Starting off anew in Spanish 1... Personalization, ICR, Story Listening and OWI

Day 2 Spanish 1:

I don't often teach Spanish 1, but I am teaching it this semester. I have 24 students the last block of the day. I am excited to share some of the things that I am going to do for the first few weeks.

I read (and reread) A Natural Approach to Stories and I am going to implement some of the techniques in that book. This is what I have used during the first few days (and what I plan on using for the first 1-3 weeks):

• Personalization - talking in Spanish about the students in the classroom - Students filled out the Anne Matava questionnaire that is in the Appendix of the book A Natural Approach to Stories. I will talk about 2-4 students each day (in Spanish) and then give a quiz about what I said. The quiz is very basic. Sometimes I will say facts in English and they have to write the name of the student or I will say true or false statements in English.
• ICR - the Interpretive/Interpersonal Communication Rubric - I am using the rubric (Anabelle Allen's version foundhere) to set expectations and also to assess the students. This will be a big part of their grade for the first few weeks. Students self-assessed on the first day. This is a really good way to set expectations and explain what they need to do to be successful in the class!
• Story Listening - There is a great explanation of it in the Appendix of the book, but this post explains more about it. Instead of starting with familiar folktales and/or stories, I decided to start with stories based on music videos (and probably some cortometrajes). So, how is this different than Movie Talk? Well, the students don't see any images from the video during the process and there aren't as many questions during this process, as students are mostly listening. Also, there are not necessarily targets. After they have listened to the story, they will get the reward of seeing the music video... which is in itself a cultural product that shows more cultural products, practices and perspectives. It will also serve as a good brain break in our 85 minute class period!
• On Day 1, we did Story Listening with a story about the song "Corazón" by Maluma. Listening and comprehending a story in Spanish, followed by watching the video and hearing that music on the first day of class was a positive way to start the class!
• This bundle (on TPT) has SIXTEEN  BASIC Spanish 1 scripts for the Story Listening. It also has a wide variety of follow-up activities, including short quizzes
• OWI - One Work Image - If you haven't seen this in action in a classroom, I highly recommend watching it. I went to the Express Fluency conference and it was very helpful to see Tina Hargaden do this process. There are lots of videos on Youtube of this process. My French teacher colleague also did it throughout last semester and had lots of success. I am looking forward to doing a lot of this during these first few weeks! I hope to share more about that here soon. Update: Here is our first OWI: Ricardo El Balón.
• I will also still use a lot of  the stories and activities that I did two years ago when I taught Spanish 1. (See here and here.)

La Belleza de la Cultura Colombiana

I am starting this unit: "Las Bellezas y Las Dificultades de Colombia" next week in my Cultura y Civilización class (Spanish 4/5/6/7). I originally started the unit with a story based on the song/music video "Pescaíto", then added La Niña... but now I have added a fantastic introduction piece to Las Bellezas de Colombia.

After seeing this song/music video promoting tourism in Colombia, "Sabrosura" (thanks to David Talone on the Facebook IFLT/NTPRS/CI Teaching Facebook group, Arianne Dowd, and Sharon Birch too), 

I went down a rabbit hole on the website for the tourism advertising campaign called: Colombia: Tierra de La Sabrosura. There are a TON of fantastic resources on that site and I compiled a whole bunch of them in the presentation below. Most of the language is taken right from the website, but some of it I wrote. I will use this to introduce my students to La Belleza de la Cultura Colombiana. Click here if you want to make a copy and/or use it. And here is a basic cloze activity for the song.

I am sharing all of this for FREE, but if you think this (or anything else that you got here for free) is useful and has saved you some time, feel free to give back here in Radiohead style (click here to see what I mean by Radiohead style). 

La Niña... más recursos

As I wrote about recently, I am planning on using some episodes of La Niña, a Netflix series, in my Cultura y Civilización course (definitely a show for upper levels). So, this morning on my surprise snow (really ice) day, I went down a rabbit hole of links from la Agencia para la Reincorporación y la Normalización.

