At the beginning of the school year we showed your our Proficiency Bulletin Board with the 4 modes of communication but our Writing section was a little blank. We’ve since found the perfect addition and wanted to share it with you.
Keep reading to download your own cute pictures of this “Campaña contra maltrato/discriminación de letras y signos”. Continue reading
During Hispanic Heritage Month (September 15 – October 15) we will be posting articles 
and information relating to the impact of Latinos in the United as well as looking at their culture from their home countries. Our goal is for Americans to realize that Mexico and other Hispanic countries are more than just stereotypes.
In our last post we gave you a list of over 90 novels appropriate for young readers. But today we’d like to highlight some books that are great reads to we, as teachers. These books heighten our knowledge in regards to some very specific cultural events as well as some general events. Here’s 4 books that you may be interested in… Continue reading
During Hispanic Heritage Month (September 15 – October 15) we will be posting articles and information relating to the impact of Latinos in the United as well as looking at their culture from their home countries. Our goal is for Americans to realize that Mexico and other Hispanic countries are more than just stereotypes.
Today’s post is in regards to exposing our students to the Hispanic culture and lifestyle. One way I like to do this is through readings. The librarian at my school was able to help me put together a list of novels regarding the Hispanic culture, a majority of them written by Hispanic authors. Last year, my students read 2 novels throughout the year. Since I teach a beginning level course, these novels are, of course, written in English.
The best part of these books is that they can relate to the characters in the story. It’s not a lecture, it’s not talking about a group of people; it’s talking about one character that the students get to know throughout the reading. The connection to this character and seeing the struggles they face as well as well as gives them a look into the lifestyle of Hispanics. Many of the themes of the books relate to family, which we know is a huge part of Hispanic culture, but students also discover tolerance, adversity, and other problems that normal teenagers face.
I have personally read several from the list and my favorite is Esperanza Rising, which is also available in Spanish as Esperanza renace, which is about a privileged Mexican girl who must leave Mexico and discover the hardships when she is forced to live on camp with other farm workers. Pam Muñoz Ryan has written several other Hispanic-themed books.
To download a list of books that relate to Hispanic culture, click here. They are sorted by title, and include author’s name and country of focus. Includes over 60 titles at the middle-school level. Try asking your school librarian which books your school has that deal with the Hispanic culture.
Have other books that don’t appear on my list? Let us know in the comments section!
Three quick resources to use during your unit on La Familia:
1) Family Trees (árbol genealógico) : Our most popular post includes downloadable family tree images and flipcharts of Modern Family and The Simpson. Seems like most students aren’t very familiar with the Simpsons as they are Modern Family, but they still make good charts.
(Árbol Genealógico de Modern Family)
2) Zachary Jones provides us with this twiccionario… Continue reading
Edmodo is a educational social media tool. It is just like facebook, but is set up for education so that students can interact with one another on the class page. The teacher can post links, videos, questions, and even quizzes on the class page for students to respond to.
For ideas on how to incorporate edmodo into your Spanish class…. Continue reading
During Hispanic Heritage Month (September 15 – October 15) we will be posting articles and information relating to the impact of Latinos in the United as well as looking at their culture from their home countries. Our goal is for Americans to realize that Mexico and other Hispanic countries are more than just stereotypes.
Our first article comes from NBC Latino and is titled “Poll: 1 out of 3 Americans inaccurately think most Hispanics are undocumented” According to the article:
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“A new poll released by by the National Hispanic Media Coalition and Latino Decisions finds over 30 percent of non-Hispanics believe a majority (over half) of Hispanics are undocumented. However, the actual figure of undocumented Hispanics in the U.S. is around 18 percent, and only 37 percent of U.S. Hispanics are actually immigrants, according to the Pew Hispanic Center.”
However, if you read the comments section of this article (something I don’t recommend) you will still see the negative, racist, and ignorant views of some posters. (Although, sadly, this occurs on almost every online news story.)
So the question is: how do we educate our students about the reality of Latinos in the US?
During the end of the year, I show a ’30 Days’ documentary showcasing the different perspectives on illegal immigration in the United States. I ask my students to pre-journal and post-journal with their thoughts on the topic. Some students change their opinions, some have their opinions confirmed, but they all can view the topic from a different perspective.
One thing that is very eye-opening is actual facts and numbers in regards to latinos and the rest of the US population. You can download our FREE 
Hispanics in the USA lesson that includes information about the Hispanic Population from the 2010 U.S. Census and also information about the Foreign-Born population living in the United States. According to the census, 16.3% of the total population is Hispanic, yet 63% of those are born in the United States. Or using data from the foreign-born population from the 2000 US Census that refute such beliefs that Hispanics ‘don’t learn English’; they do; Of the 43% of foreign-born that speak Spanish, 70% Speak English ‘very well’ or better.
