El Mole: una canción para una comparación cultural

The first unit of my Cultura y Civilización unit this semester is called "La Diversidad de la Gastronomía." Every time I do this unit, I change it and try to add new resources. Thanks to Bethanie Drew, I have added an episode Master Chef Jr. Spain. And thanks to Elena López (and myself) I have added the movie Canela, which has been a fabulous way to ease back into Spanish (after a year off for many of these Spanish 4/5 students). I recently used the movie to end the semester in Spanish 1 and I have been adapting it a bit for Cultura y Civilización, but mostly we are using it to talk a lot of Spanish.

And thanks to Jean Rueckert and @palomajulian, I have added the song "El Mole" by Virulo. The song is sung by Virulo, a Cuban singer/humorist, who describes what el mole is. The first video below has him talking about las papilas gustativas (taste buds) of the Cubans and the first time he tried el mole. What a fantastic cultural comparison!

The first part of the activity that I did with students has a partial (edited) transcription of what he says. We did it as a reading activity and then listened to him. Another fantastic cultural comparison was his accent! Students at this level can hear the difference and actually got a kick out of how he dropped many syllables, especially the "s" at the end of words.

Then he goes on to sing the song, which basically lists all the ingredients of el mole. Students listened and filled in the words that they heard. And we have been singing it all week. The chorus "Mete, mete, mételo todo en el molcajete" is super pegajosa. And El Molcajete is the name of the restaurant in the movie Canela, so that is a nice tie in.

Students will have to do a cultural comparison (in the AP style) at the end of this unit and I think many of them will use el mole as the cultural product from a Spanish speaking country.

In the past, I have used another song about el mole, "La Cumbia del Mole," by Lila Downs, but this current song is more of a hit with students.

                     

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.

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

Una película buena para la "food unit" - Canela

      

Update - 5/18/18 - You can find this movie on Amazon and YouTube (rent or purchase) with automatic English subtitles. You can watch it on Pantaya (paid monthly subscription) with Spanish subtitles.

**Update - 1/1/16 - click here to see updated resources**

Canela is going to be a perfect addition to my (and Cristina Zimmerman's) Diversidad de la Gastronomía unit (or to anyone's "food unit"). It is a sweet movie and totally appropriate for school! It is a bit childish, but I found that if I tell them that ahead of time, they are okay with that. It is a little cursi, but contains some Mexican culture and it is in Spanish, so lots of listening practice* for students. They will definitely know what mole is after the movie. Most of the movies I show are pretty heavy, so this will be a nice change.

I created this movie guide with discussion questions. There are a lot of things that could be done with this movie, so please let me know if you have any ideas. Minutes 33:00-48:00 basically show how to prepare mole (lots of cooking vocabulary there!). If you see any typos or other corrections, please let me know... I share my material freely so don't expect perfection! :)

Also, if you teach AP, or have it in your Spanish program, I have included some pre-AP questions at the end of the guide. I was thinking about the two minute oral "comparación cultural" when I wrote those questions at the end.

This song will be perfect to do before (or during) the movie - La Cumbia del Mole by Lila Downs (wksht.):

Here is a trailer for the movie:

Here is the synopsis taken from the website for the movie:

After her daughter’s death, Tere lost her passion for cooking and stopped working at her traditional Mexican food restaurant, El Molcajete, downtown Mexico City. Trying to save the business, Beatriz, the manager of El Molcajete, hires Rosi, a Cordon Bleu chef educated in France. But Maria, Tere’s sweet and bright grandchild, plans to make Tere go back to cook and run the restaurant, looking to put a smile on her face. Meanwhile, chef Rosi changes the menu, making it a light trendy cuisine, for that Jocelyn, a well known TV food critic, decides to go and pay a visit after she reads a review about it. When finally Tere realises that she needs to go back on business, she learns that chef Rosi is tearing into pieces the restaurant’s reputation. Maria, who loves traditional cuisine, prepares everything to proof that chef Rosi has no place at El Molcajete. The cuisine battle between Tere and chef Rosi is an epic fight not only between long-stablished Mexican food and light food, but also a struggle of family bonds, friendship, cooking secrets, flavor’s passion and more than two hundred ingredients that are needed in order to prepare Mole, a traditional Mexican sauce.

*The movie is available on Netflix. I would prefer to show it with Spanish subtitles, but the subtitles are in English. If anyone has figured out how to get Spanish subtitles on Netflix, please let me know. I also bought the DVD through Amazon, but it does not have Spanish subtitles either.