Paul McCartney in Mexico

Posted on May 11, 2012 by spanishplans

I love the Beatles and it was a thrill to see Paul McCartney rock out Chicago last summer at Wrigley Field. Since then, Paul has stopped at a few Hispanic countries including taking his “On the Run” tour to México.

April 15, 2012 : Montevideo, Uruguay
April 17, 2012 : Asunción, Paraguay
April 19, 2012 : Bogotá, Colombia
April 21, 22, 2012 : Recife, Brazil
April 25, 2012 : Florianopolos, Brazil
May 5, 2012 : Guadalajara, Mexico (Estadio Omnilife)
May 8, 2012: Mexico City, Mexico (Estadio Azteca: 80,000)
May 10, 2012 : Mexico City, Mexico (El Zócalo)

The concert in El Zócalo was free and an estimated 250,000 people were in attendance to witness once of the greatest artists of all time.

The best part: He was joined onstage by at least a dozen Mariachis for his performance of Ob-la-di Ob-la-da”:

You can hear Paul speaking Spanish in some of the videos posted on youtube. “Dedico esta canción a mi hermanito, George” and at the end of Eleanor Rigby shouted “Viva Mexico, cabrones!” to the delight of the crowd.

I mentioned last week to my students about Mexicans listening to American songs and they were shocked that they listen to songs in English. The typical reaction was “Why would you listen to something if you can’t understand it?”, which is ironic considering they love listening to music by Juanes and Jesse & Joy even though they don’t understand every word. Good thing Mexicans can “wishwashear”, which is a term used for when a Mexican sings an English song without knowing the lyrics.

Why Mexico City Still Has Beatlemania (English)

The Beatles’ No. 1 fan? Mexico (English)

Paul McCartney complace a 60,000 “chilangos” (Spanish) (Mexican newspaper: El Economista)

La noche de Paul McCartney en el Zócalo (Spanish) (Mexican newspaper: Proceso)
Sir Paul McCartney hipnotiza la tierra azteca (Mexican newspaper: La Crónica)

Posted in Culture, Music | Tagged beatles, música, mexico | Leave a comment

More Than Sombreros

Posted on May 6, 2012 by spanishplans

Understanding the Mexican culture can be a hard thing to do in America. We are fighting against the abundance of stereotypes that exist about our neighbors to the north. Sombreros. Serapes. Cactus. Siestas. Tequila. Donkeys. Maracas. It doesn’t help when commercial companies promote this type of thinking as well. Have you been to your local Party store? Go find the “fiesta” themed section. Received a catalog from Oriental Trading company? How many sombreros do you need? See a commercial for a Cinco de Mayo sale? Time to order Tequila and Coronas. As Sudie Hofmann posts in this article on the Zinn Education Project, the intention is to honor and celebrate Mexican heritage and culture, but we sometimes aren’t as informed about what that is as we should be.

After seeing a sombrero-style cookie picture pinned hundreds of times on Pinterest, I decided to add some captions to it:
To this end, I decided to tweet some actual information and facts about Mexico and Mexicans so that we start to see them as more than just sombreros. You are welcome to join us on twitter and post with hastag #MoreThanSombreros

Costa Rican astronaut 1st Hispanic in Astronaut Hall of Fame @TheTicoTimes #MoreThanSombreros

The beautiful Salma Hayek started her career as a actress on telenovelas in Mexico. #MoreThanSombreros

Mexico ranks 14th worldwide in Gross Domestic Product, GDP ($1.2 TRILLION). It is a country and culture that is #MoreThanSombreros

5 Influential Mexicans http://www.gameplanforlife.com/2011/05/04/top-cinco-5-influential-mexicans/ Their contributions show that Mexicans are #MoreThanSombreros

Diego Rivera, one of Mexico’s renowned muralist, painted history of Mexico, his work accessible to all people. #MoreThanSombreros

Javier Hernández aka Chicharito, plays for Manchester United, 1 of greatest teams in England futbol. He wears the #14 jersey. #MoreThanSombreros

Mexicans can come in all skin, eye, and hair color. Yes, even blonde and blue eyes. #MoreThanSombreros

