El día de los muertos - Videos & Reading Materials

Three additional resources for El Día de los Muertos:

1. Last weekend I stumbled upon two videos called "Los Thornberrys y El Día de los Muertos". A few days later, Laurie Clarcq, @lclarcq tweeted "we watched the version today w Spanish subtitles. All looked for stereotypes vs actual practices. Blast from their past." 
Here are the links for you & your students to join in the fun too!:
Part 1: youtu.be/TyAuzVG45wg  
Part 2: youtu.be/nDv2E6AXMRU 

2. Another video related to El Día de los Muertos by Sofia Aviles is on Vimeo: http://vimeo.com/54419314

3. One of the cutest animated short films related to Día de los Muertos is about a little girl that meets her mother when she visits the land of the dead. You can find this video on Vimeo HERE. 

 

After I introduce the short film using the MovieTalk method, I distribute a transcript of the short film and read it with the students. I uploaded a copy of the transcript to GoogleDocs, which you can find HERE. 


Another activity I use for additional comprehensible input is a list of statements about the short film. Students need to find the word(s) in each statement that are not part of the story, cross it out, and replace it with the correct word(s).

 

I also use a 4x5 storyboard that students use to guide them in a story retell.  (If you want a copy of the storyboard, email me or leave your email in the comments below or send me a tweet @sonrisadelcampo and I'll send it to you.)

UPDATE!!! I received an email by Susann Shultz in which she shared a slideshow that she made to use with the above video. She gave me permission to share it HERE.  THANK YOU Susann!!!

4. For an embedded reading on La Llorona, (a nice choice to follow after El Día de los Muertos) check out Laurie Clarcqs post about Bryce Hedstrom's work on her website Embedded Reading found HERE.

LARRY EL VAMPIRO - embedded reading & activities in time for Halloween

Some of the activities I use to prepare my Spanish 2 students to read their first novel with past tenses are embedded readings of Larry el vampiro, a MovieTalk the video Vampire's Crown (click here for more resources), and Sr. Wooly's La Dentista song. Embedded readings was developed by Laurie Clarcq and Michele Whaley. Check this BLOG for many examples in several languages.

Below are the activities and materials in my lesson plans that provide comprehensible input of the past tenses based on the Larry el vampiro story.   

The focus words are:  
le dolía la muela = his tooth hurt
quería morder = he wanted to bite
no podía ______r (infinitive) = he wasn't able to ______
  

1. Use sketches of stick figures with a pain somewhere in the body to provide repetitions of what someone WANTED TO DO, but WASN'T ABLE TO DO, because SOMETHING HURT. I used magnets to put a sketch on the board and then I used the circling technique to ask questions about the "person" and their ailment and what they wanted to do but couldn't do.  On the right is a photo of and write what the person couldn't do.  To the right is a photo of my notebook with the sketches I later drew on construction paper to use in class to give you an idea of how simplistic the sketches can be. After all, we're teachers, not artists.

2.  I made a PowerPoint of photos of people and animals with part of their body that hurt. Discuss what hurt the person or animal and what the person wanted to do but couldn't because of the pain. Last year I tweeted that I needed ideas on how to teach this and the ever creative Martina Bex suggested I search for photos of ridiculous or unbelievable injuries to increase student engagement. It worked! I found some eye-catching injuries!

3. Use TPRS to create the story.  I talk about a vampire that had a problem because his tooth hurt.  The students add the details what he wanted to do but couldn't and what he decided to do.

4. Distribute version #1 of Larry el vampiro.  Read with the students. Ask students to give additional information for the story that goes in between #1 and #2, a sentence to go between #2 and #3, etc.  The students copied the sentences that I wrote on the board.

5. Project version #2 and version #3 on the board. As I read, I asked students to raise their hand when I read a sentence that was not included in the previous version.  Since we have been working with the past tenses for a few weeks, I tried to recycle words we've used thus far this school year as well as vocabulary and structures in the upcoming activities and novel.

To break up the reading, I showed them this powerpoint (pictured above) to verbally review the story and for them to retell it. Sketches in the powerpoint are by a talented student, Anna, that was in Spanish 2 last year.

