Apps for Spanish Class

I just learned that the Draw Something App for iPhone and iPad is now available in Spanish and 12 other languages.  How cool is that!

One way to use this is to have my students set this App to Spanish and play it with other students in the class, outside of school.  Maybe even throw in some extra credit points if they reach a certain number of plays and then show it to me when they reach that number.

An even better way to involve the students with the App is to find another class of students learning Spanish, either in the U.S. or in another country, and partner my students up with them...OR...find a class in a Spanish country to match my students to their students, or simply play as a whole class.  If I can find a class from a Spanish country that is learning English, maybe we could alternate playing the game in Spanish and English.

I love when the creators of the Apps make them available in other languages!

If you are reading this blog and are interested in starting some type of collaboration with this App, please post a comment below or send me an e-mail @ cynthia_hitz@yahoo.com.

A Reading Experiment

I'm conducting a very informal reading experiment this summer with my daughter.  She finished Spanish 1 in June and she will have Spanish 2 in the fall.  I asked her a few days ago if she wanted to read a Spanish book with me and she consented.

I chose Piratas del Caribe y el mapa secreto by Mira Canion and Carol Gaab as our first book.  I read a paragraph or two in Spanish and then she reads the same paragraph in English.  When she comes across a word that she doesn't know at first sight, I allow her time to figure out the word from context.  If she doesn't know it, I tell her the English translation and she continues with the sentence.  

Some days I need to ask her a few times before she is ready to read and today was one of those days.  She agreed and we started reading the 4th chapter of Piratas.  It was interesting today because about half way through the chapter, I realized that her reading was notably better than it had been in the previous three chapters.  By the 4th chapter the characters are established and from her reading she obviously has become accustomed to the authors' writing styles.  I noticed that she is improving on small things like possessive structures (written without the apostrophe 's as in English), the "le" that is used in phrases like "le grita" or "le pregunta", and shows little or no hesitation reading the different forms (nosotros, tú, yo, etc.) of the verbs.  

We will finish this book in 5 days or less and then we'll read the present tense version of El Nuevo Houdini.  After we finish Houdini, I'll ask her to choose between Noches misteriosas en Granda or Robo en la noche.  When we move onto books that include the past tenses, I'm not planning on giving her any grammatical explanations unless she wants clarification as she is reading.  My guess is that she'll be able to translate it correctly simply from seeing it in context.  Time will tell.

I hope she continues to enjoy the reading time we have together.  One benefit is that when she starts Spanish 2 this fall, she'll have a larger vocabulary and better understanding of Spanish.  More importantly, I'm able to spend quality time with my teen-age daughter by reading together, just like we used to do when she was a little girl, but this time it's in Spanish.  Good times!

Spanish 1 Curriculum

A task that I'm working on this month is to re-write the curriculum for Spanish 1 and 2.  Our current curriculum is written in LFS (Learning Focused Schools) format and we have permission to write the curriculum to make it more TPRS-friendly = more language acquisition friendly!


My goal in writing the curriculum is to have a list of certain words that all Spanish 1 students will know by the end of the school year.  Since it probably is too daunting of a task to teach from only a list of words, I broke it down into a Curriculum Matrix (CM) described below.  FYI - We have two semesters/year.  The classes in each semester are 70 minutes for 90 days.

- There are 6-8 days of TPR, with a list verbs and misc. vocab. to be taught in those days

- There are 3 sections of TPRS with focus words.  
During the 1st section of TPRS, the focus is solely on the él/ella form with the tú and ellos/ellas forms appearing if/when needed in the story.  
In the 2nd section of TPRS, the tú and ellos/ellas forms are stressed more, and the yo form is also introduced in stories with dialogue.  
In the final section of TPRS, the nosotros/nosotras forms will be stressed. So by the third section, a story could easily have ALL the different subject pronouns and accompanying forms of the verbs.  
I'm not sure what to do about the vosotros/vosotras form in the CM.  I was the only teacher at my school that taught this form because it is in literature, books, a video series, and songs from Spain that I use in Spanish 3 and higher so why ignore it in Spanish 1 & 2?  That never made sense to me, but I may be in the minority.


