Some Chile resources...

After Christmas break, in my Cultura y Civilización (4/5/6) class, I will be teaching a unit about Chile. I have used the movie Machuca before and I will be using it again. Previously, the unit was called "Chile: Los movimientos sociales y la importancia de la educación pública". I used Machuca and then focused on the student protests that started in 2011. Students learned a ton about Ana Tijoux and we focused on her song "Shock". I love that unit, but this year (or really next - 2020 is 11 days away!), I am going to change it up a bit and I will be sharing new resources here as I create them. I think the new unit will be called "Chile: #Cacerolazo". The two main resources will be the movie Machuca and the song Cacerolazo by Ana Tijoux (resources here).

One thing I want to do before I get into the history of 1973 and Machuca, I want to share some basics about Chile with my students. I want to students to learn (in a very basic way) about the geography, the food, and the language of Chile. So far, I have compiled these videos:

This doc has some activities to do with that first video and this Chile Travel website. This Youtube playlist is also an option for students to explore.

And I hope to develop something using the information here about the food of Chile.

I love this video to learn about Chilean slang, but I need to cut it at 3:40... hopefully I can figure that out!

This video (broken up into parts) will be excellent to show the indigenous people of Chile. Thanks to @TWSteacher for sharing that resource. Can't wait to develop some activities with those little clips. I think I will start with Natalia: una niña mapuche (0:00-5:42).

I LOVE Radio Ambulante! If you haven't listened to it, start now! They tell so many good stories from all over the Spanish speaking world. I have created this listening guide for the 15 minute episode called "El Equipo Fantasma". Students will listen to this after they watch Machuca. 

I will also be using a few resources from Nuestra Historia:

• A biography of Ana Tijoux (level 4)
• A biography for Michelle Bachelet (level 3)
• Story: Las arpilleras modernas (level 3)
• Story: Los poemas escondidos (level 4)
• Tip: If you get the the "Teacher Resource Only" for $100, you will get an AMAZING amount of quality resources. You can search a specific country, find stories or other resources and accompanying activities and boom, done! 
  

More to come soon...

And if you have any Chile resources, please share! 

Spotify: "Your Top Songs 2019"

I listen to a lot of Spotify🎶when I run🏃🏻‍♀️, so it was so interesting to see the playlist "Your Top Songs 2019" (see above) on Spotify. I listened to to it today on my (cold🥶) run (see above) and realized so many of these top songs are songs that I made resources for. I usually listen to songs on repeat and come up with ideas while I run. So many of these songs reminded me of things I have created this year for my students and for other Spanish teachers, so I am sharing them again here in this post. Most of these are free, and if not, I link to the TPT page.

• Atrévete (free) - A story based on the music video and song for Spanish 1, but can be used at any level. Along with the story is a presentation, a Quizlet (for Quizlet Live), and a textivate link.
• Bailo la pena (TPT) - An entire unit revolving around a story based on the music video and song.  
• Tan Bien (free) - A story based on the music video and song for Intermediates. I love this story! Along with the story is a presentation, a Quizziz, and two Quizlets.
• La Libertad (free) - A story based on the music video and song for Intermediates, perfect for the end of the year at graduation time. 
• Kitipun (free) - Some activities to do before listening to this fun song
• Un año (free) - Some resources to make predictions and to use some subjunctive.
• Yo no sé (free) - A story based on the music video and song for Spanish 1. This is the favorite song so far this year! Includes an evaluation with a Texting Story video.
• Other thoughts... 
• I listened to a lot of Rosalía, but still haven't pulled something together for class yet. And when I do, I will use this Edpuzzle.
• I need to get more WOMEN on my Spotify!
• I listened to a lot of Bad Bunny. I love his voice and his music, but I will not be using his music in class.
• I really like Paulo Londra and want to create some stories for some of his songs, in particular for the song/video Tal vez.
•  I love the Lumineers (English) new album so much.
• I am not sure how Plata Ta Tá isn't on this list because I think I listened to it 8 times in a row the other day. Also, not appropriate for class, but I love it. 
• My favorite song of all time "This must be the place". 
• Some of the songs on the list: I have no recollection of listening to 😂 .

Do you use Spotify? If so, what is on your "Top Songs of 2019"?

Looking for to go into a totally calm zone: Watch this video for Holocene by Bon Iver. Also, that song was voted #1 on The 2010s: NPR Listeners Pick Their Top Songs Of The Decade.

Running dictation and/or Pear Deck to explain la Lotería de Navidad

We are on day 3 of our Lotería unit and I just love it so much! Yesterday, we saw our first two (of 7) stories (actually commercials). We watched the 2013 commercial (free reading here and more activities here).

And we also watched my favorite El Bar de Antonio. I just set this one up before we watch and they get it at the end. That on was during la crisis económica in Spain, so we assume that Manuel was struggling economically.

