New Story: "Álvaro tiene un problema"

I am on a roll with these Story/Song of the week scripts/activities! ! I love telling students a story based on a song/music video and then letting them watch the video as a reward for good listening. (And I am also showing them the diversity of the Spanish speaking world and exposing them to lots of cultural Ps.) It is such a good way to give my students input. And it is a fantastic way to start class on a Monday! 

You can find my next story, and accompany activities, based on the new song/video "La Cintura" by Álvaro Soler here on TPT. I am sure this one will be a hit! And I am sure many boys will be able to relate to Alvaro ;) 

In Spanish 1, we have done one of these activities for the first seven weeks that we have had class. You can find the story scripts and links to other activities here (we have done the first seven). I have told the story on Monday and then we do other activities throughout the week (I have 85 minute classes, so this is one of the many things we have going on.) My Spanish 1 students are doing so well with this routine of activities. They are engaged and acquiring a ton of Spanish! 

After we do the Story Listening activity, I follow it up with a variety of other input activities throughout the week, including: 

• Quizlet Live with Vocabulario Importante
• Textivate! 
• Reading Activities with the story script (fill in the blanks, comprehension questions, read and draw)
• Translate parts of the story (for shorter stories, and always Spanish to English)
• Cloze activity with the song lyrics
• Agárralo with cierto/falso statements (AKA "the marker game")
• Quizizz
• Listen and act
• Kahoot Jumble
• Other reading activities like: Who is it? Who would say it? or Cierto/Falso

Update (4/2/18): I created this slideshow to tell the story with some visuals. The videos on certain slides are set to just show certain parts that illustrate the text. Also, the text shows up after a click, so you can say the story and then they can see the text if/when you want them to. It also includes some recent videos from Instagram! You can get access to make a copy and edit this presentation here.

Update Spring 2019 - My students made their own version of the video:

Un Besito Más... again

What a powerful and heartbreaking video! As a runner (whose mom still supports her at races) this video really struck me. Arianne Dowd and I created some free resources (here) and I used it in my Cultura y Civilización course last semester in my immigration unit. 

But, now, I am in the middle of my inmigración unit in Spanish 1, so I have made something for Novices. I wrote up a basic story about the video. You can find the story, a basic cloze activity, and a translation of the song here for free. 

I will probably use this story for a Story Listening Activity first, and then do the activity sheet and some of these activities: Textivate and Quizizz.

I love doing this unit in Spanish 1. This is a mostly freshmen class and they really don't know much at all about immigration. By using engaging CI stories IN SPANISH (with some facts in Spanish along the way), my big goals for this unit are the following:

• I want students to understand that immigrants (documented and undocumented) come to the U.S. for a variety of reasons, including: for work, for family, for more opportunities, for safety, and for many other reasons. 
• I want students to have empathy for undocumented immigrants.
• I want students to know that immigration is very complicated and it is not possible to "deport them all" (a common comment).
• I want students to understand that most undocumented immigrants are contributing to our society and our culture. 

So, how to do this??? I am using three stories: ICE El Hielo, Un Besito Más, and The Other Side; and one movie: La Misma Luna. And sprinkling in some factual information throughout the unit... all in Comprehensible Spanish! So, yes, it is possible to teach this in the TL.

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ICE El Hielo... again

I have blogged about using the song and video "ICE El Hielo" a lot because I think it is such a good song to include in an immigration unit. It shows a lot of cultural practices and perspectives related to immigration and it, usually, leads to students having empathy for undocumented immigrants. 

So, as I am about to start my immigration unit in Spanish 1 (it mostly revolves around the short PBS film "The Other Side" and the movie "La Misma Luna"), I have created a Story Listening script to tell the story of "ICE El Hielo". I will tell students the story in a "Story Listening" style (so that means, I won't pre-teach vocabulary before I tell the story, but rather, I will make it comprehensible while I tell the story) and then they will watch the video. You can find the script and activities here (of here if you think this is all worth $2.00 :) ). 

(Side Note: I have been having a lot of success with Story Listening in Spanish 1! I highly recommend it! Also, I am not an expert and I am pretty sure teachers might not have "scripts" when they are doing this, but it has helped me as a beginner.)

