Comentarios Invisibles

When  people take the time to make a comment here on my blog, it delights me.  The whole reason I set up this blog in the first place was to reach out to the community, make friends and connections, and share with others.  So, with that in mind, I'm generally pretty quick to respond to the folks who are kind enough to leave me a note.

But something really fishy is going on with my comments lately and I can't figure out what to do to fix it.  I get a message that someone has commented and when I go to the post to read it, there is a little message (1 Comment, 3 Comments, etc.) below to let me know what is waiting for me.  But when I click, there is nothing there.  Weird.

At first I thought that maybe someone had made a comment then, got an attack of shyness or a change of heart, and deleted it before I had the chance to read it.  That sort of thing happens and it is understandable.  But when the last dozen comments -including ones I made myself- have disappeared, then something is dreadfully wrong.

Blogger help posts and forum discussions have been less than helpful and I'm too tired to sleuth out a solution right now.  But for those kind people that have reached out to me, I want you to know that I'm not ignoring you.  I will get back to you as soon as I figure out how to fix this mess.

And, in the meantime, if any of my fellow bloggers out there know the solution to this problem, I would be very grateful for your assistance.  Maybe in email  or through Google+ since comments don't seem to be the way to get in touch with me just now. 

Hasta pronto,

--AnneK

¡Feliz Día de la Tierra! (Un día tarde...)

Happy Earth Day once again, amigos.  I am a day late but I wanted to share my Earth Day wishes with you anyway.  I found a beautiful piece of art online and an equally beautiful quote, so I put them together to make this graphic for the classroom.

And then I found these graphics too:

And this last one would make a great sorting game for beginners.  Give them the four categories and a list of objects (with pictures if they are really beginners) and have them sort the materials into the different recycling bins: papel, periódico, latas de aluminio, cartón, botellas de plástico, etc.  There is probably a game to be had there, but I'm not coming up with any game mechanics today.

(And now I see that this blog entry didn't post yesterday so I'm officially two days past Earth Day.  And so it goes.  Ah well, have a great Friday and a great weekend, amigos.)

Hasta pronto,

--AnneK

¿Ciudad, Campo o Costa?

Where would you prefer to live, if you had the choice: the city, the country, or the coast?  This short activity gives Spanish I students some vocabulary (much of it cognates) to talk about what is good about each place and to use the verb gustar to discuss what they like.  After talking with a partner, they can use the space at the bottom to write a few lines in Spanish.  Encourage them to use words they already know that are not on the sheet as a more authentic expression of productive language.

There are good things about each place, museums and shows in the city, fresh air and farm animals in the country, fresh seafood and swimming on the coast.  Those are the things I included in the activity.  I did not talk about the bad things like traffic, pollution, cow poop, or hurricanes.  Maybe that would make an amusing activity for another time?  I'm laughing thinking about it, so it probably would be very entertaining!  If I'm really feeling bold, I can use the picture below.  Ha!  (Maybe not, lol.)

But seriously now, this would be a great activity at the end of the year when you are reviewing gustar and conjugated verb + infinitive before your final exams.  Likewise, it might make a great year starter for Spanish II students who need a refresher after the summer.

Either way, I hope it is useful to you.  And, as always, if you find something here that you like and that you can use in class - it would be great to hear from you.

Hasta pronto,

--AnneK

Las Canciones Top Ten - Una Idea

So I had this idea for a fun warm-up today that I thought the students might enjoy.  I ran it past my 16-year-old daughter and got a thumbs-up, so it's a go!

Here's what I'm going to do.  Take titles from the Top 10 and translate them into Spanish, then allow the students (beginners, mostly) to guess which songs they are.  I think they would get a kick out of it and that positivity at the beginning of the class period can make for a better learning environment for everyone.  Plus, I think the students like to know that I take the time to appreciate their music too.  (Dear lord, I sound so old when I say that.  But I have to admit, the Top 10 is no longer my music - in any sense of the phrase.)