But, before getting into our stories (AKA the commercials), students have to learn about la Lotería de Navidad de España. So, after doing this Edpuzzle (with Pablo from Dreaming Spanish) to learn about the lotería, I explained it again, in particular, I explained the billete (€200) and décino (€20) and how frequently they are shared among family, friends, compañeros de trabajo and other groups. It is a bit complicated!

Then we watched the students of San Ildefonso singing the numbers. If you aren't familiar with what is happening, there are two bombos, one with the prizes (there are a lot of prizes) and one with the ticket numbers. So, one of the students is singing (kinda yelling) the prize amount and the other is singing the winning ticket number.

Then students did this a Running Dictation with these cierto/falso sentences (the correct answers are on the last page here):

1. La Lotería de Navidad es una lotería nacional de México organizada todos los años desde 1763 (o 1812).
2. La lotería de Navidad es considerada la lotería más pequeña del mundo.
3. El premio más grande se llama "El Gordo" y tiene un valor de 4 millones de dólares.
4. Cada año, el sorteo es el once de diciembre.
5. Es una lotería especial porque hay pocos premios.
6. Muchas personas comparten un décimo con familia, amigos, y/o compañeros del trabajo.
7. Hay dos bombos. El grande es para los números de los billetes y el pequeño es para los premios.
8. Los niños del Colegio de San Ildefonso gritan los números de la lotería.
9. El lema del sorteo de la Navidad es "El Mayor Premio es Compartirlo."

The Running Dictation was a bit of a rush to finish, so to start the next class, we started with this Pear Deck presentation (if you haven't tried Pear Deck, it is an excellent formative tool!):

If you would like to see how Pear Deck works, here is a 3:27 video that I made to demonstrate:

Netflix Series (& Movies) Transcripts in TWO languages!!

Nicole Louderback Barrett shared the coolest thing on the Facebook page for Teaching with Gran Hotel! If you use the Google Extension Language Learning with Netflix with Netflix, not only can you get the subtitles in two languages, but you can also print out the entire transcript to the show (and movies too) in TWO languages! Here is an example: Episode 1 Go! Vive a tu manera.

This will be so useful! Obviously, I will not be using the entire transcript with students, but I will be using this for a variety of activities in the future.

And here is a short (1:07) video to show you how it to get the transcript:

ACTFL 2019 Takeaways

I am feeling so invigorated, refreshed, inspired, and grateful after ACTFL! ACTFL is so big and so overwhelming and if you don't have a focus before you go, it can be tricky to get the most out of it.  So, I decided to focus on Social Justice at the conference this year. This is something that I thought I was addressing in my class and the good news for me is that I am doing a decent job... however, I can do much better! So, I am going to share some of my takeaways and some resources that I hope to explore more.

On Thursday I went to the full day workshop: Teaching for Social Justice in the World Language Classroom with Cassandra Glynn and Beth Wassel, two of the authors of the book Words and Actions: Teaching Languages Through the lens of Social Justice.

The benefit of the pre-conference workshops is that you get to spend the full day delving into one specific thing. I am excited to update, revise, and refine some of my units to really have a Social Justice focus. But more importantly, I am hoping to have the lens of Social Justice for all of my units. 

One big take takeaway from that workshop is the Teaching Tolerance Social Justice Standards:

I am going to start to look at my units to see if and/or which ones I am including in the unit. For instance, I hope to update and refine this #cacerolazo unit. These are the standards I am going to try to include in the (future) revised unit:

I also hope to develop a unit around the movie Campeones. So, far, I have compiled some ideas in this doc with ideas, this presentation, an article, and the playlist of videos below. We'll see if I have time to pull it all together!

On Friday, I went to see Leslie Davison present "Take a trip! Geo tools for an immersion experience".  Leslie is so smart and an excellently engaging presenter. She shared four tools for maps: an app called Street View, Google's Tour Builder, Google Earth, and My Maps. I am super excited about My Maps because you can use Google Forms and automatically import data into a map! Also, students can keep track of a variety of things using My Maps... I will be sharing more with this in the future! I also want to use Tour Builder more, in particular with books and/or movies that I use. Here is an example of what I did this past fall for my Ecuador unit.