In addition to the Story Listening script, I have created some other activities to do with the story after I have told it in a "Story Listening" style. These are the follow up activities that I have created:

• Quizlet Live - Vocabulario Importante
• Textivate (Text and Matching vocabulary -----> many activities!)
• Textivate Sequence (this is what my students will do)
• Cloze activity and translation for song
• A reading and answering questions activity (pages 3-7)
• Quizizz (cloze activity with story - could be used as in class activity, homework, or a quick assessment)
• Kahoot Jumble
• A possible quiz (pages 8-10)

Also, if you are looking for another really good song about immigration, "Un besito más" is excellent (and you can find free resources here).

Story Listening Script for "ICE El Hielo"

Hay una mujer. Se llama Eva. Tiene treinta y siete años. Ella es de El Salvador, pero vive en California. Eva trabaja en un restaurante. Todos los días se despierta temprano, prepara el desayuno para su hija, sale de su casa, y va al trabajo.

Hay una chica. Se llama Marta. Tiene quince años. Ella es de El Salvador, pero vive en la California. Es la hija de Eva. Es una estudiante muy buena. Todos los días se despierta temprano, come el desayuno, sale de su casa, y va a la escuela. Sueña con asistir a la universidad.

Hay un hombre. Se llama José. Tiene cincuenta años. Él es de México, pero vive en California. José tiene dos trabajos. Es jardinero y trabaja en un restaurante. Los jardines donde José trabaja son como Disneylandia, son muy bonitos. Trabaja en el mismo restaurante de Eva. José tiene esposa, pero ella vive en México. Todos los días se despierta temprano, come el desayuno, sale de su casa, y va a su primer trabajo. En México fue taxista. José monta en bicicleta mucho porque no tiene su licencia, pero también tiene una troca vieja (no es nueva). Maneja su troca vieja sin licencia.

José, Eva, y Marta tienen vidas buenas en los Estados Unidos pero todos tienen un problema: Vinieron a los Estados Unidos sin documentos porque querían una vida mejor. Eva llevó a Marta a los Estados Unidos cuando Marta tenía dos años. Vinieron de El Salvador, un país muy peligroso. Marta quería que Eva tuviera una vida mejor con menos peligro y más oportunidades. José vino porque quería una vida mejor también. Él le manda dinero a su familia en México todos los meses y quiere vivir en México, no en los Estados Unidos.

Un día, cuando Eva prepara el desayuno, ella ve la televisión y ve "Continúan las redadas." Eva tiene miedo porque no quiere ser deportada. Hay muchas redadas.

Hay otro hombre. Se llama Paco. Paco vive en California también. Paco tiene una familia: tiene una esposa y una hija. Es un padre bueno. Y también es un esposo bueno. Todos los días, Paco se despierta temprano, habla y juega con su hija, sale de su casa, y va al trabajo. Tiene un trabajo bueno, pero es difícil. A veces a Paco no le gusta su trabajo porque tiene que separar a las familias. Un día Paco trabaja y entra el restaurante de José y Eva con otros hombre de su trabajo. Es un problema para José y Eva. ¿Qué será su trabajo?

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

I am sharing all of this for FREE, but if you think this (or anything else that you got here for free) is useful and has saved you some time, feel free to give back here in Radiohead style (click here to see what I mean by Radiohead style). 

One more resource for El Día de los Muertos

There are a ton of free excellent resources for El Día de los Muertos (see Dustin Williamson's compilation here). Amy Zimmer and Elena López have also created some amazing resources to use. Also, here is a movie guide for El libro de la Vida.

One of my favorite things that I did last year for my Spanish 1 Día de los Muertos unit was the song "Calaverita" by La Santa Cecilia. It is a catchy tune with lots of room to explore some products, practices and perspectives related to el Día de los Muertos. The video is also a fun story. (If you look closely, you might see a certain politician who is no allowed to enter the party.)