Instead of visit to restaurant for tacos and margaritas, how about educational trip to museum. http://www.nationalmuseumofmexicanart.org/ #MoreThanSombreros

Carlos Slim, a Mexican, is the richest man in the world. He wears a suit. #MoreThanSombrerosmaracas y serapes

Mexicans: 60% Mestizo; 30% Amerindian; 9% White; 1% other #MoreThanSombreros

Mexico introduced chocolate, corn, and chilies to the world. #MoreThanSombreros

Mexico is the only country to host 2 FIFA World Cups (’70,’86), the world’s largest sporting event. #MoreThanSombreros

Mexico was named after the name of the Aztecs, Mexicas (meh SHEE kahs) #MoreThanSombreros

Salsa is not just something you eat with chips. #MoreThanSombreros

50.5 Million Hispanics live in the United States (16.3% of population) #MoreThanSombreros

Post your own, or if you don’t have twitter, leave a comment below and we will post it for you!

Posted in Culture | Tagged cinco de mayo, culture, Mexicans, stereotypes | 4 Comments

Cinco de Mayo Pledge

Posted on May 4, 2012 by spanishplans

Today in class, I made the students repeat the following Pledge at the end of class. I shook their hands as they left the room.

Cinco de Mayo Pledge

I hereby declare that I recognize September 16th as Mexico’s Independence Day. Furthermore, I declare Cinco de Mayo to be an American celebration and am aware that it is not celebrated nationwide in Mexico. I know that historically, it was one battle against the French. I pledge that I will do my duty as an enlightened American to inform the ignorant of this knowledge.

Posted in Culture | Tagged cinco de mayo | 4 Comments

Teacher Appreciation Jackpot

Posted on April 30, 2012 by spanishplans

Teacher Appreciation Jackpot!

Next week is Teacher Appreciation Week, and Sunday, May 6th is sure to be your lucky day! I’m excited to announce the very first Teacher Appreciation Jackpot, an amazing “blog hop” event involving over 130 education bloggers! Continue reading →

Posted in Free | Tagged contest, free, giveaway, teacherspayteachers, TpT | Leave a comment

Cinco de Drinko

Posted on April 25, 2012 by spanishplans

Take a look at the above calendar of Mexican Holidays. Take a closer look. What’s missing? Mexico’s America’s favorite holiday: Cinco de Mayo. Or as they refer to it in Mexico: Cinco de Drinko. That is because Mexicans get a good laugh at the Americans who believe Cinco de Mayo is an important Mexican holiday and celebrate it by drinking their max of margaritas.

For the real meaning of Cinco de Mayo, read our posts from last year on this American celebration: 5 things you didn’t know about Cinco de Mayo and Why we shouldn’t celebrate 5 de Mayo.

But since many teachers continue to celebrate this date as the day they teach about Hispanic Culture, we hope to provide some resources that all teachers can use to make learning meaningful.

1. Check out our 10 Misconceptions about the Spanish language and its Speakers

This FREE Powerpoint has 10 True/False statements with an explanation for each answer. Great lesson for any age/subject.

Do you know the following answers? You might be surprised.
1.Spanish is spoken the same everywhere.

2. English is the official language of the U.S.

3. New Mexico was once part of Mexico.

4. Everyone in Mexico speaks Spanish.

5. Cinco de Mayo is Mexico’s Independence Day.

6. U.S. has a larger Spanish speaking population than Spain.

7. A person who speaks Spanish is Spanish.

8. A Mexican can be blonde, blue eyed.

9. English is more common than Spanish worldwide.

10. Taco Bell is Mexican food.

2. For cultural images please see our Hispanic Country/Culture Board on our Pinterest page.
If you are on Pinterest you may have seen a version of this picture going around, we just made a new commentary for it…

3. 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, which is 43% growth since 2000. This rate of growth is a reason why Hispanics are projected to account for 30% of the population by 2050.

4. Check out the Trending Topics in Mexico on Twitter on May 5th and you can read what Mexicans really think about the “holiday”. Just change your Trending location to Mexico, you can even choose Mexico City or Monterrey. We will be posting our favorites on this site as well.
If you are a tuitero, post a fact about Mexico using the hastag #MoreThanSombreros

5. This article by Sudie Hofmann, titled Rethinking Cinco de Mayo, talks about the stereotype images of sombreros, cactus, chile peppers, and maracas and the insult it does to an entire population. Very good read.

