Pre-watching and Episode 1 resources for Go! Vive a tu manera

Many Spanish teachers use TV/Netflix series in the classroom. Why? Because:

• they are highly engaging
• create class culture
• expose students to an authentic resource
• give us plenty to discuss

I have used both El Internado and Gran Hotel (sadly those guides no longer available) in the classroom and they have always been a big hit. But, I do have to skip some parts in both of those shows and the language in El Internado is a bit much sometimes. So, as you may have seen from some of my other posts, the Netflix series Go! Vive a tu manera is rated PG and totally appropriate. 

It is also totally cursi and some students will not like it. For me, it is all about setting expectations - keep them low when it comes to this show - I said, "Well, this show is pretty cheese and for tweens, but we are going to use it in class to learn Spanish." Then, they will think it is a learning tool... but will (hopefully) end up really liking the show. My AP students are loving it (I am still in school and will be until June 25th). 

Warning: The songs in this show will be stuck in your head and drive you crazy!

Check out the trailer here:

When watching a TV series, it is important to remember that the language acquisition is not necessarily coming from the show, nor is it coming from simply doing comprehension questions about the episodes #GoBeyondComprehensionQuestions! It is coming from everything that they teacher does with the show, like pre-watching activities, pausing and discussing while watching, and post-watching readings.  It is also important to go S   L   O   W   L   Y when watching a TV series ----> It takes me a LONG time to get through one episode.

So, I created the slideshow below (if you want access to copy and adapt, to here on TPT) that I am going to use before we even start watching the show. I would recommend spending several days with these readings and activities and then starting to watch the show. Slides 38-52 could be used after watching sections of the show. The purpose of those is to get repetition with some high frequency verbs. Also, you will notice that on those slides, I have put GIFs from this website to help with those verbs.

Update (7/29/19): If you would like guides for episodes 2-5, check out Abbie Theberge and Leah Silipo's resources here on TPT. 

In addition to this slideshow, I am going to create lecturas for the episodes. The episode lecturas will be al estilo Mike Peto (see my and Bethanie Drew's guides for El Internado). My episode lecturas will be for mid-late Spanish 1 and Spanish 2, so they will be in the present tense. However, just because that is the target audience doesn't mean you can't use these reading guides for any level to comprehensify, extend, and discuss this wonderful authentic resource! Reading below students' level gives them reinforcement with high frequency words and confidence.

Click here if you would like to purchase: 

• access to the slideshow above 
• a list of the important vocabulary for the pre-watching readings with a chart for students to write the words
• a very comprehensive pre-watching guide that includes all of the text from the slideshow, but as guided notes
• a lectura for episode 1 (7 pages with 2 pages being song lyrics for two songs) - This is the key for the CI and language acquisition! 
• possible assessments (including a conversación simulada) for the pre-watching and episode 1 readings
• activities to do with the Mochila Challenge playlist on YouTube

Otra ideas para Go! Vive a tu manera

I still have two weeks left of school, but things are moving along and I am enjoying my classes. My AP students are just finishing up (Tina Hargaden's) End of Year Book Project and their products are awesome! It was a perfect way to end that class.

In addition to working on that, we have been watching Go! Vive a tu manera (see post about this new appropriate series here) for about 20-25 minutes a day. We watch in Spanish with Spanish subtitles. I pause once in a while and we discuss. It is such a cursi show, but students kinda love it! My seniors leave on Tuesday, but then I still have juniors for 8 more days, so we will be watching Go! Vive a tu manera and continuing to do different activities related to the show.

We have been using Charlala DrawRoom with DrawSets to review what happened in the show the previous day. Here is an example of a DrawSet:

If you haven't used checked out Charala yet, put it on the top of you list! It is AMAZING! Check out Cynthia Hitz's two posts here and here to see all the possibilities. It will be wonderful if teachers can share DrawSets in the future!

Next week, we are going to use this Quizlet set to play Quizlet Live. The set is a ¿Quién lo dijo a quién? set, which means I took direct quotes from the show and students have to figure out who said it to whom. It should be fun and give them some good, advanced input.

And finally, for my junior AP Students, their final exam will be based on Go! Vive a tu manera. Click here to see it. It will be a fun final for them to take and enjoyable for me to correct. #WinWin Feel free to make a copy and adapt. Another note about Charlala, I will be using it for la Conversación Simulada (see script in doc) of the exam. Here is what it looks like from the student view. 

I am pretty sure that some people are working on resources for lower levels, so I am considering using this series next year with my lower levels too. One thing that I love about this show is that I don't have to worry about any content or language!