On the last day of class I had my students  fill out a course evaluation survey to gather their feedback. A few things stuck out and will help in my planning for next year:

1. Stories! A majority of students specifically mentioned the MovieTalks we did in class and enjoyed them very much. A side note: the stories we choose can also have morals or takeaways. Two students specifically mentioned that the MovieTalk of Destiny made them realize that maybe they shouldn’t be too focused on things (such as checking their cellphone all the time) and instead be aware of the world around them.
2. Speaking of MovieTalks, a lot of kids mentioned their annoyance of me pausing the video so frequently. After some teacher discussion, it made me realize I need to explain to students the process and why I do what I do. Students want instant gratification to find out what happens. They are engaged in the movie. They don’t even realize they are acquiring language during the video.
3. Going along with the last point, one of my goals for next year will be to better (and more frequently) explain to students how proficiency and acquisition works.
4. 30 Days. I’ve shown this episode of 30 Days for the last 7 years and I thought about not showing it this year, because we talked so much about immigration already, especially after reading Esperanza, and watching some clips of children in detention centers. But I am glad I showed it anyway. Students responded well to the movie and were able to see the life of a family both before they came to the US and after. Many students mentioned this video in their evaluation.
5. Profe of the Week: This is something I started the year with and it kind of died out over halfway through the year, but it is something that students seemed to really enjoy. Each week a student is assigned to be the “profe” and starts the class by asking some review questions. Another activity that students enjoyed was talking about their weekend plans on Friday (voy a) and Monday (past tense) which I will start earlier in the year next year.

If you haven’t finished out the year yet, here is a version of the survey I gave to my students: Course Evaluation 2016

We’ve all heard them. Most of us have probably even used them at one point or another. I’m talking about those cute little songs and acronyms to memorize grammar rules, irregular forms, verbs, and more.

Example: Your students are learning about command forms. So, you give them this little trick (on right) to remember the irregular forms for positive tú commands: Ven Di Sal Haz Ten Ve Pon Sé.

Easy Peasy. Your students are going to rock out on the commands quiz.

Or how about using the tune of “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” to memorize the irregular yo form verbs in the preterite. Sing that little tune during the quiz, and you’ll be set!

Then there are all the acronyms to remember the difference between Ser and Estar (Doctor Place), when to use the subjunctive (WEIRDO), and I’m sure they are many many more examples.

These tools may be great help to pass a quiz. But are they really that useful when it comes to acquiring a language? If your objective is for students to be able to list all the irregular yo forms in the past tense, then this is great! However, that is not a communicable goal. Students do not take your class to learn how to conjugate verbs or to create a list of grammar concepts. They want to be able to use the language. If you can find me where in the ACTFL standards, it says that students should know all the irregular yo forms, then I’ll be happy to start practicing that song with my students. But in the meantime, I am going to give my students comprehensible input so that they hear those words used in context and eventually they internalize them and can use them in conversation.

Don’t get me wrong, my favorite lesson used to be dressing up like a doctor and pretending to be “Doctor Clift” to teach my students the differences between Ser and Estar. I thought it was great. But even after spending weeks on this “unit” I would still have a student who would write “Los tacos SOMOS deliciosos hoy”. I wanted to pull my hair out. The problem wasn’t with the students. It was with me. Ser and Estar shouldn’t be a unit. Students need to be exposed to these words in context all year long. And yeah, they are going to mix up “es” and “está” quite frequently, but you know what? They should! They are novice learners! I can not expect them to be perfect in the language they produce. But I should be darn happy if they are able to express themselves using “is” in Spanish. And eventually they will figure it out. They will use the right one, and not because they have to think “Oh, this is the E of Emotion from PLACE”, but because “está asustado” sounds right.

I haven’t taught “conjugations” in several years. My students don’t know what a “boot verb” is. They don’t know what a “go verb”. But they can communicate. They can tell me a whole story because they have the confidence! Do they use “boot verbs” and “go verbs”? You bet, but they’ve acquired them, not studied them. I am not to to stop them after their third word, and correct them: “No, make sure you use está instead of es“. I am going to listen to them and encourage them.
Why is there such a decline in numbers of Spanish students after they fulfill their minimum amount of credit? Maybe it’s because they don’t want to learn ABOUT the language. They want to learn the language. There is a big difference in learning about a boot verb and actually being able to use the word “empieza”.  That was the most important concept for me when I began shifting my teaching style. I was teaching them about the language. They knew what an “infinitive” was, what a “boot-verb”/”stem changing verb” was, what an “irregular verb” was. But, were they proficient in using the language? And isn’t that the goal of my class?

