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Cortometraje Activities

7/2/2016

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​Videos have gotten an undeservedly bad rap in education land.  They are largely viewed as time wasters by parents, students, and administrators.  It's too bad really as videos can be a great source of comprehensible input in second language classrooms - but parents, students, and administrators don't likely know what comprehensible input even is.  Enter the cortometraje...

Cortometrajes ("shorts" in English) are short movies that tell big stories, some of them even without words.  The best ones are creative, interesting, and teach great lessons.  When used in the world language classroom, they can provide us with a common story around which we can develop listening, reading, writing, and speaking skills.  Best of all, they don't need to "fit" with your unit because the focus is not on the content, it is on the skills that students sharpen while using the content.  Since they are typically less than 10 minutes in length, they can be watched in a fraction of a class period with plenty of time left over to engage in communicative activities based on what was seen.

Take a peek at my 5 favorite cortometrajes to use in the classroom.  Click on the title of each to check out listening, reading, writing, and speaking activities for each cortometraje.

1.  "El Regalo"
2.  "El Vendedor de Humo"
3.  "Ratón en Venta"
4.  "La Nube y la Cigüeña"
​5.  "Jinxy Jenkins & Lucky Lou"
You can find more cortometraje titles and activities by visiting our store.
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Activities for Teaching Weather in Spanish

1/29/2016

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We are in the midst of our weather unit, so I thought I would share some of the activities that we have done this week to work on the interpretive mode (reading/listening) and cultural understanding around the theme.

This is a level 2 class, so we are revisiting the basics of weather that they learned in level 1 and extending them to include weather in past and future constructions and more of the vocabulary that they would actually hear during a "pronóstico del tiempo".  Here is the list we are working with:

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After introducing the vocabulary we started with a reading activity that focuses on two things - getting to know the expressions associated with weather AND starting to pay attention to WHEN the weather is occurring.
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We also looked at weather around world with Zachary Jones' awesome Tiempo Mundial activities.

I had no idea how little science background many of my students had when it came to weather outside of the United States, so we spent some time discussing weather patterns one might see in Spanish-speaking countries.  I wanted them to understand that tropical countries recognize la estación lluviosa and la estación seca rather than the 4 seasons that we recognize here in the northern United States.  We did this as a reading comprehension activity as well with lots of visuals for support.
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For every theme, I try to find an infographic that addresses a related topic in Spanish.  I find that infographics are THE BEST authentic resource for teaching reading and decoding strategies.  After using these on a regular basis I see a tremendous increase in my students' ability to infer meaning.  For this topic, I chose an infographic on "Enfermedaded por Calor" which you can see HERE.  This is one of many Infographics I have created ready to print activities for aimed at a variety of proficiency levels.  You can find them HERE. 
The other focus this week was listening.  There are a lot of great authentic listening resources out there for the topic of weather.  Of course, we did some practice listening to actual weather forecasts in Spanish.
We also listened to this fun song by Don Omar that loosely ties into the weather theme.  Many of my boys recognized Don Omar from the Fast & Furious movies (which provides instant teacher credibility by the way). We will extend the activity next week when we get into writing and create some new song lyrics with different weather expressions.  You can check that activity out HERE.
We even found time to watch this great wintery episode of Peppa Pig.  It uses a lot of winter weather vocabulary AND you can download my free activity to accompany this episode HERE.  I have about ten different episodes that I have created activities.  You can CLICK HERE to check the rest out!
At the end of the week, I assessed the kids using the reading and listening sections of this Integrated Performance Assessment.

Next week we are on to speaking and writing about the weather, so be sure to check back in about a week for more weather-related ideas!
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Learning Through Music

4/21/2014

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Despite my brief stint in choir in the 9th grade, I am a terrible singer.  Although I always knew that music was a wonderful learning tool, the thought of leading my students in song was a frightening one.  In fact, I am sure that nothing would have more quickly destroyed my program than forcing a room full of teenagers to listen to me sing nursery rhymes and songs about colors.  I knew I needed to leave the singing to the experts, so I did.

I now make popular music a regular part of my class and my students ask for "song day" constantly.  Little do they know that they are not only acquiring new vocabulary, improving their listening skills, seeing grammar in context, and reading, but they are also building a love of the language that will hopefully keep their desire to learn the language strong well after they leave my classroom.

How to Start Using Popular Music in Your Classroom

1.  Find out which songs are popular by reviewing the Latin Billboard Charts
2.  Look up the lyrics using a website like letras.com and scan them for any language or themes that would be inappropriate for your classroom.  You may want to see if their is an official music video available on www.youtube.com and preview that as well.
3.  Allow your students to preview the video and make predictions about the theme or message of the song.
4.  Copy the lyrics, correcting the spelling mistakes and typos that frequently accompany online lyrics.
5.  Remove 5-10 words from the lyrics that your students should know and be able to recognize aurally.  You may even want to remove a couple of words that they are not familiar with to help develop their "ear" for letter sounds.
6.  Allow your students to listen to the song (without the video) at least 2 times, depending on the speed and complexity of the song.  If they still have trouble hearing the missing words, try pausing the song immediately after a blank and having them immediately say what they heard.
7.  Choose about 5-8 lines from the song that you think your students will be able to understand, at least in part, and ask them to find them when given the English translation
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8.  Ask them to change those 5-8 lines by applying a current or former grammatical concept that they have been learning in class.

Here are some songs and activities that I have developed for use in my classroom:

Song Activities & Kits



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     I have been teaching Spanish for the past 15 years in a large Suburban School District.

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