.
Is you know if you are in thatmode?
You know, students don't reallyeven think about that.
They're learning Spanish.
They're just having fun.
They're just doing all thesedifferent activities in Spanish.
But again, it does.
That takes a lot of intentionand a lot of planning behind it.

(14:04):
It's not like you can just gointo a classroom with a group of
intention and a lot of planningbehind it.
It's not like you can just gointo a classroom with a group of
kids and start speaking Spanishand playing games.
You know there is all thatintention and planning behind it
.

Speaker 1 (14:13):
Yeah, and I'm sure they're going to need a lot of
scaffolding too, so that it'seasier for them to be with you
on that.

Speaker 2 (14:20):
For sure, and something you said made me think
too, that another big part ofit, and which is a big strength
of the Sonrisa Spanishcurriculum, is structure.
Yeah, essentially, what you'redoing when you have a consistent

(14:43):
structure is you are making thelearner feel comfortable and
feel safe in their learningenvironment, and we know that we
want students to take riskswith language.
But in order to take risks,feel comfortable.

(15:17):
They feel safe, so they cantake risks with the language,
and we just feel that it's areally important part especially
with something like a secondlanguage class, a foreign
language class, which can bereally intimidating for some
students to have that structurewhere they feel safe and
comfortable.

Speaker 1 (15:40):
It just is a huge benefit to their learning
process.
So, with structure, does thatmean to you and when you're
working with other teachers aswell I'm imagining somebody like
who's in a K-8 program doesthat mean that if they maybe see
their kids three times a week,that they're using similar
classroom routines every timethat they see them?

Speaker 2 (16:02):
Yes, exactly All of our lessons have the same
routine, the same structure.
For our elementary classes it'scircle time, story time and art
time and you do that in everyclass.
Now, within that structurethere's a lot of diversity of

(16:24):
activities but you have thatstructure 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 ourlessons follow that and you

(16:44):
know, for some teachers who wantmore diversity, maybe they're a
little challenged with that,but we really try and reassure
them that, hey, this issomething you know, especially
with this language class, thatcan really help.

Speaker 1 (16:58):
And circle time is something that's already so
familiar for elementary studentsthat now you're taking
something that they already knowhow to do, kind of like we
would I would do in a highschool classes.
This is a show you've alreadyseen.
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

(17:19):
with.
You could talk about forever.
That's like a whole.
Nother podcast is the power ofstory time you could talk about
forever.
That's like a whole notherpodcast is the power of
storytime.
But would you say that withyour elementary learners and
your middle school learners?
This is something I feel likeyou could especially dive deep
into, because they're so readyfor storytime and they're very
engaged in storytime.

(17:40):
This is like big timeopportunity here to get a lot of
good input.

Speaker 2 (17:46):
Yeah, so we like to talk about using a method called
shared reading, which you know.
Probably anyone out there thathas ever read stories to
children has done shared reading.
Shared reading is reallynothing more than the listener

(18:17):
being able to hear a fluentspeaker use tone and expression
and inflection to bring thestory to life.
And shared reading is alsobeing able to use the story to
extend your interpersonalcommunication.
Now, what I mean by that isyou're never going to take the
story and just read it fromfront to back and call it good.
You're going to use that storyas a tool to get more

(18:38):
communication with your students.
So you're going to pause fromtime to time throughout the
story and ask clarifyingquestions about the story, ask
questions about theillustrations, and this can be
so effective.
You can get so much morecommunication in.
And it's also beautiful becauseyou can differentiate your

(18:59):
communication with learners atdifferent levels.
You can ask those very beginnerlevel students simple yes or no
questions about the story orabout the illustrations.
Those more advanced learners,you can relate the story to
their daily lives or to theirhome lives.
So, yeah, the story time partis a huge part of our lessons

(19:21):
and you know we the storybooksthat accompany our lessons.
We've chosen them based onelements that lend to that
effectiveness of communicationand comprehensible input.
So all the storybooks in ourcurriculum have things like
vivid illustrations that conveythe meaning of the text, verse

(19:44):
that includes I'm sorry, textthat includes verse and rhyme,
like we talked about earlier,text that is repetitive and
stories that have familiarthemes for young learners.

Speaker 1 (19:57):
Oh, I already feel more relaxed just hearing that,
because I know that's a hugechallenge for middle school and
elementary teachers is like Iknow I want to use real books,
but which ones do I select?
That's huge.