6. I distributed version #4 and they read it with a partner. I collected version #4 to use next semester, and gave the students version #5 for their story folders.  We did several comprehension and reading activities with version #5 to increase their understanding of the text. 

7.  Students had 3 minutes to draw a sketch of an event or description in version #5 on construction paper.  I collected the sketches and taped the first sketch to the board, and without looking at the story, students had to say a sentence that related to the sketch. 

Then I taped the second sketch to the board UNDER the first sketch.  First students had to decide if it depicted the same thing.  If it did, it was removed from the board.  If it was different, they had to say a sentence that described the sketch.  Then they had to decide if it happened in the story BEFORE or AFTER the first sketch. I taped it to the left or right of the first sketch.

We continued in this manner for the rest of the sketches, pausing at times to retell the story using the sketches that were on the board.

8.  Finally, with all the sketches on the board (in a class of 28 students we ended up with 12 different sketches), the students completed a 10-minute fluency write to retell the story.  The sketches provided the story plot to help them remember the events.
  
 It's pure coincidence that I'm at this part of my curriculum when it's nearing the end of October.  Of course that doesn't happen in the spring semester. :(

Conjugation Charts vs Communicating

This image popped into my mind on my drive home on Friday and today the second image followed.  I was going to wait until I had some inspiration to accompany the sketches, but for the time being, I'll let the images express my thoughts.

VS.

 

 

4 - Part Guided Storytelling Activity

Last week I used Bryan Kandel's story about Viernes Negro (found here and other story scripts by Bryan found HERE), even though I took Black Friday out of the equation and made it more general: someone wanted to buy a present for someone else.  The class helped to create a story, we reviewed it, and then I distributed Bryan's version and we read that together.  We also watched an online story I made a few years ago on the website UtellStory (mentioned on this post), followed by reading the script for the story that was also on the previous handout.

After the class story, the two readings, and the online story, I was tempted to move on with new words, but I decided to give the students yet more exposure to the structures with some small changes.  Plus I wanted to experiment with a new idea I had for a 4-part guided storyasking activity.

Part 1. The target structures that the students copied were:
estaba desilusionado/a = s/he was disappointed
le dio = s/he gave to him/to her
lo compró = s/he bought it
la compró = s/he bought it

Then I projected the chart below onto the white board.

 For this story, I wanted both characters to be students in the class.  The first character, (the one that wanted to buy a gift) was permitted to decide to whom s/he wanted to give a gift and, when students gave suggestions for the other answers, s/he had the right to overrule them and not accept their suggestion.

The story in the guided storyasking format was successful in engaging the students since THEY provided the compelling information.  I think the fact that they could see the entire storyline from the beginning, made it easier for them to organize their suggestions and save their best suggestions for last.

As the students created the story, I wrote their answers directly on the whiteboard creating a reading at the same time. This format also helped remind me to pause for short grammar pop-ups such as asking about the LO or LA answers and the O ending in "desilusionado". When we finished, I read the story to them and added small additional phrases in the TL (such as before the "le dio" sentence I added, Alica fue a la casa de Manuel y....le dio el libro a Manuel). 

Part 2. When I was ready to review the story with the students, I tried a different technique that came to me at that moment. I left the completed grid projected on the board with the information, and I retold the story, but with some misinformation.  I told the students to CLAP their hands ONE TIME if I said something that was not correct information. It worked beautifully.  The unison ONE CLAP when I gave wrong information told me they were listening intently for meaning. Plus...there were receiving more input, more repetitions of the structures.  :-)

Part 3.  Students formed groups of 3 and I gave each group a copy of the blank document that I had projected on the board, as shown above.  (Click HERE to access the document.) Their job was to "write" a story by filling in the information as we had done as a class.  In the bottom right square of the chart, they had to decided how the person felt about the last gift and why.

Example of a completed story grid

I gave them 5 minutes to fill in the information on the chart.  Then I gave each group 4 sheets of paper and they had to decide which four parts of their story they wanted to illustrate on the paper.  They actually could have easily made several more illustrations for their story, but I wanted to limit the time spent sketching. When the students finished they paper-clipped their story grid on top of their illustrations and gave them to me until the next class.