Share your opinions in the comments! Does singing the forms of a verb to “La Cucaracha” help students become proficient? Is that an acronym or trick that you use in your classroom that truly helps students? (And no, I’m not saying that they are all bad, some certainly have their merits.)

Our Spanish Facebook Profile Project is one of our best sellers. And according to the reviews, it’s not only a hit with teachers, but students love it too. And it’s no wonder. Students not only create their own Facebook profile page, but also a newsfeed with posts from their “friends” as well as a notification page, just like facebook.

Also included is a list of common “text-talk”: abbreviations native speakers use when texting. Such as “a2” for “adiós”.

So we are excited to announce that we now have a French version of this project. And you could win either one of these versions on our Facebook giveaway.

All you need to do is to go to our Facebook page, www.Facebook.com/SpanishPlans and tag a French teacher in the comments of our most recent post. The people you tag will be eligible to win the French version and anyone who tags (that’s you!) is entered to win the French OR Spanish version.

For more French resources, check out our French page.

If you’ve just been hired or are starting your first year as a Spanish teacher, you are probably a) super excited and b) quite nervous.

Hopefully we can help calm those nerves and make your year start out smooth.

Here are some tips to help get you ready:

1. Room Set-up
   Get in your room as soon as you can. Assess what space you are working with. Rummage through the room to see what supplies have been left? Start thinking about what you will need. Take a look at our Stocking the Spanish Classroom post to get some ideas about what might be useful.
2. Decorating
   The next step is making your room look “you”. You are going to be spending a lot of time in this room, so you want it to be a welcoming space for students and a comfortable space for yourself. Check pinterest for classroom decorating ideas. If you are the crafty type, there is lots you can be resourceful with. But don’t forget those bulletin boards.
   Check out our classroom decoration ideas and our bulletin boards.
3. Planning
   You’ll want to meet and talk with your co-workers if possible to discuss curriculum to give you some general guidance on the year. Start planning activities for your first week. 
   You can also check out our Spanish 1 Teacher Book for plenty of ideas and activities to use throughout the school year. This will give you plenty of material to get started. Check out the Free preview to see what is included. One review says: “This packet SAVED me during my 1st year of teaching…and continues to help me now in my 2nd year of teaching!”
   4. Welcoming the students
   You’ll have to decide if you give your students Spanish names or not.  But we recommend using the first day to jump into a lesson and speaking Spanish. Students are going to be listening to a lot of rules and expectations in many classes, so you might showcase using the TL to introduce yourself by speaking fast, and using no visuals. See how much the students understand (probably not much). Then give that same presentation with a powerpoint and speak slowly, with repetition. Ask students how much they understood the second time. (should be most). Let them know that they can trust you to use the TL and make it comprehensible for them if they pay attention.
4. Staying healthy
   Your first year it bound to be stressful. That’s ok. It is as much a learning experience for you as it is for your students, learning the material. Allow yourself to de-stress at home. And when you get sick, (because it is bound to happen) make sure you have sub plans ready to go. Don’t be afraid to use a sick day to rest up so that you recover quicker.
5. Don’t reinvent the wheel
   You may think that you have to create every activity and you’ll also learn that the activities you spend hours creating are usually done in 10 minutes by the students. Borrow from your colleagues. Join a social network for Spanish teachers on twitter or facebook. Search TeachersPayTeachers for lesson plans and activities that will save you time from planning. (If you can spend $5 on a coffee, then purchasing a ready to use activity that saves you your time is a no-brainer).
6. Have Fun
   Enjoy it! And remember… next year will be even better!

The first day of Spanish class. You want to be welcoming, you want the students to feel comfortable. You also want to set the expectation that this class is different. You want to maintain 90% of the class in the target language. It can be done. Here’ a few ideas.

See more Spanish Teacher Memes

One of the first things I do while taking attendance is establish the name students call me. After I say the students name, I prompt them to say “Hola, profe” or “Sí, profe”. If they say “Sí”, I will prompt them with what I want them to say. I make sure that they repeat it. I do this for the first several days. Sometimes I will just say a students’ name and look/nod at them and wait to them to say “Sí, profe”.