Elena López and I created the slideshow below that tells the "story" of the video. The slideshow used comprehensible language for a beginning Spanish 1 class. We included some vocabulary slides (I wanted to target certain words) to start and also included questions to ask as we tell the story (students usually have whiteboards to answer the questions). I put the lectura and the questions in this doc  so that students can read it again and write the answers. The video has a great twist at the end and I think students will like it. If you want to make a copy and/or embed it somewhere for classroom use, click here. I

Also, if any of this is useful for you, please consider giving back in a Radiohead style format.

After we go through this slideshow we will watch the video and do a cloze activity with the song (also in the doc). The translation is also there because I like students to know what they are singing about all week! 

Dustin created this slideshow to introduce the band and I adapted it a bit.  If you want to make a copy and/or embed it somewhere for classroom use, click here.

These are all the resources that Elena (mostly her!) and I created for online practice:

Memrise (Kara's)

Kara's basic vocab quizalize - - quiz.al  code = uzr346

Quizailize (Elena)

Elena's Textivate - versión reducida - put in order

Elena's Textivate - versión reducida - separate the words

Elena's Textivate - versión reducida - fill in the blanks.

Elena's versión reducida - all possible activities

Kara's Textivate - shortened version - put in order

Kara's Textivate - shortened version - fill in the blanks

Textivate - Preguntas de comprensión (multiple choice) (Kara)

Textivate - Preguntas de comprensión (choose words to get correct sentence) (Kara)

Texivate - Elena López's versión reducida

Vocabulario - Quizlet

Vocabulario - Memrise

Presentación - Google slides (Historia original de Kara Jacobs)

Hoja para estudiantes (usa páginas 4-7 para el cuento)

Hoja de la canción (actividad de cloze con preguntas y traducción)

Historia reducida (para dibujar y recontar)

Ordena la lectura - Textivate

Preguntas de la lectura - Textivate (en proceso)

Historia reducida (para dibujar y recontar)

Lectura - categorías

Actividad de emparejar las frases con las tfotos

EduCanon

Preguntas para Educanon - Papel

Purpose Games

Quizailize

Feel free to use it and let me know if you have any ideas, suggestions and/or corrections! 

Canela: Familia, Casa, Comida

Update 2/20/18 - You can buy it on YouTube ($9.99) and watch with English Subtitles! And on Amazon too! Yay!

Update 8/5/17 - You can find the movie online here Pantaya (you will have to pay) and watch with Spanish subtitles.

Click here to see ACTFL Presentation

Update - 5/25/16 - Elena López is creating more resources to the unit and posting links here.

My Spanish 1 classes are nearing the end of the semester and it has been wonderful for so many reasons! I have been using mostly TPRS and CI (and no textbook) - big, enormous thanks to Elena López and Amy Zimmer, they not only shared tons of resources with me, but also gave me lots of advice and encouragement. 

So, I was hoping to read a TPRS novel at the end, but instead I have decided to do a unit wrapped around the movie Canela. We have done a lot of short films as "stories" in class and this unit will almost be like that, but with a much longer "story." Elena López has helped tremendously with this unit and I am looking forward to teaching it. I shared a guide for the movie in another post, but that is a little too advanced for my Spanish 1 students. The new unit packet is geared towards students at the end of Spanish 1 (we have block scheduling). Below are some of the other "pieces" of the unit, including a slideshow (with 134 slides - thanks Elena!) that will be la lectura before we watch the movie in segments. We will review with the same lectura in the unit packet. Feel free to use anything and let me know if you have any suggestions and/or ideas!

Also, here is a doc that has some other resources, including links to textivate activities, a couple of zaption activities and some memrise vocabulary sets.

**Note** In the unit packet, there are some vocabulary lists because I am "departmentally tied" to a textbook and have to cover/teach certain things.

Preguntas Esenciales:

• ¿Por qué es la comida tradicional importante en un país? ¿Cómo es una comida tradicional mexicana similar y/o diferente de una comida tradicional de mi país?
• ¿Por qué es la familia muy importante en la vida de una persona?
• ¿Cómo es mi familia?

Metas (Goals) de la unidad:

• I can describe my family.
• I can identify the rooms of a house.
• I can list foods that I eat for different meals of the day.
• I can show that I understand the movie Canela in a variety of ways.
• I can describe a traditional food from Mexico.

