Actividad de Comprensión

I like to use videos in my classroom, when appropriate.  One great time to utilize video is during the cooking/food unit - whenever that may occur in your textbook.  In Conexiones it is chapter 8 and my High Intermediate students will be watching an authentic video tomorrow of a recipe for Camarones Ahumados con Chipotle with Ingrid Hoffmann. 

I am not certain how many of my readers out there teach a Spanish IV, V, or AP class - but I figured it couldn't hurt to share the activity here in case it might be of any use to you.  With some good scaffolding, you probably could do this with a talented Spanish III class.  If nothing else, it will give you some thoughts on how you might want to structure a video watching guide.  After all, you want them actively listening and comprehending - not just putting the video on in the background.

Hasta la próxima,

--AnneK 

Regreso A Clases: Una Lección Para Mí

Back to school is such an exciting time of year!  I still get excited when it's time to buy supplies and prepare for the new year.  And Open House is both a right of passage and an opportunity to get started off on the right foot.

I have a new colleague this year, Ms. Lundquist comes to us from Johnston County Schools in North Carolina and it's great to be working with her this year.  One of the things we both agree upon is making a big impression on Open House night.  It is our first encounter with the parents and the students, so it's imperative to put our best foot forward.  She and I collaborated on getting our table set up, and I think it looks lovely!

On the table you will notice there are three papers.  One is a set of application packets for students who wish to enroll in La Sociedad Honoraria Hispánica, one is a supplies list, and one is a paper with a QR code that links to a digital version of the supplies list.  Our school is a 1:1 iPad school, so I figured we are tech savvy enough to do away with old-fashioned paper supplies lists, right?  There is no need to waste paper and ink when you can just click and do it digitally.  Am I right?

This is what the QR message looked like and I drew everybody's attention to it as soon as they arrived at the table.

If, for whatever reason, you are interested in our supplies list, you can take a look at it here:

But . . . (and I'm sure there is a master's thesis in this somewhere), it turns out the world is not as technologically advanced ad I had thought - even at our school.  I spent much of the evening running back and forth to the copy machine to copy a few more paper versions of the supplies list.  I think about 20 parents out of over 100 were willing to scan the QR code.  The other 80+ wanted the paper copy.  ¡Qué desilusión!  Some of the students weren't even aware of the existence of QR codes, which surprised the dickens out of me.  So much for that theory that the students are always way more proficient with technology than their teachers!

So I have learned a lesson - The world is not ready to be paperless just yet.  That does not mean that I won't keep trying, of course.

Should you be interested in creating a QR code for your supplies list, or for anything else you want to send out to the masses easily, they are free and easy to make.  There are a lot of places out there but I used QR Stuff.  When you get the code, just copy and paste it into your document and Presto!  Instant techie and green cred!

I hope the beginning to your school year is amazing, amigos!  As always, be in touch.

Hasta la próxima,

--AnneK

¡Me Publicaron!

Summer is over and it's time to get back to work . . . and I've done just that!  We've actually been back for several weeks but it's been beyond busy.  New students, new colleagues, new software to learn, new (higher!) expectations, new rules, new technology - you get the idea, I'm sure.

 I was recently accepted as a presenter at the Teaching and Learning with the iPad Conference in Raleigh, North Carolina. Where I will be presenting a session on creating educational materials that is geared to teachers who have been working with old-fashioned materials for years.  I titled it Colorful, Dynamic and Interactive: Reimagining Classroom Content and you can click on the link if you are interested in reading about it.  And if you live near Raleigh, you ought to attend by all means.  It would be great to meet you!

One of the organizers of the iPad conference read my proposal and invited me to write an article for his journal, Emerging EdTech.  I felt so excited and honored!  She told me to write in an informal and conversational way - like a blog post.  And suddenly I felt at ease, because (as you know) I've written a few blog posts in my time.

Without further ado, here is the link to my article.  I hope you enjoy it!

5 Steps for Planning Lessons Around Technology – Starting with the End in Mind

Hasta pronto,

--AnneK

Sociedad Honoraria Hispánica

Our school had a bulletin board contest a little while ago.  I meant to put up a post here but I was in a whirlwind of other things going on at the time, so I put it on the back burner.  But I did take pictures!