I then give the students an introduction of myself. I talk about where I am from, my family, my background in teaching and traveling, and my hobbies. During this period of time, I am speaking as if I am talking to a native speaker. I do not use visuals, I do not restate in simple terms/vocabulary. I do not give processing time. I then ask students what they understood. The response is usually not little if anything. Then, in Spanish, I explain that I am going to do it again, but this time differently.

I use this PowerPoint Template (you can download for free and input your own information). This time, I use visuals from the Powerpoint. I explain it in simple terms. I give processing time. I speak at a slower rate. I check the audience for understanding. I do everything I can to make it comprehensible.

Then I ask students to tell me what they understood. This time, they can tell me everything! I then ask them (in English) why they understood more the second time. I explain to them that I will be speaking to them in Spanish, BUT that it is my job to make it comprehensible to them. Their job is to be active listeners, because watching my gestures or visuals is important to their understanding. This helps them feel comfortable and not be so overwhelmed that I am just going to be rambling in Spanish.

On the second day, I like to do some sort of TASK that students have to accomplish. They have to listen to the instructions and follow along with what I am modeling. At the end of the class, I ask them if they were able to accomplish the task? When they say yes, I remind them that they were successful in accomplishing something and they didn’t need English to do it. One example is to have them set up their notebook, or you can have them create a passport booklet.

Announcing our first contest to kick off the school year:

For more information….1) Get ideas* for memes here:
*Although most of these memes are not part of the #CIworks campaign and do not necessarily promote Language Acquisition.
  

2) Create your own meme here: https://imgflip.com/memegenerator 
Use #CIworks in your meme if possible (not required), but if you wish to share it online (twitter, facebook, instagram, etc.) use this hashtag.
You can copy the url to the image or save the image and upload the file.
3) Submit your image at this facebook post by pasting the image url: https://www.facebook.com/spanishplans/posts/1271816689509863 

4) Share the facebook post with your friends

5) Vote for your favorite: 
The meme with the most likes at the end of August 31 will be our winner of the following prizes
Grand prize: MovieTalk Bundle ($18 value)
First prize: Memes as Authentic Language 1 and Memes as Authentic Language 2 ($6 value)
Second prize: Story using Tener Que ($3 value)

Colombian JBalvin collaborates with Pharrel Willams and others on this new song called Safari. It’s a current song, and unlike Me Gustas Tu by Manu Chao (which I know some teachers have used), it does not talk about marijuana or use the structure to talk about liking (as in I like-like you) someone.

Check out the video and lyrics below:  

Full lyrics.

It was last year that I blogged about Promoting Performance, and I adopted Shelby County School’s ice cream metaphor throughout the year to talk about  performance and proficiency with my students. My phrase to students on assessments or just to encourage them in class was to “SCOOP IT UP!” I even had a back and forth call with my students where I would yell “Get a scoop of what?” and they would respond “ice cream” “What?!” “Ice cream!”. It was really silly, but the kids enjoyed it.

With the start of the school year, it is fun to see how everybody is showcasing the performance levels in their classroom. I’ve seen some great pictures of bulletin boards, posters, signs, and more that help students on their path to proficiency.

In continuing with the ice cream theme this year, I’ve made the following posters. (I am SO lucky my school has a poster maker!) Check them out….

Download the posters (FREE)

And to go along with Proficiency, we are please to announce our new line of stamps from SpanishTeacherShop and FrenchTeacherShop. Mark your students’ paper according to their performance level. We have a set featuring the ice cream scoops, as well as a set featuring cultural places throughout Latin America.
 

We’ve all heard of “boot verbs” to teach the conjugations forms of stem-changing verbs.
Take the i–>ie stem changing verb querer:

Cute, right? Well, sure….If you want your students to only be able to memorize verb forms without actually acquiring them or being able to use them in context.

At the Comprehensible Midwest Conference, Dr. Krashen delivered the keynote. As CI teacher knows, teaching verb conjugations as a way to acquire the language would not fall under the umbrella of teaching with CI. If we are using grammar concepts to teach the language, our students are probably not acquiring the language. “When your hidden agenda is the future tense it’s hard to make class interesting” – Steven Krashen.