- List of words to add into stories to cover additional vocabulary (mostly nouns and adjectives).    As we (any teacher using TPRS with Spanish 1 this year) go through the semester, we will check off the words that the students have acquired (it was used as a focus word) and those they are familiar with.  We'll have to determine a way to differentiate between the two.


- Grammar Box that will be covered with pop-up grammar and in context in stories; not in the traditional way with a worksheets and drills. 


- Cognate List mostly from our old textbook + I'll attach lists from websites to encourage teachers to use them when needed.

- List of Basic Words like Señor, gracias, etc. that students already know or will pick up within a short period of time that are not formally included/written in the 3 TPRS sections even though they will be used in many of the stories.


- Readers for Spanish 1.  Teachers will choose 2 of the books listed to complete in Spanish 1; 3 if there is time.  

Items still needed:

- Culture Items. There will be cultural information that we agree to cover in this first level either from the Spanish readers, or by incorporating that information in our stories.  (i.e. the importance of the family unit, the Plaza Mayor, meal times, foods, etc.) 

- Agreed amount of time for FVR and/or "Kindergarten Day" 

- List of songs.

I've embedded my second draft below. (updated 6/19/12)  It is still a work in progress. When I go to the NTPRS conference, I'd like to get some feedback on it and tweak it, or do a major overhaul, whatever is needed. You should start on the 2nd page because for some reason it wouldn't let me reorder the pages.  





Please feel free to send me your suggestions, comments, and advice on the above draft. I welcome your input.

Summer Reading & Podcasts - My Summer Personal Development Plan

"Picking up word meaning by reading is 10 times faster than intensive vocabulary instruction."  - Stephen Krashen, The Power of Reading.

"Incidental learning of words during reading may be the easiest and single most powerful means of promoting large-scale vocabulary growth." - W.W. Nagy & P.A. Herdman

"Teaching vocabulary lists is inefficient - the time is better spent reading alone." - Stephen Krashen.  

(quotes about reading listed in Bryce Hedstrom's book Stuff for Spanish Class)

The more I read about language acquisition in a second language, the more I understand the importance of reading. The past school year was the first year that I had a two times a week planned SSR time for my Spanish classes and it was, hands down, a success.  I discussed SSR with my students on the last day of school and the overwhelming response was that they enjoyed it and felt it was beneficial to them.  Many said they think it should be at least 3 times a week.  

So now that it is summer and I have some spare time, I followed the advice that I give to my students and went to the Community Library and checked out three Spanish books for some easy summer reading.  I"ll start with the James Patterson book, Los Puentes de Londres" and Sandra Cisnero's La Casa en Mango Street (sometimes I have the habit of reading two books at the same time). Then, if I haven't obtained En Llamas yet, the second book in the Hunger Game Series, I'll start the Twilight Saga books.  One of my all-time favorite books is El Alquimista by Paulo Coehlo and I'm considering reading that again, just for fun, and then possibly using it in Spanish 5 in the future.

Our community has a wonderful library that has a huge selection of Spanish books.  There are children's picture books, young readers, classics, novels, biographies, fiction and non-fiction, how to books, magazines, DVDs, videos, audio books, encyclopedias, science books, cookbooks - just about any type of reading you can do in English is available in Spanish.  The librarian that is in charge of the Spanish section is open to suggestions on what types of books to add to the collection.  Just recently she went through the books that were not checked out very much and offered them to me instead of discarding them.  I now have even more books for my class library to use for SSR time.  

Another thing I've added to my summer personal development plan is listening to podcasts in Spanish.  I usually walk a minimum of 3.5 miles each day.  If I don't have a walking companion, I take my iPod and listen to Spanish podcasts that I've downloaded so I can multitask and take advantage of the time while I'm walking.  I find it beneficial to listen to the same podcasts several times to pick up on words or phrases that I may have missed the first time; another reminder to me that I have to go S-L-O-W when I'm telling stories and talking to my students in Spanish.  