Speaker 2 (20:08):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (20:08):
So you have this nice foundation working with young
learners for elementary school.
Tell us about going into middleschool Spanish and this very
unique group of learners thathas all of these strengths and I
feel like get reallymisunderstood in the language
teaching context.
So tell us about what are somethings as you were working on

(20:30):
this middle school curriculumthat you now have with Sonrisas
levels two and three that coverboth of those.
What are some things that younoticed were some common issues
with middle school Spanish andhow did you get into that realm?

Speaker 2 (20:46):
Yeah well, through the years of, you know, selling
our curriculum to elementarySpanish teachers, we realized
that we needed something forthose upper grades, because
usually we found that whenstudents got to about fifth
grade or sixth grade dependingon the curriculum, curricular

(21:10):
programming at their school andwhat they were used to, but
generally around those gradesthey would start to not connect
to that mode of instructionwhere you were doing circle time
, story time and art time.
Essentially they think it'slittle kiddie stuff.

Speaker 1 (21:26):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (21:27):
So they were no longer really interested in that
and so we knew we needed todevelop something for those
older learners.
And so we knew we needed todevelop something for those
older learners.
It just so happens that inabout when was it 2006, I did
take a high school Spanishteaching job and first time ever

(21:47):
teaching high school and theteacher that was there before me
had been there for 30 years, avery traditional type teacher.
But just in her last few yearsof teaching she went and got
trained in TPR storytelling andit revolutionized her teaching.
After decades of teaching in avery traditional direct

(22:08):
instruction kind of strict way,she just got opened up to this
whole new way of teaching.
So she recommended to me that Iget trained in TPR storytelling
to continue what she had beendoing with those high school
classes.
So I did.
I thought it was brilliant, Iloved it.
I started teaching it in thishigh school class, worked really

(22:30):
well, and then the light bulbkind of went off.
Oh, maybe this could work wellfor those older elementary and
those middle school students too.
So, as well, they wanted to doa multi-age fifth through eighth

(22:57):
grade class and I thought,great, that sounds awesome, I'll
do that, and so I did that andwhat I did is I kind of adapted,
I did more of.
I did the TPR storytelling, butI continued some of the things
from our levels one and twocurriculum, some of the calendar

(23:19):
type activities.
I continued doing TPR and wecontinued to do role play and
anyway it worked really well.
And so then that gave us theopportunity to author some of
those lessons and bring thatforward for the middle school

(23:41):
Spanish and adding that to ourelementary Spanish and really
thinking about getting a fulllike K through eight scope and

(24:05):
sequence, articulated sequencefor instruction for K through
eight.

Speaker 1 (24:09):
Oh the dream.
So many people ask that, sothat's awesome.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
So many people ask that, sothat's awesome oh yeah, yeah,
yeah.
So with these sixth through,eighth graders what?

(24:32):
Did you notice were some youtalked often about with Sun
Resist that the structure isreally relying on routines to
make kids feel safe.
So what do sixth through eighth?

Speaker 2 (24:36):
graders need to feel safe when you're doing
instruction with them.
Yeah, as we know, probably yourbiggest issue with middle
school students can be simplyput as hormones, right.
But what that means is you knowthey'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

(24:59):
know, uncertainty and maybeinsecurity there with those
learners right, and so, again,the structure can be really
helpful, just to have, I thinkthe idea of continuing that
structure in middle school isreally helpful for those
learners.
But then there's also anelement where you know they

(25:20):
still want to have fun, butthey're ready for a more like
concrete learning style.

Speaker 1 (25:27):
Oh yeah, that's a good way to put it.

Speaker 2 (25:29):
Yeah, and they're ready for more intellectual
learning, really intellectuallearning, really.
In those elementary grades, youknow, students aren't really
learning in an intellectualstyle, and what I mean by that
is they're not studying rules,they're not studying grammar,
they don't need to, it's notreally developmentally

(25:49):
appropriate for them.
But when those students getinto those middle school grades,
you know they're ready now formore of a concrete intellectual
learning, the how and why ofsome of these.
You know, if they've hadinstruction in Spanish through

(26:09):
the elementary grades andthey've gained an inherent
understanding of a lot ofgrammatical concepts, well then
in those middle school gradesthey can start to learn the how
and why of many of theseconcepts that they already
understand.
And it's actually we didn'treally talk about this before
Devin, but I want to mentionthis because we did develop a

