Setting the Stage for Bianca Nieves y los Siete Toritos (Carrie Toth)

We are beginning Bianca Nieves y los Siete Toritos by Carrie Toth very soon. It will be my second time using it and there are AWESOME resources out there for it. Check out Kara Jacobs, Carrie Toth, Cindy Hitz, Allison Weinhold, Kristy Placido and Dustin Williamson. There are also some great bullfighting resources from Elizabeth Dentlinger. I will use ideas and resources from all of these wonderfully creative people, but I’ve also created some of my own that I will share. Of course, there is also the great teacher’s guide!!!

This year, my Spanish III students have been immersed in Guatemala via Esperanza, Costa Rica via Robo en la noche and Colombia, which is my own unit which I hope to put on Teachers Pay Teachers this summer.  Since my Spanish III students have had very little exposure to Spain, I knew that I wanted to begin with a “look at Spain.” The very first thing that we did was a game about Spanish culture.  I put the students in groups of 4, gave each team a whiteboard/markers/eraser and projected questions in 4 categories.  There were 8 questions in each category and they wrote their answers to all 8 questions before we exchanged boards and checked the responses.  Each team scored a point for each correct response.  The first category is just general knowledge, the second is famous people from Spain (with their faces distorted), the third category is multiple choice cultural trivia and the fourth category was preliminary knowledge of bullfighting (they know nothing!). The power point is something that I discovered somewhere many years ago and I unfortunately no longer know where it came from. I have modified and changed it significantly, but I would still like to credit the original.  If you know, let me know! The students really enjoyed this opening activity and it was successful in triggering interest in Spain.Intro a Espana Spanish game teams 2017 short version

We next worked with a preliminary map of Spain Spain first look map 2017 and some general knowledge of Spain.  To do this, I used a lot of pictures in a SMART notebook presentation, lots of videos, and had students work with a partner in a timed activity to discover specific items (such as churros y chocolate, paella, currency, pipas, the Osbourne bull, etc.). This turned out to be a wild activity that led to enormous interest and questions from the students.  We got sidetracked quite a bit but I did not mind at all since their interest was so high. Qué sabes de España 2017 If you have access to SMART and would like to see the notebook, just email me and I will send it to you. 

I also introduced flamenco to them using a lectura that Kara Jacobs originally created but that I modified and added to. We looked at flamenco from a Spanish, Arabic and Hindi perspective with several videos (here are a few of the links, but not all: flamenco India , Comparing, Comparing 2) Most of the students were very interested. Flamenco lectura 2017This led to David Bisbal and the famous Bulería.  I created this powerpoint, David Bisbal, to introduce him. The next day we reviewed what we knew and began to work with the lyrics in a brief cloze, which of course led us to singing! Bulería David Bisbal first cloze We will continue to work with this song periodically eventually discussing the bullfight/fight imagery.

To review all of the work we had done, I made this Salad Bowl game. For directions on how to play, check Carrie’s post.  Here is a quick Assessment que sabes of what we were exploring.

This next week, a week that is destroyed by PARCC testing, we will be working with Ferdinando via Kara. I can’t start the actual novel yet because of all of the disruptions due to testing, but I can continue the front loading of information with Ferdinando and extension activities! One significant difference from last year will be that I will reserve actual discussion of the parts of the bullfight, additional readings and activities until we are at least through chapter 5 of the novel.  I’m doing this because the pre discussion of that material led my students last year to believing that we were going to immediately be immersed in bullfighting when we started the novel. Of course, that wasn’t true. This year I will spend much more time on activities from the teachers guide, particularly the Picasso plates and the fan activity as well as our own creations.

Some early chapter 1 material:

Quizzz created by Dustin Williamson

Kahoot

Opening Quizlet

 

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My tentative plan for 2016 – 2017

WOW!!! This is year 38 for me…….and it still feels brand new! This will be my eighth full year without a specific textbook, and my fifth “full on” CI intentional year (I was transitioning for several years from the grammar based, vocabulary list laden curriculum). Like so many other bloggers, (here are a few of them Allison Weinhold, Dustin Williamson, Kristy Placido,), I thought I would also share what I plan on teaching this year. Our school year is divided into 4 marking terms, with each class between 45 – 50 minutes in length.