I learned so much about the Reintegration program that is seen in La Niña! I also created some Interpretitve Reading and Interpretive Listening activities (free here) and an Edpuzzle with the following authentic resources. After doing these activities and these, students should be ready to watch La Niña, with much more knowledge about the context! Feel free to use them and adapt! If you see any mistakes, please let me know and I will fix them ASAP.

Below is part of an infografía, click here to view the entire thing.

I am sharing all of this for FREE, but if you think this (or anything else that you got here for free) is useful and has saved you some time, feel free to give back here in Radiohead style (click here to see what I mean by Radiohead style). 

La Niña... and a template for any Spanish television series

As Spanish teachers, we (and our students) are so fortunate to have soooo many fantastic series in Spanish! I have used El Internado and Gran Hotel in class an love both of those! I have also created, with Bethanie Drew and Mike Peto, extensive guides for both of those shows.

I love using those guides, but I have found that after a certain point with my upper level students, the reading guides are not as necessary, so I am going to try something new with the series La Niña. If you are not familiar with the series, here is a summary:

'La Niña' es una historia basada en hechos reales que cuenta la vida de una niña reclutada a la fuerza por la guerrilla y quien vivió de primera mano el horror de la guerra. Luego de muchos años sale de la agrupación armada para emprender un camino de regreso que no le será fácil cuando inicie el proceso de reintegración a la sociedad y deba enfrentarse con el rechazo de muchos, incluyendo su propia familia.

My first unit in Cultura y Civilización (starting a week from Monday) is based in Colombia. I am so looking forward to using this unit based around the Carlos Vives' song and music video "Pescaíto." It is a positive view of Colombia (so positive in fact, that I recently bought tickets to go to that region this summer!) and has some wonderful cultural extensions.

But, after some communications with Michelle Metcalfe, @michellewestvan, and Gustavo Verzbickis, @gverzbickis, I have decided to add some episodes of La Niña to that unit. (Note: This series, in my opinion, is best for older students.) We will probably watch in 15-20 segments 3-5 times a week in class, for 2-3 weeks. We will watch with Spanish subtitles. Each episode is 45 minutes long.

I don't have the time (or the energy) to create those extensive reading guides (but if anyone else does, I would be willing to pay for your time and energy), so instead I created this doc (free) that I will use to introduce the show. I also created a basic Edpuzzle to do after they read my summary about the series.

The doc also includes activities for students do do during and/or after they watch the episode.  These are the things they will do for each episode:

• Read a summary - I will translate the summaries from Netflix for each episode.
• Vocabulario Nuevo - Students will watch with Spanish subtitles.
• Una o Dos Partes Importantes del Episodio
• Dos Personajes y Descripciones de Ellos 
• Dos Preguntas - These can be wonderment questions or things they don't understand.
• Predicciones - There is a chart that explains the future tense.
• ¿Qué harías tú si fueras una persona del programa? - There is a chart that explains the future tense.

This template could be used for any show. 

I think I will add this to my Tarea Semanal options!

Otra historia de una canción: "No soy como tú crees"

I have been on the hunt for good songs by female artists lately and I found some great resources from Kristy Placido for the song "No soy como tú crees"($3 for a big time saver and totally worth it!!)"  After looking at her resources and watching the video, I decided to write a story (feel free to make a copy and adapt) about the video.

The story includes lyrics (in bold in the story/presentation) from the song. It is a bit ridiculous, but students might get a kick out of it. I will tell the story before we watch the video. There will be lots of opportunity for some good PQA with this story!

I also created this presentation (feel free to make a copy and adapt) with basic information (al estilo Canción/Artista de la semana) about the singer, Ana Mena, and the story with screenshots from the movie.

I also made a Quizlet  with vocabulario importante to play Quizlet Live before telling the story. After playing Quizlet Live with vocabulario, listening to the story, answer PQA related to the story, reviewing with Textivate (my favorites: Multiple Choice and Millonario), and playing Quizlet Live with Preguntas de Comprensión, students should be able to understand and appreciate the song a lot more!