(26:35):
methodology that guides thedifferent way, the different
levels of our curriculum work.
We call it acquire, develop,learn, and each of those words
corresponds directly to eachlevel of our curriculum.
So what that means is that inSonrisa's level one, we're
giving students the opportunityto naturally acquire Spanish

(26:58):
much as they would their firstlanguage, through all these
age-appropriate fun games andactivities where there's lots of
opportunity for communication.
Then in Sonrisa's level two, wetake that acquired language and
we develop it.
We take that acquired languageand we develop it.
We develop it by adding morecomplex performance targets to

(27:27):
the lessons and by adding apartner time segment to the
lessons where students begin tointeract in a peer-to-peer mode.
And with levels one and twothere's no explicit instruction
in grammar.
As I've said, it's not reallydevelopmentally appropriate.
So it's not until Sonrisa'slevel three that we weave in
explicit grammar instructions.
So students now begin to learnthe how and why of many of these
concepts that they alreadyunderstand from levels one and

(27:50):
two.
So acquire, develop, learn.
That's the sequence, that's theprogression through our whole
curriculum that really guidesthe way that the they're curious
, they're ready to think aboutlike why does it look like that?

Speaker 1 (28:17):
I've been seeing it like that, and now they're ready
to explore a little bit of whatthat development could look
like for them.
So, with that in mind, what aresome of the routines that I
know?
You mentioned that they startgetting into peer-to-peer mode
and partner time, so tell us alittle bit more.
I'm curious about what theseroutines look like in the level

(28:40):
two and then to the level three.
What are the classic routinesthat you're training teachers on
for that age group?

Speaker 2 (28:46):
Yeah Well, the level two continues with that same
structure from level one, withthe circle time, story time and
art time, with the addition ofpartner time.

Speaker 1 (28:57):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (28:58):
Yeah.
And then level three iscompletely different in
structure.
No more circle time, story time, art time.
As I said before with thoseolder students they start to
think that's little kiddie stuff.
So instead of that the lessonsare organized into thematic
units.
Yeah, and every unit has 10lessons, and so part of the

(29:25):
structure is in each unit.
Those 10 lessons always followthe same sequence.
So the students becomecomfortable with this sequence
of lessons in each unit.
And what that sequence is isthat in the first lesson of
every unit we introduce acultural theme.
There's a cultural reading thatstudents can either do

(29:46):
individually or the teacher cando as a whole group, and then
there are guiding questions forthe teacher to have a discussion
about that cultural theme.
So we put the culture right outin front at the beginning of
the unit.
Then in lesson two of each unitthe teacher teaches a grammar
concept, and this is much moreof an old school direct

(30:08):
instructional style.
She's in English, teaches thegrammar and then the students
get the opportunity to practiceit in a grammar exercise.
But then in lessons threethrough eight the majority of
each unit the students can usethe grammar because it's woven
into a TPR story.
And so for lessons threethrough eight.

(30:30):
We use the TPR storytellingmethod to not only have the
students be able to use thegrammar, but also learn more
vocabulary and phrases and buildtheir comprehension and build
their speaking skills.
I don't know how much yourlisteners are familiar with TPR

(30:50):
storytelling, but it's just soeffective for that middle school
group.
Because, number one it's superfun.
Number two, it's reallyengaging because the students
are coming up with the detailsto the story, so they start to
take ownership of the story, sothey get really engaged with

(31:12):
this.
They love it.
They're like, oh wow, this isour story.
And then, number three it'sreally good for retention of
vocabulary and phrases andconcepts because it's their
story and because you have a way, when you do this method, of
really trying to latch on to themost sort of bizarre and funny

(31:34):
details that are done in thestory.
The students love that and soyou can get these crazy stories
going Um, and they just thinkit's so funny.
And again it's almost likethey're back in that play mode.
They're playing with thelanguage in this storytelling
experience.
They're creating these details,they're taking ownership of it,

(31:55):
and I can't remember what yourquestion was and if I answered
it.

Speaker 1 (32:07):
Yeah, that's it.
Routines about what middleschoolers really respond well to
and you really hit it on thehead there with the.
They're responding well to waysto engage and interact with
language.
That's really fun and gets tobring out, you know, the stuff
that they love about class whichis making sense and being the
center of attention.