If you have a favorite Spanish book that you'd like to share with me or podcasts that you like to listen to personally or use in class, I'd be interested in hearing about them - so please feel free to share them.  :)

Videos as part of the Final

Since I've used videos throughout the semester for discussions in the TL, I wanted to carry that format through in the final exam.  
My Spanish 4 curriculum includes the subjunctive and to test them on that, I used the video "Defective Detective".  They watched the video, twice, and then had to write 6 sentences giving reactions/feelings on how they felt or how a character in the video felt.  In one of the sentences, they needed to say someone was sure or certain about something to show me that they knew NOT to use the subjunctive with those expressions.

Example for "Defective Detective":
- El hombre tenía miedo que alguien atacara a su vecina.
- Me sorprende que haya tanta violencia en el resto del apartamento.
- A la anciana no le gustaba que un ratón estuviera en su cocina. 
- Es cierto que el dectective quiere proteger a su vecina.

LINK to video - CLICK HERE

Since my juniors and sophomores took their final at a different time then the seniors, when I showed the video to the seniors, the others wrote the sentences as a practice. I used a commercial for the subjunctive part of their final for the juniors and seniors. (YouTube is an unlimited resource!) 

I also used this video as part of the final for my Spanish 5 class.  Instead of writing sentences with the subjunctive, their task was to simply retell what happened in the video (in written format). If they didn't know a word they used circumlocution to get their point across.  

For the verbal part of the Spanish 4 final, I sent the students to the hall, two at a time, with either my iPad or my iPhone.  They each had different sets of questions that they had not seen before they left the class.  Then I gave them 5 minutes to answer any 3 of the 5 questions in Spanish.  They used the app. QuickVoice to record their answers.  Overall I was pleased with how well they did and how they were able to self-correct their mistakes. 

These type of finals show me the students' abilities 10 times better than any traditional grammar based test could.

Apps for Spanish Class - Akinator

Last week for something different, I started the class using an  app for the iPad called "Akinator".  It is similar to "20 Questions".  First you think of a person, real or fictional, and then Akinator asks questions for which you must answer Yes/No/Probably/I don't Know/etc.  The great thing about the app is that there are many languages in which you can play the game.

When my students walked in, I had Akinator projected on the white board.  Of course it caught their attention and they immediately said, "What's that?" and other comments.  I told them to choose a person that was real or from a book, or movie, or TV show, or cartoon character or anyone they could think of.  We then proceeded with the activity and Akinator proposed the first question in Spanish.  Many of the words in the questions were familiar but many times they had to ask me what something meant or they were able to figure it out through context.  

After Akinator correctly guessed the characters they had selected, they asked to play again, and again, and again.  I limited it to 6 or 7 times, but they wanted to play it the whole class.  I wanted to show them that simply by changing the language on games, or apps, you can learn new words in Spanish and increase your vocabulary, and....Have FUN!  

If you haven't tried Akinator yet, I strongly recommend it for when you have a few minutes at the end of class that you don't want to waste, or maybe just for an activity to change up the routine that the students will enjoy.  It costs $1.99 and worth every penny.

Seating Arrangement

Earlier this month, I decided to change the seating arrangement in my classroom.  I used to have the desks in a U formation to allow the students to communicate with others better.  However, even that arrangement didn't quite suit me and I realized it wasn't necessarily the U formation, it was the desks that were in the way.  The only time students need a desk is when they are writing, and my goal is to have stories and interaction in my classroom, not worksheets as I used to in my old school way of teaching. 

One day, in the middle of class when the students were standing for an activity in which they were retelling a story to each other, I asked them to move all the desks to the perimeter of the room.  Later, I moved the desks to the more organized positions above...but when the students come into class, it usually looks like the 2nd photo.  When they need to draw or write something, they move to the desks or use a clipboard.   When I want to show a video clip or use the interactive projector, only a few students need to move to the side.  


The new circle arrangement encourages verbal communication.  One thing I really like about it is that many times I also sit in a chair in the circle and during activities and discussions, I either switch chairs with other students or move my chair to sit beside different students throughout the activity.  I feel like I'm communicating with my students now instead of "just teaching".  :)


I believe I saw a similar arrangement (no desks but the chairs were in a circle) in a photo on Michele Whaley's blog several months ago and now that I'm using the arrangement, I'm wondering why I waited so long to adopt it!  


What seating arrangement works best in your classroom?

