SpanishPlans.org

Lo curioso de cultura

Posted on March 29, 2014 by spanishplans

Besides teaching how to communicate in a language, world language teachers also teach about culture and share our experiences from living in or visiting other countries. These stories also seem to fascinate the students. Students get to see how things work outside their own community and around the globe. Naturally, our inclination is to compare the unknown to our own experiences. However, I make sure to advise the students of their word choice. Many students question how things are done in other parts of the world and their first reaction might be: “That’s weird.” weird different Weird has a judgement to it. I want my students to be accepting of other cultures and understand that things are not going to be the same as in the United States, because it is not the United States. Other cultures might deem what we do as “weird”, but that is our culture. Different is a not a bad thing.

Here are some example of cultural differences that my students have found interesting. Share your stories in the comments section below and we can all learn together.

1. Do you want gloves with that?
Eating Chicken with Gloves in Colombia Stopping for lunch one day at a Colombian chicken Continue reading →

Posted in Culture | Tagged Colombia, costa rica, culture | 3 Comments

March Madness in Spanish Class

Posted on March 26, 2014 by spanishplans

I saw a tweet with a “Tournament of Books” in relation to the NCAA Basketball tournament that is going on right now in sports. I asked my PLN on twitter on ideas on how to incorporate this idea in the WL class.

I already have my students following a La Liga Spanish team, and we will do a World Cup unit before the end of the school year, so I wasn’t necessarily looking for something sports related.
Within minutes I had a response from ‏@senordaves : “Best Spanish artists? Musicians?”

Of course! I play music all the time in class. My students know I am a huge fan of artists Jesse & Joy and Juanes. I could put together a “Sweet 16” bracket of songs that we have listened to in class. I can have students fill out their brackets at home. Each day, we can preview 2 songs and class and poll the students to see which song they like better. At the end of the day, when all classes have voted, we have a winner who advances to the next round!

You can find a blank bracket with 16 spaces and fill in your own songs. [Update: @senordaves found a great online bracket maker.]

In the meanwhile, I’ve created a bracket of 16 Juanes songs.
Post your picks in the comment below. Which song do you think will go all the way?

Update: We’ve decided to have a 12-song Bracket this year. Download it yourself. We created a playlist on youtube where students can watch/listen to the songs and then write 8 vocabulary words for each song. Here’s a FREE PDF.

If you want an editable version, check out our Foreign Language Music Lesson product.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged connections, juanes, music | 7 Comments

Cesar Chavez Day

Posted on March 16, 2014 by spanishplans

March 31 is Cesar Chavez Day. cesar chavez stamp

Here are some resources to teach your students about this important American.
Cesar Chaves quote

Same video in Spanish.

Youtube also has a PBS documentary “Chicano: Stuggle in the Fields.” My students already have some knowledge of the farm workers’ strike by reading the novel Esperanza Rising.

Check out tons of images including quotes related to César on Pinterest.

Or end Women’s History month with a unit about The cofounder of the NFWA, Dolores Huerta.

César Chávez: Lucha por los trabajadores del campo por Eric Braun is a graphic novel that teaches about this legendary American and his fight for workers’ rights in a comic book format. You can find new and used editions on Amazon or buy new from the publisher.

Capstone Press publishes other graphic novels in Spanish. You can check them out here. How engaging for your students to read about topics in a comic book format with a lot of dialogue!

Know of other resources for Cesar? Post them in the comments section below!

Posted in History | Tagged cesar chavez, Holidays, novels, Spanish readings, youtube | Leave a comment

Authentic Reading

Posted on February 28, 2014 by spanishplans

In my advice unit, I usually have kids write a letter to “Dear Abby” asking for advice. Well, when we happened upon an Advice section from the Mexican teen magazine Tú, we hit the jackpot on authentic readings. We have pulled out 7 extracts from the text and added in a vocabulary section and several questions for students to answer. This reading can be adapted for ANY level, by adapting the task you ask students to perform.

For more information on buying issues of the magazine, read our Revista Tú post. For an ready to use, adaptable powerpoint, check out our resource on TpT, (and if you buy today, get 10% off at checkout by using promo code “TPT3”. Check out all our available resources here and stock up at discounted rates)

Posted in Resources | Tagged advice, authentic resources, consejo, Spanish readings, tú | Leave a comment

Teaching Commands through Context

Posted on February 26, 2014 by spanishplans

I used to give students a handout of a graphic organizer for making the positive and negative tú commands. I would first go over the rules for making the command form and go over the irregulars with them. Then, I would give them a chart and have them write the positive and negative commands themselves.