On Friday, I also went to Latino/a, Latin@, Latinx, Latiné, Latinae: An inclusion and social justice approach. This was presented by Marialuisa DiStefano, William Yepes-Amaya, and Abelardo Almazán-Vásquez. This was very informative and eye opening. I love how we started with a dance - and that I got to dance with Emilia Carrillo, someone I have known on Twitter for years and finally got to meet face to face! There is a lot to unpack from this session, but my big takeaway is that inclusion, representation, and recognition of all identities are super important and I need to be more intentional about those things and I need to recognize who I am including and who I am excluding with the language I use and resources I choose. but I'm just going to share a couple of videos from the session:

On Friday, I also went to my good friend Arianne Dowd's session "Scaffolded Film Through the Lens of Social Justice with AP Tasks/Assessment". Arianne's session offered a ton of amazing ideas and resources! Check them out here and here. There is a lot to unpack from that session too! One of the movies she presented about is Anita. Here is the trailer:

On Friday, I also presented about using the TV Series Go! Vive a tu manera in the CI Posse booth. That was a different way to present with a small group, but I hope they got some good ideas to use! 

On Saturday, my first session was about using the song Latinoamérica by Calle 13. I have used the song and the video in the past, but I haven't in a few years. I remembered how much I love the song and how many amazing products, practices, and perspectives are in the song and video! Here is what I did the last time I used the song.

I love comparing that song to this song/video #NewHampshire #LiveFreeOrDie #MyState #LoveIt

Saturday, I also went to see Martina Bex talk about Proficiency Oriented Language Instruction. Martina is an amazing presenter, a very smart woman, and an engaging teacher. There is too much to say about this session! Here is an amazing post that I will just link here.

Finally, I presented with Erin Almeranti (head of the Nuestra Historia project) and Gary DiBianca (co-author of the Nuestra Historia Aprender y Preparar) about Nuestra Historia. Gary and I are very proud of this book and we can't wait for more teachers to 

And I also love my delicious dinner at Jaleo with some wonderful people, some of whom I have "known" for years, but never met face to face.

And I loved seeing so many "conference friends" and meeting so many new people too!

La Lotería de Navidad... versión 2019

Oh how I love teaching with stories! And I particularly love the seven stories that I can now choose from for my La Lotería de Navidad unit!

Last year, I used four stories, but this year I am adding three more. Wait... can I do that? Will I have time? I think I will! I have decided that I am going to spend the three weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas break to do the unit.

To start and introduce the la Lotería de España, I am going to use this Edpuzzle (or here is Novice version). Then, we will do a running dictation to review the information (in TPT product). I might have them look at two infografías and do these (free) activities. Then, we will do this BVP style Task. That "Task" is designed to give students input, so they can output and we can discuss the preferences of the class.

Then, we will get into our stories! I will probably start with Justino (thank you Martina Bex!), then 250th aniversario, then 22 otra vez, and then Carmina. And, then we will do the three stories from this year's ad campaign. Finally, (time permitting) we will do Danielle. This TPT product has resources for the 250th aniversario, or Carmina, Danielle, 22 otra vez and this year's 3 stories: Pilar y Félix, Emilio y Gloria, and Ramón y José.

So, this year's stories are unique from all the other stories, in that no one wins. In all the other stories, there is a winner (well at least Carmina thinks she is a winner). The lema for this year is "El sorteo que nos une" and the hashtag is #UnidosPorUnDécimo... so the message is not really focused on winning lots of money, but rather on sharing.

There are actually four stories in this ad campaign, but I am only using three, because the fourth one, Carmen y Víctor, is a bit too sad for me to use.

This slideshow has a preview of what I am planning on doing with the three stories. If you would like to use the entire unit, you can purchase it here on TPT. Or buy resources, activities, and readings for a whole bunch of Lotería de Navidad stories here on TPT.

I set the slideshow up with Peardeck slides, but you don't have to use them. But for those of you who do use Peardeck, how convenient!

Pilar y Félix

Emilio y Gloria

Ramón y José

#Cacerolazo (for Intermediates)

I saw this video by Ana Tijoux (who I LOVE, particularly because of her social justice lyrics)...

  Note: The version above is an edited version. If you use the original, 

you might want to start video at :06 or just ignore first 5 seconds. 

Supposed to be directions from Waze, but it has an inappropriate word.

Update: About an hour after I posted this, I saw this longer version, but my resources only focus on the shorter version.

and was inspired to create a lesson to lead up to it.

So, I read this article "¿Dónde se originó el cacerolazo y por qué se usa para protestar?"

 and then

I watched this video to get a handle on what exactly was happening in Chile:

And then, Arianne Dowd sent me this infographic from @Pictoline

Then, I made this packet with few days worth of plans. The goal is to explain what is happening and then get to the song by Ana Tijoux. The packet includes:

• Essential Questions
• Enduring Understandings
• Discussion Questions (which give input for further exploration of the topic)
• Palabras clave (more input)
• An activity to do with the infografía (more input)
• An activity do with images of the massive protests on October 25th
• An adapted version of the article "¿Dónde se originó el cacerolazo y por qué se usa para protestar?"
• The song lyrics for #Cacerolazo
• Some questions about the song #Cacerolazo
• And this slideshow (see here or below) to help guide students through the unit

Evaluación: Go! Vive a tu manera

In my Spanish 1 class, we have watched up to minute 14:49 of episode 2 in the series Go! Vive a tu manera. We have spend a lot of time watching, reading (guides here and here), and talking about the show, so now it is assessment time. Since, we have spent so much time on the show, I wanted to have an assessment that weighs a lot. And I also wanted to make sure that I am hitting lots of modes of communication.