Spanish IV

Term 1

1.  I will kick the year off with some great plans from Carrie Toth, using Atrévete . We will take about 4 days to go through this material, break for Labor Day and come back ready to plunge into the school year.
2. La Llorona de Mazatlán by Katie Baker. This will be my 4th time teaching it; it has always been a popular novel and I have blogged about it extensively. My students become entranced by the legend, the music and all of the additional cultural aspects. They also really enjoy the “teenage love interest” in the story, although the ending always makes them mad.
3. Día de los Muertos with some of the elements from this unit a few years ago.
4. El Arte de Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, and, to a lesser extent, Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dalí. I’ve done some considerable blogging about this unit in the past. This will be the 7th time in this unit that has undergone a lot of change since it’s inception. It is now heavier on Frida/Diego and Mexican history, with less time for Picasso and Dali. This year I am excited to be adding the novel Frida by Kristy Placido for the first time.

Term 2

1.  The novel Frida will carryover into Term 2.
2. La Comida de México y Perú (and Argentina if there is time) I’ve been teaching this unit for 5 years and it is always a favorite. The original inspiration for this unit came from Kara Jacobs.  Great music such as Mole by Lila Downs, the Cuy ads and songs from Peru as well as the Ñam Ñam Boys and the Anita/Beto ads for Inca Kola.
3. Las Metas y los Sueños, an important “pre” unit prior to diving into the heaviest, most intense unit. I love this unit as my students explore their own goals and dreams and compare and contrast them with the stories of others (both famous and ordinary). I find that this unit is an exceptionally creative unit for them. Here is an example of what it looked like this past year. It does change from year to year, depending on the current fame of some individuals. The music for this unit is great, with past favorites including Vivir mi vida, No me doy por vencido, Creo en mi, La lista, No creo en el jamas and Celebra la vida.

Term 3

1.  Vida y Muerte en la Mara Salvatrucha 13 (anonymous) This will be the third time with this novel and it has been a compelling read the past two years.  Along with a background unit on the Civil War in El Salvador, the movie Voces Inocentes and parts of Romero, this is an eye opening, thought provoking novel that my students invest in heavily. It helps that they have just finished exploring their own hopes, goals and dreams as they look at the lives of the characters in the novel. The music in this unit includes Casas de Cartón, Gangsta, part of Razones (Bebe), Tu cárcel, Adentro, Nada Valgo sin tu amor and Así crecí.
2. Immigration is always a “hot topic” unit where students are challenged by what they think they know and believe.  We start with the Statue of Liberty, it’s history, poem and music and go from there. The music in this unit includes Welcome to America, American Oxygen, Wake Me Up, This Land is Your Land (bilingual version), Bandera, ICE, Pa’l Norte, La Bamba, and La Bamba Rebelde, Movies include 30 Days and Which Way Home.

Term 4

1. Immigration will carry over into Term 4.
2. Narcoviolencia, which I’ve been teaching for 5 years (with original inspiration from Kara Jacobs and Cristina Zimmerman), is an ever evolving unit based on what is happening in Mexico with the violence, cartels, drug warfare, kidnappings and repression, etc. I always base the length of this unit on how much more “heavy” topics my students can continue to benefit from and grow. This past year we were only in it about two and a half weeks because we had spent so much time with Vida y Muerte and Immigration. The music in this unit, however, really draws them in: Lágrimas, La Patria Madrina, Have You Heard, México (Instituto Mexicano del Sonido) and La Llorona (43 Lágrimas) which brings us full circle back to the beginning of the year.
3. If I have funding, I would like to purchase La Guerra Sucia or Felipe Alou.  If not, I will probably do the novel that I wrote 2 years ago called Amigos, Abrazos y Aventura: Argentina.

Spanish III

Term 1

1.  The year begins with a short 4 day unit from Carrie Toth, actually from a colleague named Paige,  about the Cactus and the Bank. I also plan on using La Persona Especial (as developed by Bryce Hedstrom) with these students, who are all new to me and I’m new to them. I will adjust the questions to a Spanish III level.
2. Esperanza by Carol Gaab, one of my favorites! Such a rich story with so many cultural components. For me, I think it is the perfect way to ease my Spanish III students  into my style of teaching without any pressure. The story is written essentially in present tense, but lends itself beautifully to past tense retelling. It will also be their first experience with my pretty intense focus on and inclusion of music to not just enhance what we are doing, but to highlight, illustrate and teach. Ave que emigra is the first focus song of the year.
3. A brief, 2 week Puerto Rico and food unit with stories written by me and my colleague, Megan Matthews. This is a good, light hearted unit and serves as a nice break from the seriousness of Esperanza.