Speaker 2 (32:21):
Yeah, and I think you were.
You were asking me too about howyou 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 TPRstory, in lesson nine of each
unit, the teacher teaches acommunication strategy which

(32:42):
these are things that helpstudents bridge the gap between
language and culture, Thingslike getting meaning from
context, cognates, all of thatkind of stuff.
And then in lesson 10 of eachunit, everything comes together
in both a whole group readingactivity and a partner time

(33:05):
activity.
And then all of the lessonsalso have an introduction
section where the teacher can doan optional calendar routine.
Where the teacher can do anoptional calendar routine,
there's traditional TPR to warmup students and there's a
spelling activity too.
And I have to say somethingabout this spelling activity
because it's so funny to me, butstudents love to like try and

(33:31):
spell words in Spanish.
I mean it sounds funny, but wejust always incorporated this.
It was really my wife thatdiscovered this, where she
started doing a spellingactivity with her middle school
students, and she's like I can'tbelieve it.
They love it.
We turn it into a littlecompetition.
You know, see who can spell theword the fastest they do it on,

(33:52):
you know whiteboards.
Spell the word the fastest theydo it on you know whiteboards.
And then they hold it up.
For me and I think it's justsort of like the novelty of
trying to spell in a differentlanguage, but it's a great way
to create phonic awareness, youknow, and to create awareness of
the alphabet and spelling andpronunciation.

(34:15):
So that's part of theintroduction to those level
three lessons as well.
So again back to your question.
It's structured throughout thewhole unit and that's the way
each unit works.
Each unit follows that samesequence with the lessons.
And again it's about givingstudents that familiarity with
the content, with the sequenceand with the lessons.
And again it's about givingstudents that familiarity with

(34:36):
the content, with the sequenceand with the structure.
I'm just a big fan and I thinkyou know.
I have to mention too that it'shelpful for teachers as well,
because you're not trying toreinvent the wheel, each unit
and each lesson.
You get accustomed to thissequence as well and you start
to get your rhythm with and youstart to get your rhythm with it

(34:57):
and you start to get yourconfidence with it, and so it's
a good thing for teachers, too,to have all that structure.

Speaker 1 (35:03):
Yeah, because you're providing all of the materials
that they don't have to come upwith themselves, and the
routines to follow, so that theyhave the freedom of mind to be
creative when they want to to.
And there's so much creativity.
Many teachers are very creativeand enjoy that aspect of it.
But, like there's so much onthe fly stuff, that happens with
TPR.
But when you have a structurein place of, these are the terms

(35:27):
I want to use.
It's not that scary blank slateof oh my God, what am I doing
today.
It's the.
These are the things that wewant to talk about.
These are the terms that we'regoing to make our story about,
and now the kids get to run awaywith it and be totally creative
with it.
And then you have to this nicecircling back, bringing it all
together, consolidation momentwith what they do at the end of

(35:50):
their routine, with having acommunicative activity that
pairs it.
So it's a nice transition whereyou don't have to think about
how am I going to put all ofthis material together and have
it make sense, which is reallynice to think about.

Speaker 2 (36:02):
Have you?
Sorry to interrupt, but haveyou done TPR storytelling as
well?
I have, I have a little bit.

Speaker 1 (36:07):
I used to do it with high schoolers and I found that
and I was doing it with zerotraining, so I was really just
like flying with it to see howit would go.
I found with my high schoolersthat it's definitely something
that I needed more training withto make it work, because that's
how I felt is almost everylesson.
I was going up and thinking oflike, wow, I have to think of a

(36:28):
lot of things right now.
I have to come up with a lot ofthese ideas myself.
Before you can get into the fun,part of creativity and student
participation is like you saidearlier, there's there's a huge
intentionality and planningpiece to it that, in order to
make it fun for the students andto get that buy-in, you need to
have that, that solidarity,that um spend all that creative

(36:52):
thinking, that brain time as ateacher, you want to spend it on
the actual creation of thestory rather than, like, setting
it up, which can be can bedifficult.
So I have a question, too, thatthat goes along with, when you,
when you work with teachersadopting this curriculum, you
provide a lot of training forthem, which is huge.
So I want to know what are someof the common things that you

(37:14):
find that almost that you wouldsay you've prioritized when
working with middle schoolteachers.
Like, what are the things thatyou know?
Like, oh, we're definitelygoing to be training on this,
this and this.