(edit: Updated data from 2014 available here)
What about you? What sort of lessons do you use in your classroom to promote the Hispanic culture and its people?
¡Viva México!
Feliz día de Independencia, México, querido y lindo.
Read our previous Independence Day post or download láminas sobre México.
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In conjunction with my switch to a more proficiency based classroom, I decided to dedicate one of my bulletin boards this year to proficiency levels and the four modes of communication.
The main bulletin board I used for the Listening and Speaking sections, Escuchar y Hablar. For each section, I copied the ACTFL descriptors of a novice learner and a intermediate learning, since these are the ranges my students will be in. I also included the capabilities at Novice-Low, Novice-Mid, and Novice-High for each. In the middle are 3 motivational posters. Continue reading
I start my 8th grade class off with a lesson about Animals in Spanish. Animals is one of the topics that students really enjoy but you don’t see it included in many textbooks or early levels, so it is something that I definitely make sure to include in my curriculum. It is a fun topic where students can learn new vocabulary words and apply past learning for review in talking about animals.
I include about 20 animals for vocabulario. I have these words loaded up as flashcards on wordchamp.com so after the introduction of the words, I display a picture of an animal on the board and ask students “¿Qué animal es?” as they look through their notes to tell me the word. When I hit the ok button, the computer pronounces the word so they get to hear the correct pronunciation. Animals is such an easy unit since many of them are cognates.
One activity that I do is have the students watch the video for “Chocolate” by Jesse y Joy. As they watch the video, when they see an animal in the video, they put a check mark next to the word in their notes. (Objetivo: Identificar los animales en el video)
It’s a fun video and I’ve also used it during the food unit as it talks about many food-related vocabulary words.
The next day, I hand out flashcards in Spanish I’ve accumulated through my travels (1-2 per student). They read the description of the animal and write down any cognates they find. If you don’t have cognates, you can look up animal descriptions on Wikipedia Español:
I then have them do a small project where they have to describe an animal. I allow them to pick one of the animals they have or they can create a new animal by combing the two. (For example: vaca + tortuga = tortaca”) Or you can have them create their own superhero using the animal, since many are already based on animals: Spiderman= Hombre de Araña. Batman= Homre Muerciélago. I give them some vocabulario adicional to use in their project such as patas, volar, poderes, cola, etc.
Lastly, I also have a variety of libros en español that I lay out on the counter for students to read through. But my favorite is called “La vaca que decía OINK” por Bernard Most. I have the students sit on the floor and read them the story, hamming it up. The students enjoy the feel of sitting in a reading circle much like they would do in the primary grades.
This is a pretty easy lesson to put together. But if you are in a hurry and want to implement the lesson now, we’ve done all the work for you. You can get the whole unit which includes: 
-26 Vocabulary Words Listed
-1 page Animal Project
-3 pages of pictures/clipart
-1 Page of 17 Questions
-1 Multiple Choice Quiz
all for less than $2. Quite a bargain, if you ask me.
Recursos Adicionales:
-Esta actividad de “mascotas” de Zachary Jones, Twiccionario de mascotas.
-Estas tira cómicas de Macanudo por Liniers:
I used this comic as a bell ringer. Asking: Using the cognate in the text and using the context of this picture, what do you think la mosca is saying? You can follow up with questions such as: ¿Qué es el cognado? ¿Cuántas rana hay? ¿Cuántas moscas hay? ¿Cómo se llama la mosca?
And this is another fun one:
Check out all our resources for an Animal Unit in Spanish Class.
Mafalda y Condorito
In addition to being funny, the comics Condorito, Mafalda, and Macanudo can offer a great insight into the Hispanic culture and language. Mafalda, drawn by Quino (Jauquín Salvador Lavado) is a national symbol in Argentina. Condorito, the pride of Chilean comics, is brought to us by the mind of Pepo (René Ríos).
But today, we’d like to take a look at another Argentine comic. On a recent trip to South America we happened to pick up a collection of Macanudo comics at a local bookstore and not long after reading, we were already craving more and purchased several books online.
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Macanudo is one of the more creative and original series we have seen in a long time. It combines ingenious wit and thoughtful insight to come up with delightful and hilarious strips. Macanudo is a creation of Liniers (Ricardo Siri).
Liniers, who draws himself as a rabbit (see picture, right), has created characters such as los Pengüinos, El misterioso hombre de negro, Enriqueta y su gato Fellini y su oso de peluche Madariaga, y el chico Martín y su imaginación Olga, and Z-25 el robot sensible, among many others.
For how to use these in your Spanish class and some sample strips…
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