Term 2

1.  Día de los Muertos with the possible inclusion of Tumba by Mira Canion, dependent on funding.
2. A short unit on clothing with stories written by me and my colleague, Megan Matthews.
3. A longer 3 week unit on geography, animals and weather with stories written by me. This unit takes us to the Baltimore Aquarium for a field trip! We skipped this unit last year, and I really missed it.  It will be interesting to see what changes are made to it this time around.
4. Robo en la noche by Kristy Placido begins as we return from Christmas. Teaching it for the fourth time, this is a great book with so many additional elements with geography, environment, and just fabulous Costa Rica. A favorite song for many students is Pura Vida by Percance.

Term 3

1.  Robo en la noche continues into Term 3.
2. Jai-Alai, flamenco, music and sports from Spain come next, preceding the next novel Bianca Nieves y los siete toritos. Two favorite songs from this unit are Buleria (David Bisbal) and Dame Vida (Huecco).

Term 4

1. Bianca Nieves y los siete toritos by Carrie Toth  I am looking forward to teaching this again and not feeling the pressure of the end of the year creeping up. I plan to use the Ferdinand movie again as well as Blood Brothers. I love the fact that Carrie got the present subjunctive into this book so naturally. Last year the students really enjoyed the bullfighting elements that easily flow from the novel.  They also LOVED Reader’s Theater with this novel, so much that I worried about using it too much!
2. Colombia and Juanes is a unit that I have been teaching in some form since 2005, and it has really undergone quite the transformation over the years. In its’ early years it also included the Dominican Republic (Juan Luis Guerra) and Venezuela (Carlos Baute) and was called my Social Awareness Unit. As the unit grew, it just became too large, so it got trimmed to just Colombia and Juanes. It is possibly my favorite subject material of all time to teach and was definitely the first unit that initiated my gradual conversion to CI.  I love just about all of Juanes’ music, but the music with social messages is just phenomenal.  In this unit we study the Civil War in Colombia, which just might be over (finally), the impact of drugs, Pablo Escobar, landmines and Juanes’ quest for peace, not just for Colombia, but for the world. I use the movie Los Colores de las Montañas, a beautiful movie. I love the stories that I’ve written for this unit and I love the impact that the unit has on students. On the end of the year evaluation/assessment of the course most students list this unit as their favorite, year after year. I have never taught it as the last unit of the year before, but I want to be able to give Bianca Nieves the chance to not be rushed this year.

So, these are the plans. But, as all plans go, they are subject to change and evolution.  Time will tell!

An outlet for art

 I have written extensively about using music in my classroom, especially the past two years. More infrequently I may write a post about student projects or PBT’s. However, today, day 5 of summer break, I started thinking about the past school year and what I did to help my students remember the year and to be able to appreciate what we had covered. The last week of school, I created a “year in review” presentation for both my Spanish III and Spanish IV classes. While I was not surprised by the amount of music that we had incorporated into our units and into our opening routine each day, I was surprised by the amount and variety of their expressions in art.  In my individual “end of the year” evaluation of the course, just about every single one of those 110 evaluations indicated music as a major way that they had learned Spanish and enjoyed class.  Most of them now have Spanish music in their personal playlists. Also mentioned in those evaluations was the additional learning, exploring and enjoyment that was derived from other artistic endeavors.  From Martina Bex’s “freeze frame” to Allison Weinhold’s “Baila viernes” to the creation of original songs and artwork to showcase and express what we were studying, art was everywhere.

Since I have posted many student created PBT’s from the novels that we have read (Esperanza, Vida y Muerte en la Mara Salvatrucha, Robo en la noche, and La Llorona), I am going to focus on other works from this past year.

Esperanza:  Freeze Frame and the results the next day here:  Ch 4 retell period 2 Ch 4 retell period 3

 

Colombia/Juanes :Interpret a song

Bandera de Manos 

Minas Piedras

Vida y muerte tattoos: What did the tattoo look like that Anonymous received after his first mission?

Frida: Using one of the “color me” pages available online, show me what you have learned about the life and art of Frida

Metas: Take one or more of the songs we have studied in our goals and dreams unit and interpret it for your life.  Songs were:  Vivir mi vida, Creo en mi, La lista, No me doy por vencido, and No creo en el jamas.