Speaker 2 (37:27):
Yeah, Well, specifically to our lessons, to
the Sonrisa's level threelessons.
We want to make sure that theyreally understand the TPR
storytelling method.

Speaker 1 (37:40):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (37:41):
Because it is challenging and, as you just
alluded to, it does takepractice.
To that end, we do offer wehave training videos that are
included with the curriculum.
We have training videos thatare included with the curriculum

(38:05):
, but then we also offertargeted individual training if
necessary, because it just ismuch more effective when you go
into it, you know, having alittle 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 thatteachers have to do.
We script in our lesson plans,we script out the story for the

(38:28):
teacher.
What's missing are thosedetails that the students are
going to provide for you.
But yeah, we really try andfocus a lot on that.
But then also, you know, makingsure that teachers understand
that sequence of lessons and howthey can help their students to

(38:51):
feel comfortable with thedifferent.
You know there's directinstruction, then there's the
TPR, storytelling, there's theculture, all these different
elements of it.
Really, it's like a blendedapproach which you know works
really well in that middleschool grade level Because, as

(39:13):
you know, in middle school youhave some students that are
still.
They still are connected tothat younger mode of learning,
and then you have others thatare ready to move on.
Another thing that we've donewith 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 canhave students act it out, or

(39:37):
nowadays, you can have them makelike a video of it or a movie
of it, and they just love that.
They love doing that.
So that's another thing that wetalk to teachers about too,
like how you can extend thelearning by, you know, not just
doing doing the story, but thenletting the students take the

(39:57):
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 communitybuilding and ownership all the
things that you're looking foryeah, an integration of language
.
You know, when they have to takethe language that they've

(40:18):
learned and then integrate itinto you know performance.
That's really, that's reallystrong learning that they have
to do.
That's, you know, synthesis andcreation.

Speaker 1 (40:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (40:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (40:33):
So I would like to know as well with the, with how
you, how you designed thisprogram for with level three for
this age group, there can besome big frustration with big
publishers who are serving thesame age group that I know that
a lot of teachers who are middleschool teachers listening to

(40:55):
this can relate to.
So what are they, how are theycausing problems and what are
some of the ways that we canmove away from that?

Speaker 2 (41:03):
Yeah, I think you know, for me, when I started
teaching high school Spanish andthen thinking about doing
middle school Spanish with thebig publishers, what was most
frustrating was just it wasalmost like they were trying to
do too much.
Because, you know, as teachers,we always you know, we're

(41:25):
always looking for morematerials, more content.
But I mean almost morespecifically, like the way the
lessons are presented.
You get this you know bighardcover book Looks great, it's
got all these differentelements, 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

(41:46):
lesson plan in the book, there'salso like all this sidebar
material where there's materialat the bottom.
You know, after you do numberthree in this part, go to this
you know section and do this.
And just for me personally, itwas always kind of like wow, I
don't even know where to start,like it seems like just like too
much.

(42:07):
And I think a lot of teachershave had the experience where
they get one of these curriculumfrom a big publisher and it's
got all these differentcomponents to it and they end up
doing like one or twocomponents right, they just take
the thing that like makes senseto them or feels comfortable,
and they just do that, and soit's kind of like really sort of

(42:29):
you know inefficient and wastedmaterial.
So when we started thinkingabout, you know, creating our
materials for teachers, we likewe were like we just want this
to be really user-friendly, areally simple presentation, and
that structure and thatconsistency was a big part of it
.
Like, do something where, asthey move through the lessons,

(42:52):
they start to get a rhythm andthey start to know what to
expect and and what to do, andso then within that, they can
use, as you were alluding toearlier, they can use their
creativity and use you knowwhatever to to, you know, make
their learning fun for students.

Speaker 1 (43:10):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (43:11):
Did I answer your question.