The key is to make language compelling and personalized (and comprehensible obviously). He used the analogy of eating a well-balanced diet. In your diet, you don’t think to yourself, “well, I need to take some vitamin A now, and then later I better take a dose of protein.” If you have a well balanced diet, your vitamins and nutrients will be present in your food. Your nutrition is not sheltered. Well, grammar is the same. We do not need to have a lesson on boot verbs. Stem changing verbs by themselves should not be the focus of a lesson. Boot verbs should be part of the input we give to our students. Over time, they will acquire all the necessary structures they need to be able to use them in their communication.

With that being said, I’d like to redefine what a boot verb is. A boot verb should be a verb that you can use when talking about boots. What type of structures are compelling to students to talk about boots?
These are MY boot verbs:
My boot verbs include Se pone, tiene, quiere, va, and necesita. I can use these verbs to talk about boots. What are your boot verbs. Share them on twitter with #MyBootVerbs or leave them in the comments. Give us a sentence talking about boots.

What about Flip Flop verbs?
Talking about “Sandalias” are one thing. But it is even more compelling to talk about “Chanclas”?
My flip flop verb is : Tiene Miedo. Tiene miedo cuando su mamá viene con la chancla.

It’s been awhile since a blog post, and I’ve been keeping busy by attending various conferences and writing new stories for class as well as finally finishing stamp designs for all 21 Spanish Speaking Countries.

I wanted to share a really quick activity that I learned from a session by Carol Caab (of TRPS Publishing) at the first ever Comprehensible Midwest Conference in Milwaukee, WI in late September.

In this activity, the teacher provides 5 phrases in the target language. The key is to make sure that the phrases are vague enough that they leave open some sort of interpretation. Write them up on the board as A, B, C, D, E.

For example, I started with these 5 phrases:
A) Busca
B) Tiene un perro
C) Va al Pet Shelter
D) Ve un gato
E) Quiere

Granted 2 of mine are just verbs and not a complete phrase, (but this was my first time doing this type of activity, on the Monday after the conference). Ideally, they would be a bit more phrasal.

Hand out 5 cards to students with one of these letters written on them and have those 5 students come up to the class and act out whatever that phrase is. As they students are acting out the phrases, you want to try to get as many reps of the phrases as you can. So you can ask questions to the actor and the class. The trick is to try to critique the student in a playful way that allows you to get them to do the action again and again.

Have the class try to guess what letter the student is acting out.

Then have the class pair up and try to put the sentences in a logical order. The idea is that the sentences are so vague that there really isn’t an exact answer; they could be multiple ways to order them. It is up to the students to make sure it is logical. Then ask the class for which order to put them in. As you are asking groups what is first and which is second, you are getting in additional reps of the structures. Once it is established that the class is not at a consensus for which is 1st,2nd,3rd, have the students go back to their partners and try again so that the class can come to a consensus.

I put each phrase in a text box on a powerpoint so I can move the phrases around on the screen as the class tells me which one is first, second, third.

I then had students write a brief story using these 5 phrases to show us what they think happens in the story (and thus which order they are in). For example, Using the 5 phrases from above a student might say that they story is as follows:

This is a fun activity that allows for discussion and sneaks in a bunch of reps of the targeted structures. It’s one that I am keeping in the teacher toolbox and hope to get better at as I use it more and more.

Thanks to everyone who stopped and visited our booth at the Illinois Conference of Teaching of Foreign Languages 2016 Fall Conference.

We’d like to remind everyone that all our materials can be found on our website  SpanishTeacherShop.com and FrenchTeacherShop.com

One of the most talked about parts of our exhibitor’s table was our Passport and our  Stamps.

Giving each student their own passport has a variety of functions. It gives them ownership of their learning; it introduces them to the concept of traveling abroad and learning about cultures; and it can be used to track their progress in class.
Over the last several weeks we’ve been working to expand our stamp collection. We now offer all 21 Spanish Speaking Countries (plus the US).

See below for more information:

You can download our Spanish version of our Passport Template to print a passport for each student. (We are currently working on French version to be available soon). Why spend hours creating your own, searching the internet and finding subpar versions, or spending a ton of money to buy a passport.

Use the passport pages to have students write the unit objectives, I can statements, tests or quiz grades, proficiency levels, homework checks, or more. Once students have completed each, stamp it with a country image.

