Today I attended a bridal shower for my nephew's soon-to-be bride. As most showers go, there were several different games having to do with marriage. Although I'm not much for this kind of shower, I am rather competitive and so are the other females of my family, who all sat at the same table with me. When my niece and great-niece bested me, I determined to win the final game.

The hostess brought out a basket that contained 26 items. Our table was first to rummage around in it and try to memorize the items. Yep, out came my TPRS® training!  I started to tell a story about a girl who was hungry.

She ate an

1. apple, which she sprinkled with salt from the
2. rooster salt shaker.  Then she decided she wanted some
3. pudding so she used the
4. measuring spoons and
5. measuring cup to add all the ingredients in the
6. recipe, then mixed them together with her
7. wooden spoon. She poured it into the
8. cupcake liners and scraped the bowl with a
9. plastic spatula. Since she used all the eggs, she put up a
10. refrigerator magnet to hold a note to buy more. While she was waiting for the cupcakes, she used the
11. plastic scrubber to wash the dishes and dried them with the
12. dishtowel. When the cupcakes were done, she used the
13. hot pad to remove them from the oven. She didn't have any icing so she sprinkled them with
14. poppy seeds, then cut them in half with the
15. cake server. She ate the cupcake with the
16. baby fork. This made her thirsty so she made some
17. hot chocolate in her
18. cup. At first, she couldn't find the
19. scissors and she tried to use the
20. cork screw, but it didn't work very well. Finally she opened it and stirred it with her
21. baby spoon.

They called time on us before we could finish forming the story so it ended there.  Almost everyone at our table had more on our list than anyone else in the whole room. Oh, yes, and yours truly was the winner. :o)

Was it due to my wonderful memory? Hardly!  It was due to us all coming together and adding elements of the story. Whenever someone got stuck, you saw them close their eyes and go back over the story in their minds.

In my victory "speech"  I credited the power of the story. It's great that we as language teachers have the opportunity to use the power of the story in our classrooms! Here's hoping you have a fun time with TPRS® and may all your stories be creative!

By the way, in order to foster more creative stories, Chalkboard Productions is sponsoring some creative story writing contests for students. March will be for regular Spanish students, April is for both French and German students, and then in May we'll have two more Spanish contests. I hope this will be a good challenge for your students and an incentive for them to write more in the target language!