The Pre-Story Phase

There are many who begin using CI storytelling on the first day of instruction. I have done this before, and I can confirm that it is feasible to do so. However, I don’t recommend this for The Beginning Storyteller. I have found that helping learners build a small foundation of high frequency vocabulary better prepares them for their first short story. I use student-generated content to build community, which has the added benefit of increasing learner buy-in when we get to our first story.

In my opinion, the key to developing a learner's basic vocabulary is to put yourself in their shoes. Can you remember what it was like to learn your second language? When a student has very little to no background in L2, every word is new to them. Even cognates don't always register, especially when they process them aurally.

Consider the information coming the learner's way. Obviously, they hear the whole word, but their brains are processing phonemes, accent, tone of voice, etc. To make the learner's life easier, go slowly and focus on adding just a few words at a time. This will ensure that they pick up the vocabulary necessary to start telling more complex stories.

Before we examine a few ways you can start building a learner's vocabulary, let’s look at the most important technique you can master as a Beginning Storyteller: orbiting.

Orbiting: Tangential And Circular Questions

It is far easier to pick up a new language or learn a new skill if you make it a game. It causes learner to relax and to lower their guard, what Krashen terms the “affective filter”. The game that I play with students involves asking a bunch of questions and having students answer them as a class. I call this technique orbiting because it reminds me of the Apollo 13 spaceflight that saw astronauts using the gravity of the moon to slingshot them towards earth. Many people call this “circling”, and I will often use the terms interchangeably.

Whatever you call it, the idea is simple: by asking a range of similar questions, learners are forced to process the language and to respond out loud. In essence, this is a giant structured input task. The steps to this technique are as follows:

• 1. Begin with a statement in L2 that contains vocabulary that you want to target.
• 2. Ask a question about the statement that has an affirmative answer.
• 3. Ask a question about the statement that has a negative answer.
• 4. Ask a question about the statement that has options to choose from.
• 5. Once most students are on board, ask an open-ended question that will enable you to move on
• 6. Repeat the answer from step 5, ask a new question whose answer will become our new target sentence, and begin again at step 1.

Each time you reach the last step of the process, you are spiraling outward from your initial statement and expanding the scope of language available for learners. The key is to keep the spiral tightly wound at first to prevent your students from drowning in incomprehensible language. Expand the orbit once most students feel comfortable with the target sentences.

With each new set of questions, you are spiraling outward from your initial statement and expanding the scope of input available to learners.

This is the most important skill The Beginning Storyteller can learn for CI storytelling. You are piloting a spaceship and learners are on board. Each statement you make is a planet or moon that you will orbit with questions until learners are familiar with it, and then use its gravity to slingshot you to the next one.

Consider the following example:

Let's break that down further.

Step 1: Begin with a statement in L2 that contains vocabulary that you want to target.

I want an elephant.

This statement is simple and consists of three main elements: the subject, verb, and object. Keep this sentence in your mind since it is the only thing you should worry about as you work through this cycle of questions.

Step 2: Ask a question about the statement that has an affirmative answer.

Do I want an elephant?

Here I am simply rephrasing the target statement as a question. You are trying to see if learners can answer the question in L2.

Step 3: Ask a question about the statement that has a negative answer.

Do I want a cow?

You can pick any part of the sentence to orbit. In our example we are orbiting the object because my aim is to target the phrase 'I want', which is repeated in every question throughout the cycle.

Make the word "cow" comprehensible by drawing one, showing a picture, translating on the board, or mooing like a cow. I prefer the last option because I'm a dork and I am not afraid for anyone to know it.

Step 4: Ask a question about the statement that has options to choose from.

Do I want a cow, a chicken, or an elephant?

Giving learners a list of options to pick from will snap them out of the routine of just answering 'yes' and 'no' that is so common for beginners. I always accept “yes/no” answers, but it's nice to hear them saying other things. As before, be sure to make the word "chicken" comprehensible (drawing, picture, L1 translation) if the word "Chicken" is un familiar.

Step 5: Ask an open-ended question to move on once most students are on board.

Who wants an elephant?

This is an open-ended question that uses 'who', but could be any of the six main question words (who, what, when, why, where, how). These questions wrap up the line of questioning and will get us back to the original sentence.

