Reflexive Verb Commercials

**Update 2/2/15** Jonathan Woodward has created some better worksheets to go along with these commercials. You can find them in this folder. !Gracias!

This is a continuation of a previous post about using commercials in the classroom. In Spanish 2, we use the Realidades level 2 textbook. In chapter 2A, the theme is talking about your morning routine, with an emphasis on reflexive verbs.

So, rather than the book audio activities, I decided to use the seven commercials below as listening/speaking/interpretive activities. Students talk about what they see in the commercials, read the transcription aloud, listen and fill in the blanks, interpret the commercial, and finally, try to imitate the speaker(s) of the commercial. Here is the worksheet that I gave to students.

Below each commercial is the cloze activity for each. These commercials include a lot the chapter's vocabulary and provide a lot of opportunity for students to talk about the morning routines. They also give students exposure to a variety of accents and grammatical structures, including some voseo.

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

COLGATE

noches número cepillarse

Cuando tus hijos se acuestan sin 1.________________________   los dientes… (ocho veces más bacterias… ocho veces más bacterias). Se exponen a ocho veces más bacterias que causan caries. Asegúrate que usen "Máxima Protección Anticaries" y dile "Buenas 2.________________________" a las bacterias. Colgate. La marca 3.________________________ uno recomendada por odontólogos.

COMERCIAL JABÓN ESCUDO

manos             vas                         clases

A ver. ¿Natalia? Presente. Tú vas a ser la abogada.

¿Pedro? Tú 1.________________________ a ser el bombero. Sí.

Y el doctor va a ser Luisito.

Cuando tu hija falta 2.________________________, pierde oportunidades.

Con Escudo, ayudas a prevenir enfermedades como unas causadas por bacterias.

Presente.

3.________________________ limpias por una mejor educación.

GILLETTE CREMA ANTI-IRRITACIÓN

cinco         afeitarte ayuda

¿Tu piel irrita al 1.________________________?

Prueba la crema Gillette anti-irritación.

Ayuda a combatir 2.________________________ signos de irritación en el afeitado.

3.________________________ a defender tu piel.

AGUA DE COLONIA

rosa nunca          colonias fragancias

Nuevas 1.________________________.

Colonias Sanborns.

Roble y agave.

Flores de…

Lluvia de la selva.

2.________________________ y granada.

Y la clásica: Flor de naranja.

Aromas 3.________________________ antes imaginados.

4.________________________ Sanborns.

FARMACIA ARROCHA

mamá bañarme    peinarme      levantarme comprar

Me cuesta 1.________________________.

Me cuesta ir a 2.________________________.

Me cuesta hasta 3.________________________.

Pero a mi mamá no le va a costar.

En Arrocha vamos a comprar, mochilas, loncheras, el diseño que tú quieras, cartucheras, sacapuntas, plumas pa’l que apunta, cuadernos divertidos para estudiar con estilo, hay libros de texto que no te echan cuentos. Hay juegos de geometría, calculadoras, gomas, cartulinas, y engrapadoras.

Pero a mi 4.________________________ no le va a costar. En Arrocha vamos a 5.________________________.

Farmacias Arrocha. La mejor calidad al menor precio. Todos los días

NATURA UNA (click here to see video, YouTube link video no longer available)

maquillaje cara consultora

Natura te invita a pensar por qué te pintás la 1.________________________.

Nueva línea de 2.________________________ Natura Una.

Natura Una, la mejor expresión de vos misma.

Acercate a una 3.________________________ Natura.

Bien estar bien.

UÑAS MÁGICAS

manos fácil uñas fashion

Vamos a brillar.   1. ________________________mágicas.

Viene con cosméticos de verdad.  2.________________________.

Con uñas mágicas, divertirse está de moda.

Brillan en la oscuridad.  Sentite creativa.   Así de 3.________________________.

Con uñas mágicas, hay magia en tus 4.________________________.

Commercials as Quizzes

How about using this commercial for a quiz?!? 

Alison Nelson and I are presenting a session called "Using commercials in the Spanish classroom" at MaFLA and NHAWLT in a few weeks and I have been working a lot on the presentation. The session should be fun and participants will walk away with a lot of ideas and worksheets! Commercials are a great way to expose students to short, engaging, comprehensible authentic resources. They are also an easy, fun way to increase their listening proficiency. Students also see some aspects culture (depending on the commercial) and hear a variety of accents if you use commercials frequently.

For Spanish 3, my school use the second half of Realidades 2 textbook, so I am tied to that book and its chapters. We are also reading Robo en la noche on the side (love it, highly recommended). This semester in Spanish 3, I am trying to give one "commercial quiz" per unit. The commercial quizzes will be directly related to the Realidades 2 units, and I will be posting them here as the semester goes on.