The gist of the bulletin board contest was to get some color and decor up around our school.  Those of you who teach elementary school are probably great decorators, but high school teachers are notoriously lax about such things.  So the contest was to motivate us to decorate.

The bulletin boards were done by each club at the school and we were told that "all bulletin boards" are available for the contest.  I selected the one outside my classroom and carefully took down the old (very old!) things that were up there and preserved them.  But to make a long story short, the folks that had their stuff up there (from last year!) were upset with me for "stealing" their bulletin board.

All the other bulletin boards in the school had been claimed by the time I got it sorted out.  I had no place for my Sociedad Honoraria Hispánica bulletin board . . . grumble.  ("All bulletin boards are available for the contest" should mean ALL bulletin boards are available for the contest.)

There is a display shelf outside my classroom, so I decided to improvise and we put together a hanging "bulletin board" display.  It is weighted down by a yard stick taped to the back.  The caption says "National Spanish Honor Society" instead of "Sociedad Honoraria Hispánica" because no one at the school, outside of Spanish students, can pronounce or understand the latter. 

The little stars down the side are members' quotes about what they love about the Spanish language and culture.  The plaque at the bottom explains what our club is about and gives a short history of our chapter.  And, though you can't see the detail on the crest from the Spanish flag, it is my favorite part.  The whole thing is made with glitter paint and it's spectacular!

We didn't win the contest but I think we at least deserved a "spirit of the contest" award or something.  We are the only club that had to do our bulletin board twice and we are the only club that put up a display without an actual bulletin board.  Oh well, sometimes you have to set your own win conditions, amigos!

Hasta pronto,

--AnneK

En La Playa - Dibujos

Sometimes I go online searching for pictures to use in the classroom.  You know the kind I mean - the kind that we foreign language teachers like with a dozen people engaged in a dozen different activities.  Those are great because they can spark so much discussion!  But they can be hard to find sometimes.

To that end, I'm sharing some with you today that will be useful to you in the next week or two as your students are finishing the year and preparing to enjoy their summer.

Just look at all the vocabulary!  The oral expression possibilities are nearly endless.  I hope you are able to find something here to have fun with in your class.  I suggest a game of I spy in Spanish.

I do not own the copyright to any of these images and I am posting them here solely as an educational resource.

Hasta pronto,

--AnneK

Verano

Summer vacation is fast approaching and it's always about this time of the year that I have a little bitty panic attack that is accompanied by this track playing in my head, "But they will be gone for weeks!  And they won't practice Spanish at all.  They will come back next year and we'll have to spend the first three weeks just reviewing and then we will be behind before we even begin."

Does that sound familiar to you?  I don't know if your mental gremlins torment you with such thoughts or not, but keeping our students involved in Spanish over the summer can be a challenge.  It's even more of a challenge when they are going on to another teacher next year and we can't offer credit for work they accomplish over the summer.

So what is the answer?  In a word: fun!  Make the "work" into something fun and you might spark their enthusiasm.  Coming up with a fun summer packet is a challenge that I assigned myself a few weeks ago.  It was a bigger task than I thought at first.  I wanted to review typical Spanish I topics such as clothing, colors, likes and dislikes, foods . . . and some of the functions of the language such as present tense, adjective agreement, reading and listening comprehension . . .  It was a lot to think about and I didn't want to make a worksheet packet.

 I decided to make summer the theme of the packet.  I loaded it full of fun vocabulary related to summertime excitement - grilling, swimming, bike riding, playing sports, and going to the beach.  Then I used color and entertaining activities to get student attention and get them interacting with the vocabulary.  Finally I added in multimedia - music, games, a virtual tour, and video.  I think it's a winning combination.

The level is for students who have finished Spanish I and are getting ready to go on to Spanish II.  The focus is fun and review, but the rigor is not especially high because at home there is no teacher scaffolding or feedback.

It's 20 pages of student motivation and teacher peace of mind.  (Okay, I might exaggerate just a bit.  But it is definitely a good packet!)

The summer fun packet is temporarily $5 over at my Teachers Pay Teachers store.  And if you email me and tell me you bought it, I might just have a special gift for you.  (My name is AnneKarakash and I am at gmail.com.  Put the two together and you have my email address.)