Evaluaciones:

• Quiz: Vocabulario - la casa, la familia, y la comida
• Quiz: In class work with the movie Canela
• Test:
• Listening Section: Listen to sentences about the movie Canela and write cierto or falso.
• Speaking Section: Describe a family member.
• Reading Section: Read about el mole and then answer questions. (includes cultural comparison)
• Writing Section: Write a summary of the movie Canela.
• Gramática: conjugations, el/la/los/las, un/una/unos/unas, some irregular verbs, adjective noun agreement

El plan:

• Listen, read and look at slide show for part of the movie.
• Watch that part of the movie and listen to the Spanish (you will also be reading the English or Spanish subtitles). Write 3-5 phrases/words in Spanish that you hear; they should be things you know or things you want to know.
• Read aloud with partner and circle the correct word.
• Answer questions or cierto/falso sentences below certain passages.
• Repeat for another section of the movie.

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Kiva con español 1

Before I explain what we did with Kiva in Spanish 1, I have to say that I got this idea from Kristy Placido and Carrie Toth, who did this with their Spanish 3 and 4 classes. I went to Carrie's presentation at CSCTFL and had been wanting to do something similar for a while.

If you don't know what Kiva is, it is a micro-financing site that gives micro-loans to people, mostly in the developing world, who cannot get a loan at a traditional bank. Kiva works with community organizations to distribute the loans.

After doing a story called Irene (as part of our "school unit") with the video below (resources and idea from Elena López), students were a bit sad and probably a bit more appreciative of what they have and where they go to school. Before they saw the twist at the end many were asking, "Why is she so happy to be going to school?"

So, with that idea in their heads, I decided this was a good opportunity to do something. So we watched "Living on One Dollar" (available on YouTube and Netflix). Here is the trailer:

After we watched the documentary, I shared the slideshow below to explain (in Spanish) what Kiva is  and then I explained what we were going to do to help someone like Irene. Instead of making a video about a person (like Kristy and Carrie's students did), students had to make a simple slide describing who the person is, what he/she looks like, how old he/she is, and why he/she needs the loan. We had $200 from one class and $100 for the other class (I donated $100, my mom donated $100, a paraprofessional donated $50 and a couple of students donated money as well). The next day we looked at the slides and decided who to loan the money to.

The slideshow explains what Kiva is and what we were going to do. Also, within the slideshow below is a story (different background) created by Dustin Williamson that was very helpful to explain what Kiva is and does.
                      
After seeing the slideshow, most students were very engaged and interested in exploring the Kiva site. 

**Important Note** I investigated a bit and there are some conflicting reports about Kiva, micro-financing and how much good it actually does. Also, I would look carefully at the lending institution in the country (the "middle man").  I decided that is still worth doing with a Spanish 1 class in rural New Hampshire, for the following reasons: 

• They learn about global poverty.
• They expand their view of the world.
• They learn about an option of loaning and not just giving.
• They see the power of technology.
• They see people trying to do good with technology.
• They learn to appreciate what they have.
• They feel good about helping people and might do it again in the future.

Here are the two slideshows from my classes. As is typical with Spanish 1 (in my school), about a third of them did not complete the assignment for homework.

La escuela... y la canción de la semana

I am starting a "school unit" in Spanish 1 and usually this is not something really enjoy, but thanks to Elena López and Amy Zimmer, it is going to be much better! I am mostly going to use their materials, including these from Elena.

My essential question for the unit is: ¿Cómo es mi día escolar similar y/o diferente de otras personas en otros países?

And the goals for the unit are:

• I can answer questions about my school day and my classes.
• I can compare my school and my school day to others.
• I can comprehend and retell a story about school.

The canción de la semana for this unit is "Chau" from the Uruguayan group No te va gustar. Here is the slideshow to introduce the band. And here is the cloze activity and translation. The lyrics to the song are not at all related to school, but the video is (see 2nd slideshow below).

I am going to use this slideshow to introduce some of the important vocabulary and to tell the "story" of the video. I am not going to spend a lot of time on it, but I think it will be a good intro to some of the vocabulary. Update: Elena López improved this slideshow and has lots of resources here.

If any of this is useful for you, please consider giving back in a Radiohead style format.