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Free teaching resources

Posted on March 6, 2011 by spanishplans

Hello educators,

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-Spanishplans

Posted in Free, Resources, Uncategorized | Tagged free | Leave a comment

Listening Activities and native speakers

Posted on March 1, 2011 by spanishplans

Someone passed along this website to me and it is a great tool for all foreign language teachers. RhinoSpike is an online language learning community tool that lets users around the globe connect and exchange foreign language audio files. Get any foreign language text read aloud for you by a native speaker.

Sign up is free, you can submit text in the language you want it recorded in and include directions on how you want it read. Other users record themselves speaking and upload the audio file to the website for you to download. Teachers helping teachers. Students helping students. Hear how a native speaker would pronounce certain words or texts. Right now there are thousands of request for English recordings and hundreds of requests and recordings of Spanish audio. Japanese, Mandarin Chinese, French, German, Korean, Russian, and many other world languages are also available!

As a teacher, I have used this in my Spanish classroom as part of listening activities. I submitted a short short text, along with a set of questions. A woman from Spain, uploaded these recordings and I was able to download them as an mp3 file and upload them to iTouch for students to listen to individually.

I first have the students listen to the audio track to see how much of the recording they can understand. Then, I have them listen to it again, this time, reading along with a script of the recording.
I then had the students transcribe the questions on a piece of paper. They wrote the questions that they heard. (I had a few notecards with the actual questions so they could check what they wrote to make sure it was correct). Then you can have the students answer the questions using the text.

If you do pronunciation assessments in your class, you can have a native speaker record a script or certain sentences that you will assess the students on. You can upload this audio file to your website and students can download it at home, or even put it on their music players, so they can listen to it as many times as they want and practice it on their own.

For ideas on pronunciation assessments, see below…. Continue reading →

Posted in Resources | Tagged native speaker, pronunciation, rhinospike, speaking, web2.0, webtools, webtools2.0 | 3 Comments

Los Enanitos Verdes A Las 3

Posted on February 24, 2011 by spanishplans

Another song to use in your Spanish class. Includes very easy vocabulary that a student in level one could understand with some help. Includes many common Spanish 1 verbs in the present tense, but also includes conjugations in the past tense as well. The official video clearly shows the song’s theme of immigration about a man leaving his family behind and his desire to be with them. Would be a good song to supplement an immigration unit or just to do as a listening or cloze activity.

Artist: Los Enanitos Verdes
Song: A las Tres
Video Oficial: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RREMRZ8MJMI

Letras:
Sé que muchos no me quieren por aquí
pero no hay trabajo donde yo nací
se termina la jornada
el sol dice hasta mañana
y las nubes se devuelven hacia el sur

Tengo una cama para descansar
y una foto tuya si quiero soñar
voy a serte muy sincero
aunque se gana buen dinero
nunca en mi vida yo sentí esta soledad

Los domingos a las tres
sabes que te llamaré
para mí oir tu voz
es la fuerza, las ganas de seguir

el entusiasmo algunas veces se me va
con la rutina masticando mi verdad
aunque el trabajo sea pesado
yo me la aguanto y no me rajo
es lo mejor que puedo hacer para los dos

los domingos a las tres
sabes que te llamaré
para mí oir tu voz
es la fuerza, las ganas de seguir

Para darte algo mejor
es que yo llegué hasta aquí
a ganar con mi sudor
lo que tantas veces te prometí

The next day, or after the video, I review feelings with them by asking these questions:

edit: We now have a complete lesson that incorporates this song. After showing the music video, have students read a story that describes what happens in the video. Also includes the full lyrics as well as space for a students to write their own version.

Posted in Music | Tagged canciones, enanitos verdes, immigration, letras, música | 1 Comment

Spanish Projects

Posted on February 20, 2011 by spanishplans

7 Ready-to-Use projects for the Spanish 1 classroom. These projects are ready to be utilized in your classroom. Download them now, print the necessary pages, and have your students get to work! These projects can be used as assessments during or at the end of the chapter.

Facebook Profile Description Project
Students will create their own ‘Facebook’ profile page that describes themselves in Spanish. This ‘perfil’ will include students writing about themselves, giving:
name, origin, birthdate, favorite activities, hobbies, movies, tv shows, comments from ‘friends’ and more. Includes list for common vocabulary/terminology used by Facebook.
This projects makes a great review of descriptions that students learn in Spanish 1 and also an easy activity that a sub could do in class. Easy lesson plan. Use in case of emergency with sub or implement into your level 1 or early level 2 class. Although you can even use this in higher levels with ‘past participle” tense.

Doctor Skit (Projecto de Salud) with Rubric for Spanish
This project where students write a dialogue to act out a skit between a doctor and a patient works great with your “Health” (Salud) chapter. The skit (along with its attached rubric) assess students’ application of vocabulary, use of positive and negative commands, as well as reflexive verbs, body parts, and describing pain. This file is a word document so it can be easily adapted to fit your textbook’s requirements for this unit.

