Oda a la cuchara

In my heritage Spanish language classes we have been doing a food unit. I devoted each week to a different theme. Week 1 was foods from the New World, week 2 was Spanish gastronomy, week 3 was healthy eating habits, week 4 was world hunger and Pablo Neruda’s odes to food, and week 5 will be excerpts from the novel Como agua para chocolate.

Here are a couple of resources that I created for my students for the Odas:

Biography of Pablo Neruda and fragments from “Oda a la alcachofa”

pablo neruda

Poem “Oda a la cuchara” and comprehension questions:

Oda a la cuchara

El Día de los Muertos

Pasamos varios días en mis clases de español para nativos estudiando las varias formas en que celebran el 1 y 2 de noviembre en el mundo hispano.  Aquí están los recursos que recopilé.

Día de los muertos

imagenes ddm

graphic organizer for veinte mundos audio

vocab for veinte mundos article

Día de Todos los Santos Espana

Dia de los muertos Assessment

Aquí están unas actividades que hice para mis estudiantes de nivel 1 de español como lengua extranjera.

EL DÍA DE LOS MUERTOS

Qué tiempo hace barriletes

 

“El árbol de oro” por Ana María Matute

Aquí tengo una serie de lecciones que escribí y utilicé con mis estudiantes para el cuento corto “El árbol de oro.” Espero que que les sea útil.

Arbol de oro lesson 1

Arbol de oro lesson 2

Arbol de oro lesson 3

Ortografía

Este año trabajo con estudiantes hispanos que hablan español como idioma nativo o odioma de herencia.  En cada unidad de estudio practicamos la ortografía. A continuación les comparto algunos sitios que he encontrado para practicar la ortografía española.

http://aprenderespanol.org/gramatica/ortografia-A-J.html

http://aprenderespanol.org/gramatica/ortografia-H-Z.html

http://centros3.pntic.mec.es/cp.antonio.de.ulloa/webactivhotpot/raiz/Hot%20Pot/lengua6/ortografia/indice.htm

http://contenidos.educarex.es/mci/2006/08/html/menu.htm

http://lenguayliteratura.org/interactivos/index.php?option=com_content&view=section&id=13&Itemid=19

http://roble.pntic.mec.es/msanto1/ortografia/dictados.htm

http://juegos.educ.ar/ortografia.html

http://www.elabueloeduca.com/aprender/lengua/ortografia/ortografia.html

http://www.juntadeandalucia.es/averroes/centros-tic/29001881a/helvia/sitio/index.cgi?wid_seccion=13&wid_item=16

http://www.rinconmaestro.es/lengua/ortografia.html

Fiestas Mexicanas

I spent this week teaching a series of lessons about Day of the Dead in Latin America to my heritage Spanish speakers.  It turned out to be a pretty good mini unit, I think. There is a lot of material, so I’ll have to put it in another post.  The reason for this post is to remind myself of a couple of sites about Mexican holidays that I came across and want to use later.

The first includes an audio version in addition to the reading.

http://www.cdi.gob.mx/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&id=52&Itemid=73

The second is a website for children at http://www.peques.com.mx/calendario_escolar.htm

For the Dia de los Inocentes in Spain, here is a video showing how to make a muñeco to put on people’s backs.

http://juegos-y-hobbies.practicopedia.lainformacion.com/manualidades/como-hacer-un-muneco-para-el-dia-de-los-inocentes-3630

“Casa tomada” y los miedos

Este año tengo un nuevo trabajo.  Enseño español como lengua de herencia a estudiantes latinos.  Me gusta mucho trabajar con estos estudiantes, y disfruto preparando lecciones específicamente para su nivel de conocimiento del idioma español.

Recientemente leímos el cuento corto “Casa tomada” por Julio Cortázar.  Primero hablamos de los miedos y las fobias por medio de la canción “Azul” por Natalia Lafourcade. Luego hablamos de nuestras casas y leímos el cuento. Mi parte favorita era cuando comparamos y contrastamos un video basado en el cuento con el cuento original.

Aquí les comparto las actividades que hice con mis estudiantes. Creo que se las podría adaptar a una clase de español como lengua extranjera avanzada también.

