Free Unit: Pescaíto

This is the first unit in my Cultura y Civilización 

(Spanish 4/5/6) course this year.

It is a favorite and full of authentic resources, lots of activities and solid assessments. 

 Click here to access the resources 

for this unit for FREE.

Below is a post about this unit (from November of 2017)

Have you seen the video Pescaíto by Carlos Vives?  

I love it! I (and some of my Spanish 3 students) might be a bit obsessed with Carlos Vives lately! His music is really good and appropriate! 

If you want to make it a song of the week, here is a doc with a cloze activity and a "translate some lines" activity for the song.

I really wanted to comprehensify and extend this authentic resource. So, I created an entire story unit based around the song. The story is called "El Día Perfecto de Carlos Vives"and you can see it in the slideshow below. The words in italics are song lyrics and/or words from the song, so when students hear the song, they will already know many words. 

The unit will help students to understand and communicate about what they and others would do. And they will also learn about Colombia a bit. Below is the slideshow (without links to the unit packet and cultural readings to extend the unit). If you want more, click here (link to TPT) and see below for what the unit includes. Click here if you want to make a copy of the slideshow and adapt it. If you feel like this is something useful, it saved you some time, and  you want to give back, click here.

The unit packet has a ton of links and activities to comprehensify and extend the song/video! 

Here are some more details about the unit, what it includes and a possible order for the unit. 

This unit is for late Spanish 2 and above.  If your students have not heard of Carlos Vives (a famous Colombian singer), they might not be as enthusiastic about this unit. Before this unit, my students did two story units based on songs by him: “Robarte un beso” and “La Bicicleta”. Carlos Vives sings “La Bicicleta” with Shakira, so that might help to show your students how famous he is.

This story unit focuses on exposing students to the conditional tense and acquiring some verbs in the conditional so that they are able to say what they and others would do.  

In addition to a focus on the conditional, the unit is also wrapped around the song and video "Pescaíto" by Carlos Vives. The description of Carlos Vives' "día perfecto" is written using in the yo form (from Carlos Vives’ perspective) with vocabulary from the song and is illustrated with screenshots from the music video.

There are also several cultural readings and/or activities that explore some of the cultural Products, Practices, and Perspectives in the video. These are all linked in the presentation and in the Pescaíto folder. These are the cultural readings:

• Tras La Perla
• Carlos Valderrama AKA El Pibe
• Las Frutas de Colombia
• El Restaurante en Pescaíto: Lulo
• Carnaval en Pescaíto

The presentation (linked in the unit packet with links to all readings, etc) will walk you through the unit. I have not divided this into days because I teach 85 minute classes and some people teach 45, 50, or 60, but here are some other suggestions for a possible order of the unit. 

• Introduce the Essential Questions, Metas, and the Evaluaciones for the unit.
• Briefly explain conditional tense (slide in presentation). I do not recommend focusing on this too much or having students take notes. They will acquire it through the repetition in the unit.
• I no longer use vocabulary lists because I have found that students acquire the words that are most important to them throughout the unit. But there are some teachers and students who want and/or need a vocabulary list, so I have included two possible vocabulary pages at the end that you may want to use:
• A blank vocabulary sheet where students can fill in words as they go through the unit. They could also make a Quizlet with those words.
• A vocabulary sheet with keywords from the story. There is also a Quizlet with this vocabulary. A great quick way for students to become familiar with the words is Quizlet Live. I highly recommend it!!  That could be done before the story
• Explain who Carlos Vives is and maybe show a video of his. "La Bicicleta" is a good one because Shakira is in it. (On that note, Arianne Dowd created a wonderful story and unit to go along with that song and you can find it here.)
• Do the "Cuatro Esquinas" activity to activate what students would do on their "día perfecto".
• Use the presentation to tell the story of "El Día Perfecto de Carlos Vives." 
• Possibly use Flipgrid to do the Interpersonal Speaking evaluación with the personalized questions. OR just use those to have conversations with the class throughout.
• Do the Quizlet Live activity for parte 1 to give more repetition and CI to students.
• Continue the parte 2 of the story and do the same.
• Do the cloze activity with the song. Listen and try to sing the song everyday throughout the unit.
• Have students reread the story and illustrate it.
• Do the translations from the song.
• Do some of the cultural readings throughout the telling of the story. The readings are linked throughout the presentation.
• Play "Agárralo" in pairs. Each pair has a pen/pencil/marker between them. I say cierto or falso sentences about the story. Students have to grab a pen/pencil/marker if the sentence is true. The first person to grab it, earns one point. If a student grabs it when I say a false statement, s/he loses two points. This is a fun game!
• Have students do the matching activity about the cultural readings from the video.
• Do the Quizizz activity as an in class activity, a homework, and/or a quiz. Students can do this activity more than once.
• Play Backatcha. This game is a great way to get students speaking spontaneously! 
• Have students do the Presentational Speaking Assessment - Prepare and present what they would do on their "día perfecto". This can be done in groups of four and recorded on Flipgrid. There is a description of this assignment and a rubric at the end of the packet.
• Have students do the Presentational Writing Assessment - Identify the cultural Ps in the video "Pescaíto" and compare them to your own.

Here are some possible Essential Questions, Metas para la unidad didáctica, and Evaluaciones:

Preguntas Esenciales:

• ¿Cuáles son las partes que más adoro de mi comunidad? ¿Por qué son importantes para mí?
• ¿Cuáles son unos productos, prácticas, y perspectivas culturales que se ven el el video "Pescaíto"? 
• ¿Cómo son similares y/o diferentes unos productos, prácticas, y perspectivas culturales que se ven el el video para "Pescaíto" con los míos?

Metas:

• I can talk about what I would and/or would not do on my "perfect day".
• I can interpret a story about someone's perfect day.
• I can compare what I would do on my "perfect day" to what someone else would do.
• I can answer questions about what I would do on my perfect day.
• I can identify and describe some cultural products, practices, and perspectives of the neighborhood Pescaíto in the city Santa Marta, Colombia.

Evaluaciones:

• Interpersonal Speaking (on Flipgrid): Answer personalized questions (sprinkled in the presentation) related to the story: "El día perfecto de Carlos Vives". OR This could also be Interpersonal Writing and students could write answers during the presentation.
• Interpretive Reading/Listening: Answer questions about the story: "El día perfecto de Carlos Vives"
• Presentational Speaking: Present to your grupito what your your perfect day would be like. Include pictures. (See description at end of packet.)
• Cultural Comparisons/Connections: Identify the cultural Ps in the video "Pescaíto" and compare them to your own.