Sock Puppets App w/ TPRS

Three weeks ago another language teacher told me about the Sock Puppets app for iPhone and iPad.  I experimented with it and kept it on my list of possible sites to use in class when I needed to change things up a bit.

Yesterday, I started a story with my Spanish class.  I've had a student teacher since January, and yesterday was my first day to teach them since several weeks ago.  I have the skeleton of a story that I use that gives several examples of POR, and that is the story I started yesterday.  I only had 20 minutes to tell the first part of the story because I was headed on a field trip in the afternoon. 
The first part of the story was very basic and short. The students retold the story to each other and I also had them write it so I could correct it before continuing on Friday.  The first activity I did with the students today (one day after they heard the story) was: I asked them to number their paper 1-10.  Then they had to listen to the story below and find the differences in this version compared to the version from yesterday.  The Sock Puppets App made it more interesting for the students to watch. 
If you want to give more repetitions and you are afraid the students will be bored, try mixing it up with different types of repetitions that will help to keep the students' interest. 

 

Tweet provides material for class

Twitter can be a great resource when searching for materials and websites to use in class.  However, it also is a good place to find stories for Comprehensible Input.  Last night when I was on Twitter, I saw the following tweet:

@ransomtech: "Guy In a Cow Suit Shoplifts 26 Gallons of Milk From a Busy Walmart ...


I checked out the website and read about an 18-year old that entered WalMart wearing a cow costume and later managed to leave the store with 26 gallons of milk inside his costume without paying for them.  (Here is the link for the article.)


Today, instead of spending the first part of class talking about our weekends, I wrote the following words on the board:  Walmart, vaca, leche, robar, dar, policía (cow, milk, to rob, to give, police).  Then I put the students in groups of 3 and told them they had 5 minutes to use their imaginations (I always encourage creativity on these type of exercises) to formulate a news story that describes the event that I read about in the news article.  All communication in their group needed to be in Spanish. 


One student in each group told the class about their group's prediction in Spanish.  These storytellings provided several opportunities for pop-up grammar and for opportunities to introduce new words.  One group even used a sentence with the subjunctive so it was a perfect time to review it.  We also discussed ahora vs. ahorita, learned the relation of the words horno and hornear; shared the fact that cows will actually drink milk if it is offered to them; saw an example of por used in context; and the new word galón, to name a few.


After all the groups had shared, I told them the real story in Spanish and we discussed that for a short time.  At the end of the activity, I gave each student a quarter sheet of paper and asked them to write 1-3 things they learned from the activity.  I wanted this information to better help me see how it was or wasn't useful.  


I know the words that we used in the activity are not acquired yet, especially the brand new vocabulary words such as to crawl, but the activity was a different way for me to provide Comprehensible and Compelling Input.

If I were teaching Spanish 1 or 2, I would have told the story TPRS style.  It's perfect for that because it already is strange enough to keep student interest.  I wouldn't tell them it is a true story, but rather keep that for a surprise after they know the story and can repeat it and read it.

A Friday Communicative Activity

Marisol listens to Víctor & Miguel describe the video.

It's Friday and definitely time for another one of the students' and my favorite activities - describing videos.

I found this ad for a sport utility several months ago, called.  Below are the steps for the activity, with the goal of having the students communicate in L2.

1.  Before class, I watched the movie and made a list of the events from the story that students would later need to match.

2.  Students form groups of 4.

3.  One person from each group leaves the classroom.  (My room is down a short hallway so it doesn't cause any problems with the students in the hall.)

4.  I show the video to the students 2 times.  

5. The students return from the hall and sit with their group.  The students that saw the movie must  describe the events in the video to their member that was in the hall in SPANISH ONLY. The students that were in the hall are allowed to talk in English and ask questions in English, but those that watched the movie must speak only in Spanish. (I allow the students that were in the hall to speak English to take some of the pressure off of them.)

6.  After the groups have described the video in Spanish, I send the students back to the hall with a sheet of paper and they write the events in the video either in Spanish (L2) or English (L1).

7.  I collected their papers and groups earned 1 point for each fact they have that matched mine.  The winning group received one extra credit point.