Not all songs are going to have translations.  For example, this week's Top 10 features a Bruno Mars tune titled "Uptown Funk."  There is no Spanish, real or imagined, that will properly convey that idea.  So we'll skip that one.  :-)

Here are some of this week's Top 10 songs, as indicated by iTunes downloads:

1.  See You Again  - Te Veo Otra Vez
2.  Shut Up and Dance - Cállate y Baila (Great!  I'm doing commands this week, so this is perfect.)
3.  Uptown Funk
4.  Trap Queen - I'm gonna be honest here and say that I'm not sure what this means in English, but it sounds slightly naughty to me.  So to avoid embarrassment and inter-generational culture clash, I'm going to skip this one.
5.   Earned It - Lo Ganaste
6.  Want to Want Me - Quiero Que Me Quieras (Subjunctive!)
7.  Girl Crush - Encaprichada Con Ella (This implies a bi-sexual infatuation.  Know your audience before you bring this topic into your classroom.)
8.  Love Me Like You Do - Quiéreme Así Como Me Quieres  (You're welcome to improve on this translation if you like.  It's a tricky one.)
9.  Chains - Cadenas (Easy one!)
10.  Thinking Out Loud - Pensando En Voz Alta

Have fun with this one.  The Top 10 is a gift that keeps on giving, so you could pull this activity out every couple of weeks and it stays fresh.  Better yet, invite your students to take a try at translating some of these song titles themselves!

Hasta pronto,

--AnneK

La Familia Completa

Spanish is such an interesting language and, just as soon as I think I can call myself an expert, something will come along and make me call everything I've learned into question.  Tonight a student asked me the difference between alimentar and dar de comer.  Every time I tried to give an answer, it just sounded worse than the one before.  The final reply?  They both mean the same thing but different people seem to use them different ways.  Online forum says alimentar is used to feed in a gourmet way and dar de comer is just for animals.  Then I found this:

Ha!  Nothing gourmet about that.  If I had captioned it, I probably would have written "Deme de comer, humano."  But obviously at least one person out there disagrees.  

And then there is the matter of "extended family".  That shouldn't be so hard to express, but there is a cultural chasm there.  What we English speakers consider distant relatives are not considered so distant in the Spanish-speaking world.  And further, the phrase just doesn't seem to to translate.  I got "familia lejana" when I looked online, but that doesn't include the close family.  "Familia cercana y lejana" seems awkward and wordy.  So I settled on "familia completa".

That's a long introduction for this crossword puzzle I made.  It has all the family, including such things as great great grandmother, stepfather, half-brother, godfather, and ancestors, etc.  It is meant for Spanish II students - those who are ready to go beyond the basic family vocabulary.  With the exception of the words "godmother" and "godfather", which would require very lengthy explanations, all the definitions are in Spanish.

I might have the chance to put together an answer key tomorrow, but I have to do a peer observation and it's a late night with senior project presentations, so I might not.

I hope you're off to a good week!

--AnneK

Risa Para El Viernes

I saw this today on Pinterest in English and I figured I could translate it into Spanish to make a simple joke that my students, even the beginners, could understand.  I think it's funny on its own without the last two added panels, but kids like the memes. . . .

And my husband sent these Garfield cartoons along to me because he was able to understand them with his (very) limited Spanish, so he thought that my students would be able to understand them too.

And I saw something similar to this in English so I made one in Spanish.  My students got a good laugh out of this one!

Have a great weekend, amigos!

--AnneK

El Lenguaje Corporal de México - Hoja de Participación

Body language and gestures are a topic that we are covering in my 2nd and 5th period classes.  This always seems to be a fun topic because it is interesting to see what gestures are used by different cultures. 

Today I had students make gestures for the class and then we guessed what they all meant.  We had such things as: Okay, High Five, Crazy, Wait Please, What time is it?, and I'm watching you.  I also shared a couple of gestures with them that were popular in the 80s that have since fallen out of vogue.  They got a kick out of those!

I came across this cute little video on Mexican gestures on Pinterest several months ago, and today seemed the perfect time to bring it out and dust it off.  The guy on the video does a great job and he is quite charming.  It is hard not to enjoy this video - even for prickly adolescents. 

