More Spanish

Promociones de Cafam

As I prepared and brainstormed review activities to use with my Spanish 4 students, I ran across a big flyer from the Colombian supermarket Cafam filled with food and toiletry items. I have a few ideas on how to use the food items in this flyer, and I wanted to share a Flickr album with you. I'm sure many of you will be able to use the photos as you review food. The photos include an image and the vocabulary word paired with a price. Please stop by and tell me what you did/plan to do with the images. 

Los colores de la montaña

¡Próspero Año Nuevo a todos! I hope this year is great for you personally & profesionally.  2013 brought me a new class.  I have been teaching Spanish IV since August and LOVE it!  It's wonderful to see my Spanish III students grow, and each day make steps towards proficiency in Spanish. The only downside to the new prep is that most of my time since August has been devoted to finding interesting resources, and then creating material for those resources to use in class, and sadly this blog has been neglected because of my workload.  I hope to start sharing what I have done as the year progresses. 

My Spanish IV students ended the semester with a movie called Los colores de la montaña. I spoke a little bit about it here, and I have to say it was sucessful beyond my wildest dreams.  My students viewed most of the movie without subtitles, but we only saw about 7-8 minutes of the movie a day, and needed the rest of class time to talk about what we saw. (I plan on sharing the comprehension & discussion questions I wrote later on.)  We had a couple of surprise snow days before break, and because of that we did see about 25 minutes of the movie with subtitles.

I usually show movie clips rather than an entire movie, but this one is worth the time.  The actors are not profesional actors, and there is a lot of regional dialect, but my students found the story very engaging, and pushed themselves to understand what was being said.  The movie is available on YouTube (without subtitles) if you are interested in seeing it. 

You will also find a visual aide I created to introduce the main characters in the movie.  Feel free to download and use if you show the movie in class.  Be sure and let me know what you thought about it or how your students liked it if you show it in class. 

View this photo

Movie Monday

This summer I’ve made a point of seeing several movies made by Spanish speaking directors.  I find it very enjoyable to keep up with my language skills by doing this because I love movies.  Here are five of my favorite movies so far.

Blancanieves won many awards, and is one of the most creative retelling of a fairy tale I have ever seen.  This 2012 film is Snow White as a bullfighter in Seville in the 1920s. Yes, you read that right!  The Cincinnati Film Society screened this art movie at the Cincinnati Art Academy in June.  The black and white movie has a beautiful score, but no sound.  It is rated PG-13, and I could see showing sections of it in class, although as I post this, I do not think it is available for purchase yet.

Los Colores de la montaña is heartbreakingly beautiful.  This 2010 Colombian movie tells about the armed conflict affecting many rural communities in Colombia from a nine year old’s point of view.  The movie is not rated, but would probably merit a PG-13 for violence. I plan on using this with my Spanish IV students this year. You can find a wonderful study guide here. 

Los Viajes del viento is another Colombian film made in 2009.  This movie tells the story of Fermín who wants to be an apprentice to Ignacio, a master musician who plays the accordion.  This movie is also not rated, and excerpts of it would be a wonderful addition to a music unit. The cinematography is beautiful, but the meandering plot may not hold students’ attention for a full screening. 

El secreto de sus ojos is a 2009 Argentinian thriller.  Ricardo Darín plays a recently retired legal counselor who tries to resolve a homicide that has haunted him his whole career. I really enjoy this genre of movies, and was very pleased with this one in particular.  This is not a movie that is appropriate for class use. It is rated R, and earns its rating with some strong violent scenes. 

El aura is another Argentinian thriller with Ricardo Darín playing the leading role again.  A epileptic taxidermist plans a heist in this 2005 movie.  I have to admit I did some multitasking as I saw this movie on Netflix.  I am not sure if I didn’t feel it was as engaging as Secreto because of that, or if I started multitasking because it wasn’t as engaging.  

I hope to see more movies in Spanish via Netflix before school starts.  In my queue today: Karen Cries on the Bus, Amador, Madeinusa, Butterfly and The Window.  I saw that Valentin is also available, and if you haven’t seen that movie yet, I highly recommend it. Almodóvar’s new movie, Los amantes pasajeros (I’m So Excited) is also showing in theaters, so I hope to squeeze that in also.  

What movies have you seen this year? How do you keep up with new movies in Spanish?

**Digital supplies by Studio ViVa Artistry Española Kit** 

 

¿Cómo aprendemos?