I am so glad I found a better way to engage my students and expose them to language in context. With the help of Pinterest and image search, I compiled images of commands being used in actual context! Many of the images were funny/punny: what better way to engage the students? Now, I show them the images and have them fill in the chart. So when they see these two images, they can figure out what they mean and which is a positive command and which is a negative command.

Continue reading →

Posted in Lesson Plans | Tagged authentic, authentic resources, commands, context, graphic organizers, images, mandatos, memes | Leave a comment

Prounciation Assessment

Posted on February 4, 2014 by spanishplans

Last week, we wrote about how to get our students to improve their pronunciation. And as promised, here is our example script with sample audio by a native speaker.

We decided to take excerpts from Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address in Spanish. Students do not need to be familiar with the words in the text, because the purpose is to work on letter sounds, not comprehension. I decided to choose this particular text because many of my students also had to memorize the speech for their LA/LIT class, so I thought having this same text across curriculum areas would be a good tie-in for a students. You could also use poems or songs in Spanish.

Below you can listen to the recording done by a native speaking from Colombia and Spain, respectively.

Check out the 4 steps on how to use this as an assessment.

Posted in Speaking | Tagged assessment, google voice, pronunciation, rubric, speaking | Leave a comment

America is Beautiful

Posted on February 3, 2014 by spanishplans

Who would have thought that a television advertisement for a soft drink would have such a strong message, that it would make a wonderful message of teaching tolerance? That’s just the case with this Coca Cola Super Bowl 40 commercial titled “America the Beautiful”. In the commercial, several young ladies sing a version of “America the Beautiful” in their heritage language.

The video itself is amazing, but the commentary by the young girls about the project is just as great. These young girls are able to articulate what makes America such a great nation. They have an understanding about what it means to be an American that, unfortunately, some adults don’t even have.

Watch this playlist as these girls sing the song in Spanish, Tagalog, Hindi, Senegalese-French, Hebrew, Mandarin, Arabic, and English.

After showing the original commercial, I had a discussion with my class. Many adults (and therefore children) believe that everyone in the United States needs to speak English. We must remind them that the United States has NO official language. Continue reading →

Posted in Lesson Plans | Tagged America, english, foreign language, language, tolerance | Leave a comment

Speak American

Posted on February 2, 2014 by spanishplans

There seems to be something about sporting events and songs that honor America that brings out twignorants; people who post ignorant tweets. The last time, it was a a baseball game and a Mexican-looking person (not a real thing, by the way) which we wrote about in Land of the Free and Home of the Ignorant. Before that, it was an 11 year old American boy with brown skin and a mariachi costume singing the National Anthem at a basketball game that worked up people.

And now, it wasn’t even part of the actual sporting event, but rather a commercial during the Super Bowl.

If you are reading this, I’m sure you will think that this is an awesome commercial, and if you are a teacher like me, will probably be showing it to your classes.

Of course, that lead to many people taking to twitter with outrage and demanding that people “#SpeakAmerican“. Continue reading →

Posted in Culture | Tagged America, igorance, language | 1 Comment

iPad Apps for Practicing Vocabulary

Posted on January 28, 2014 by spanishplans

Pic Collage
Pic Collage is a free app where students can create a virtual corkboard. This works as a great tool to present vocabulary. Students can import images from their camera roll, or the site has an imbedded internet search for images which is incredibly helpful.

And you can add fun “stickers” for decoration. You can then add text. To the right is a picture posted by Jiménez es con Jota for school supplies. I created the below image for Fruit vocabulary in less than 8 minutes.
Skitch
I saw this image circulating around Pinterest from Tiempo De Español and it got me thinking.What a fantastic way to practice labeling vocabulary! I have my students create their own monster for body parts, but how easy would it be for students to label their own picture for any unit? For the body part unit, they could find a picture of their favorite cartoon character and in less than 5 minutes have a visually stimulating vocabulary list. You can edit photos by adding text, circling, highlighting and more with the free iPad app Skitch. This will only markup images. You need a premium account to be able to markup PDFs.

What are some of your favorite Apps to use with Vocabulary? Share them in the comments below! And come back later to SpanishPlans.org where a future post will be about using apps for communicative purposes! In the meantime, check out our other iPad resources for Spanish class.

Posted in iPads, Vocabulary | Tagged apps, food vocab, iPad, partes del cuerpo, vocabulary | 2 Comments

Improving Pronunciation

Posted on January 27, 2014 by spanishplans

Improving spanish pronunciation
Using Google Voice I have made it a goal to assess my students’ pronunciation once every trimester. Students like the activity, and numerous parents have told me at conferences they love the assignment as well, and love listening to their son/daughter reading in Spanish. And it is an assessment that is designed for students to make improvements.