Thank you for reading, amigos.  Have a brilliant summer!

Hasta pronto,

--AnneK

Repaso del Año - Español 2

I put together a year-end review for my Spanish II students.  They have their final exams coming up later this week and next week.  I wanted to make sure they have all the topics in one place so that they know what to study.

I did not link most of the vocabulary topics because the students have access to them in Dropbox, but I found links to online practice activities for many of the grammar topics on Quia.

Since every Spanish II course is a little bit different from the next, I doubt the document will be of extensive use to you as it is.  But the list of topics, the links to online practice, and the speaking/writing prompts might be of some use.  Feel free to take it, look it over, and build upon it to meet your own needs.  I am putting this up in an editable Doc format so that you can use it and make changes to reflect your own vocabulary topics, grammar topics, and speaking/writing prompts.

Click the image above or click here to download the file.

I am not teaching Spanish 1 or 3 this year, so I haven't made study guides for them.  Maybe next year!

Hasta pronto, amigos.

--AnneK

An Explanation of WEIRDO Verbs

Years ago in Spanish class I learned subjunctive in the same grueling way that people before me had learned - with long and complicated rules that made little sense to me and that seemed incomprehensible.

"The subjunctive mood occurs with a change of subject in subordinate clauses and requires the the employment of a verb of volition, negation, or doubt in the main clause."

It is no wonder everyone thought the subjunctive so hard!  Rules like the above make it nearly impossible to understand.

Years ago I came across the acronym WEIRDO that was used to describe which sorts of verbs would trigger the subjunctive in the subordinate clause.  It was like a breath of fresh air and I suddenly had a cute little way of laying out the rules for the subjunctive to my students.

But I have a lot of teachers write to me and tell me they don't know what I mean by "weirdo verbs" or that they would like to have a way of presenting this material to their students.  Yesterday Michelle, a reader of this blog, wrote and asked how to teach weirdo verbs to her students.  So I got to thinking about it and decided to make a Power Point that we can use to show to our students and help them make sense of the subjunctive.

I had a great time making this slide show, creating the background images, animating my little weirdo monster and playing around with various colors and effects.  I think your students will find it memorable and I hope it will help them to understand the mechanics of the subjunctive a bit better.  Click the image above or click here to download the Power Point.

I would love to hear from you if you find it useful, amigos.

Hasta pronto,

--AnneK

Haber y los Tiempos Compuestos

Who doesn't have a hard time with the perfect tenses?!  At least at first, they can be very confusing, especially to those students who might not have a strong grip on their own language.  I often find that students are unable to distinguish between "have verbed" and "had verbed" in English, and that makes explaining it in Spanish even more difficult.

Using the perfect tenses may be quite difficult, but forming them really isn't necessarily very hard.  The participles are fairly straightforward and there are just a few forms of haber to learn.  Even so, it is nice to have everything organized and in one spot for studying purposes.

 

As I look closer at the image now, I see that one of my students is confused about which forms of haber go where, so do not use this one as an example.  I will track her down and help her make corrections early next week.  One does not want to be studying the wrong thing after all.

If you want the template to use in your classes, you can click the image above or you can click here to download it.

As always, it would be great to hear from you if you find something useful here.  Its great to connect with my fellow Spanish teachers in the world.

Hasta pronto, 

--AnneK

Y El Tiempo Pasa . . .

Where does the time go?  I have all these blog posts I want to put up but I keep coming home and crashing instead of blogging.  There are solid biological reasons for my behavior, yes.  But it's a shame that I haven't found time for this blog lately.

Let me start the backlog of lost posts with el Día de las Madres.  (A little late, I know.)  Students of mine were testing and my classes were only half full, so it was one of those days when you feel like you can't introduce new material, you can't do anything super meaningful, and you certainly can't do an assessment.

So I had them working on a little Mother's Day activity in grupitos and, when they had a chance, they were each to get a picture of themselves as a gift for their mother.  Here are some of them for you to enjoy.

I took construction paper and made the back drop in the morning before school.  Then, as a group, we came up with some ideas about what we wanted to say to our mothers.  Each person was able to write their own personalized message, but it had to be in Spanish.