Narcoviolencia:  Show me, in a visual fashion, what you know about las pandillas principales in Mexico.  They used their visuals to then complete an oral assessment.  The idea was to have minimal writing on the visual, but that the visuals would help them remember items to talk about, representing what they had learned.

Cho

Robo en la noche: Choose the six most important scenes of the chapter.  In this case, they had a choice of chapters 11, 12, or 13.

Immigration: Choose two of the three principal songs in the unit to illustrate key phrases, statements, commentaries, opinions,etc. about immigration.

Bianca Nieves y los 7 toritos:

Poems:

Freeze Frame

Just like I did at the end of the school year, I found myself wishing that I had taken more pictures of what they created.  It’s on my list of “things I need to do better” for next year.  I would love to learn about the “art”creations that your students have done.

The songs that anchor my units

  I have written so many times about music and my teaching.  I literally have been using music in my classes for the past 37 years!  Yes, I know, I’m ancient. What doesn’t ever get ancient is the music.  This post is going to be a bit different.  I’m trying to consolidate; instead of writing a post about a specific unit I am going to simply list all of my units and the music that anchors each of them.  There is NOT ONE unit that doesn’t begin with music, not one. Music is always part of my “hook”.  It may not be the only hook, but it always is one of the hooks and the music “plays” on throughout the entire unit.

Spanish III

1. Esperanza, the novel, written by Carol Gaab

• Ave que emigra, Gaby Moreno 
• Respira, Luis Fonsi
• Por Amor, Los Tigres del Norte

2. La comida (Puerto Rico), story and unit developed by Sharon Birch

• Vivir mi vida, Marc Anthony
• Te amo, Nota
• El Crisis del restaurantito, Chico Che

3. La ropa, story and unit developed by Sharon Birch and Megan Matthews

• Que me pongo, Mango Punch
• Billy la bufanda, Sr. Wooly
• The Heart wants what it wants (Spanish version of the Selena Gomez song), Kevin, Karla y la Banda  My story ended with this expression and song.

4. Robo en la noche, the novel, written by Kristy Placido

• Pura Vida, Percance and Percance, alternate version
• Save the Americans, Costa Rican Animals for the Overworked, Visit Costa Rica Videos
• El Pollito Pio, Pulcino Pio
• Pura Vida, Don Omar

5. Colombia, Juanes y Los Colores de la Montaña, stories and unit developed by Sharon Birch

• A Dios le pido, Juanes
• La Historia de Juan, Juanes
• Segovia, Juanes
• Minas Piedras, Juanes
• Sueño Libertad, Juanes
• Bandera de Manos, Juanes
• Odio por amor, Juanes
• La Tierra, Juanes
• No queremos minas, Yerson y Stuard
• Los Caminos de la vida, Los Diabolitos

6. Bianca Nieves y los siete toritos, the novel, written by Carrie Toth

•  Bulería, David Bisbal
• Bamboleo, Gipsy Kings
• Dame Vida, Huecco

Spanish IV

1. La Llorona, the novel, written by Katie Baker

• Me equivoqué, CD9
• Me Voy, me voy, Vazquez Sound
• Ay Mazatlán, mi Mazatlán,   Mike Laure
• Buenos días, Vazquez Sound
• assorted soccer songs/anthems

2. El Arte (Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, Picasso,Dalí), stories and unit developed by Sharon Birch     I hope to add the novel, Frida, written by Kristy Placido

• La Llorona,Tributo a Frida, Chavela Vargas
•  Más que amor, Il Volo
• Esa noche, Cafe Tacuba
• Salvador Dalí, Mecano

3. La Comida de México y Perú, stories and unit developed by Sharon Birch, original ideas from Kara C. Jacobs  and Cristina Zimmerman

• Lupita’s Taco Shop, MC Luka
• La Cumbia del mole, Lila Downs
• Llorando se fue, Cuarteto Continental
• El Cuy mágico, commercial from BCP
• Assorted videos/songs from Inca Kola
• Assorted videos/songs from Ñam Ñam Boys

4. Las Metas y los Sueños, stories and unit developed by Sharon Birch

• Creo en mi, Natalia Jiménez
• Vivir mi vida, Marc Anthony
• Celebra la vida, Axel y Busamante
• No creo en el jamás, Juanes
• No me doy por vencido, Luis Fonsi
• La vida es un viaje, Carreyo
• Siempre Brillarás, Tini (this is new, I will add next year)