These culturally relevant images are so fun and will get students excited about their learning. We’ve even learned a bit as we researched the country to come up with a unique design. So example, one of our newest stamps, Paraguay, features imagery of “Ñandutí”, which is a traditional Paraguayan embroidered lace, and comes from the Guaraní word for “spider web”. Paraguay is known as the heart of South America. We’ve put that all together to create this design:

Check out all our country stamp designs here and our Proficiency Level stamps here, which are great for grading! And if you don’t see a stamp you’d like, email us and we will create a new design for you at no additional cost.

You also be interested in our Airplane Ticket template.

For all of our LESSON PLANS, including how to use MOVIETALK in your classroom, check out our lessons, categorized on SpanishTeacherShop, or through our storefront on TeachersPayTeachers.

This technique I stumbled upon while thinking of a way to practice reading our class story. I love ringing the classroom bell (a great prop, especially when teaching about the 89 year

old Paletero in Chicago who received over $380,000).

But anyway, this activity can be used a variety of ways in the TPRS classroom to go along with reading a story. Here’s how I did it:

1. Students need a copy of a reading.
2. I numbered the paragraphs on the reading.
3. I explained in the target language that each student had to read 1 sentence and then the person next to them would continue. If there was a pause between the two people, I would ring the bell and the person would have to start reading the story from the very beginning.
4. Also, if a student read more than one sentence, I rang the bell, and the student had to start at the beginning of the story.

This allows a few things, most importantly of which is to have additional reps of the story. Students are actively following along with the reading because they don’t want to be the one that makes the class restart. However, being typical students, you know that at some point, a student is going to lose track of where they are and… DING! Start again.
In this story, there were also a lot of semi-colons, dialogue, and interjections within a sentence. This lead to some students stopping too soon or reading too much. Ding! Start again.

Now, if the class is rather far along in the story, and you’ve already had a lot of dings and have repeated the first part of the story a lot, you can decide to “fast forward” and instruct the student to start reading at a farther paragraph. If you have a long text, you may want to implement this, if you have a shorter text, maybe not.

Variations:

1. Have the student call on the next person to read. This creates a bit more unpredictability rather than going down the line and keeps all students on their toes. Also allows for greater chance of dings.
   1. They have 2 seconds to call on a classmate, or- DING! Start again.
   2. They can’t call on someone whose already read, or- DING! Start again.
2. Getting bored of having students read normally? Ring the bell and call out a new tone- read sarcastically, read sadly, read happily, read excitedly. Students not reading with proper tone? Ding! Start again.
3. Throw in a little chance. As students as reading, use some type of spinner or dice to determine if they keep going or need to re-start. For example, on WheelDecide.com, click “Modify Wheel” and type in your own options, for example:

-Start from beginning of story
-Keep Reading
-Start from beginning of current paragraph
-Keep Reading
-Re-read last sentence
-Keep Reading
Then click to spin and let the spinner decide the fate!
–

Don’t have a classroom bell or buzzer? Find a youtube audio to play, such as Wrong Buzzer Sound Effect, or Ding sound effect.

Have other variations? Know of any other online ‘spinner’s?  Share in the comments below!

I’m sure by now you’ve heard about this song and video. If not, you’re gonna love it. Here’s how I recently used it in my class:

1. Students work on “Soy Yo” packet by Kara Jacobs. I used 5 pages: the vocab page, the paragraphs where students write out the Spanish word by pulling the vocabulary from the paragraph, the full story (circle the answer), and the Imaginemos page.

I actually used this as a sub plan and it took a majority of my students almost the entire 40 minute class period.

2. Students watch the video. Hopefully you have youtube unblocked at your school and have access to technology so students can do this at their own time. Otherwise, you will have to show them the video to the whole class.

3. For students who finish early, you can have them practice the vocabulary on Quizlet.

4. The next day, I have students complete an Edpuzzle activity. If you have never used edpuzzle, you will love it.
Sign up for a teacher account. You can create classes. You can even link it to your google classroom account. Students will need an account (or connect their google account). You can create your own or search ones that have been created and edit the questions.
You can insert comprehension check questions at any point of the song. The video will stop playing and they can rewatch the section if they don’t immediately know the answer.