Part 4. The following day, I distributed typed copies of the class story from yesterday for additional reading and to help students become reacquainted with the guided storyasking format grid. Then I randomly chose one of the student stories.  I used their story grid to tell the story verbally, (making on the spot corrections if needed). While I read/told the story, the students revealed their illustrations at the appropriate time to match what I was saying.

I have done something similar to this in the past. I'm convinced that projecting the actual grid onto the board so the students can see it when they help create the class story plays a key role in making parts 3 and parts 4 go smoother.

15 Ideas to Increase Awareness of Your Language Program and Share Your Students' Success

This is one of those blog posts that practically wrote itself in my mind over the last 24 hours. It is a reminder for me, as well as others, to continue the work to go beyond our own classroom and promote our language programs in our school and community, become involved in language organizations, share what we've learned, and encourage others in their journey as world language teachers.

Below are ideas that show the part that we, as language teachers, can play to increase understanding of the process of language acquisition, share our class activities and student-centered lesson plans, and showcase the success our students experience in our classrooms. 

Disclaimer: I have not done all of these. Some, such as #12, are out of my comfort zone but they are still on my radar to (hopefully) complete some day.  By posting the list on my blog, I can revisit it from time to time to check how much progress I have made on completing these tasks.

1.     Willingly share materials and activities with other language teachers at your school. (Share with others also, but ESPECIALLY those at your school!) If you created an activity that provided an opportunity for your students to succeed, don’t hesitate to share it, even if your colleagues don’t teach using the same methods that you do. A ready-made, proven lesson plan, may be a welcome sight to veteran teachers. (Better yet, share your CI- packed emergency lesson plans with your colleagues. Few teachers will turn down that offer!)

2.    Submit a proposal to present at a conference. Write a proposal to share TCI activities and reading strategies that you use in class that help your students to increase their proficiency in the target language. Submit the proposal to present at a local, state, or national conference. If that feels like too big of a step out of your comfort zone, ask a colleague to co-present with you.

3.    Invite your administrators to your class.  Give them a front row seat to the excitement and progress of your students. 

 

4.    Go to School Board meetings.  Let the board members know you are interested and invested in your school. You may be surprised how often discussions at board meetings are directly related to the subject you teach. Talk to your administrator and request an opportunity to showcase your students' language proficiency by having the students present what they are doing in class at the School Board meeting.

5.    Write and submit articles.  The Language Educator and other language publications are always looking for articles from teachers and what they are doing in their classroom that will be of interest to their readers.

6.    Submit a comment in the “So You Say” section of ACTFL's publication, The Language Educator. This is a less intimidating and less time consuming way to reach many readers with information on your methods and successes. 

7.    Write letters to the education department of nearby colleges. Offer to open your classroom to prospective teachers to observe your classes and techniques. An open invitation that welcomes the college students to observe a TCI teacher in action and to see the students’ responses will increase awareness and understanding of TCI and TPRS methods of teaching.

8.  Submit an article to your local newspaper. Write an article about a class project (i.e. a class community service project, a global collaboration project, or the success of your students in their language proficiency). 

9.  Participate in Twitter chats.  Participants in twitter chats such as #langchat both share their experiences and are actively searching for teaching strategies to add to their teaching methods.

10.  Use the power of Twitter.  Tweet links about Language acquisition articles, links to blog posts and Pinterest boards, and links of youtube videos of great TCI teachers in action. 

11.  Participate in a local TCI teacher group and invite others to the meetings.  If one is not available in your area, work with other like-minded teachers to organize one.

12.  Videotape yourself teaching. Videotape examples of storytelling/storyasking, MovieTalk, PQA, circling with balls, and other TCI-heavy activities in your classroom and upload them to a public source. (with permission of your administration and pupils)

13.  Create excitement about languages in the elementary level.  Submit a proposal to your district's administration for a short-term, fun-filled, after school language program for elementary students for "X" number of days.  (Examples: 10 sessions - 2x/week for 5 weeks; or 12 sessions - 3x/week for 4 weeks). If your school doesn't offer languages in the elementary schools, this will create excitement about your program among the students (and parents) years before the students step foot in your classroom.

