viernes, 24 de mayo de 2019

Resources and Edpuzzles for the "Food Unit"



I am currently teaching a "food unit" in Spanish 3. This unit, originally based on a Realidades 2 chapter, has gone through many revisions! This time around, we are focusing on learning about Spanish and Mexican foods and comparing them to food from our culture. See the Essential Questions and the Metas on slides 2 and 3.

To start the unit, students did a few Edpuzzles (see slide 4 for links) to get input with food vocabulary. Right now, Edpuzzle is really a wonderful tool because we have one month of school left! And I love Pablo from Dreaming Spanish (support him here is you use his videos a lot). 

Then, we used this video: Our Favorite Mexican Food to learn about five Mexican foods. As a class, we created the descriptions and students took notes. I added the Google images so students could see the foods. Then they did two more Edpuzzles with authentic videos (see slide 12 for links).

After we spent some time with those Mexican foods, we used three other Dreaming Spanish to learn about some common Spanish foods. Again, we watched the videos together, wrote up the descriptions as a class, and students took notes. See slides 13-27. 

Today we will play Quizlet Live or Gimkit to review the foods and get more input. Students will also do two more Edpuzzles related to Spanish food (see slide 29). The Edpuzzle for "How to make Spanish Omelette" will be an interpretive evaluación (the other Edpuzzles were classword grades).

After we have spent some time learning about the foods, students will do two more evaluaciones:
  • a reading activity in which they have to read descriptions and identify the foods (will post soon)
  • written Comparación Cultural as a presentational assessment
Note: I did not make all of these Edpuzzles... I made most and then put them all together for the unit!

viernes, 17 de mayo de 2019

A new *appropriate* series: Go! Vive a tu manera

Want something to talk about with students!?! Check out the series Go! Vive a tu manera on Netflix. 

It is super cursi, but also pretty engaging. My AP students and I are (very slowly) watching it now and we are kinda love-hating it (well, at least I am!). 

It is set in a boarding school, St. Mary, that has a special program for the arts called Go!. The school is in Argentina, so my students are hearing and seeing (Spanish subtitles) a ton of that Argentinian accent and the voseo (which I love because I studied abroad in Buenos Aires). 

And it is rated PG! There are no swears and no nudity! Yay! Check out the trailer here.

So, we are watching, pausing (a lot), and discussing as we watch each day. We have been spending 20-30 minutes a day doing this and it is going very well. After each episode, they will fill out this sheet (feel free to make a copy and adapt) and we will discuss that as well. 

I am considering using this show with my Spanish 3s at the end of the year (I am done June 25th). With them, I will probably do "Write and discuss" each day and then do Textivate with the text that we create. I might also use this sheet (slightly adapted from the one above).

viernes, 10 de mayo de 2019

La graduación = La libertad

Have you seen Álvaro Soler's new song/video "La libertad"? I love it and here is why:
  • Álvaro Soler sings it and students like everything that he does.
  • It has a great message.
  • It is catchy.
  • It is super repetitive.
  • It is pretty comprehensible.
  • The vocabulary that is not comprehensible is excellent for students to acquire: aguantar, hogar, picaba, parar, olvidé, más allá, acaba de... among others. 
  • The video is very appropriate (with the exception of a few quick shots of some drinks that may or may not be alcoholic).

I am currently teaching my AP Spanish class with some special seniors (four that I have had for this full year for 85 minutes a day, four that I traveled to Ecuador with this past summer,  and one that I have had for four different classes) and some special juniors too... so when I saw this song, I thought it would be a perfect connection to graduation... because:
  • Graduation from high school = (some) FREEDOM! 
So I wrote up a little story (it is very basic and possibly kinda lame) that incorporates some of the lyrics from the song. I also made a few activities with the song lyrics. You can find it here, make a copy and change it to fit your school.