I ran across William Glasser’s quote on how students learn, and I thought I would use it in class this year.  I think it will be helpful in explaining active vs. passive learning.  I also wanted to expose my intermediate students to some critical thinking verbs in Spanish, so I included a few. 

Thanks to SuzyQ Scraps for the digital papers and alphabet and to Universidad de Colima for the list of verbs. 

Costa Rica 2013

We are back from an amazing trip to Costa Rica with EF Tours. Although I thought the previous trip was good, this was, hands down, my best student trip to date. (You can read about my previous trip in 2009 here.) The students we took were respectful of the Tico culture, enthusiastic and well behaved.  A couple of women who worked in a hotel in La Fortuna told me they were the best behaved group they had ever seen & wished all groups were like them.  That is pretty high praise! Unfortunately, I know what they might be used to dealing with.  The week we were there, EF alone had 56 groups on tour!!! There were 3 other groups we kept running into, and most of the teens were well behaved, but a few were making a bad impression... yelling & running in hotels, going out after dark by themselves, walking out during dinner time...

New to me on this trip was the Don Juan's Organic farm. 

This former Costa Rican educator runs a farm with very little waste.  His presentation captured our students' attention and kept them engaged.  The farm was beautiful, and the ecological concepts are well worth adapting. 

The trip was action packed. 

Ziplining, kayaking, horesback riding, hiking, white water rafting...

Students practiced Spanish of course. They would barter when buying handicrafts. They also had an opportunity to visit with an elementary school in the Arenal region, and despite the rain, played and talked with the children.

We saw a LOT of wildlife! We started off by visiting a biodiversity park a few minutes away from San José. We saw plenty of animals on our hikes, and we also took a crocodile tour.

This was a life time learning opportunity for many of my students, and I know they enjoyed themselves and learned a lot.  I appreciate all the time and planning that went into this trip by our tour leader (and my department chair) and the EF guide. 

Have you traveled with students before?  Any tips or suggestions?

 

Summer learning

I am in the process of earning a few graduate credit hours, and I would like to share some very interesting online courses available.  This spring I took two classes through the Powerful Learning Practice Network .  The first course was Blogging 101  and the second was Creative 21^st Century Lesson Plans. Both classes were two weeks long, and each was worth one graduate credit hour.  I found the content to be relevant and the workload fair. What I like most about these classes is that I was able to design lessons that I could use immediately.  On a later post I hope to go into specific details about what I got out of each class.  Rest assured both classes are content rich, but because the class is archived, I didn’t feel pressure to explore all the information in the two weeks that the class was offered.  In fact, I plan on going back this summer and re-visiting some concepts.

I am currently working on Teaching Foreign Languages Workshop through the Annenberg Learner site . There are 8 lessons to this content rich series, and I will earn two graduate credit hours when I finish the work.  Although I have been teaching for over 20 years, I have learned a tremendous amount in the first two lessons.  The workload is significantly more extensive than the PLP classes, but they are also very relevant to what I do in class on a daily basis.  If you are not interested in earning continuing education hours or graduate credit, the material is 100% free, and the 8 half hour videos are well worth your time to view.

The third site I want to mention is Coursera.  The classes offered here are also 100% free, but you would need to check with your district about whether or not you could earn continuing hours for the certificate(s) you acquire after doing the work.   Recently Coursera started offering classes designed by universities in Mexico, so later on this summer I hope to practice my language skill by taking Ser más creativos . At the end of summer I hope to participate in Innovación educativa con recursos abiertos.

If you are looking for a new perspective for your teaching next year, need some new ideas, want to earn hours for certification purpose or simply hone your language skills, I recommend looking into these courses. I hope to post some of the lessons I design from my summer learning experience as I complete the work.

Thanks so much for stopping by, and enjoy your summer learning opportunities!

*Digital supplies by Julie Billingsley "imagine that" kit

 

Pinterest for Spanish class

One of my favorite tools this school year has been Pinterest.  I’d like to share  how I have been using it in Spanish class on this Five for Friday post.

1. To gather authentic resources to use in class.  Several sites pin their content and I can quickly re-pin items that I plan on using in class into my Spanish Class Resource folder.  One of my favorite humor sites in the target language is Risas sin mas.  Another great authentic resource is Infografía en castellano.