14.  Blog about your experiences.  The number of language blogs is growing faster than ever, (check this list and my Pinterest board of CI blogs and other language blogs) but NONE of those bloggers have the same experiences than you.  Blog! Many will learn from your experiences. 

15.  Be an active participant on language blogs.  Comment on their posts, ask questions, and write words of encouragement.  When they ask for your ideas, join in on the conversation by offering suggestion and sharing what has worked in your classroom.

 

Beginning Activities for Past Tense

Yesterday my Spanish 2 students drew sketches of a short story plot to review the structures:
QUERÍA, FUE, LA/LO BUSCÓ, ESTABA + emotion, LO/LA ENCONTRÓ

Below is the explanation of the activity on my curriculum document:

For #4 on my document, I need to add in parenthesis that it reviews (estaba - lo encontró - la encontró). 

I gave the students a 10" x 13" piece of construction and they had 5 minutes to draw the lines to create the 4 boxes and sketch the information in squares 1-4. Then I put the sketches under the document camera and modeled how to narrate the sketches. We talked about 7 of them before and we'll talk about the others next week.

In next week's review, I'll use the sketches with yes/no, either/or and short answer questions.

The activity provided a huge number of repetitions of some high frequency words, more exposure to direct object pronouns used with past tense verbs, and an opportunity for students to provide materials for instruction with their sketches.

Making Personal Connections when Pre-teaching Vocabulary - Susan Gross style

The insightful and master teacher, Susan Gross, told me something in an email a few years ago that clearly explains the core of what we, as teachers, should set as our goal:

We who advocate for teaching with TPRS are advocating that you teach the students, NOT the curriculum. Obviously you must use the things that are itemized in your curriculum while conducting class, but your thought process should be, "What can I find out about my kids today using the conditional mood?" Rather than "What is a good story for teaching the conditional? ....

Your real lesson plan every single day is figure out how to sincerely connect with the kids. That's it."

I used this approach today as I prepared my students to read Ana María Matute's story, "La consciencia".  I asked myself Susan's question, "What can I find out about my kids today as I introduce the vocabulary for this story?"

La Conciencia is an authentic text that can be challenging for my students so I wrote a statement, that consisted of several paragraphs, for each of the following characters: Mariana, Antonio, and Constantino. (I had planned to include statements from el vagabundo, but I only thought of this idea at 11:00 pm last night and by midnight I had only completed the above three characters, so I stopped typing and called it a night.)

The statements are written from the viewpoint of the characters in which they talk about their life in the past and compare it to their present life, based on the background information of each character in the story.  Students read the character statements as an introduction to the characters, the circumstances, and the plot of the story. (The statements did not give away details that woud ruin the suspense in the story.)

Two phrases in the statements are: 
 1. Estoy harto de... (I'm sick of..) 
 2. No puedo soportar... (I can't stand)

They are expressions that I thought high school students would find useful. To teach the expressions, I wanted to keep Susan Gross' advice in mind.  

1. First, I wrote the 2 expressions on the board and each student numbered a paper and wrote the expressions and finished the sentence.  They did NOT write their name on the paper.  They included a third item in which they wrote the name of a famous person (actor, singer, someone in the news, politics, etc.). Then I collected the papers.

2.  Then, I read the name of the famous people and the students had to answer the above statements in the way that the famous person would answer it.  

3. Finally, the students numbered their papers 1-9 (the number of students in class today), and I read the two completed statements of the first student.  By the information provided in the statement, students had to guess who wrote it and write their name after #1.  I read each paper and without their names on the papers, even I didn't know for sure who wrote each of the statements. Then we went over the answers together. The students and I found out more about each other while using Spanish as our means of communication. 

It sounds so simple, yet it was an enjoyable conversation and I now know my students a little better.  

How I wish I had started teaching with TPRS and CI years before Susan Gross retired from the speaker circuit.  I could listen to her wisdom from her years of teaching for a l-o-n-g time.  :)

My advice - if Susan Gross makes a suggestion, it's valuable advice and well worth your time to follow what she recommends  
 

Subjunctive Review - The Fun Way!