I got a lot of nice feedback from the moms and a lot of stories from the kids about how they got to teach their mothers a bit of Spanish.

Hasta pronto,

--AnneK

Cómo Hacer Una Prueba Oral

Sometimes I get bogged down in "covering material x" and I lose sight of what it is I'm supposed to be doing - teaching the beautiful Spanish language.  I'm betting that there are people out there that know what I mean.  It's not about covering the present perfect subjunctive and 5A vocabulary so much as it is giving students meaningful practice so that they can communicate in the language.

It occurred to me late last week that I need to do some more oral practice with my students and, at least in my case, to get that to happen they have to know that there is going to be an assessment to follow.  I decided that an oral quiz was in order.

I don't know how you do oral quizzes but I've always struggled with them.  Ultimately it would be great if I had coverage so that I could put a table out in the hall and meet with one student at a time in relative privacy and peace.  I don't have coverage and I hate to impose on my colleagues, so I have to come up with another approach.  Our French teacher has the students record their voices using an app on their iPads - and this is good.  But that measures pronunciation, not communication or fluency - because students will write themselves a script and just read it.  So what to do?

I give the class an activity to work on and I encourage them to work together with their friends completing it.  (Yesterday it happened to be a whoppin' big vocabulary crossword puzzles with clues in Spanish.  I made it myself and I'm quite proud of it actually.)  This gets them thinking in Spanish about the vocabulary and, as they work the volume in the room goes up a little.  Then I turn on the radio in the background and the volume in the room goes up a little more.  While all of that is going on, I begin to call students to my desk one at a time to do the oral quiz.  We get our one-on-one time and, with the white noise and the distraction of the group work going on in the background, it's surprisingly private.  I try to put students at ease by making friendly small talk before we get started and by offering a piece of candy from the candy bin when they are finished.

I think there is a special power in oral quizzes, but not for the communicative and linguistic reasons you might be thinking.  I honestly think any discipline could benefit from the one-on-one oral quiz format because I notice that when I do this the motivation of my students goes way up.  I theorize that it is due to the face-to-face nature of the quiz.  It is one thing to fail a quiz on paper in an impersonal way, but it is quite another to fail a quiz up close and personal while looking your teacher in the face.

My 4th period were so motivated that they formed little study groups and gave the oral prompts to one another over and over again to support and help each other practice.  They also did an outstanding job on the quiz, so clearly they are on to something.

Giveaway Update: I've had several comments from people who are interested in receiving a free copy of my Earth Day Communication lesson.  But there are two (actually three, if you want to be technical) things you must do to win the free lesson plan: 1) Subscribe to the blog, 2) Leave me a comment saying you want a copy before April 22 and 3) Send me an email address so I can send you the download link.  I'm not going to keep your email on file, share it with anyone, or send you any unwanted email whatsoever.  That is my solemn promise.  I just need a place to send the link so you can download it.

So far only one person has done this, so I still have at least four copies to give away.  

Hasta pronto amigos,

--AnneK 

Shameless Self Promotion and a Giveaway!!

Amigos,

I have been focused lately on creating scaffolded conversation lessons.  The idea is to give students something culturally relevant (a picture, a piece of realia, a video clip, etc) along with some vocabulary and let them use their Spanish skills to describe it.  Then I provide a sample dialog that is on the same topic to practice their pronunciation.  The next step is key: the students then take the dialog and replace certain key words with others to create an original dialog on the same topic.  This gives them the support they need instead of just turning them loose with a vocabulary list and saying "Write a dialog in Spanish on this topic and be sure to use at least ten vocabulary words in it."  (Haven't we all been there at least once?)

The fun comes when they replace the words in the dialog with something funny or clever.  I had a pair in Spanish IV last Friday come up with the expression, "No puedo aguantar tu cara ni un minuto más."  That cracked me up and I literally burst into raucous laughter, which made class so much more fun than if I had just given them the "Write a dialog . . . " routine.

Over my spring break I told myself that I was going to create some new lessons for my Teachers Pay Teachers portfolio.  (I'm trying to save up some money to attend the ACTFL conference and that isn't going to happen if I don't produce some great materials for people to purchase.)  But I was plagued with strep throat and spent much of my two weeks just feeling miserable instead of being creative.  But I decided to remedy the situation yesterday by creating a conversation lesson, like the one I mentioned above, on the topic of Earth Day.