Step 6: Repeat the answer from step 5 and ask a new question whose answer will become our new target sentence. Begin again at step 1.

That's right. I want an elephant. Do I want a big elephant, or do I want a small elephant?

Repeating the first target sentence wraps up the first, and this new question is the slingshot action that will move the CI spaceship to the next planet (target sentence).

Notice how we start with a sentence and then dance around that statement with tangential questions. That is, each question touches the original sentence, but comes at it from a different angle.

One mistake The Beginning Storyteller often makes while orbiting is just going down the list of question types in order. In other words, they always ask a “yes” question first, followed by a “no” question, then an “either/or” question”, and finally an open-ended question. See the example below:

I am a tall man.

Am I a tall man? (Yes)

Am I a short man? (No).

Am I a short man or a tall man? (A tall man).

Who is tall? (I am).

This will produce a predictable line of tangential questions, that learners will pick up on quickly. Unfortunately, learners that hear a pattern of questions will stop processing CI. It takes little time for learners to pick up on such a pattern, at which point they just give the next answer in the sequence. This is only logical because their brains are looking for the path of least resistance. But we do not want learners cutting off this source of CI, since this limit their acquisition.

You can avoid this pitfall by mixing and matching the different kinds of questions you ask. For example, you can chain together three "yes" questions in a row, followed by an "either/or", and then two "no" questions. Or perhaps you ask one “yes” question, five “no” questions and two “either/or” questions. As a Beginning Storyteller, I hung a poster like the one below in the back of the room that I could reference to help me remember to use different kinds of questions and to change up the pattern frequently.

Download Orbiting Poster

Student output in this example is limited, and that's the point. The idea here is that they receive copious amounts of CI, not that they produce in this instant. Obviously, if a learner is able to produce you can encourage that, since production in L2 is our ultimate goal. But most learners will shut down after a one-word answer at this phase. This is perfectly natural and even to be expected. It's not a problem, either. Learners will begin to produce when they are ready, and it does little good to force them.

Orbiting is challenging, especially for The Beginning Storyteller. It really helps to watch a video of someone doing this. When I first learned about this, I must have watched the same YouTube video a hundred times, even though it wasn't nearly complete enough for me to get the hang of this technique. Make sure you watch the video demonstration of this technique above. You should internalize this process so well that you don’t have to think about the mechanics. Orbiting is much easier when you focus on the message you are communicating and let the questions bubble up from your subconscious.

Another tip is to make a list of sentences and practice orbiting them in front of a mirror. After about 100 solo reps, you will be pretty good at orbiting. A little confidence goes a long way.

The First day of Class

Now that you have an understanding of orbiting/circling, we can look at ways to build up a foundational vocabulary for learners. Although I mostly discuss the syllabus, expectations, and how we learn languages, on the first day of class. I do make it a point to give a 10-minute demonstration of “how to play the game” by talking about myself in Spanish and asking learners questions. It focuses heavily on words like sí yes, no no, soy I am, eres you are, es he/she is, you are, tú you, and yo I, and its purpose is to teach learners the rules of the game. Here’s what a day-one “rules of the game” demo might look like:

At this point I generally end the demo and explain to learners that if they were listening with the intent to comprehend and were answering my questions out loud, they were doing everything they need to do to be successful in learning to speak a new language. Although day one allows only for this brief example, it sets expectations and allows learners the chance to feel what it's like to mentally process the language in a comprehensible context. Norming the class on the “rules of the game” is the main purpose of this demonstration, but introducing this vocabulary is also a huge benefit.

Days 2 - 5

On days 2-5, I can review vocabulary from day one and expand to use words like the following:

I always start out with examples about myself and use orbiting to expand the spiral of questions to include students. A good example of this can be found above in the section about orbiting. Almost every quarter, I tell my new students that I want an elephant, but I am sad because I do not have an elephant. It’s a ridiculous premise, but this humorous absurdity comes out of left field and disarms the learners’ defenses.

Some instructors don’t feel comfortable being a little bit wacky, and that is totally fine. You do you. If you are uncomfortable with being ridiculous, pick more traditional examples. Maybe you want a friend, money, or a dog. The most important thing is to teach the essential vocabulary. That said, humor is a powerful tool for disabling the affective filter.