Edpuzzle automatically scores the students’ responses. You can insert open ended questions that students have to type in the answer and you can go in and mark them as correct/incorrect. You can also see the questions that they student answered incorrectly.
The grading is the best part of it! So easy. A easy formative assessment.

You can also use Edpuzzle if you want to assign a video to students and make sure they watch it by disallowing “skips” so they students have to watch to whole video before it is marked as complete.

5. The following day, I did a MovieTalk with the video and story from the Kara Jacob’s packet. As I play the video, I also have student actors. This is a technique I learned from a Blaine Ray conference. One student plays the role of the girl from the video. I use the information from the “Imaginemos” section of the packet to ask students for information such as the name of the girl, the name of the hair salon, the name of the girls/boys, etc.
I play a short section of the video: and then I will narrate it for the class. I ask the class questions and I ask the actor questions through circling. The questions or statements I use with the class are in the third person. I make sure to write on the board the Tu form and Yo form of the verbs with translation.
So, for example:
Statement: Clase, el chico tiene un balón de básquetbol.
¿El chico tiene un balón de básquetbol? (sí) ¿El chico o la chica tiene un balón? (el chico) ¿Quién tiene el balón? (el chico)

To girl actor: ¿Tienes un balón? (No. No tengo un balón). Have your student actors answers respond in full sentences (the class responds in one word). So when I ask them the question, I point to “Tienes – you have” when asking and “tengo- I have” when they are responding.
To boy actor: ¿Tienes un balón? (Sí, tengo un balón)

Related lesson:

Use “Soy Guapo” by Señor Wooly, which you can use to talk about personality and description. You can compare the personalities of Victor and the Soy Yo girl.

These are the stories that I’ve used in my first semester 8th grade Spanish class (Level 1).

Wildebeest Movietalk: Hay, Dice, Ve. Martina Bex has this great Embedded Reading/Movietalk which is a perfect thing to start the year. This lesson you can download for free.

To go along with the video, I teach other common animals and we watch the video el Pollito Pio.
I then read them the book La vaca que dice Oink, (preview here) which we use to talk about the benefits of being bilingual. Through the story, it is totally comprehensible and gets in the rep of dice. You can also use this video as  MovieTalk about a pez that says Gua Gua.
I also used the book “Oso pardo, oso pardo, que ves ahi”.

The next story was Va a Mexico that focuses on the strucures Va a, Tiene, y Está en. I use this story after students put together their class passport.

To go along with the structures of “va a” we listened to the video for
“Adonde vas” with Sr. Wooly‘s pro account and students completed the activities. I asked peronalized questions about what classes they go and when.

El tigre tiene hambre: A follow up to the Wildebeest story, this story focuses on Ve, Dice, and Tiene Hambre. Includes follow up activities. I have the class act out the TPRS gestures. I tell the story with class actors, and then I do a volleyball translation activity with the reading.

The next story I did was El pez y el gato, from the Storyteller’s Corner, which talks continues with Ve, Tiene Hambre, and adds feelings such as está contento. The original story is a bit short and ends with a the cat thinking of a new plan, so I add on to this story by having the cat use a glass to catch the fish and take out of the water. Then, Spongebob knocks on the door (because he is a friend of the fish) and brings the cat some Krabby Pattties to eat instead of the fish.

I did another class story-ask after this using the structures Tiene Hambre, Busca, Va a, Quiere. Each class had their own story.

To follow up with the structure of busca, and to practice Va a, and no esta, along with llama, I used this Fotografia story.

Again, we acted the story out a similar story in class, we did a reading activity, and we listened to the Juanes song in class and watched the music video which is what the reading is based on. You can download this for free here or buy the editable version.

The next story was this Tiene Que Story which focuses on the verb tiene que, quiere, and le gusta. After telling the story, students put events of the story in order, and wrote captions on the storyboard. Students also practice this story’s vocabulary on quizlet.

Students shared their captions by reading with various partners in class.

To go along with the last story, we did some TPR gestures for vocabulary relating to social media and other things they students like to do, such as taking selfies on snapchat, watching youtube videos, sending texts, and more. This vocabulary is also part of the next story.

Erika y su unicornio is about a girl who wants a animal but doesn’t know how to take care of it. Focuses on the verbs quiere, tiene hambre, and busca. We dramatized this story in class and the students loved it. The next day we did a Write, Pass, Draw activity and the next day we did a Buzz Reading of the story, which the kids enjoyed.