For a mere $2.50 you can get your students talking in Spanish about the Earth, the environment, and being responsible caretakers for our planet.  And here's the best part: I created three different versions of the lesson so that you can use it with your Spanish 1, Spanish 2, and your Spanish 3 students!  And, who knows, they might surprise you and come up with something that thrills and delights you in the process!

I don't have many followers here on this blog, a mere 20 of you for whom I am very thankful.  So I've decided to do a membership drive and a giveaway.  Between now and Earth Day (April 22) I will give this product away to five -or more- members who leave a comment below.  You need to be listed to the right as a follower of the blog and let me know who you are in the comments field.  Since I don't get much traffic through here, I might not get to give all five copies away but here's to hoping!

Have a brilliant Monday, amigos.  I hope to hear from you soon!

Hasta pronto,

--AnneK

"Craftividad" Pintar Una Camiseta

¡Hola amigos!

I came across this adorable little "craftivity" today over at Zambombazo (which is a fabulous blog filled with activities and ideas for Spanish teachers). 

Since my theme this year is "Unleash Your Superhero" I figured this would be a great thing to share here.  And the best part is that the instructional video is entirely in Spanish!

I don't think I'd make the design by tracing the image on the screen like the video shows.  I think a better way would be to print the image and work from the print, but I'm not going to quibble or micromanage.  There are a lot of ways to do any given task.

This would be a great extra credit project to give students.  Make it clear that they have to watch the video and follow the instructions en español.

Es todo por hoy, amigos.  ¡Que tengan un lindo fin de semana!

--AnneK

¡Me Quedo Muy Retrasada!

I'm so far behind, amigos.  I don't know exactly how it happens . . . one day, I'm going along just fine and doing what I'm supposed to do . . . then I turn around and all my laundry is dirty, the projects haven't been graded, there is nothing in the fridge, and I haven't blogged in over a month.

I'm not sure what has slowed me down - the bad weather (despite my premature declaration of spring), a bout with strep throat, and it seems as though some weeks all I do is drive my teenage daughter from one activity to another . . . but I apologize for being gone so long.  I do have some good things to share here and, hopefully, I'll get back on board the blog train.

Today I came across some funny photos and it occurred to me that they would make great conversation prompts.  These are probably best for your intermediate students as beginners would likely be completely stymied.

The topic of the photos is bad design, and you can't help but laugh at some of them!

Here are some activities that occurred to me, but there are plenty of others I'm sure you can think of too.

1. Make comparisons - Malo, peor, el peor
2. Use the conditional tense - ¿Qué pasaría al usar esta cuchara?
3. Describe the problem - La silla sería muy incómoda . . . El agua no podría salir de la regadera.
4. Think creatively!  Is there anything you could do with the object?  Se podría usar el vaso para las flores.  El botón podría ser un pisapapeles.
5. For fun, get students to design their own bad objects and describe them to each other in Spanish.

And that's it for me today, amigos.  I'll try to make a regular appearance until the end of the school year.

Hasta pronto,

--AnneK

¡Que Llegue La Primavera!

¡Saludos calurosos, amigos!

Winter is the season of my soul's discontent.  I do my best to hold on and stay positive through the winter but ultimately, no matter what I seem to do, I wind up feeling down in the dumps.  I go through a miniature depression every year between Christmas and March 1st.

Regardless of the weather, I declare it spring on March 1st.  I know I'm off by about three weeks officially, but I can't stand it a moment longer so I don't.  As far as I'm concerned, it's officially spring.  You are welcome to disagree, but you will not sway me.  In this I am firm.

I spent the afternoon looking up springtime quotes in Spanish, and picking out photographs from Clipart.com to go along with them.  Then I put them together in little graphics that I can use in my lessons.  Some have subjunctive, others have command forms, yet others have future tense.  And some are very basic and won't frighten off even the most timid beginners.

I'm sharing them here with you today.  Even if you still have a foot of snow outside, hope is here.

Les mando abrazos calientitos . . .

--AnneK