Casa tomada y los miedos

 

Migration

Soon I am going to be starting an AP unit on migration with my native and heritage Spanish speakers.  While such a unit could focus on immigration to the United States, and illegal immigration in particular, I do not want to focus solely on such a heavy theme with young people who quite possibly may be dealing with the issue in their own lives.  Therefore, I decided to focus on the idea of movement, such as pilgrimages and life journeys, in addition to immigration.  Some ideas I have for this unit are:

• El alquimista: The main character, Santiago, journeys from Andalucía to the pyramids in Egypt
• El Camino de Santiago:  I love this topic, so many great resources available
• immigration to Spain from Africa
• migrant workers and short stories from Cajas de cartón
• immigration to Argentina: I found an article at an online magazine called Veinte Mundos, and and article in an AP resource that I have
• the short story “Las medias rojas” by Emilia Pardo Bazán

Here’s a resource about migration to Spain:

http://www.ac-grenoble.fr/lycee/versoie.thonon/espagnol2004/sites-general/estrecho/pageindex.htm

And another about migration from Cuba to the US:

http://www.ac-grenoble.fr/lycee/versoie.thonon/espagnol2004/sites-general/cubablaseros/pageindex.htm

 

As I work on the unit, I hope to add more resources here.

Synthesizing

I will be teaching AP Spanish Language for the first time this fall, and have been learning all I can about the exam.  I have training in a couple of weeks.  On the current exam, there are two sections where the students have to synthesize information from written and oral texts into presentational writing and speaking tasks.  I used to teach IB, and the new test will have a similar assessment where students take information from three written texts and create a written product.  I have been thinking of ways to practice these types of assessments with my students.  It is not a type of presentational assessment that will come naturally to them; it is something that they will have to be trained to do. 

I have an article that I found in “People en Español” that is about Jordan Romero, the youngest person to climb Mount Everest.  I thought I would use is as part of a unit called “Metas y Desafíos.”  That unit has yet to materialize, but I have found a use for the article.  I want to use it and a recent reading from the ”Veinte Mundos” online magazine about rescue workers at Aconcague, the highest peak in South America. I would like to have the students read the two texts and create a written product.  For the AP exam, it appears that it is always an essay question, so I will write one for them to answer.  For the IB exam, the students choose the text type, so I would suggest a series of diary entries about a journey up a mountain, or perhaps an interview with a climber or rescuer.  I would like find a third text, such as advice for those wanting to take up mountain climbing.  Or perhaps I can find a related video on Youtube.

Here is an article online about Jordan Romero: http://www.vanguardia.com.mx/ninode13anosescaloeleverestdicequeesperainspiraraotroschicos-503018.html

Here is the article about the rescue workers at Aconcagua in South America: http://www.veintemundos.com/magazines/50-en/

 I found TEDx talk on Youtube in English with Jordan Romero, but I can’t hear the audio for some reason.  I’ll have to keep looking!

Do Now Activities

I will be teaching a new school this fall, which means learning new terms.  Instead of having learning objectives, I will have aims.  Instead of warm-up activities, I will have do now activities.  I had no idea what a “do now” was, so I had to do some investigating.  I found some creative ideas for do now activities, and I thought I would share them here.

http://linda103-dailyassignment.blogspot.com/2011/02/daily-assignment-44-do-now-activities.html

http://www.pbis.vcu.edu/2010/03/varied-instructional-strategies-support-student-behavior.html

I think the key thing I read was that the “do now” should be engaging to the learner; it should be something that piques the students’ interest.  I especially liked one idea that suggested putting a quote on the board and asking the students to reflect on it.  I just read “El alquimista” and there are some very interesting lines in it that I could use.  I believe an unusual photo or artwork would also be a good starter, or maybe a piece of realia from the target culture. 

The following article is a more philosophical look at the “do now” and what the writer calls a “hook.”  I love education jargon. http://thelensnola.org/2012/06/19/reset-the-hook-dunbar-op-ed/

If I understand correctly, a “do now” should be tied directly to the day’s learning aims.  In the past, I have not been that specific with my warm-up activities.  They might be review from a previous unit, or simply something fun related to the target language.  I will have to be more deliberate with my starter activities from now on.