I am sharing here in case anyone can use and/or is curious about what an assessment for a TV Series might look like. So, here is my assessment and an explanation of the parts.


Part 1 is interpretive reading. Students read quotes (not actually from the show, but rather comprehensified versions of what characters said) and fill in the blank: __________ lo dijo a __________ for each quote. Students have seen these quotes (in slideshow here and in their reading guides).

For Part 2 is interpretive listening and reading. This Edpuzzle is very similar to what we have been doing in class before we watch. Students did this Edpuzzle earlier in the week. The video is me describing a section of the show that we have not seen yet (slides from this slideshow). You will notice that the questions are almost all multiple choice (21 total questions) and really, I am tricking them into getting more CI.

For Part 3, students will do things. First, they will identify the characters from the show. They will see this slideshow and write the name of each person.

Then, they will write about one character. 

This slideshow is something that we did in class to help prepare them for that part.

For Part 4, students will do this Edpuzzle. This section is not worth a lot.

And finally, Part 5 addresses the ACTFL Communities Standard:

Students will answer these questions:

If you have read this far, I hope this has been helpful! And if you have any suggestions, please comment below. In the future, on another assessment, I hope to include slides with screenshots and have students write about what happens in each. 

An excuse to re-watch the Víctor trilogy...

I was fortunate to get an advance copy of Sr. Wooly's new graphic novel Me llamo Víctor Parte 1. Before receiving this copy, I had already ordered a class set of this book because I know how wackily engaging the three videos are. Students weirdly love all three: Guapo, El secreto de Víctor and Feo... and so do I! My favorite is definitely Feo, with Sarah Breckley, who goes all out (on another note, this video of hers is awesome). 

Here is a description of the book:

Anyways, Sr. Wooly sent me the book and asked that I be totally honest and share my thoughts about the story, good or bad. So, here are some of my thoughts...

• My younger son, 11, was super excited when I told him about the book. So, we watched the trilogy together the other night to get ready for the book. I will definitely do this with my older students when I get my class set of this book. This will be an excellent pre-Thanksgiving break activity for us. Then, they will get to read the book during SSR. This book is a perfect excuse to re-watch those three videos.
• My son and I read the book together this evening and we both thoroughly enjoyed it. 
• The book (as would be expected) is engaging, suspenseful, and intriguing (my son's adjective).
• My son and I found ourselves signing as we read a few times. #MuyMuyMuyMuyGuapo
• I think a lot of students will be able to relate to young Víctor... and for a variety of reasons, from his life to the people and things he encounters at school. Some examples:
• Cringy school assemblies that go a bit overboard
• Mean girls
• The "favorite" teacher
• Nagging parents
• An overachieving sibling
• There are also some connections to a classic horror novel, which many students will recognize. 
• The illustrations by Juan Carlos Pinilla are outstanding. I am sure that when I read it again, I will notice more and more things. 
• There is definitely a hidden message in the book! (See below)
• It also left me wanting more. Parte 2 comes out in early 2020 and I will definitely be getting that book as well.

Note: I do not work for Sr. Wooly. I did not even have to write this up. But, I will say that Sr. Wooly (and his nuggets) is an integral part of my Spanish 1 curriculum and I appreciate what Jim and his team do so much. They are passionate about offering engaging content for our students, so I am happy to support them! 

Resource for Episode 2 - Go! Vive a tu manera

We finally finished episode 1 of Go! Vive a tu manera in Spanish 1. It took us a long time because we did a lot of work before watching and then went very slowly through the first episode with lots of comprehensible reading (see more in this post or see webinar video below). Students are really liking it and acquiring a ton of Spanish.

We will be starting episode 2 this week and I will be using Abbie Theberge and Leah Silipo's resources. They made excellent comprehensible readings for Novices. Their readings are very similar to mine. See their resources here on TPT - worth the price and such a time saver!

I used the screenshots that Leah made and created comprehensible dialogue bubbles throughout. And there are also two Texting Story videos with fake text messages between Lupe y Juanma. I will probably use them (in very small chunks). Then, we will watch (with Spanish subtitles). Then, we will do the readings together as class. There will be lots of personalization throughout and there will be lots of pausing -- which my students are now accustomed to and actually appreciate.

Another option, I created a doc (click here or see below) with all of the speech bubbles and students will guess who said what to whom.

Here is a link to the slideshow in case you want to use and adapt.