After a bit of orbiting around myself and my own examples, I slowly expand my flightpath outward to include students. This allows me to compare and contrast my haves, wants, and feelings with theirs. Sometimes there are similarities, which allow me to insert “we” and “they” forms into the orbiting. Sometimes there are differences, which make the conversation far more interesting. How boring the world would be if we were all the same!

It does not take long for learners to build up the vocabulary necessary for us to tell a basic story. After about a week of this, I generally feel comfortable enough with learners’ budding abilities to begin storytelling.

A powerful language acquisition technique is developing a routine. I always dedicate a tiny portion of my classes for routine items, bits of language that I want to target every day. This part of the days lasts for only around five minutes and is highly repetitive in nature. Each day I ask students a question and then we go about answering it as a class. As we get better with the material, I begin asking for volunteers or picking victims to answer the question, always helping them out if they get stuck.

Once I enough students have answered the question reasonably well, I consider that item acquired. It is now fair game to use in stories and in other CI tasks. The next day I will ask a new question that we can use as a routine item for the foreseeable future.

If you remember back to my scope and sequence from the previous lesson, you'll remember that one of my desired student outcomes is that students be able to communicate the date in L2. For leaners to accomplish this, it means that they need to acquire days of the week, months, and numbers 0-31. I might spend 10 minutes on the first day going over all the required vocabulary, but from then on, I try to compress this timeframe as much as possible. Our time together is precious, and it would be a shame to waste too much of it today on a routine item that will get another rep tomorrow.

Developing a routine for targeting "boring" vocabulary is a remarkably efficient system for growing a learner's initial vocabulary, which makes the transition to stories much more enjoyable for everyone.

A Student-Driven Curriculum

we can look at ways to build foundational vocabulary in the Pre-Story Phase. One such way is via student-generated curriculum. This is great for the instructor because the students automatically come up with things they find interesting and want to talk about. On the first day of class, give students a piece of paper that they fold in half to display on their desk. Have them write their name in big letters. Then, next to their name they draw some activity that they do every day. On the back, they draw an animal that they have or want to have. It is critical that learners be the ones driving curriculum to start the year. They want to talk about themselves more than they realize or would care to admit. Focusing on them will build community and increase buy-in dramatically.

Just recently I started asking learners to record a six-second video of themselves doing another activity they do often. This has proved to be a gold mine for orbiting and personalized CI. They come up with such compelling videos that give us loads to talk about.

Starting on day two, use the orbiting technique outlined above to have comprehensible conversations about various students in the class. Have a checklist of students and put a checkmark by their name after you have talked about their animal or activity. This way you go through the entire class and give each person a chance to speak with me in L2 in a low-pressure situation. This builds confidence and gives learners a small set of acquired (or at least familiar with) vocabulary with which to work.

Vignettes

Another way to prepare learners for full stories is by doing vignettes in L2. Start with a simple sentence like "There is a man" and use our orbiting technique to flesh out a brief description of this fictional person. This can take 10-20 minutes using our tangential questions. You could turn this into a full-fledged story, but the point is to familiarize learners with some descriptive vocabulary.

Total Physical Response (TPR)

People have been using gestures to communicate for millennia. In the 1970s Dr. James Asher took this further by articulating the idea of Total Physical Response (TPR). Tying a gesture to the meaning of a word makes it much more accessible to learners, and it gives us the instructor a way to refresh their memory just by doing the gesture.

Some people use TPR at the beginning of the year to pre-teach a bunch of vocabulary that they can then use for stories. I used this strategy for exactly one quarter because students seemed to burn out on it, although I may not have given it enough time, or I may have introduced too much vocabulary at once. Honestly, I’m too scared to try the long list of TPR vocabulary again, so now I exclusively use TPR to pre-teach only a handful of phrases before telling each new story.

I now use TPR exclusively to pre-teach a handful of phrases before telling each new story.

Now you are ready to begin the storytelling phase.

At the end of the Pre-Story Phase, you want learners to be familiar with some high-frequency vocabulary. Not everyone will have acquired all these words, but that's fine. The vocabulary will be recycled, both naturally and intentionally, throughout the course because it is so frequent. With small foundation of essential vocabulary, learners are now ready to begin hearing more complex stories, which are inherently more interesting to them.

Lesson 2 Worksheet

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