The next story students started with substitute teacher, by completing part of a packet made by Kara Jacobs for Soy Yo. When I came back to class, the students knew the story a bit after they did the packet and did a comprehension check by watching the video on Edpuzzle. When I got back, we could dramatize it together with the video playing in the background, as a movietalk activity.

As we approached Halloween, I did a movietalk with La Leyenda de La Llorona. We dramatized a simple version of la leyenda in class before moving on to this Got Milk commercial. We were able to complete both in the first day giving us plenty of time for activities.

We just finished up our La Llorona Unit, which was our first story in Spanish 1 that we introduced in the past tense. Our prior stories this year were all present tense. Our Llorona story featured the background of the legend itself and then included a brief movietalk.

We had the following targeted structures written on the board throughout the story. We used the 3rd person past tense to narrate the story and by incorporating student actors, we could ask the actor a question in the tú form and have them respond in the yo form to get reps of the 1st and 2nd person in present tense.

Students were already familiar with the structures of tiene and busca as well as the present tense of hay, está, and es. Through the background story of La Llorona students received input of these targeted structures.

Day 1 was the story telling and movie talk. On Day 2, I used screen shots of the movietalk and read captions of each slide and asked comprehension check questions.

The next activity was a new reading activity, similar to a Volleyball translation, but this time the students only translated the verbs. This is a nice alternative to volleyball readings, because it is a novelty, and since it is less work for the students, they are more engaged to translate 1 word outloud instead of a whole story.

In this case, I projected the story on the board. As I read the story in Spanish anytime there was a verb, I paused and the students shouted out its translation. For this first time, since the activity was new and the tense was new, I bolded the verbs. As we progressed on to later paragraphs the words were not bolded.

For example, you (or a teacher reads the story and the class would shout out the translations in English. It would sound like this:
“Había (THERE WAS) una mujer que se llamaba (WAS CALLED) María. María era (WAS) una mujer muy bonita. La mujer tenía (HAD) un esposo. El esposo era (WAS) muy guapo.”

You can also try  incorporating this strategy with a Buzz Reading activity to get in extra reps of the story.

For the editable Llorona Lesson plan with Verb Shout activity included, check it out on our TeachersPayTeachers page.

Oh my god, you guys!! Look who visited my class today! 

I had my fan girl moment as Juanes was part of our class story. We’ve also had visits previously from Beyonce (not Bey-doce or Bey-trece), John Cena, Cristiano Ronaldo, and Kanye West. But you are in luck. You can have them visit your classroom too….Get your own “Cara Corral” by downloading our Celebrity Face Masks on our FREEBIES page and printing it out.

Your student interest in your class story will instantly rise once they see a celebrity they know.

And the first 20 people to download our masks and post a picture of the masks in use on Twitter or Instagram and tagging us, will be entered to win our MOVIETALK BUNDLE (a $22 dollar value that sells for $18.)

*Your instagram/twitter feed needs to be public (not private) and you must tag @SpanishPlans to be entered to win. The winner will be tagged in a post on twitter/instagram with their username and will receive the product by email. The winner will be announced December 22. Posts must be made before the end of December 21 (ET) to be eligible.

Who are your students’ favorite celebrities? What is your go-to person to add to a story? Tell us about the success (or failures) you’ve had using celebrity faces in your classes.

In addition to the TeachersPayTeachers Cyber Monday Sale, we have some other special announcements:

Que Hace Un Pez T-Shirts are back!!

But only for a limited time. From now through December 5, you can catch (get it?) two different styles of tees or a coffee mug. Personally, I think the coffee mug would make a great gift for a colleague.

You can orders yours now and get in time time for the holidays.

Enter to win our MovieTalk Bundle ($21 value) by printing out our FREE celebrity masks and taking a picture of one and tagging us on instagram or twitter (@spanishplans).

Stay tuned this week as we unveil another giveaway.

Also, there are big savings to be had on our Spanish Speaking Country Stamp Set. This set of 22 rubber stamps features beautiful imagery for each Hispanic country and you can get them all with a 25% special savings.

See this deal now and purchase at SpanishTeacherShop.com

Or purchase individual passport stamps.

And lastly, don’t forget to take advantage of CYBER MONDAY and Tuesday (11/28-11/29) on TeachersPayTeachers. Our products are priced 20% off and then get an extra 10% off at checkout using code CYBER2016.