How do you review the subjunctive at the beginning of the year without handing out worksheets with lists of verbs, conjugation charts, and rules?  Or better, how do you create a discussion or dialogue that requires the use of the subjunctive that shows how often it is used and how it naturally flows in conversations?

Last week I introduced an activity with my Spanish 5 student (in reality they're Spanish 4 students - see this explanation HERE) that met those requirements.  The activity eventually would lead students to a point to where they needed to respond with sentences that required the subjunctive.  They never saw my plan for the review until the subjunctive appeared. 

We started the activity with the premise of a lady that wanted to find a boyfriend, but was unsuccessful so she decided to go to an online dating service, in our case, a dating service for farmers.  We then listed what she wrote on the form to describe herself on one box on the board and next to that box, listed the true facts about the character.  (A side note: I love working with students that know how to "play the game" and are super creative, even if it means we end up with a character with a wooden leg due to the unfortunate accident she had with a cow, as in the case of Reina in the sketch above.)

Then we continued with an online bio of a man that saw Reina's profile. He filled out information about himself, so we once again made two charts, one of the lies he wrote and one with the truth.

The students were fully engaged in the activity. Don't let anyone convince you that students won't connect to characters that aren't real.  If they help create them and students have freedom to be creative, they will be engaged in the process.  

We continued with the story that these two people decided to meet at a coffee shop and when they saw each other, they immediately began making statements about what the other person had said.  Such as:

No es posible que tenga 22 años. (It's not possible that you're 22 yrs old.)
Dudo que haya vivido en París por dos años. (I doubt that you lived in Paris for 2 yrs.)
No creo que haya asistido Harvard. (I don't believe that you attended Harvard.)

It was interesting to watch the students during the activity.  When they were listing background information on the characters in Spanish they were calling out ideas, often several people talking at the same time. To an observer, it may have looked a bit chaotic, definitely non-linear.  But when I wrote the first sentence that one of the characters said after seeing the other to model what I was asking students to do in the next part of the activity, there was an obvious change. They didn't see the subjunctive coming their way, and boom, there it was. 

At first they were quiet, reaching back into what they had previously learned, and then, ever so slowly but surely, they "recovered" and continued the activity with sentences stating the reactions of the characters.  

Another step in acquisition.
Another example that showed students that they can handle any (grammatical) direction a conversation will take them.   

Readers Theater Latin Style

One component of teaching with CI that I need to use more often is Reader's Theater with props.  Krista Applegate wrote a post on her blog, Teaching French and Latin with Comprehensible Input, in which she describes how she used part of a text, instead of the whole story, for Reader's Theater.  Her post on Reader's Theater, along with photos, can be found HERE.

Last year, Bess Hayles wrote a blog post (found HERE) after attending a Carol Gaab, Kristy Placido, and Carrie Toth session at NTPRS on which she lists the steps for Reader's Theater. 

A tip when using Reader's Theater, choose actors that will capture the other students' attention with their enthusiasm and lively personalities. There are several in every class and you know who they are.  When you identify those great actors in your class, don't hesitate to use them for multiple stories.  You'll be glad you did and, even better, the students in the class will be more engaged watching someone that may be...well...unpredictable at times in their acting.  

My goal this week - at least one story in which I can use Reader's Theater, if not for the whole story, than at least part of the story, as Krista suggested. 

Those pesky irregular verbs

It didn't take long at the beginning of the school year to discover that my Spanish 2 students needed additional practice on those pesky irregular verbs.  I also decided it was a good time to focus on how to say to whom something was said or given.

For those that teach Spanish, you know that "I say" and "I give" are irregular in the first person singular.  To review this, I wrote a story script about me having chocolate and other teachers in the school that wanted the chocolate.  In my opinion, it wasn't very compelling, so I brought a Hershey's chocolate bar to class and practiced the PQA with the chocolate bar and continued to hold it as I told the story.

