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| My school visit in Haiti |
This semester I have a combined class of Sp4 and Sp5, 28 students total. Realistically, I know it is impossible to teach two different curricula in one 70-minute period that other years were separated into different classes. After a great deal of thought, I decided the best plan of action is to teach a completely new curriculum; one that includes the main grammar structures introduced in Sp4 (i.e. negative commands, the subjunctive) but in a fresh way so the Sp5 students also benefit. For some it will feel like a review, for others that haven't mastered those concepts, it will prove to be quite beneficial. Above everything, I want all students at the end of the semester to see growth in their abilities.
This hybrid curriculum requires me to find reading materials that students have not read before. Typically, I choose a book below the students' level as a way to review (some haven't had Spanish since the first semester in fall 2012), and to build up their confidence.
The first book we are reading in the combined class is "Felipe Alou" by Carol Gaab. For the first chapter we discussed what students already knew about The Dominican Republic, completed the wordle activity by Kristy Placido on the Teacher's Guide CD (I highly recommend this TG), completed a cross-out activity with the new vocabulary in Ch1, and shared our thoughts on the discussion and comprehension questions.
Chapter 2 of Felipe Alou describes his family life and his childhood and teenage years. Two sentences that caught my attention in particular were, "También insistían que sus hijos recibieran una educación excelente. ¡La educación de sus hijos era muy importante." I take every opportunity to stress to my students the importance of education so those two lines set the stage perfectly. Below are the activities I used to draw out discussion from the students and stress the importance of education throughout the world.
1. Kenya to Kabul: 15 Classrooms around the World. Students compared and contrasted the classrooms pictured to schools in Pennsylvania. Easy way to elicit discussion.
2. Frontline: By the Numbers: Dropping out of High School I made a powerpoint in Spanish with multiple choice questions to share the statistics related to high school dropouts.
3. House Construction with Plastic Bottles by Samarpan Foundation. This 3-minute video shows the construction of a house by using plastic bottles filled with mud. There is no dialogue, but rather subtitles (in English). When the building is completed, it is actually a school which ties into the discussion theme above.
4. The Big Picture: Schools Around the World. Another website with beautiful photos of schools around the world and school children traveling to those schools can be found. This can be used to replace #1 above or in addition. The photos are absolutely wonderful!
At times students will share about their family trips to beautiful vacation destinations, but they have little to no experience in seeing the real culture of a country, away from the tourist spots. These websites and video provided the students with a glimpse of the world, far away from their small corner of Pennsylvania, and encouraged discussion in the TL.
The day before Thanksgiving vacation the students have one goal in mind: get through the day so they can start their vacation. I know this because I've heard it from several students in my homeroom group and other classes.
The regular plans may need to be put on hold, but that doesn't mean you have to turn to simple games like Bingo. Another popular activity is for students to write things they are thankful on turkeys' feathers. They have the cuteness factor, but I suggest you make it more meaningful by increasing the comprehensible input and increase class discussion as Sra. Yedinak explains HERE.
I had several activities ready to go that took no or minimal planning but were in the target language and required student engagement.
1. Estoy agradecido por.
Students moved their chairs into a circle. I wrote the following on the board: Estoy agradecido por..., Estoy agradecida por..., está agradecido/a por...
I randomly pulled a student's name from index cards (or use a random name generator) and that student moved into the chair designated as #1. The student originally seated there moved into the seat of the students that was called. The student in chair #1 had to say for what they were thankful. (i.e. Estoy agradecida por mis hermanas.) Then I pulled a second name and that student moved into the seat next to the first student and said for what the first person was thankful and then added for what they were thankful. We continued this for 15 students.
Even if there are more than 15 students in the class, going through this 15 times is plenty. My rule was that any student that had already said for what they were thankful decided to chat with another student, they had to move to the end of the line and repeat what each person had said. There was a united sigh from the remaining students when after the 15th person's name was called.
To end the activity, the students wrote 5 sentences about what 5 of their classmates had said and for sentence #6, they wrote for what they were thankful. I kept the notes on the board as they wrote. I didn't want it to be a tricky exercise, but rather one in which they heard "Estoy/está agradecido/a por" over 100 times. This worked well and I didn't have to quiet the students even one time!
2. Infografía: El pavo, sabor y nutrición para Fin de Año. This infograph is not made specifically for Thanksgiving, but it still works for Thanksgiving. I used this with my Spanish 4 class for a short activity. I projected the infograph on the board and simply asked them to tell me information in English from the infograph. As they called out information, I used a marker to put a check on that information.
I find this the evening before the class, and I can't remember if I saw it on someone's blog or if I saw it on Pinterest. The link to the infografía is HERE.
3. Another short activity on vocabulary related to Thanksgiving is on Quia. Just google "Quia - Día de acción de gracias", and you'll find several shared activities or click HERE to choose matching, concentration, or 2 other choices. I did the matching only but if I had had the ipads in my class, I may have considered having them pair up to play a round of concentration.
It would have been easy to include the Thanskgiving theme into a story, but the students appreciated the change of pace. I saved enough time in our 70 minute block to read another chapter in our leveled reader.
UPDATE: Two days after I posted this I found this post by Señora Pelirroja (@SraPelirroja) on her blog Classroom Creativities. It DOES take prep time but it is a cute idea. If I had seen this at the beginning of November, I would have planned for my students to do this activity before I went to ACTFL so other students could appreciate it for a few weeks.