But, like most teachers, I have a coupe of students who just aren't on board unless I'm standing over them with a rubric and a phone - threatening to call their parents.  So I decided to make a participation sheet to accompany the video.  It's easy as pie for those people who are paying attention, but it will pose a challenge to anyone who cannot be bothered to pay attention.  ¡Ja!  :-)

Here is a link to the participation sheet:

The link to the video is on the sheet, but here it is again for your convenience: Fluent without Talking - Cultural Stuff

I hope this is useful to you and your students.  If so, I'd love to hear from you!

Hasta pronto,

--AnneK

Rarito . . . y un proyecto para español II

Years ago, as in 2011, I made a post about a little project my students were doing in Spanish II to use city vocabulary and preterite tense.  I took pictures of their little books and talked about how it is fun to do creative things from time to time in the classroom.  Here it is, for reference: Libritos Blog Post from November 2011 .

This blog is small and cozy.  I have no ads here and an intimate little group of regulars who come around.  I try to keep things conversational and friendly.  Most of my readers are quiet and few ever leave any comments.  (The one thing I would change, if I could.  I wish people spoke up more often.)

I say all the above because in the last two days I've gotten three comments - almost identical in their wording and all asking for the same thing - the project guidelines and rubric for my Libritos project from nearly four years ago.

Is it just me or is that a bit odd?  I almost never hear from anyone, then suddenly I get three nearly identical requests in the period of a couple days - all for a post that is way out of date and relatively unknown.  In fact, the post has only ever been viewed 450 times since it was put up.  None of the other 447 viewers ever asked for anything.  All the commenters left email addresses too - apparently wanting me to mail the rubric and project guidelines to them instead of coming here to download it.  Is this just a weird coincidence or is this some sort of a weird scam?

Though I do not know the answer to the above questions, I figured I would at least take a moment to provide the information that was requested.

Here are the project guidelines:

 

And here is the project rubric:

The Libritos project was an effort to get kids doing something hands-on and creative with their vocabulary (the city) and the preterite tense.  I asked them to recall a trip they had made to a big city or, barring that, to imagine a trip - maybe even to a Spanish-speaking city.  They had to include six pictures with captions in Spanish.  If the photos were not original, they had to give the URLs where they found them online.  (Sourcing photos in MLA is a little complicated, so I just went with URLs.  I want them to be in the habit of acknowledging the providers of information and images, even if it is technically not in MLA format.  Don't tell the English Department, please.)

Directions are written in English . . . <sigh> . . . helicopter parents et al.

I hope this project and rubric will be of some use to you.  I also hope that, whoever my mystery commenters are, this will be useful to them as well.

Hasta muy pronto, amigos.

--AnneK

Español 1 ¡Olé!

Yesterday was a staff development day.  (That is a teacher workday in the Newspeak of the education world.)  I got my professional development budget and my curriculum budget done for the 2015-2016 school year, attended a couple of meetings, had lunch with my fellow Spanish teachers, and enjoyed a nice breakfast courtesy of our amazing PTA group.  But the real buzz and excitement yesterday was that the scheduling committee had our assignments for next year.  And, for the first time in five years, I get to teach Spanish 1!

Don't you just love Spanish 1?  It is the place where all of us first fell in love with the language and it is such a joy to usher young people through that journey as well.  Colors, numbers, weather, telling time, days of the week . . . ahh!  It is all so much fun.  I put about $150 worth of classroom boardgames and card games on my budget so that we can enjoy ourselves next year while we learn.

Since I was in the mood for having fun while learning Spanish, I put together a fun activity to help kids learn the numbers.  The sheet has a couple of 100s charts and the idea is that the teacher (or someone else) calls out numbers and the students color those numbers in when they hear them.  When the activity is finished correctly, there should be a picture.

I made the boxes small so that the students wouldn't take too much class time coloring them in, and I put four charts on the sheet so that you can do several of these - maybe one per day.