Here’s some products we’d recommend taking advantage of the sale:

1) Our Bundles are already priced at savings, so when you take an extra 28% you are getting maximum savings. We typically don’t put on bundles on sale, so be sure to take advantage of this mega savings.

2)If you haven’t tried a MovieTalk yet, now is your chance. Buy the bundle with 8 ready to use lessons with embedded readings, such as:

3) Our Passport Template. Give each student a passport to track certain achievements throughout the year. We just posted a new bundle featuring our passports, airline ticket, passport stamp clipart, and country labels.
4) Authentic Webquests such as: Latin American Real Estate for House Vocabulary, Shopping at El Corte Ingles for Clothing vocabulary, Cooking with Youtube videos, Spanish Futbol, and how to use Wordreference as a dictionary tool.
5) Authentic Readings: Asking for advice from teen magazine, and talking about embarrassing moments, with great input for preterite/imperfect.

In the TPRS classroom, we want our students to be reading and reading. Giving them tasks that make students re-read a story gives them a focus without realizing they are reading

the story again.

One such technique is what I am calling  “Yellow Summary”. In this task, students highlight the most important events of the story. When they are finished, what they should have highlight should represent a decent summary of the story.

As students are re-reading, they have to decide what events are important to the story and what are just extra details.

In the first line of this reading from Alma “Había una chica que caminaba sola por la calle en una ciudad muy fria.” we talk about whether we need to know if there was a girl (Yes) and if we need to know that the city was very cold (No).

As students are re-reading and highlighting, I play the Beatles “Yellow Submarine” and sing along changing it to “We are making a yellow summary, a yellow summary, a yellow summary.” You have find a spanish version on youtube but “Amarillo el submarino es, amarillo es, amarillo es” doesn’t have the summary pun that I enjoy.

An extension to this if you can have students take what they have highlighted and rewrite it as a summary. Some students may not have highlighted full sentences or only phrases in sentences so they then have to write those in a full sentence. As they are reading what to write and writing it, they are getting extra reps, and I one who believes that handwriting something out does something extra to aide in acquisition.

You can then have students read their summaries to their classmates. More reading and more listening! Input everywhere!

Read about our other TPRS strategies, such as Buzz Reading and Verb Shout.

With many schools entering their final days before winter break, I wanted to share some quick and easy lesson plans to get you through your final days! Enjoy!

MovieTalk:
Pedacito de Navidad Video
Justino Y la Loteria: A free movietalk lesson from Martina Bex

Escribir una Carta a Santa: Students write a letter on what they want.

Song:

Jesse y Joy: Estaré en tus brazos: En Tus Brazos Estaré Lesson

In the TPRS classroom, creating your own listening activities can be super easy. You can utilize this approach to create your own cloze cloze activities or record your own audio of a story.

The process is simple. Every computer has QuickTime player.

1. Open up QuickTime player and select “File” and “New Audio Recording”

2. Press the record button to start recording. If you are on a laptop, this will use your computer’s internal microphone. Press the button again to stop. It will automatically open convert to an audio file, which you can play and re-play.

3. If you wish to save this, simply go to “File” and “Save”or as you click the Red X to close the box, it will prompt you to save it.

That’s it! Super simple! Here are some ways you can use it:

1 ) Record an audio of the class story and have students listen as they follow along with the text. This is great for a) Saving your voice if you have to do it multiple times a day and b) you can upload it and have students who were absent listen to it, or even for kids who want/need extra practice.

(Note: If you create an audio recording of a story that you did not create yourself, such as a TPRS novel, please be aware of copyright. Do not upload this file to your class website, unless it is password protected.)

I recorded an audio of our class story of “Alma” and posted it to Google Classroom.

2) Create a cloze activity of the reading. I took the class story and changed some details as I recorded it. Students had to fill in the blanks with the word from the recording and then had to go back and re-read it to also write the correct information. This allows for extra reps of reading by giving them a task, so it is not just re-reading for the sake of it.

3) Dictation: Have students transcribe what they hear.

If you want a different speaker to read it, such as a native speaker, you can use a site such as RhinoSpike.com to request a native speaker record a text. (You must “earn” credits by recording other peoples’ requests. Or you can ask on a social media if anyone else is willing to help.