Basically the "commercial quiz" is an interpretive assessment in which students have to answer some questions about what they see in the commercial, listen and fill in the blanks of missing words (they don't have to get all of them), and then answer some questions about what the commercial is saying. I am also trying to include some cultural comparison questions (keeping the AP Spanish presentational section in mind). I let them listen to and watch the commercials as many times as they want (limit being that they have to finish by the end of class). The quizzes take about 30-45 minutes and are perfect to do when doing a speaking assessment on the same day.

Some things that I found to be helpful before doing this type of quiz:

• Do a similar activity together in class or for homework. If this is the first time they are being exposed to this type of activity, it can feel very difficult.
• Remind students to listen and look for cognates.
• Tell students to watch the commercial 2-3 times without even looking at the worksheet. 
• Keep the answers simple! Don't over-think!
• Explain (or remind) to them the difference between interpreting and translating. This is an interpretive assessment and they should focus on getting the main idea. They do not need to understand all of it.

This was the first "commercial quiz" that students did at the end of chapter 5A called: Un acto heroico. The had already seen two other similar commercials and done similar worksheets (here and here).

This is the second commercial quiz that students did at the end of chapter 5B Un accidente. They had already seen this commercial and similar ones (see Zachary Jones' Aununcios: ¿Qué le duele? + Partes del cuerpo). Click here for quiz.

Here is one that I am looking forward to doing. I think students will be able to relate to this one! I might actually give it as a Tarea Semanal option because I am not sure it will fit with any of the chapters for Realidades. Click here for worksheet.

I also used this catchy commercial in Spanish 2 this year to review school supplies. Students liked it and some even wanted that to be our "song of the week". Click here for worksheet.

Here is a very basic rubric that I created to grade these quizzes. I am sure that this will be improved, but this is a start.

I will be sharing our MaFLA presentation and all of the commercial worksheets here in late October. Two other places to find commercial transcripts are Zambombazo (tag: publicidad) and in this collaborative document (started by Sara Cottrell) with tons of commercial transcripts.

La Curandera & El Niágara en bicicleta

La Curandera por Carmen Lomas Garza

La Curandera por Elastic Bond

I recently came across the song "La curandera" by Elastic Bond (link Zambombazo wksht and other resourcest) while listening to Betsy and Zachary Jones' LAMC 2013 Artists' Choice Podcast (29:38). It is an excellent song that expresses some great cultural practices and perspectives related to health, so I decided to use it in a unit called Perspectivas de la salud (website with authentic resources linked at bottom and UbD outline with assessment descriptions). 

The essential questions for the unit are the following:

• ¿Cómo es el sistema de salud en la República Dominicana y en otros países lationamericanos?
• ¿Cuáles son algunas prácticas medicinales alternativas y cuáles son las raíces de estas tradiciones?
• ¿Cuáles son las persectivas culturales sobre los sistemas y las prácticas de la salud en estas tres canciones: El Niágara en bicicleta, Yerbatero and La curandera?
• ¿Cómo comparan y contrastan las prácticas y perspectivas expresadas en las canciones con las tuyas?

I created a short worksheet with questions about "La Curandera" and hope to create a cloze worksheet once I find the lyrics (or the time to transcribe them). La curandera has a lot in common with Yerbatero by Juanes. And both will contrast very well with El Niágara en bicicleta, which led me to the next update to the unit. El Niágara en bicicleta is the first song that I use in the unit. It illustrates the deficiencies of the health care system in the Dominican Republic (with some obvious exaggerations). It also leads students to understand why alternative medicine might be a reasonable solution for many people who live in a place where the health care system is not very good and/or available to all.

The song has always been difficult for students to interpret and understand. So when I read a post called "Authentic Resources + Embedded Reading" on  Crystal Barragán's (@srtabarragan) excellent blog, I decided that creating an embedded reading for this song would be the perfect way to get students to understand the song. Crystal also shares a variety of activities that can be done with each version. This is my first attempt at creating an embedded reading, but I think it will make the interpretation of the song much easier for my students.

I have never used embedded readings before, but I am excited about this idea because I think my students will be able to understand and interpret songs in a much better way and with much more confidence! I look forward to creating more embedded readings for other songs this year.

How about you? Have you used embedded readings? Any suggestions?

**Also, if you use the song Azul by Natalia Lafourcade, she talks about the song starting at 9:38 on the LAMC 2013 Artists' Choice Podcast. I use that song in the first unit my Cultura y Civilización class. The unit is called "Los miedos" and it is the perfect way to start the class.**