Speaker 1 (43:12):
Yes, definitely, because when you're comparing
the two approaches, thisapproach here is a very dialed
in approach where there'sopportunity for exploration and
play because you know what'scoming and you know you don't
have to provide those materialshere, whereas looking at the,
because I know what you meanwhen you know you don't have to
provide those materials here,whereas looking at the, because
I know what you mean when you'relooking at it.
My first experience withteaching was my the middle

(43:33):
school classroom that I was infor my student teaching class,
and it's you get a big textbookthat has all of these options
for you.
And it's also like this dualanxiety of well, I'm never going
to get to cover all of this.
So am I actually teaching thematerial as well?
As?
This somehow feels like it'sfor high schoolers because

(43:55):
they're moving at this pace anddoing so much direct instruction
like more direct instructionthan anybody should ever do,
ever.
And there's not enough of that,that cultural element or that
play element where middleschoolers are that beautiful in
between, where they're exploringwhat it means to be an adult
learner, but they're still kidsand they're in that stage, and
so you need both.

Speaker 2 (44:16):
I agree.
Yeah, you really do.

Speaker 1 (44:20):
Yeah, so with that in mind too, this approach is a
very blended approach of makingsure that middle schoolers get
exactly what they need here.
So I'm sure I'm really excitedabout this whole idea of having
like a K through 8 full scopeand sequence, where students get
to go through the entire likethe full spiral program of the

(44:45):
acquisition and then developmentand then learning.
So tell us more about what thislooks like with this blended
approach in level three.
What are some of the elementsin there and how does it serve
the students that you're workingwith?

Speaker 2 (44:57):
Yeah.
So what I mean when I talkabout a blended approach for
middle school Spanish is theidea of, you know, with our
elementary lessons it's muchmore of an immersion,
acquisition, communication basedmode.
But then with our Sonrisa'slevel three, for those older

(45:20):
students, as I mentioned before,who are now ready for some more
concrete and intellectuallearning, because you're going
to have those students that theywant to learn by learning the
rules and learning the grammarand doing some practice with
that.
But you're going to have otherlearners that are still ready to

(45:40):
just like immerse themselvesand be in that acquisition and
communication mode.
So we thought let's hit both ofthose.
And so, you know, with thecultural part of the lessons,
that is especially somethingthat we have always felt can
more easily be taught in English, simply because the you know

(46:04):
the language that you need touse to discuss culture and to
compare and contrast culturalpractices and products.
It's just, it's just easier inEnglish.
You know Um, so that part, youknow, is in English.
And then the grammarinstruction that occurs.
As I said before, this is muchmore of a direct instructional

(46:26):
style You're teaching thegrammar, you're teaching the
rules, you're going over it andthen students get to practice it
.
But then you bring in, you know, if you want to do the, as I
said before, the calendarroutine, that's still going to
be in an immersion mode.
The TPR is a warm-up for eachlesson mode.

(46:49):
The TPR is a warm-up for eachlesson, that's back to your, you
know, acquisition,immersion-type learning, and
then the TPR storytelling.
That is meant to be more inthat immersion mode as well.
But again, with the TPRstorytelling, you know, a
frequent question I get fromteachers about our level three

(47:09):
is well, can I use it with justbeginner students?
If they haven't had any Spanishin the elementary grades, you
know, shouldn't I be teachingthem Sonrisa's level one?
And I say, well, no, you don'treally want to do that because
the mode of instruction isn'treally designed for those older
learners.
The answer is that, yes, totalbeginner learners can use

(47:33):
Sonrisa's level three.
The reason is is because youhave this splendid approach.
Some of it is in English, butthen the part that is not the
TPR storytelling, as youprobably know from having done
it, part of the method is thatyou pre-teach all of the
vocabulary and you write thevocabulary on the board.

(47:53):
The students write thevocabulary in their notebooks.
So they are working withvocabulary and phrases that they
understand or that they canrefer to, and so that's really
helpful.
And so that's really helpful.

(48:23):
The TPR storytelling is just soeffective at building that
comprehension, building thosespeaking skills, acquisition
type learning with the wholegroup reading, which is in
Spanish, it's la lectura, that'spart of lesson 10 of every unit
, and then the partner timeactivity, that is, students are
back in the peer-to-peer mode,interacting in an interpersonal

(48:45):
mode of communication tocomplete some task, and then
many of the partner timeactivities have a presentational
component to them as well.
So with those partner timeactivities we're getting the
three modes of communication in,with students in that
peer-to-peer mode where they'redoing the interpretive mode, the

(49:08):
interpersonal mode and thepresentational mode.
You know, a lot of the lessonsin the curriculum that we
developed came not only directlyout of our own teaching but
directly out of our ownexperience of learning language,
but directly out of our ownexperience of learning language.

