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.**

Unidad Didáctica: Perspectivas de la Inmigración

Upadte 10/15/17: I am sharing part of my unit packet for the latest version of this unit, which does not include "Bandera" or "Pa'l norte." It does include two songs: "Un besito más" and "ICE El Hielo" and the movie "Ladrón que roba a ladrón," with resources from Arianne Dowd.

Update (7/22/17): The song "Un besito más" by Jesse y Joy is a definite addition to this unit! Click here to see free resources.


Update (10/4/15): I created this slideshow to start the unit (it is actually part of a Spanish 1 unit). Some of the language is a bit strange, or forced, because I made it comprehensible for my level 1 students. I will probably adapt it when I use for my Cultura y Civilización class. Here is the slideshow with some of the slides:

We just finished the unit called "Perspectivas de la Inmigración" (UbD curriculm document and unit packet) in my Cultura y Civilización unit. This is the fourth time I have done this unit and it has been a little different each time, but the one thing that has stayed the same is the engagement in this unit. Most students have an opinion about immigration and undocumented immigrants in the United States, so they are interested in this unit.

By the end of the unit (hopefully), they understand how complicated immigration laws and reform really are. They will also understand a little more about the undocumented immigrant experience in the United States and (hopefully) develop some empathy for undocumented immigrants.

These are the Essential Questions for the unit:

1. ¿Por qué emigran ilegalmente muchas personas a los Estados Unidos? ¿De dónde es la mayoría de los inmigrantes indocumentados? ¿Cómo llegan algunos? ¿Por qué vienen ilegalmente y no legalmente? ¿Cuál es el proceso de entrar legalmente en los EEUU?
2. ¿Qué pasa ahora con la reforma migratoria en los EEUU? ¿Qué es el DREAM Act?
3. ¿Quiénes son algunos cantantes que cantan sobre la inmigración? ¿Cuáles son sus perspectivas? ¿Cómo son diferentes y/o similares las canciones y los videos? ¿Qué opinas tú de las canciones?
4. En tu opinión, ¿hay una solución al problema? ¿En qué consiste?

The first Essential Question was the speaking assessment (done about halfway through the unit). In order for them to answer those questions, they had to investigate a bit. Below are some of the links they used to gather information before discussing in class and taking the "speaking test". We did not use all of them, but did use the bolded ones. Some are authentic resources and some are in English. I really liked the infografías because they are excellent differentiated readings.

1. Univisión Noticias: Inmigración
1. Infografía y Artículo: Historia de la población hispana en los Estados Unidos
2. Infografía y Artículo: Ciudadanía vs. Sin Ciudadanía
3. Encuesta: ¿Cuánto sabe de la tarjeta verde?
4. El perfil de un soñador. ¿De dónde son y adónde van?
5. Artículo: Se acaba el plazo para la lotería de visas
6. Artículo: ¿Cuál es el panorama de la inmigración en los EEUU?
2. Podcast: PRI The World: What does getting in line really mean?
3. Visitor Visas: Business and Pleasure
4. More Visas: Temporary Workers
5. Las reglas de visas de los Estados Unidos (en inglés)

Another thing we did at the beginning of the unit was watch an episode of the "reality show" 30 Days. It is English, but students answered questions (see unit packet)  about it in Spanish and we discussed the different (at times extreme) perspectives of immigration in the show. Although it is a "reality show" and a little much at times, I continue to show it to students because I think they enjoy it and learn a lot from it.

30 Days: Immigration from MacQuarrie-Byrne Films on Vimeo.

After having focused on the first Essential Question, the next part of the unit was to see three different perspectives of immigration in three different songs:

Perspectiva #1 - Bandera by Aterciopelados - This song questions the idea of having borders and the immigration laws of some countries, obviously the United States being one of them. The lyrics are simple and easy to understand and the music video is excellent for discussion!

*Note*: Some students did not like this video because they felt like it was anti-American (and it might be), but I explained that this is a perspective of some people. A good question to ask then is, why do they have that perspective?

Perspectiva #2 - Pa'l Norte by Calle 13 - This song is about the journey of an undocumented immigrant as he travels North. The journey is described as being very difficult and the undocumented immigrant is glorified for his grit and persistence. The song also has some excellent cultural references and the vocabulary in this poem/song is rich. This video is also excellent for discussion.

*Note*: This song contains some language and phrases that some might not want to use. I skip some parts of the song and focus on the important parts. Also, René might be drunk in the video, I  ignore that part.

Perspectiva #3 - ICE El Hielo by La Santa Cecilia - This song shows the experience of undocumented immigrants in the United States. It is a beautiful song and easy for students to understand. The video is also powerful.

This perspective is particularly important because it is one sung by a band from the United States. It was also interesting for students to hear one of the band members speak here (starting at 10:55) about being an undocumented immigrant.

As with all the units, we sang all of theses songs a lot and students became very familiar with the videos as well. We also illustrated Pa'l Norte as a class and students illustrated ICE El Hielo in groups of 2-3. (I need to get some pictures of those on here!). All of the discussion questions about the songs and the videos are in the unit packet.

This is the  unit test. Students did an excellent job on this assessment. I love correcting them because for many of the questions, there is not one right answer. The questions are so open that students can take many paths to answer them.

There are so many excellent authentic resources for to teach a unit about immigration! Check out Zambombazo's resources here. La Misma Luna is also an excellent movie to show students.

What are some of your favorite resources to teach about immigration? Please share!