5. La Guerra Civil en El Salvador y Voces Inocentes, stories and unit developed by Sharon Birch, original ideas from Kara C. Jacobs

• Casas de cartón, various versions but my favorite is Los Guaraguao; Marco Antonio Solis
• Mi Tierra, Crooked Stilo
• Razones, Bebe
• Mi País, Los Hermanos Flores

6. Vida y Muerte en la Mara Salvatrucha 13, the novel, anonymous

• Gangsta, Kat Dahlia
• Así Crecí, Farruko
• Nada Valgo sin tu amor, Juanes
• Adentro, Calle 13
• Tu cárcel, Enanitos Verdes
• Nuestro Amor, RBD
• Soy Raka, Los Rakas

7. La Inmigración, unit developed by Sharon Birch

• Wake me up, Aloe Blacc
• Ellis Island: The Dream of America, Peter Boyle
• America, Los Tigres del Norte
• ICE, La Santa Cecilia
• Bandera, Aterciopelados
• La Bamba Rebelde, Las Cafeteras
• Pobre Juan, Maná
• Welcome to America, Lecrae
• Pa’l Norte, Calle 13
• American Oxygen, Rihanna
• El Inmigrante, Calibre 50
• Nunca más, La Santa Cecilia
• Tu enemigo, Pablo Lopez y Juanes

8. La Narcoviolencia, unit developed by Sharon Birch, original ideas from Kara C. Jacobs, Cristina Zimmerman and Zachary Jones

• Lágrimas, Camila
• La Patria Madrina, Lila Downs y Juanes
• México, Instituto Mexicano del Sonido
• Bang Bang, Rocca, Tres Coronas
• 43  Lágrimas La Llorona, Subatómicos
• La Señora De Acero, Los Tucanes de Tijuana
• Have you heard, Ceci Bastida

9. Bianca Nieves y los siete toritos, the novel, written by Carrie Toth     I taught this in Spanish III and IV this year due to some extenuating circumstances (having to pick up a 6th class in March, no more funding for a new book, etc.)  Next year I hope to have the novel Felipe Alou, Carol Gaab, here.

• Bulería, David Bisbal
• Bamboleo, Gipsy Kings
• Granada, Los Tres Tenors
• Quizás, Enrique Iglesias  (subjunctive)
• Mi Princesa, Victor Muñoz (subjunctive)

 

La Copa Mundial 2014

   I have been collecting resources for La Copa Mundial 2014 for almost a year on my Pinterest board…..and now it’s almost here.  I’ve also followed the incredible Zachary Jones, as he  has created activities for La Copa, and of course, the fantastic work of Kara Jacobs. I will be starting my World Cup unit in two weeks (really it is a unit on several World Cups and soccer in general), and have created a page on my wikispace with my essential questions (similar to Kara’s) and all of the resources now divided by category: essential questions, informal and formal assessments, videos to support the essential questions and soccer in general, focus songs, additional songs, and useful links to articles, infographics, etc. During the next two weeks, I will be creating activities and worksheets to go with my focus songs and the songs that I will be comparing/contrasting (such as the multiple versions of La Copa de Todos/The World is Ours and Shakira’s 2010 Waka Waka with her 2014 LaLaLa), and also for several of the videos that will support my essential questions.  All of the activities that I will create will be posted on that wikipage as I finish them and get ready to use them.  I’m really looking forward to sharing the excitement with my students, and I welcome any additional material you might like to share!

 

Art in the Spanish classroom

I love teaching Spanish IV!  Although I follow the framework of an outdated curriculum, I am able to add topics that really engage my students.  While student interest in units on narcoviolencia, food from the Hispanic world, and identity may not surprise you, it may be surprising that students really get into Spanish art.  Prior to this year, I have only taught one of the three sections of Spanish IV in my school.  This year, I have all three sections and have been free to expand/incorporate units based on just the preferences of my students and me.  In the past, we taught a 4 week unit on Spanish art, focusing on the development of art vocabulary (and related activities), comparatives and superlatives and a brief glance at Dali and Picasso with a bit more involved week on Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo.  I decided before school began that I was going to expand the art unit to 6 weeks, with a week devoted to developing vocabulary and interest, a week for the art/music/history and traditions of Dia de los Muertos, and a week each on Dali, Picasso, Rivera and Kahlo.