Update - 3/7/18 - There is a Spanish 1 version of this story in this bundle on TPT.

I hope some of you can use it too!

If you like this style of story (that comes from a song and music video), there are some more here.

I am sharing all of this for FREE, but if you think this (or anything else that you got here for free) is useful and has saved you some time, feel free to give back here in Radiohead style (click here to see what I mean by Radiohead style). 

Interpretive Reading with Two Infografías: Los Beneficios de Viajar

I love CI and TPRS and using those two things are the most engaging things that I do. And they are things that really lead to language acquisition, but I also want to prepare them for the real world and for the AP test when they won't understand everything!

So, this semester in my Spanish 3 class, in addition to some wonderful stories  (like this one for our travel unit), we have also done lots of Interpretive Reading activities and assessments with authentic infografías (examples here). We have also done Interpretive listening activities and assessments with authentic PSAs, commercials, and other authentic video clips.


I recently created two Interpretive Reading activities using this Ohio/ACTFL template (find them all here; in my opinion, these are the best ones!).

Since travel is a common unit in many levels, I thought these docs might be useful for others so I am sharing them here.

They are both related to travel. Both have infografías titled "Los Beneficios de Viajar" (and they are someone similar). See the infografías here and here. And here are the docs (with answer keys too):

• Here is the first one, which could be used as a practice activity.
• Here is the second one, which could be used as an assessment. 

After doing the Interpretive Reading activities, students could also do an Interpersonal Speaking activity and then a Presentational Writing Activity to make it a full IPA. After doing these Interpretive Reading activities, my students will do the Presentational Writing activities at the end.

I will use these Ohio/ACTFL rubrics to set expectations, give feedback, and grade them:

• Interpretive Reading (but I will eliminate these strands: Organizational features, Author's perspective, and Cultural perspectives)
• Presentational Writing

Quizizz for Quizzes

I have blogged about Quizizz before. It is kinda like Kahoot, but has some other settings that Kahoot doesn't have (or maybe it does now?).

My current unit is "En el tiempo de las mariposas" (resources from Arianne Dowd). For the first week of the unit, students learned about the Dominican Republic, its food, its geography, and its history. Then students reflected and reacted to what they learned. 

This week, we are watching the movie, which is in English... but of course, we are going to read about the movie in CI Spanish before watching! We are using Arianne's slideshow and comprehension questions for the movie. Arianne broke the movie into three parts, so students read each part, answers the questions, take a cierto/falso evaluacioncita (a little quiz), and then we watch that part of the movie. For the quizzes, students will take three quizzes on Quizizz. So, how to do this?

I set the Quizizz as Homework (but we did it in class).

I turned off the timer, the leaderboard, the music and the memes. I also shuffled the questions, but not the answers (since it is cierto/falso).

Then, I give students the code and they did it in class. This was a nice, easy way to assess students on the reading (and give them more CI). And it gives them immediate feedback. And it is quickly graded. I highly recommend it! 

If you use Arianne's resources to teach this unit (which I love and I think students are liking), here are the three Quizizz activities that go along with the slideshow:

• Parte 1
• Parte 2
• Parte 3 

Our final assessment will be "La Caja Misteriosa," another brilliant idea from Arianne Dowd! This is a presentational and interpersonal speaking assessment that went really well when we did the movie Ladrón que roba a ladrón.

A grammar workbook!?! Yup.

I am writing this post because I have shared this with a few teachers and thought it might be helpful for other teachers  (especially if you are tied to teaching grammar).

My Cultura y Civilización class is a Spanish 4 for some students, a Spanish 5 for others, and, this year, a Spanish 6 for four students took AP Spanish last year. Only the students who took the "regular" Spanish 4 Honors class, can take Cultura y Civilización for Honors credit... so how to differentiate (besides adapting assessments and grading according to their level)???

For the past five years, I have been using a grammar workbook (gasp!). (Almost) every week the Honors students do a chapter in Breaking the Barrier Intermediate workbook. They do it totally outside of class and on their own. We do not discuss it in class, but they are free to come to me for help during our TASC block (but very few ever do). They get an answer key for the practice activities and then take the "prueba" at the end of each chapter. It is an open book "prueba" and I grade it. It is 10% of their overall grade.