Spanish Speaking Country Research Project
Groups will research a Hispanic country in South or Central America. The student project includes a presentation board, map, travel brochure, and flag. Rubric is detailed but this file is a Word file so the buyer can EDIT any part of the project or rubric to their satisfaction.
Students must research their information and cite sources. This project is great for middle school or high school Spanish classes looking to teach about the countries and culture of the Spanish-speaking world.

Family Familia Album / Book Project W/ RUBRIC
Create a book about La Familia. Write descriptions about family members describing what they look like and what they like to do.

Food Project (Level 1) with Rubric
Project allows students the choice of making or performing one of the following: skit, recorded video, interview, comic strip, Children’s book, storyboard, or powerpoint. Great way to differentiate!
Project deals with: Food vocabulary, commands, Direct Objects Pronouns, and restaurant ordering vocabulary.

Spanish Advice Dear Abbey Project
Students write a letter to Abbey describing a problem and then write responses to their classmates with advice. Students can use negative or positive commands in their responses.
Can be used with Health Unit or any other unit where the grammar focus is offering suggestions or giving commands and what someone should do.

Want even more projects? Check out a list of all our projects, plus get them all with one click when you purchase our bundle at a savings of 40%!!

Posted in Projects | Tagged Spanish 1, teacherspayteachers | 2 Comments

YouTube commercials in Spanish

Posted on February 20, 2011 by spanishplans

A great idea over at musicuentos blog….

Youtube is filled with lots of video clips of commercials in Español. For listening comprehension, Musicuentos has come up with the idea of finding Spanish commercials, and writing the script to compile a database for Spanish teachers to use as close activities in class!

Verb Word Wall

Posted on February 17, 2011 by spanishplans

Spanish Verbs Word Wall Bulletin

32 Pages with 2 Verbs in Large Red Font, with smaller English definition in black font.

64 Spanish Verbs in Total. Includes most common Spanish 1 Verbs.
Stem Change Verbs are distinguished with an asterisk and have the vowel that changes underlined.

Makes a great word wall for your Spanish classroom. Simply cut them out and post them in your room. How about putting them under the Spanish Alphabet you have in your room? Or turn that bulletin board into a Verb Bulletin!

Continue reading →

Posted in Bulletin Boards | Tagged bulletin board, conjugation, verbs | 1 Comment

Spanish Powerpoints

Posted on February 14, 2011 by spanishplans

Our Top Spanish Powerpoints para la clase de Espanol

NOTES:

Affirmative Informal Commands Powerpoint Notes

8 Slide PowerPoint introducing and teaching Informal Affirmative Commands / Positive Tú Commands in your Spanish 1 or 2 class
Sure to grab the attention of your students and present this topic with ease. Teaches not only regular commands, but reviews stem change verbs, and teachers the irregular commands (Pon, Ten, Ven, and 5 others)

Expresate Chapter 6 Food Vocab Presentation –

Notes on Food, 23 slides with pictures of food

PROMPTS for Whiteboards/GAMES

Subject Pronouns Practice on Powerpoint

28 slides with a list of names. Click to show the answer of the subject pronoun equivalent. Example) “Becky y tú” –> “Ustedes”
Makes for great practice before a quiz or test on subject pronouns. Students love to answer these on individual whiteboards! Why spend the hour creating your own powerpoint when you can buy this one for around 1 dollar and use it year and year.

Direct Object Pronoun Practice Spanish

Great Review for Direct Object Pronouns (DOP).
I have the students use individual whiteboards to write their answers. There are 21 slides on this PowerPoint with a sentence and the students must rewrite the sentence replacing the direct object with a direct object pronoun (lo, la, los, las).
By clicking on the slide, the direct object will be removed (with a black line) and another click will make the DOP appear.

Ser Estar Practice Review Powerpoint Whiteboards

36 slides, Fill in the blank with correct form of ser or estar

BELLRINGERS:

Spanish Bell Ringers / warm ups / Class starters / Bell work

A Microsoft POWERPOINT slide show of 39 different bell ringer activities to use to start your Spanish class. These Spanish 1 concepts review material and are a great way to get the class started. You can certainly adapt any slide to your own preferences. Includes some culturally rich backgrounds on the slides as well.

Posted in Resources | Tagged powerpoints, teacherspayteachers | 1 Comment

Los Verbos Reflexivos

Posted on February 13, 2011 by spanishplans

When I was a student learning reflexives for the first time, I thought to myself, “Why do these verbs have a ‘se’ at the end? How am I supposed to conjugate these?” A topic I struggled with as a student, I had difficulty the first year I taught it to my own students. I cringed when one of my students, right before the quiz asked “What are reflexives???” Had she not been paying attention the last two weeks (very well a possibility)?? I thought to myself there must be a better way!