My story script mentions 5 different teachers that enter my room and ask for the chocolate, but when I told the story, the students listed the people that entered my class and wanted the chocolate.  True to form, they mentioned people such as Beyonce and other famous people for the story.  The first two people enter my room together, the second two people also enter together. For the last person, I asked the students which person that was in that day's class, entered the room and wanted the chocolate.  I then gave the candy bar to the lucky student they chose.  That part of the story was particularly compelling. :-)

You can find the story script HERE.   
I also made textivate exercises for the story script and for grammar used in the story or similar to that used in the story.  Find the Textivate sources here:

Online search trick by Alan November

Photo credit: L. Brown

Before the start of school this year, our staff joined the neighboring school district to spend the morning with Alan November. He is a captivating speaker and knows a wealth of information on how to search the web and tap into sources based which eliminate bias. Find his website HERE for additional information and resources.

Another aspect about that web that he showed us was how to search according to file types.  The one I have used lately is the powerpoint filetype.  By using the following method, you can very quickly search only for powerpoints on the subject you choose.

For example:
1) Because I love fairytales, especially in Spanish, I searched:
   filetype:ppt Los tres cerditos

This provided a long list of powerpoints. In the list I found one that had the entire story in Spanish with photos at a level my students will be able to understand without problems.

To refine your search to powerpoints:
Simply type:  filetype:ppt + the topic which interests you
Type the topic in your target language for best results.
With some of the powerpoints I found, I was able to make changes for my specific purposes.

Other examples of my searches:
2) filetype:ppt tapas españa 
3) filetype:ppt el camino de santiago
4) filetype:ppt la navidad en españa
5) filetype:ppt los incas de Perú

The sky is the limit!

One suggestion from Alan November on using the results from these searches is for the students to compare the information from several powerpoints. 

Next time, before you spend time making a brand new powerpoint, check online with this quick search to see if someone has already shared their work online.

Brain Break Balloons

My new Brain Break Balloons! bulletin board needs a few more balloons and it will be ready to go next week.  I have 70 minute classes and when students are listening to the target language for 90%+ of the class period, their brains definitely need a break. 

I searched Pinterest and other places on the web for ideas for brain breaks.  Then I wrote the brain break activity on a piece of paper and put it inside the balloon before I blew up the balloon.  I stapled the very end of the balloons to the bulletin board.  When my students need a brain break, I'll choose a student to pop a balloon, and the activity listed on the slip of paper inside the balloon will be our brain break activity.

There are a mixture of activities in the target language (such as listening to a Sr. Wooly song) and other activities that aren't in Spanish.  After all, it is a Brain Break, so maybe a break from the language is the route I should take.   

UPDATE:  Martina Bex wrote a post about the science behind Brain Breaks PLUS she made a document of a list of brain breaks which you can download, for FREE!, from TPT. 
- Click HERE for Martina's explanation of the science of Brain Breaks.
- Click HERE for Martina's Brain Break ideas document on TPT. (She also has a large collection of lessons, cultural readings, games, and other useful materials at TPT, so check those out also.)

Some of the activities in the balloons are:  
- watch one of Sr. Wooly's videos
- Simón dice (Simon says)
- Stand up, arms outstretched, palms facing outward, move left hand back and forth and move right hand up and down at the same time; then switch;
- Sing "Los Pollitos Dicen" w/out lyrics: http://youtu.be/oTApI_rUZ2E w/ lyrics: http://youtu.be/PVv7pIssaMc 
- Bolsa Fea - 3 words 
- 5 a Day Hula  
- Teacher chooses a photo from this blog post and students work with partner or small group to create the best caption (in TL or English, may depend on level)
- hokey pokey led by student
- jumping jacks
- Akinator app (1 time)
- Athlete Quotes - read one of the quotes on this site and give the students three choices of which person said it
- Write a statement on the board, such as "My favorite dessert is_____"; the teacher reads the statement and fills in the blank then tosses a bean bag to a student and the student says the statement, tosses bag to another student, etc.
- there are others, but I can't think of them now. I guess I'll have to wait until the students break that balloon to add it to the list.

Newest update: Did you see the "Go Find Momo" photos?  Today Meg Villanueva posted THIS LINK on Facebook, or go directly to the site at http://gofindmomo.com/ . If you want to use the TL, ask students to say where the dog is in the TL, ex: on the left (a la izquierda), etc