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English Pop Music in Spanish

Posted on September 8, 2015 by SpanishPlans

What’s better than taking songs that your students already know and enjoy in 10 Spanish Versions of Popular English songs English and listening to the Spanish version? Your students will be fascinated listening to the Spanish version of Taylor Swift’s Shake it Off or other current popular songs.

The best part is that they have previous knowledge of the song, so the song is comprehensible. Although, it can also be a discussion of how the song is not a 100% word for word translation.

Kevin, Karla and la Banda are the most successful artists who translate English hits into Spanish. Check out their Spanish cover versions of Taylor Swift, Ariana Grande, Selena Gomez, Katy Perry, and more!
Listen to the Spanish version of Look what you made me do Continue reading →

Posted in Authentic Resource, Music | Tagged connections, engaging, música, music | 4 Comments

Classroom Scavanger Hunt

Posted on August 27, 2015 by SpanishPlans

Here’s a quick tip to do doing the first week of school: Create a classroom scavenger hunt. I wrote up a half sheet of questions for things for students to look for around the classroom. I included asking where the questions words were located in the classroom, as well as having them find certain information by looking at the bulletin boards and posters, such as the translation for a movie, or the colors of a certain Flag.

This helps students realize that the the classroom itself is also a reference. We teachers spend a lot of time in organizing and decorating our classroom to help students. Using this scavenger hunt, it gets students up and moving, but lets them see the rich resources of information you have made available to them.

Posted in Lesson Plans | Tagged back to school | Leave a comment

Inspire Travel

Posted on August 19, 2015 by SpanishPlans

My theme for my classes this year will be travel, and you get see all our previous posts about this topic here.

Today’s posts offer some images that you can print to use as bulletin board material or frame and hang to add to your classroom decoration.

After creating the word “travel” digitally through maps, we decided we should offer our viewers the Spanish version.
The word viajar is spelled out with a map-font. Click on the image to enlarge.

Our next set was inspired by Continue reading →

Posted in Bulletin Boards | Tagged classroom decoration, decoration, posters, travel | 1 Comment

Classroom 2015

Posted on August 17, 2015 by SpanishPlans

Got into my classroom today and am making some progress on decorating. Wanted to share what I’ve got so far; perhaps an idea might inspire you.

I love using plastic tableclothes for bulletin boards. They are so easy to put up. They cling to the background, I use a pushpin to hold them into place as I cut it perfectly at the edge. And it’s cheap: I pick these up at the dollar store. They will last for several years. Continue reading →

Posted in Bulletin Boards | Tagged bulletin boards, classroom decoration, decoration, travel | 5 Comments

Authentic Resources sobre La Escuela

Posted on August 3, 2015 by SpanishPlans

These authentic resources are perfect for a school unit in your Spanish class or to use at the beginning of the school year.

Check out our experience from working in a Colombian School to compare the US school system with that from a rural community in the coffee region of Colombia.

Pictures of “Back to School” Ad from Colombian store “Exito”:

Continue reading →

Posted in Authentic Resource | Tagged authentic resources, authres, back to school, escuela, school | Leave a comment

Top 5 Reasons for and against Spanish names

Posted on July 28, 2015 by SpanishPlans

One of our more popular posts is about an issue that most Spanish teachers are divided on. I recently asked a Spanish teacher group on facebook if they give their students Spanish names and to give their reasons and the response was split. This post is probably not going to change your mind one way or another, but maybe give you some insight on why other teachers do things, or give you support for the way you do things. I do find that while the polls seem split 50-50, more teachers who do not give names state their reason for doing so.

Below are the top 5 reasons you should and should not give your students a “Spanish name”.
Continue reading →

Posted in Discussion/Methodology | Tagged class names, spanish names, Top Lists | 19 Comments

Facebook in Spanish

Posted on July 7, 2015 by SpanishPlans

We just gave one of our most popular product a huge upgrade. We are quickly approaching 1,000 licenses sold for our Spanish Facebook Profile Project. If you are one of those who already has this project, you will want to log in to and re-download the new version. If you don’t have this project yet, this is a perfect way to start the school year and gather information from your students by having them fill out a Facebook profile with their favorite things.

Along with the 3 page template (Profile, Newsfeed, Notifications), this also comes with a list of Facebook vocabulary (tagging, commenting, sharing, etc.) as well as texting-shorting such as “tmbn” for también and many more!

And to correspond with this re-release, we are happy to say that our Facebook “Me Gusta” stamp Continue reading →

Posted in Projects, Resources | Tagged Facebook, project, projects | Leave a comment

Travel Documents

Posted on June 30, 2015 by SpanishPlans

Now that our students have their plane tickets, it’s time to make sure they have their travel documents with them!

It’s time to have students make their own passport, make sure their VISA is filled out, and carry their ID card with them.
Get our passport covers, passport pages, Colombian Visa, and Colombia ID card here.
You may also want to check out Passport Pages for all 21 Spanish Speaking Countries from Creative Language Class.

And if you are going to use passports, why not get our Passport Stamps?

Continue reading →

Posted in Culture | Tagged countries, passports, travel | 3 Comments

Spanish Instagram

Posted on June 25, 2015 by SpanishPlans

If you’ve haven’t read how to use Instagram in your class, first read this post. Once you’ve set up a class account, we recommend the following accounts below. Once you are following, you can project your feed on the board and let students see the pictures. You can even select one student to use an app such as “Repost” to repost an image to the class account. Encourage students and parents to follow the class account. You can post questions and have students respond on IG or use it to spark a discussion in class.

Travel and Culture:

Amazing pictures of sites of interest in the Spanish Speaking World plus some of the official accounts of the countries’ Tourism department. Continue reading →

Posted in iPads, Web2.0 Technology | Tagged authentic, culture, instagram, travel | 4 Comments

Music Recommendation

Posted on June 16, 2015 by SpanishPlans

Last week, Raquel Sofia released her first album, Te Quiero Los Domingos. If you are looking for some good music to listen to this summer, then you need to check this out.

You may have heard her song “Agridulce” that we featured in our Lyrics Training post.

One of my favorite songs on the album is a jazzy-sounding Te Odio Los Sabados. There is also a reggae twist to the song “Lo que te di”. No matter what style, her voice is amazing.