New Twists to Old Themes

This year I have 4 classes of Spanish I, so it has been occupying most of my thoughts.  I’ve been reflecting a lot the last couple of years about my teaching, more deeply about ever before.  I am questioning for the first time things that I just always assumed were the way language teaching is supposed to be, never having experienced anything else as a student and as a teacher.  One of the things currently under my scrutiny is the choice of themes for level 1.  I understand to a certain extent that the themes have to be concrete, about self, consistent with novice levels of proficiency.  Yet at the same time this basic information should be, in Helena Curtain’s words, cognitively engaging to the student.  How do I make basic themes cognitively engaging to high school novice learners?

I attended a session by Donna Clementi at the Central States Conference in which she described a unit about reflexive verbs and daily routine that she turned into a chapter about how people use water around the world.  This got me thinking about ways I could do the same thing with other themes.  I’ve brainstormed a few ideas for giving a little more substance to typical level 1 themes.  Again, this is my brainstorming; a work in progress.

The house: I could make this into a chapter about being environmentally friendly around the home, such as water and electricity use and reycling. Recently I came across a website about water conservation at http://www.onedrop.org/calcul/es/index.php. 

Describing people:  I am very interested in creating a unit of study where students learn descriptive adjectives through exploration of lucha libre and the luchadores, particularly the idea of the rudos vs. the técnicos.  I envision this unit to be adaptable for Spanish language learners from elementary to secondary, and also for heritage Spanish speakers. 

Free time:  I’d like to expand on an activity of mine that focused on community involvement and talk about not only what they do in their free time, but how they could spend their time helping in their community.  The free time theme could also be used to talk about our use of technology (ipods, cell phones, video games, etc.) and whether it benefits us or harms us.

School:  I really struggled with the school theme this year.  There just wasn’t much to converse about expect naming school supplies, telling at what time they had classes, and what the classes were like.  Pretty boring for students who don’t like school anyway, I’d say.  I am thinking of turning this into a unit about creating the ideal school to compare and  contrast with their actual school.  Also, I think they would be much more interested in discussing school if I could actually connect them with a school in a Spanish-speaking country.  I have had very little success in connecting with schools in other countries;  I would really like to work on this.  I think the students would have more motivation to communicate about school if they had a real-life situation for using their Spanish.

La familia:  This was a difficult chapter to teach this year since I was trying to make contextualized, cognitively engaging activities.  There’s really only so much to say when describing one’s family.  I would like to do more with exploring the concept of family, such families in Hispanic art, such as the works of Pablo Picasso, Fernando Botero, and Carmen Lomas Garza.  I would also like to work with a series of short readings about Hispanic families that I found online at a site called mysanantonio.com.  I saved the readings as pdf files; unfortunately, they are no longer available online.  The textbook has celebrations in the family unit as well, and I would like to develop that further in the form of how families celebrate together.   Lomas Garza has wonderful artwork of family celebrations.

Food/restaurant:  This could focus on the concept of healthy eating.  Laura Terrill and Toni Theissen have an excellent unit in French for novice learners called Food and Hunger that looks at food consumption on a world scale.

Going to the doctor:  One year in level 2 I used a video I found about a curandera to explore the idea of alternative medicine.  Lomas Garza also has paintings about curanderas that I used.  It was a very engaging lesson for me and the students.

I think that concepts that may seem complex can be explored by novice learners with the proper scaffolding, such as simplified texts written by teachers, the use of questions that the students can answer with yes/no or true/false or brief answers, and other scaffolding strategies.  Another idea that Donna Clementi shared is that students could do cultural readings in English or watch a video at home for homework so that they have the needed background information to participate in target language activities during class.

We have the International Baccalaureate program at my school, and I realized recently that very little of the themes and vocabulary that we teach in levels 1 and 2 carry over into levels 3 and 4.  Pretty much only the grammar applies.  Perhaps we could look at the new IB themes for Language B to find ways to incorporate them into the lower levels as well, spiraling them through the curriculum.

If you would like more ideas from Donna Clementi, see her free webinars at http://www.concordialanguagevillages.org/newsite/News_Events/Webinars1.php

If anyone who reads this post has more ideas for re-inventing novice level themes, I invite you to comment.  I look forward to hearing from you!

Another thought to entertain is the idea of not using themes in language teaching.  See my blog post called “Thematic Units: Just Say No.”