The following year, I used this guided note packet which fully explained the ins-and-outs of reflexive verbs. I watch as my students’ quiz scores rose. I saw them being able to use reflexive verbs in their writing. Clearly, they had “got it”. And now I share this enlightenment with all the Spanish teachers out there struggling on how to best teach this difficult unit.

Reflexive Verbs Guided Notes packet
Break down the complexity and difficulty of Reflexive verbs for students through this guided notes packet. This 12 page packet goes step by step and explains the meaning of using the reflexive pronouns and differences in sentences between reflexive and non-reflexive such as “Me baño” and “Baño al perro”. Includes many practice sentences as well as responding to questions. Includes area of graphic organizer for conjugating these verbs.

Used as supplement to textbook Expresate (chapter 7), but appropriate to go along with any textbook.

But why stop at just the introduction? Download the WHOLE 2-3 week unit.

Reflexive Verb Unit Lesson Plan Packet

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Reflexive-Verb-Unit-Lesson-Plan-Packet
Lesson Plans to teach Reflexive Verbs (los verbos reflexivos). This 22 page packet contains a Guided Notes packet (13 pages) which explains reflexive verbs in detail and gives many examples. Also included are worksheets, pronunciation assessment, quiz, and a student project. This lesson is tried and true. Students become very successful using reflexives during this unit. Answers to guided notes packet (fill in the blanks) is included!

Posted in Lesson Plans | Tagged conjugation, lesson plans, reflexives, teacherspayteachers, verbos reflexivos, verbs | Leave a comment

Spanish Idioms/Proverbs

Posted on February 13, 2011 by spanishplans

Bring the culture of the language to your classroom with these 15 easy Spanish proverbs that even students in level 1 and level 2 can figure out. While they not not be able to understand these proverbs by themselves, in this multiple choice situation, they can figure them out by using what vocab they do know and using logic to figure out the rest.

IDIOMS/PROVERBS

_____ 1. Dime con quién andas y te diré quién eres.

_____ 2. Llueve sobre mojado.

_____ 3. Levantarse con el pie izquierdo.

_____ 4. Poco a poco se va lejos.

_____ 5. Cuando el gato no está, bailan los ratones.

_____ 6. Más vale tarde que nunca.

_____ 7. No dejes para mañana lo que puedes hacer hoy.

_____ 8. Lo que el agua trae, el agua lleva.

_____ 9. En boca cerrada, no entran moscas.

_____ 10. En el país de los ciegos, el tuerto es rey.

_____ 11. Quien más tiene, más quiere.

_____ 12. El que se fue a Sevilla perdió su silla.

_____ 13. Cuesta un ojo de la cara.

_____ 14. Más ven cuatro ojos que dos.

_____ 15. Aunque el mono se vista de seda, mono se queda.

a. Get up on the wrong side of the bed
b. When it rains, it pours.
c. When the cat’s away the mice will play.
d. Better late than never.
e. It costs an arm and a leg.
f. The more you have, the more you want.
g. Slow and steady wins the race.
h. Birds of a feather flock together.
i. Finder’s keepers.
j. Don’t leave for tomorrow, what you can do today.
k. In the land of the blind, the cyclops is king.
l. Two heads are better than one.
m. Here today, gone tomorrow.
n. A wolf in sheep’s clothing is still a wolf.
o. Better off quiet.

la persona que dice que no se puede no deberia interrumpir

Posted in Resources | Tagged free, idioms, proverbs | Leave a comment

Making Comics and Cartoons

Posted on February 9, 2011 by spanishplans

It’s project time. Looking for something new and unique and something that will interest students? How about having your students create their own comic strip or comic book to showcase their knowledge in the unit. Want students to summarize a book or a passage? Want students to write a dialogue? Whatever subject you teach, you can use this lesson for any grade and any topic.

Of course, students can hand drawn their own comic by folding a piece of paper into six squares. But to really make it look professional, let’s use some technology!

For those with limited internet access, our first suggestion is to use Microsoft Powerpoint to create a comic. Use Microsoft’s auto ‘shapes’ that look like speech bubbles, insert into each slide and away you go!

Sample Powerpoint Comic Strip

Or you can use Powerpoint to set up a sample outline of what you wants students to do:

Next, is a simple website called wittycomics.com Although your background and characters are limited, it allows the students to focus on the message and dialogue rather than the visual component.

WIttyComic Comic Strip

The next website, toondoo.com does require you to register a username and password with an e-mail address, but it is free. It is more advanced than the previous site and has lots of characters and props to insert into the strip.

ToonDoo Comic Strip

Stripgenerator.com is another free comic strip creating website.

Another website, which looks to be very advanced is pixton.com, although this site is not free.
You may also want to ask your tech people if your computers are equipped with the software program ComicLife.