(49:28):
And for me as a languagelearner, I did really well with
rules and with grammar and withbeing able to take those and
then translate them and use themin a communicative mode, and so
it just made me think.
You know, there are learnerslike me out there that don't
want to always be in thatimmersion mode.
So let's give them a blend.

(49:50):
And so, bringing it back aroundto your question, you know
that's why we thought thisblended approach would be really
good for middle school Spanishand for our level three
curriculum.

Speaker 1 (50:04):
This is something I think the world language
community could do a lot betterwith is this understanding that
there are learners withdifferent needs and, yes,
research first but also teacherswho are functioning in a
rigidity model of either likeentirely immersion or entirely
direct instruction.

(50:25):
Rigidity in nature often meansthat 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 natureof teaching as well as the
different students that you'regoing to have in your room.
So something that we've seen inthe proficiency world in the CI

(50:45):
space is that, as it's becomingmore popular, people get really
excited about like well, thisis the only way, and the only
way that I'm going to do thingsis entirely in this manner, or
entirely input driven, whereyou're going to need to hit on
all the different elements tohit all your different students
exactly where they're at.
And it feels to me like with myvery limited experience with

(51:06):
middle school, you're going tohave to elaborate on this that
you're going to get the wholekit and caboodle with ages six
through eight, like studentschange every day as they're in
the classroom and need differentthings.
There's going to be days wherethey're going to hound you all
day long on, like why does theverb do that?
And there's going to be otherdays where they don't care at
all and all they want to do isplay.

(51:33):
And there's going to also bedays where they just want to.
They want to listen to a storyand interact with you and ask
you a lot of ridiculousquestions about your personal
life.

Speaker 2 (51:37):
And then the next day they're not going to care at
all.

Speaker 1 (51:39):
You know, like the they, they change so often that
you need something that's goingto serve all different levels of
where they're at, and rigidityis just not going to work in
there.
So, with your experience withteaching middle school and then
developing this curriculum formiddle school kids, what do you
think is one of the mostimportant thing that you would

(52:03):
ask middle school teachers to bedoing in their classrooms?

Speaker 2 (52:10):
Good question.

Speaker 1 (52:11):
I know I gave you this one on the fly.
This is a surprise one, butI've been thinking about it Like
there's a lot of key points totake away from this.
But middle school really is itsown special deal.

Speaker 2 (52:20):
Yeah Well, so your question is what would you be
asking middle school teachers todo?
Well, I think you know,piggybacking on what you just
said, one of the things is justbeing open, right, being open to
exploring different ways toteach and exploring different

(52:43):
ways to have your studentsinteract with the language,
exploring different ways to haveyour students interact with the
language, and just being opento trying different
methodologies.
You know TPR storytelling.

(53:04):
I don't really have a good feelfor how people feel about it in
the larger you know, worldlanguage teaching community.

Speaker 1 (53:08):
It's still very popular?

Speaker 2 (53:09):
Yeah, I think so.
I think, you know.
I think some people maybe thinkit's kind of fringe or
something or that it's just toounorthodox For me.
Again, going back to just myown experience, I like things
that work, I like things that Isee results with.
I like things that I seeresults with, I like things that
I see students connecting with.

(53:30):
And when I first got thattraining in TPR storytelling and
I started using it withstudents and I saw the reaction,
I saw the connection, I saw thelearning that occurred, I still
have students coming back to menow, you know from when I was
teaching in 2006, that say, oh,remember that story we did in

(53:52):
Spanish class, or they remembertheir Spanish name, you know, or
whatever.
Anyway, you know, directinstructional things for the
grammar and for the culture andfor the communication strategies

(54:15):
, but also adding those otherelements in the introductory
part of each lesson where youcan do calendar time, you can do
TPR, you can do spelling, andjust having teachers be able to
have those options to see whatworks with their students,
because it's going to bedifferent with every class, as
you said.

(54:35):
Yeah, those kids are haywireand so they're different every
day.
So the real answer to yourquestion, I think, is just you
know teachers being open, whoopsOpen to you know teachers being
open, whoops open to you knowtrying different things and um,
but it can be really helpful tohave you know this structure,
have things sort of done for youthat also offer you know

(54:58):
different, different ways thatyou can take your class.
Um, I hope I answered yourquestion.
I'm not sure.