I will not say that all students were thrilled when I told them that we were going to study some Spanish art and artists in depth.  They were not!  Sure, the artistically inclined students were interested, but the bulk of them were not prepared to enjoy it as much as they have so far.  I decided to write this post because so many of my students told me yesterday, week three in the art unit,  day 4 of Dali, that they couldn’t stop thinking about him after class….that the videos, readings, paintings, and music that we were using did not stop when they left class.  I had students telling me that they dreamed about the art, or a video we had watched, or the song by Mecano that we had studied.  To me, this is amazing!  Their level of involvement in class, their willingess to share their opinions and ideas, and their receptiveness is so rewarding!  I am not going to claim that everything is happening in the target language.  It is not.  However, large sections of class discussion and activities are!  Yesterday, as we took an  in depth look at some Dali paintings (Geopolitical Child, The 3 Sphinxes, Swans Reflecting Elephants, Raphael Exploding Head, etc.), we definitely had to use a lot of English as they shared what they first saw, what they saw on the second look, what they thought Dali was trying to tell us, and what they thought the painting was titled.  There is great interest going into day 5 (Monday) as they know we are going to look at one his most famous creations, The Hallucinogenic Toreador.  They are eager….yes, eager….to continue with Picasso.

While I could use this blog to upload all the documents that I have used, instead I’m going to link to my wikispace, where the entire lesson in progress is a bit more detailed.  If you scroll to the bottom of the page and move upward, you can see the daily progression of the unit.  When items are listed under more than one day it means that we didn’t finish or get to the material the first time it was listed.  While I have developed a lot of materials myself,  I also have borrowed and adapted materials from many, many sources.  Hopefully, all of them are credited; any missing citations are not intentional, and if brought to my attention, I will definitely fix.

Art 2013

Dia de los Muertos

Ejercicios para escuchar…..

As language teachers, we spend a lot of time trying to give our students ample opportunities to speak as well as to listen.  We know that listening is the crucial skill that leads to language acquisition.  Perhaps some of you have reached the point where listening activities in your textbooks just are not adequate, or they are boring, or they are not relevant and certainly not authentic.  This post is to share some different types of listening activities that I have come to rely on.  In no particular order:

1.  Take any group of related vocabulary that you may be working with and create a document with a word bank and pictures.  My example is something that my Spanish III students were working on toward the end of the year, a unit on bullfighting in Spain.  La Corrida de toros There are many options, and I used just about all of them with this particular document. I retold all of our information about bullfighting, and as I did this, the paired students identified which picture I was talking about.  When I was done, the paired students then identified the pictures, in random order, saying the vocabulary word that is listed in the word bank.  The paired students can ask each other to indicate which picture goes with a specific word.  Finally, the paired students can recreate all of the information that they know about bullfighting by using the words in the word bank and indicating the pictures.

2.  Use any SHORT (no more than a minute or so) high interest video.  My students are really into sports, and we were learning about all types of sports.  I took a clip from ESPN called las mejores jugadas de la semana and created three different types of listening activities from it. Sometimes students worked individually, sometimes with a partner.  Play the video at least once prior to working with it.  I actually played it the day before I intended to do anything with it, and asked students to tell me what they knew from the video.  The next day, with a partner, I asked them to focus on a very limited range of information: what country each ball player was from and to complete this chart: Individually, the next day, I played the clip again, and asked them to attempt to identify/answer 5 pieces of information.  Again, the listening focus was very narrow, and they had now heard the clip at least three times.

• 1.     Hace su novena jonrón del año.  

• 2.    ¿Qué es un campo corto?  

• 3.    Bateó un jonrón larguísimo que llegó hasta el agua.  

• 4.    Tenía una gran atrapada.  

• 5.    Llevó la cuarta victoria de la temporada, 7 strikeouts y permitió 2 hits.  

Another activity, again with a partner, was to identify the team of each player mentioned.  For this activity, they are listening as well as reading the information on screen. 

	Colorado Rockies	Cardinales	New York Mets	Gigantes de San Francisco	Azulejos (Toronto)	Medias Blancas	Texas Rangers
Bautista
Ramírez
Sandoval
Martín
Lagares
De la Rosa
García

Crédito Extra:  ¿Qué significa?  Perfecto hasta la séptima entrada

Some sites with great short clips:  BBC Mundo Noticias en 60 segundos  ESPN Deportes    Video      Video y Fotos-BBC Mundo

3.  Use a song to introduce a unit.  In this case, I was beginning a unit on sports, and decided to focus on this great song by Huecco.

