And the winner is….
I had the students fill out a survey as part of the voting process and here’s a few key notes: Continue reading
Whether you are starting at a new job, opening a new school, opening a Spanish department, or just getting ready for next year, lots of teachers are looking for suggestions of what are must haves for teachers. If have a budget to spend for your department, here are some suggestions:
Curriculum:
Technology:
1. Computer Projector or Document Camera
2. Digital Recorders
3. Earbuds for students
4. Music Player (Stereo) or Speakers for Computer to play audio activities
5. Teacher Account for Quizlet.com Continue reading
March Music Madness 2016 is just around the corner. We are ready for another fun competition where songs go head-to-head to decide a winner.
This years bracket features 16 songs and we’ve broken them down to 4 categories: Bachata, Pop, Rock/Urbano, and Salsa. We avoided songs from our favorite artists Juanes and Jesse & Joy, which we listen to quite frequently. The tricky part was also to find new, hip songs with appropriate lyrics. We avoided any songs with overly sexual lyrics.
Here is our bracket: Continue reading
I used Martina Bex’s La Criatura story with my level 1 class a few weeks ago. The next day we continued that story to explain what happened to the “criatura”/science teacher. We were able to recycle so many vocabulary words that we had already been using.
With permission from Martina, we are sharing our follow up story.
To use this in your classroom:
Continue reading
Our theme of creepy movies used during MovieTalks continued with the 2:50 video from P
ablo Conde titled “El Monstruo del Armario”. (We’ve also used Alma, and a video I call Toc-Toc) This movie worked well after students had created their own 
monsters, labeling the body parts. I have an unused closet in my room, so we have our own closet full of monsters in our classroom, which made this movie a nice tie-in. For this video, we were able to recycle structures such as “ve”, “quiere dormir”, body parts, and focus on new structures such as “tiene miedo”, “cree” and “está asustado”. For more resources related to body parts, health, and feelings, check out the section on our resource page with links to all our blog posts sorted by theme.
For a ready to use lesson using this video, check out our 3 day lesson, which includes a sample story, questions, and screenshots for students to re-tell the story.
If you are looking for more videos to use for MovieTalks, check out the MovieTalk Databases listed on our Collaboration post.
Amor is the most used word in Spanish pop music, followed by vida, día, noche, and corazón.
We recently took the lyrics from Jesse and Joy’s new album “Un Besito Más” and found the top 50 words that appeared the most times to create this word cloud:
Continue reading
We’ve taken the language out of a few authentic comic strips and used them as a writing assessment for students for students to write the dialogue of ordering at a restaurant.
Take this Condorito comic:
and then have students write their own dialogue:
or check out this edited version with more space to write.
You can also use the original comic as an interpretive reading activity.
Or take this comic from Baldo: Continue reading
Thanks to the internet, you are never a department of one. The free exchange of ideas and collaboration is rampant on the web, with such social networks as Twitter (#langchat) and Facebook (Spanish Teacher Groups).
Google Drive has allowed teachers to create databases of amazing resources. Check them out. Consider it like the old penny tray: Leave one, take one. While we all benefit from the vast resources that are currently available, we would benefit even more if every teacher who used a resources also left one of their own.
MovieTalk Database: In search of a video to use as a movietalk? Want to target specific structures? As of right now, they are 180 entries (and growing). Will you be the one to make it 181?
MovieTalk Database 2: Another list of nearly 100 videos.
Authentic Resources Database: The bottom tab separates the languages, and each page features links to an authentic resource along with an activity.
Target Structures Database: Structures for multiple languages along with ready to use lesson plans.
Spanish Commercials: Find a comercial on youtube
Spanish Recipe Tutorials: Using cooking tutorials from youtube, students can complete cloze activities and rewrite the recipe in their own steps
If you have other databases to share, please add them in the comments and we will add them to this post. If you’ve got an idea for one, start your own!
A shout out to Martina Bex, whose “Eight Days of Hanukkah” encouraged many teachers to add to these database.
If you are looking for some authentic resources for La Navidad,check out our post with includes:
-a template for writing a letter to “Papa Noel” : Carta a Santa requirements
-the letter template: Carta a Santa
We like Jesse y Joy’s “En tus brazos”
Here are some additional resources:
A good music video that would also make a good MovieTalk, is Un Pedacito de Navidad by K-Narias con Jose Feliciano:
Read more for lyrics and MovieTalk ideas
Continue reading
If you are looking for some comprehensible input for your food unit using authentic resources, then we’ve got something for you.
We’ve transcribed a few authentic cooking tutorials in Spanish from youtube that you can use as listening or interpretive reading activities with your students. Students then will re-write the steps to the recipe using their own vocabulary. If at novice level, scaffold the tasks with the students, and have them write very basic steps of the recipe. An intermediate student can write more detailed steps.
Check out our Recipes Cloze that includes 4 cloze activities along with a template for students to rewrite the recipe, such as how to make: Continue reading
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