6. To see images of real authentic Hispanic food, you can purchase our Mexican Food Powerpoint, right now at a special price of $0.99. ComidaMexicanaPowerpoint Great lesson for Spanish classes.

Do you know what a torta is? What is on a Mexican taco? Can you make juice out of tuna? Is mole a small mammal or a chocolate sauce? See examples of all of these foods and more.

7. And if you are interested in Mexico’s actual Independence, we encourage you to read our post on el Deiciseis de Septiembre, where you can stock up on materials for next September, including these FREE laminas/posters with details on El Grito and other Independence information.

Finally, we’d like to offer another comparison to the celebrations of Cinco de Mayo. Last year, we compared Americans celebrating 5 de Mayo to a Mexican celebrating a victory by the Confederacy in the U.S. Civil War. Both the Confederates and the Mexicans went on to lose the war they were fighting in.

This year, we want to talk about regional holidays. Cindo de Mayo is a regional holiday celebrated in the area of PUEBLA, Mexico. For the rest of Mexico, there is no celebration. There is no day off of school. There is no parade. Many states in the United States have their own regional celebrations/holidays as well. The people in Illinois may know what Casimir Pulaski Day is, and in fact, may have a day off a school. In the 49 other states, you’d be hard pressed to find someone who knew who Pulaski was. Now, imagine if the country to our north, Canada, celebrated Casimir Pulaski Day as a huge “American” Holiday and if most Canadians thought it was our Independence Day. How would that make you feel? What would that make you think of the Canadian people who celebrate it?

Algunos Tuits Tempranos:
Continue reading →

Posted in Culture, History, Lesson Plans, Resources | Tagged cinco de mayo, culture, hispanic, Holidays, latino | 5 Comments

El Cuerpo

Posted on April 24, 2012 by spanishplans

During the unit on teaching El Cuerpo in Spanish class, I had students create their own monster bodies. They were to label 12 body parts and then present their monster to the class describing the body, and telling us what the monster likes to do and what it can and can not do because of its body. For the complete lesson, which includes over 35 questions to ask the student as a part of their presentation, click here.

Some student examples:

And for some reason, I have a closet in my classroom so I decided to hang up the “Monsters” in the closet. For those that don’t happen to have a closet, you could use the inside of your supply cabinet, a bulletin board, or just tape on the wall.

¿Tienes miedo tú de los monstruos? ¿De niño, pensabas que había monstruos en tu closet?

Don’t forget to check out our previous post on teaching a body part lesson using Mr. Potato Head. If you liked this post, feel free to “Pin” any of the pictures on this page to Pinterest.

Posted in Lesson Plans, Resources | Tagged body parts, cuerpo, drawing, partes del cuerpo, presentations | 4 Comments

El Clasico

Posted on April 21, 2012 by spanishplans

If you have soccer fans in your classroom, they will undoubtedly know all about the big game this weekend between Real Madrid and Barcelona. Dubbed “El Clásico”, this game is as big as it gets in Spain. For information about el Clásico, see this wikipedia page. When these two teams play each other, everyone is watching, in what is considered the most anticipated game of the year. Lucky for us, they meet at least twice each season; home and away in La Liga. Meetings in other tournaments such as Copa del Rey and European Competition are additional bonuses. Over 218 matches played between the two clubs, the teams have tied 46

Learn more about Spanish Futbol with this La Liga Webquest.

times, with Real Madrid being victorious 88 times and Barcelona winning El Clásico 85 times. These games are also big statements in winning the league that particular season, as these two clubs are almost always at the top of the league standings.

The competitive nature of these two clubs is more than just a fútbol game as Barcelona represents the Catalan region and Madrid was granted use of “Real” by the Spanish Crown, and was favored by Spanish dictator Francisco Franco.
Check out these infographics detailing the best players of both teams.