The first day, the song was playing as the students entered the classroom.  They immediately requested that I play it again after the bell had rung!  The second day, we took a more focused look at it, as I asked them to attempt to complete this chart:

Escuchas muy bien!!!  Huecco……….                          

Sustantivos (Nouns)	Verbos/Infinitivos	Time Expressions
1.	1.	1.
2.	2.	2.
3.	3.	3.
4.	4.
5.	5.

Fútbol y…….Wavin’ Flag

Having started the “sports/Spain” chapter with Spanish III, and having added lots of material related to jai-alai, la corrida de toros y la geografía de España in the last two years, I decided to expand the part on fútbol this year.  Actually, I was inspired by  Kara Jacobs and her mini unit on El Fútbol y la Copa Mundial.  In 2010, 2011 and 2012, I spent some time at the beginning of the school year with the songs Wavin’ Flag, Waka Waka and Grito Mundial.  I didn’t do that this year, so it seems logical to pick up something in the sports unit related to fútbol.  Today we spent just a bit of time with the song No hay dos sin tres (David Bisbal/Cali y el Dandee) and we talked a bit about the success of Spain in the recent years with fútbol.

The Plan:

Waka Waka will be playing as the students walk into class (it is routine that there is music playing as they walk in), and I may spend a minute or two talking about what they see/understand.  However, the lesson is going to be wrapped around Wavin’ Flag (David Bisbal and K’Naan).  Working with a partner, students will be given the Spanish lyrics to the song (without identifying what the song is).  Each group of two students will have two different colored highlighters to highlight first the nouns, then the verbs.  After a brief check to verify responses, the second step of this activity will be to place the nouns in three categories (people, places, things) and to place the verbs in a fourth column.  Hopefully, this will help them to give more context to the lyrics of the song.  I will spend just a few minutes with the verbs, asking them to look at tenses.  They have not worked with the future tense, so it will be interesting to see what they do with the verb seremos.  It will just be a glancing look….oh….future…do you recognize the infinitive….how do you think the future tense may be formed?

Next, I will give them two sets of sentence strips.  I’m going to use two different colors to separate the first two verses from the final two verses so that they are not overwhelmed by 15 strips of paper.  With their partner, as they listen to the song, they are going to attempt to put the lyrics in order.  However, the lyric strips that I will have given them are not in Spanish: they are loose translations in English.  I will have them attempt to do this without looking at the Spanish lyrics; they will be able to check their order with the Spanish lyrics after listening.

Embedded in this activity will be some vocabulary review, coming from recent units: fé, verdad, países, unir, fuertes, pueblo (as a people), vida, fuego as well as new vocabulary: campeones, comenzar, intentar.Of course, the last step to this activity is going to be to sing the song! Materials can be found here: Wavin Flag activity.
Here is what the lyric strips look like:

Jai-Alai

Every year, after I finish the big music/social awareness unit with Juanes, Juan Luis Guerra and Carlos Baute, my students fear that the most compelling part of the curriculum has been covered.  Fortunately, we go right into a unit about Spain that has several really interesting components.  Yes, it contains grammar (preterite/imperfect yet again and the present perfect), but it also has a great deal about sports and culture of Spain.  I get to introduce them to David Bisbal and his ever popular Bulería, Macaco, Jarabe de Palo, and Pablo Alborán, among others.  We get to discover El País Vasco, Andalucia, Galicia, Cataluña, Castilla La Mancha, Madrid, etc.  AND, we also get to talk about jai-alai and la corrida de toros.

They are always interested in jai-alai, so I’ve tried to expand that part of the unit over the past several years. We will start by taking a look at
El País Vasco with this video:

and probably a bit from the Aventuras Vascas series:

For background information on jai-alai, I use these videos:

The Fastest Game in the World

For sheer silliness, I will include the infamous Steve O and Johnny Knoxville adventure into jai-alai https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwZLlwHp2zI   and also a brief Simpsons clip:

I created a powerpoint on jai-alai Jai- Alai-1-2 and I can share my own personal stories and pictures from games that I have attended. Somewhere along the years, I also was given an actual cesta, pelota and sash.  We leave the classroom, and I always let several students in each class attempt to throw  a ball (a koosh ball, not the actual pelota), with the cesta.  It’s usually something that they enjoy trying.

If you have other jai-alai resources, I would love to know about them.  Or, if you have other favorite activities from teaching about culture in Spain, please share.