My list of events that students need to match to earn points:

- man and woman in bed

- it's morning

- she takes shower

- there is a hair dryer on the shower floor

- she gets an electric shock

- man looks out the window at vehicle

- window falls on man's neck/head

- man and woman see/pass each other in the hall

- bowling ball falls on woman's head

- torch burns man's hair

- man puts his head in a fishbowl

- man trips over wire at top of steps and falls down stairs

- woman flosses her teeth

- woman steps over man at bottom of steps

- man and woman fight/push each other outside of house

- man has keys

- woman goes into house

- woman smells gas in kitchen

- a pan is in the microwave

- man drives the vehicle

- house explodes

- woman is on top of vehicle
.

The next time I do this activity, I'll follow it with an activity that includes the words the students didn't know when they were explaining the activity.  

I hope your students enjoy it as much as my students did.  Let me know if you have other ideas how to use this to encourage even more communication in the target language.

"La Hija del Sastre" (a book by Carrie Toth & Carol Gaab)

My students are currently reading "La Hija del Sastre".  We read chapter 7, "Mentiras (Lies)" together and then, to add some variety, the students acted out the 2nd half of chapter 7.  We needed someone to play the parts of: Ignacio, Emilia, Diana, la abuela, a narrator, and we threw in Camila just for fun.  In an effort to keep sts involved that were not assigned to any roles, I asked them to call out "Mentira, mentira, mentira" each time someone in the chapter lied (since the title is called "Mentiras"). 

I had minimal props: paper plates, cups, & plasticware, for when the family eats dinner; 2 smaller plates for when it says the mother's eyes were as big as two plates, and a suit coat and trousers cutouts from construction paper, and a tape measure.  

It was fun watching the story played out, plus it helped to concrete into the students' minds what occurred in the chapter.

Taking Advantage of an Interruption

For my second day back with my Spanish 4 classes, I was ready to share a story about a boy whose father buys him a magic carpet. I introduced the new vocabulary, asked some questions to practice the vocabulary, and then began to set up the beginning of the story. It was then that I noticed a student in the front row (the desks are arranged in a U formation so there are many students in the "front" row), slyly reaching into his bookbag on the floor. Inside the pocket of the bookbag I saw a shiny wrapper - you guessed it, chocolate wrapped in yellow foil, most likely from Easter.

Suddenly, my story wasn't so important any longer. What had my attention, and in short time, the attention of many of the other students, was... What was José reaching for in his bookbag? I continued asking questions as I walked towards José, both of us smiling knowing he was caught red-handed, and sat down in the student desk next to him, all the time continuing my questions, now directed to José, about the first few sentences of the story. As I asked the questions to José, I continued to look at him and then at the bookbag, then back at him. It was a little unrehearsed game and I was enjoying it, José was enjoying it, and the other students were enjoying it. By the time I stood up and moved away from José, everyone in the class knew that José would not be reaching into his bag again to snack on candy.

But, the best part was when I added a new sentence to the story, only to glance at José to see him licking his fingers. I couldn't help but zero in on José again and ask him what he was doing. He explained, in Spanish of course, that there was "chocolate en mis pies". ¿en tus pies? What a great time to review parts of the body, fingers and toes, and all the while with the attention of the whole class. It was at that point that I realized that this was "flow" that some TPRS teachers mention. The students in the class, including José, were so focused on what was happening with José and his bookbag and the chocolate, that the emphasis was not on Spanish, but Spanish was being used to follow and narrate the events. Personally, I didn't care that the whole chocolate episode took 4, 6, or 8 minutes out of my planned story, it was communication in the target language and they were focused in on the action.

Turns out, José said (in Spanish again, of course) that he was going to give me the candy when I was seated next to him, but I stood up too soon. Naturally, I sat next to him again, he gave me the candy, and I placed it on my desk for later.

Let me assure you that I know, without a doubt, that José wasn't embarrassed nor did he feel put on the spot, at any point during this interaction. He is a great student with a super, super, SUPER personality and I knew this little "game" was just as fun for him as it was for anyone in the room. He helped create the "flow" and nobody else, at that particular point, could have drawn the rest of the students' attention into the conversation like José did. Was it an interruption - certainly. But it was time well-spent. There's time tomorrow to continue the story. THANKS JOSÉ for helping with the lesson.

Just one of those days I have to ask myself, "and they pay me for this?"