Click to enlarge or PIN IT

Click to enlarge or Pin It

Also check out the Mexican Clásico between top teams América and Chivas:

Click to enlarge or Pin it

Surely, being prepared to talk about this game on Monday will spark many of your students’ interest!
Para leer unos tuits sobre #ElClasico… Continue reading →

Posted in Culture | Tagged Barcelona, El Clasico, futbol, Real Madrid | 3 Comments

De Que Me Sirve La Vida

Posted on April 10, 2012 by spanishplans

As I mentioned in yesterday’s post about “Tengo Tu Love,” today we listened to Camila’s song “De que me sirve la vida,” a single from their 2010 album “Dejarte de Amar.” It worked as a great activity for students to put the lyrics in order as the song goes at a relatively slow pace that students are able to keep up with. After I made copies of the lyrics, I used the paper-cutter to cut several sheets at a time, but only to the margin so they wouldn’t all mix together. I then took one sheet at a time and made the small cut to gather all the lyrics from only 1 sheet so I could gather them in a paperclip to hand out to the students. Although each student probably would have been able to do this activity on their own, I had them work with partners, so I didn’t need as many sets. You can download my sentence strips here, with teacher copy in proper order and student copy in random order for students to cut out themselves.

At the end of the lyrics, I told that it would repeat again except for the first two strips. That way they could double check their answers or put in any strips they missed. At the end, I projected the lyrics, which almost all students had correct anyway.

We then proceeded to watch the music video, which has a great message. If you haven’t seen it, I suggest watching it now:

After the video, we talked about the message of the video about being accepting of others, and standing up for people. I think this is a great video for teaching tolerance and it also tied in nicely to our recent unit of positive and negative commands.

However, the video flashed those “posters” quite quickly, probably too quickly for a novice learning to be able to read and/or understand. I have taken screen shots of a majority of the posters and compiled them.

The first set of pictures is a majority of the signs; whether is be someone stating a problem, talking about self-worth, talking about how someone else views them or treats them. Also includes the signs from the second set.
The second set of pictures include posters that “da ánima” or enouragement to people. Most are in a command form (mainly informal, affirmative and some negative).

If you want the actual powerpoint, each “sign” on a page, so you can pick and choose the “signs” you want to use, you can download the item for free here.

Posted in Music | Tagged camila, música, Songs, tolerance | 7 Comments

Canciones de Sie7e and Camila

Posted on April 9, 2012 by spanishplans

Today in class, we started with the song “Tengo tu love” by Puerto Rican artist Sie7e (Siete). To start off, I had the students listen to the song and try to write down any names of Spanish or English language artists and also any infinitives. You can have students listen for any particular type of word. It gives the students a meaningful task to focus on listening for something specific.

Then I showed the official video, which is an entertaining video, and I also had up a lyric video so students could see the actual lyrics. To do this, I opened two windows in my internet browers, found the video, and then re-sized the screen so they both fit. I muted one of the videos and away it went. You can see both videos after the jump. After the video, I asked students what country Sie7e was from, and a few were able to tell me Puerto Rico. They were able to recognize the Puerto Rican flag in the video. I also pointed out the use of the word “guagua” which Puerto Ricans use instead of the word “bus”.

To start tomorrow’s class we will be listening to Camila’s song “De que me sirve la vida”. This time, I will print off a lyric sheet and cut them into strips and put the strips into envelopes. Students will work in partners to put the strips in order. You can download my sentence strips here and see the videos after the jump. Continue reading →

Posted in Music | Tagged camila, canciones, música, music, sie7e | Leave a comment

Music Bulletin Board

Posted on March 14, 2012 by spanishplans

In conjunction with one of my recent assignments, which students seemed to enjoy, I decided to put up a new bulletin board on the theme of music. I play música quite a bit in my classes and dedicating a tablón de anuncios was something I’ve been thinking about for some time.

Album Booklets

I used the CD album booklets as well as articles and pictures from magazines that I’ve collected over the year. If your school library has a subscription to People En Español, that’s a good place to start. I also bought some pop-culture Spanish posters drawn by MartinMRochaArt.com including this Adele poster, which students loved! Many students also enjoyed the Beatles posters.

I then made a poster asking students ¿Qué es tu canción favorita?” with a column for Spanish songs and English songs. It allows students to share their own interests and allows them to connect their world with the Spanish speaking side. I hung this poster right next to the bulletin board. Students are sure to be checking this out before class to see what type of music their peers listen to.