2. To gather authentic images for class.  Pinterest is filled with beautiful photography.  Recently I wanted to show my class photographs of tropical fruits that they may not be able to get in the Midwest.   I found all the fruits I was looking for with a quick search on Pinterest.  Of course you could do this with Google images as well, but Pinterest was a lot quicker.   One of my favorite Pinterest curators is SraHache. She has 92 boards organized across a variety of topics (countries, levels, holidays, cultural information).

3.  To share and learn about lesson plans & teaching ideas.  Although I still use Twitter, I find that I can narrow my Pinterest feed to very specific boards.  For instance, I may only want to follow Sra. Smith’s boards that relate to Spanish class.  I don’t have to follow her recipe & wedding boards.  With Twitter, I don’t have the ability to choose what comes through my feed, so sometimes I need to scroll through a lot of material that is not important to me.   Of course Pinterest doesn’t provide the opportunity for conversation like Twitter.

4. As a homework option for my class.  My students have over 20 options to practice vocabulary and I added Pinterest this year.  They can find images that represent the vocabulary we are studying and type in the word when they re-pin the image to their Spanish homework board.  You can see a sample board here.

5. As a collaboration of resources.  Pinterest is also be a good way to compile resources for a class project.  I want my students to use technology for educational (not just recreational) purposes. Since many of my students already have Pinterest accounts “for fun”, this would be a good tool for them to use for educational purposes.  One student would create a board and ask their group to join it & compile the resources they want to use for any kind of research based project—sort of like a visual Diigo.

I’d love to know how you use Pinterest in class. Thanks for reading!

Feliz día del amor y la amistad <3

Lovebots art by Ziggle Designs

It has been such a long time... I have been a very bad blogger. I'd like to change that, but I can't make any promises.  I just put together this little St Valentine Day activity for my Spanish 3 students & thought I'd share with anyone who doesn't have a thematic lesson plan for tomorrow (yikes! I do work best under pressure).  I pulled images from a Google seach with "amor y amistad" & put together this quick presentation. I will have my students identify the affirmative & negative commands in the cards & answer a few comprehension questions...

¿Qué tarjeta viene de muy lejos?

¿Cuál es para animar a alguien que rompió con su novi@?

¿Cuál(es) expresa(n) amor romántico?

¿Cuál(es) expresa(n) amistad?

Happy Valentine's Day!!!

 

Five for Friday: 5 ways to use photos in the classroom

 Photo taken in Bogotá, Colombia on International Skateboarding Day, 2011

 

One of my hobbies is photography so I am always looking for ways to use it in the classroom.  If you have the opportunity to travel, photography is a great way to bring culture back to the classroom, but there are other ways to use photos in the classroom. Here are a few ideas:

1. Set up a scavenger hunt on Flickr or better yet have the students make one for each other.  

2. Have students take photos of vocabulary for homework & then use it in class to review vocabulary.  

3. Use a high interest photo as a conversation prompt for partner work.  I am always looking for images to get my students talking.  If you have a favorite resource for this, please let me know.

4. Pair a photograph with a sentence structure when you are explaining grammar items. Some kids need the grammar explanation, but others will remember the structure because of the image.

5. Use photos to review vocabulary on www.quizlet.com, or on a digital matching game like www.quia.com.  Many of these web 2.0 tools will allow you to load photos to their digital flashcards. 

I know there are many other uses for photos.  What are some of your favorite ways to bring the language alive via images?

 

 

Compiling language teachers' blog urls

I read a reply to one of my blog posts, and was surprised to find out that I did not have the commentator's blog in my RSS feed.  I was very sorry to see how much good information I missed last school year.  I unfortunately can’t keep up with all the blogs relating to the teaching of foreign languages/world languages, so I would like to enlist your help. I have created a Google spreadsheet to share where language teachers can add their blog url and any other information about their blog.  (If this resource is already out there, please leave the link to the site/document in the comments & I will add my information to it.) As I find time, I will start adding blogs that are active in my RSS feed to the spreadsheet, but if you read this before I have added your blog, please help me out by adding your own information, or adding your favorite blog to the document.  I do want to keep this list specifically targeted to blogs that relate to the teaching of languages or blogs that provide content to FL teachers (ie Zachary Jones site Zambombazo).  Please don’t add blogs that are exclusively personal blogs or sites that require $ for content.  Make sense? Feel free to add the link to the Google spreadsheet to any online resource that might help us compile & share these urls. Thanks for your help!