Speaker 1 (55:04):
Definitely, because if you're, if you're approaching
class with a plan and you havea structure, but you're also
open to where that structurewill 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 upwith a lot of material or best
ways to approach what a seventhgrader needs in the middle of

(55:27):
the community Like you've gotthat covered for them.

Speaker 2 (55:30):
I want to add one other thing to my answer.
Yeah, and that is, you know,also being really honest with
students and I think with middleschool, you don't really have
to do this with younger learners, school students being really
honest with them about the ideaof taking risks with the
language and how your classroomis a safe space to do that and

(55:54):
that if somebody messes up,we're not going to make fun of
them.
And being honest with themabout your own learning.
Saying, hey, I haven't alwaysbeen fluent in Spanish.
I had to learn too, and I usedto mess up all the time.
And when I first went to my youknow, the first Spanish
speaking country I visited Ifelt to learn too and I used to
mess up all the time.
And when I first went to my youknow, the first Spanish speaking
country I visited, I felt likeI didn't know anything, and I
was.
It was so hard to talk and bythe end of the day I was

(56:16):
exhausted, just trying to thinkof what I was going to say, just
to buy a loaf of bread orwhatever that is.
And you know telling them aboutthat and saying, hey, we're
going to have fun.
Learning language is fun.
You have to take risks and youknow helping them to understand
and I think when you do that andwhen you set expectations
around that it sort of opensthem up because the rest of

(56:39):
their middle school experienceright.
They're all so on edge.
They feel like they're gettingjudged.
They're maybe judgingthemselves.

Speaker 1 (56:48):
Yeah, invisible audience is so real.

Speaker 2 (56:51):
Yeah, yeah, and so you know it's trying to create
this environment where, hey,this is something totally
different from your math classand from your science class.
This is language.
We're going to have fun, youknow, and language is fun and
you're going to be openingyourself up to a whole new world
.
If you can speak anotherlanguage, you can make different

(57:13):
kinds of friends, you know, youcan communicate with people all
over the world, et cetera, etcetera.
So you know, being open andhonest 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 (57:29):
That's a really good reminder for all of us.
All right, so my last questionfor you, then, is knowing what
we know now about how you canbest support middle school
students.
How can teachers connect withSan Risas and find out more
about how to use this in theirprogram?

Speaker 2 (57:48):
Yeah, Well, the best thing is to initially visit our
website, sonrisaspanishcom.
There's lots of informationthere.
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 forcomprehensible input.

(58:10):
You can do a search for TPRstorytelling.
We've got tons of content there, lots of useful practical
articles for teachers, but alsoon our website.
If you're interested in thecurriculum, you can request a
free sample from us.
There are big buttons on almostevery page where you can
request a free sample and onceyou do that, we'll get you some

(58:33):
sample materials For our levelthree curriculum.
We actually offer a full unit,so we can send you out the
introduction section to theteacher manual that will explain
how you teach the unit.
But then we'll give you a fullunit of our level three

(58:54):
curriculum and you can take thatand try it with any class.

Speaker 1 (58:59):
Fully set.
That's exciting.
So, go check it out.
All of the information will bebelow this video, too, where
you'll be able to see exactlywhere those links are and you
can go see those pretty shinybuttons for yourself.
Thank you so much, brooks, forsharing with us and illuminating
a lot of important topics aboutthis often overlooked age group
, especially for programs thatare searching for information on

(59:22):
K through eight, because theydo it all.
Y'all are amazing.
I'm so happy to be able tobring this to teachers, all this
useful info that they canbetter get to know their
students and work with themexactly where they're at.
That's developmentallyappropriate and really fun.
I want to do art in Spanishclass.
That sounds great, so thank you.

Speaker 2 (59:42):
Yeah, you're welcome, devin.
Thank you for having me.
This is really fun.
As you can see, I'm reallypassionate about language
learning.
It's been my whole career andyou know it really is a joy to
see children learn language, whywe all do it right.

(01:00:04):
When you see that light bulb gooff, or when they say something
for the first time and reallycommunicate with you, it's just
like, yeah, that's so cool, yeah, so, yeah, thanks for having me
and, uh, great to talk toeverybody out there in the
podcastosphere.
Is that a?

Speaker 1 (01:00:22):
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 partof it.

Speaker 2 (01:00:30):
Okay, you're welcome.

Speaker 1 (01:00:32):
Bye for now.

Speaker 2 (01:00:33):
Adios.