I should note, these are not your "typical" students; these are the high-fliers, the high achievers, the thinkers, and (for the most part) the hard-workers. I have found that this has helped some students with their accuracy and it has helped them review old vocabulary and learn new words as well. Many students have also told me that it helped them as they made the transition to university, where there is still a lot of focus on grammar.

Again, if you are tied to teaching grammar, this is a great way to do it too ----> outside of the classroom!! John Conner's explanations are easy to understand and practical. There are also a lot of comical sentences and pop culture reference in his workbooks. If you have seen him present (he is usually at ACTFL and some other regional and state conferences), he is a great presenter too!

Flipgrid for Reactions and Reflections... NOT Summaries

In my Cultura y Civlización course, we are doing a unit that Arianne Dowd created about the Dominican Republic, specifically based around the movie "En el tiempo de las mariposas." The movie is in English, but we will be using Arianne's slideshow to get tons of input! We are also doing a ton of extension activities to delve deeper into the themes of the movie.

Before students can watch the movie and really understand it, we spent four days delving into the Dominican Republic. These are the things that we learned about last week:

• Los lugares de la República Domincana
• La comida (Edpuzzle)
• La Era de Trujillo
• El merengue y la bachata (readings from Arianne)
• La Masacre de Perejil (readings from Arianne)
• Carcel "La 40" (readings from Arianne)
• El Museo de la Resistencia (readings from Arianne)
• Las Hermanas Mirabal (readings from Arianne)

So after learning about all of those things, I wanted to give an assessment, but instead of writing summaries, answering questions, cierto/falso, etc., I wanted students to react, reflect, and make connections about what they learned. So, here is what students did for a presentational writing/speaking assessment. It is nothing revolutionary, but it was a really good, simple assessment! And I was very impressed with their reflections and reactions. (I should say that this is an exceptional group of students!)

This is definitely an enjoyable assessment for me to "grade" too. Flipgrid is such a great forum to communicate with students (and for them to communicate with each other). I was able to respond verbally to all of them about their reflections. I will definitely use this assessment again in the future!

Some Freebies and a Bargain Bundle!

During the last three years, I have been creating and using stories based on authentic songs/music videos as the base of units and it is now my favorite type of unit! Why?!? Because they are engaging, full of images, fun, automatically include cultural Ps, and students really like them!

These units are kinda like "canción de la semana," but we go much deeper with the story and other extension resources.

If you want to try one of these units, check out these five free units:

• Chau - This is a great unit to replace that Spanish 1 "school supplies" unit... blech!
• Calaverita - Spanish 1+, great for Día de los Muertos
• No voy a levantarme - Spanish 2+, for the "reflexives unit"
• Si tú la ves - Best for levels 3+. My students loved this unit (and so did I)!
• Echar pa'lante - Spanish 3+, focus on Puerto Rico

I have also created a bundle on TPT ($18.00, but 20% off for the next four days) with resources for five of these units. Included in the bundle are resources for the units below. To see what is in each unit, click on the links below. All of these songs/music videos are appropriate, pegajosas, and engaging for students!

• Soy yo - Spanish 1+, present tense
• Cásate conmigo - Spanish 2+, good for around Valentine's Day, preterite and imperfect
• Internacionales - Spanish 2+, great for travel unit, preterite, imperfect, a few present perfect and, a few past perfect
• Pescaíto - Spanish 2+, conditional, LOTS of culture
• Sicario - Spanish 3+, variety of tenses, pre-AP

And two of my (and my students') favorites in the CCC Spanish Store (Arianne Dowd and Zaida):

• La Bicicleta
• Robarte un beso
• Arianne is the master of creating these units! I highly recommend looking at her resources in their store.

Nelly Hughes also has some really good stuff for story units based on songs/music videos:

• La Estrategia - I haven't used this one yet, but really want to! Warming: It is a tearjerker!
• Besos en Guerra