El día de acción de gracias / Thanksgiving

During November one year, my students became the decorators for Thanksgiving.  I went to the district office, and for a really cheap price was able to die-cut lots of colorful leaves.  Then, making a trunk out of paper, I put it up on the wall.  When students came to class, I gave them each a leaf, and a requirement of how many items they needed to put on the leaf of what they were grateful for.

This was a good way of reviewing generally vocabulary, as well as looking the verb agradecer (to be thankful), and the fact that por (for) is always used with gracias (thanks).

I put the leaves up high enough where students could not reach them, and as I put them up I edited them for any inappropriate content.

Image taken from http://noticias.ufm.edu/index.php/MPC_celebr%C3%B3_el_D%C3%ADa_de_Acci%C3%B3n_de_Gracias

Evoluation of Attention Getters

A short while into my student teaching, I establish a routine for getting students' attention and a penalty for those who were still talking.

Chicos, se va a la una, a las dos, vendido. (Guys, it's going once, twice, sold.)

If students were still talking once I said "vendido", I docked points.  The first year I began teaching at a public school, I decided to eliminate the negative aspect of the attention getter.  I also discovered that I did not need to use any English to explain to students that this was how I wanted their attention.  Instead I put the following information on the board, and I practiced with students:

Srta. Robinson: 3, 2, 1, [clap, clap] ¡Clase!

Clase: [clap, clap] ¡Sí!

-Silencio-

What I liked about this attention getter was that it gave students more warning so that they could have time to prepare themselves to stop what they were doing.  

The third attention getter I used was inspired by The First Days of School (Wong and Wong, 2009).  Their way of getting students' attention is to say "Give me five".  Five represents the five things they expected from students after students replied with "five".  I put up a poster on my wall based on that idea (although I did not have the English translation for students):

¡Dame cinco!  (Give me five!)

1. Ojos en la maestra  (Eyes on the teacher)
2. Silencio (Silence)
3. Tranquilos (Be calm)
4. Manos encima del escritorio (Hands on the desk)
5. Escucha (Listen)

This attention getter required me modeling what the different behaviors looked like, especially since students were not familiar with these vocabulary words at the beginning of the semester.  So I would start out with the following information on a PowerPoint, and then I would demonstrate what numbers 1-5 represented.

Srta. Robinson: Chicos, dame cinco. (Give me five!)
Clase: ¡Cinco! (Five!)
-Silencio-

Another trick that I have noticed that works really well is telling students how much time they have for a certain activity: Chicos, tiene cuatro minutos para esta actividad (Guys, you have four more minutes for this activity).  It also helps to tell them when they should be wrapping up: Chicos, tienen un minutos más (Guys, you have one more minute).

¿Apropiado o inapropiado?/Appropriate or Inappropriate?

Instead of explaining rules to students, I like to show them what the rule looks like and have students tell me whether or not certain behaviors are appropriate or not.  

One year before school began, there were a few student government students who were wandering the halls offering to help teachers.  I had them model different classroom activities.  Here are three of the photos:

 

 

The first day of class, instead of just telling students about class rules, I asked them whether certain behaviors were "¿Apropiado o inapropiado?" (Appropriate or Inappropriate?).  Students were interested because they knew the students in the photos.  Also, students were the ones who told me whether or not a given activity was appropriate or not in Spanish class, and they learned two words without me ever having to give them a translation.  There were even a few times throughout the year when students would yell "inapropiado" at another student (some of my favorite moments).

Spanish Before Class

Currently there are two things more than anything else that bother me when I'm teaching: students speaking English and being distracted my cellphones in class.  I actually would like to get to the point where I can integrate cellphones more into my class (example www.polleverywhere.com), but I have not gotten there yet.

Keeping It In Spanish: When students begin coming into class, they often begin talking to each other in English.  I like to have music, videos or something else playing for my students to help them make that transition from English to Spanish.  (I have also seen that it gets students excited for class, and in some cases helps them to arrive on time.)

I have been making a list of things I show to my students before class begins.  I keep the list handy so that it does not take a lot of time to prep before class.  Here are some of those items:

Songs With Good Music Videos:

• Camila - "Todo cambió"
• Reik - "Inolvidable"
• Chayanne - "Torero"
• Kevin Karla & La Banda - "Give Your Heart a Break" (Spanish Version)
• Carly Rae Jepsen - "Call Me Maybe"

Commercials:

• Marca Perú Spot 2032
• Comerciales Canal de las Estrellas Julio 2010
• Pan Bimbo
• Ford Focus
• Subway
• Celulares en México
• Supermercado Disco-Virtual
• Apoyo a la selección de Perú
• Los mejores comerciales de Perú

Videos:

• Marca Perú (Group of Peruvians who go to Peru, Nebraska to teach their culture)
• Los mejores momentos incomodos (This video and the next are by two Spaniards with hidden cameras)
• Coger de la mano a desconocidos 
• Extra español - La llegada de Juan (Show made for beginning language learners)
• La policía mexicana* (Created by Saturday Night Live)
• One Semester of Spanish - Love Song*
• ¿Qué hora es?*

*These videos use a mixture of Spanglish and nonsense words.  Many teachers would argue, and they were be exactly right, that these videos are poor Spanish models.  However, I feel that they help students to laugh, which in turn helps them to enjoy my classroom.

Student Created Surveys

In Spanish class, how often do students use questions generated by the textbook or the teacher?  This activity is all about students finding answer to questions they have created.  I have found that it works really well to practice verb conjugations in the present and or reflexive constructions, but you may find that it is helpful with vocabulary in general.  For this example, I will use the present tense.

Overview of Activity: Here is how I begin this activity.  I take the present that we have been working on in class and I turn them into questions.  Before this activity, you will want to make sure that your students understand the words siempre (always), mucho (a lot), a veces (sometimes), un poco (a bit) and nunca (never) [students will need to be taught the position of the negative in the sentence.]  In the junior high course I used a calendar and X's to show the difference.  Some students only require a refresher or hand motions, while other students will not be able to tolerate the ambiguity.

Keeping It In Spanish: Modeling will be really important to helping students be successful. Here is how I do it.

• I begin by conjugating the verbs we are using in class in the tú form.  Chicos, ¿cómo es el verbo "nadar" en la forma de tú?  (Chicos is how I refer to my student.  I got this from a professor from Spain.) What is "to swim" in the you form?  Answer: nadas
• I then nadas with the phrase ¿Cada cuánto...? (How often...?).
• I ask myself the question, "Srta. Robinson, ¿cada cuánto nadas?"  (Miss Robinson, How often do you swim?)  I then answer the question and put a tally mark under the word that represents how often I do a certain activity.
• I then ask a few students (usually those who I feel confident can answer the question correctly at first) the same question, and mark their responses with tallies on the board.  (I use my projector, but I remove the screen in order to mark directly on the whiteboard.)  The following image is an example of what I project:

• I then give students a handout similar to what they have seen from the projector.  I return to modeling questions for them.  (I've included the inverted question marks here to remind them to use them.)

• I then have student rotate around the room (stay tuned for a post on students and rotating).

Before Creation of Questions and Survey

• After student have rotated around the room, I show them how to consolidate some of their data into four sentences.  Here is an example:

After Creation of Questions and Survey

There are several things I really enjoy about this activity:

• Students are creating their own questions
• Students are off their feet 
• Student draw their own conclusions at the end of the activity

This idea came from a co-worker, Geordie McLeod.  As I was writing this example, I was reminded at how important it is to actually do the assignments that you assign.  I learned that as an undergrad, and sometimes time gets in the way, but it really helps to see assignments from the students' side of things.

Observación de Francisco en Santiago, Chile

While I was in Santiago this past summer I attended a school for foreigners who wanted to practice/refresh their Spanish skills.  Since foreigners come from all over the world and have various language proficiency I was interested in seeing the structure of a beginning Spanish course.  On a Monday morning I observed Francisco as he met and taught his students completely in Spanish.  Here are some highlights.

• Francisco began by asking the following question:  ¿Cuál es la pregunta por esta respuesta?  What is the question that matches this answer?  As you will see, some of the questions are quite ambiguous, which made multiple questions possible and also allowed students to get to know their teacher while reviewing their Spanish:
• Francisco (Eliciting the question, ¿Cómo te llamas? What is your name?)
• Sí, y muy feliz. Yes, and very happy.  (¿Estás casado/a? Are you married?)
• Santiago, Chile (¿De dónde eres?  Where are you from?)
• No, todavía.  No, not yet. (¿Tienes niños? Do you have children?)
• Profesor de español  Spanish professor (¿A qué te dedicas?  What is your job?)
• Sí, dos.  Yes, two.  (¿Tienes hermanos?  Do you have any siblings?)
• When Francisco came across a word that he was not sure if students would understand he asked, ¿Sabes qué es ______?  Do you know what ____ is?  or ¿Qué es?  What is it?  If a student knew the answer they were then allowed to explain the meaning in Spanish.

La policía (The police)

I loved singing with my students, but it is difficult to get everyone to participate.  Constantly reminding students to sing took the fun out of the experience, and if they do not sing they do not get the fluidity practice.  That is why I created “la policía”. 

To introduce “la policía” I would first teach my students a song: “Vamos a cantar.” (We are going to sing.)  After teaching the song, I would hold up “la policía” signs and ask students: ¿Quién quiere ser la policía?  (Who wants to be the police?).  Usually many students wanted to participate because it gave them some control.  (You may also want to rotate through students.  I drew from a pile of popsicle sticks with students names on them, but I did give students the option of choosing an alternative student to take their place.) I would then explain: “Pueden cantar con la clase o solo.  La policía busca estudiantes que no canten.” (You can sing with the class o alone.  The police are looking for students who are not singing.)  Hand gestures increased student comprehension.  (You can also be “la policía” for the first round or pretend that you are not singing and show students what happens.)

Two students would wear signs that said “la policía” during a song.  If they both agreed that a student was not singing I would ask that specific student, “¿Quieres cantar conmigo o solo/a?”   (Do you want to sing with me or alone?)  Then students would either repeat after me or sing a section of the song alone.  (When “la policía” would begin to gang up on certain students I would change the rules to somehow keep “la policía” in check.)