There are a lot of 10x10 pictures in color on the web.  If you look you can easily find them, but I wanted to keep this activity simple so I made some black and white pictures as guides.  Click on them to see them in full size or download them for use later.

Fun, right?  Oh, how I love the things you can do in Spanish 1.

Have a great weekend, amigos!

--AnneK

El Examen Nacional de Español

The National Spanish Exam . . . It's that time of year again, folks.  My students are testing today and tomorrow, and we have taken over the media center for three days.  This does not make you popular with your fellow faculty, let me tell you.  But, as we say in Spanish with a shrug, "¿Qué remedio?"

Achievement tests, like the SAT and the NSE, are hard for students who are accustomed to getting good grades.  They like to see numbers in the high 90s on their papers, and when the NSE raw score shows they got a 68% I almost have to call an ambulance for them.  I try to explain, "It's an achievement test, not a mastery test.  You aren't supposed to know all of this material.  Sixty eight percent really isn't bad at all."  But the looks of skepticism they give me really say it all.

The hard thing for me is that my school gives the test to all the students who take Spanish.  They view it as a measure of teacher performance to some degree - and that is a lot of pressure.  Especially when one considers that most of the Spanish students in the nation do not take the test.  Seriously, when I attend the FLANC conference every fall, attendees get to put a big ribbon on their badge to show that they give the NSE.  I only ever see a small handful of folks wearing that ribbon.  And, at my old school only one teacher gave the test at all - and she paid out of pocket for her students to take the exam.  So, do you think she gave it to everyone?  Of course not!  She paid for only the best and brightest to take the test.  Now, multiply that trend across the nation, and you start to see just how competitive this test can be. 

But I'm not going to make myself crazy over it.  Some of my students will do well and others will not.  It is what it is. 

Do you give the NSE to your students?  If so, do you give it to all of them or just a select few?  I'd be curious to hear.

Hasta pronto, mis amigos.  ¡Que les vaya muy bien hoy!

--AnneK

En los momentos en que no soy profesora, ¿quién soy?

I have a question for you.  At those times when you are not a Spanish teacher (or whatever your profession may be), what are you?

Don't get me wrong, please.  I am not complaining.  I know that, despite its challenges, teaching is a beautiful profession.  Teaching allows me to satisfy my intellect, connect with other people, pursue scholarly interests, use my creativity, and do something that makes a difference.  There are few, if any, professions that can offer that.

Still, there are times when I get utterly lost in all the demands of my job.  These are the times when I am so involved in teaching, and all the side jobs that accompany it, that I lose sight of who I am.  Do you know the feeling?  You get up early and go to school; you immediately get to work; you give it your best all day long; you bring home projects to grade; and you spend your time after dinner planning, writing rubrics, answering parent emails, and attending the basketball game . . . . and on it goes.  I start to feel like a machine that simply churns out grades, signed passes, and lesson plans.

So, I'm back to my question: when I am not a Spanish teacher, what am I?

In addition to being a mother and a wife, I am a member of a church, a blogger, a dabbling graphic artist, and a maker of things.  By that last part, I mean that I get great joy from creating - knitting, crochet, painting, jewelry making, and that sort of thing.  My latest interest is polymer clay.  I'm just beginning with it, but I can see an immense potential for creative expression there.

Today I made a necklace that included a small polymer clay sculpture of Our Lady of Guadalupe.  The necklace itself is inspired by Santeria, which is a religion that mingles elements of voodoo with Catholicism. 

I let my imagination and creativity lead the way and I think the result was quite nice.  It certainly makes a statement - a strong one.  This will be on display today at a local craft fair where I hope it will draw some attention and some comments.  And it's nice to answer questions about design, technique, and artistic self-expression.  (More fun to talk about than preterite vs. imperfect!)

So, though this blog is (sadly) not a hotbed of conversation, I invite you to leave a comment below to express who you are at those moments when you are not a teacher.  What is it that makes you uniquely you?

Hasta pronto,

--AnneK
  

Tarjetas Con Los Interrogativos

¡Hola Amigos!  I realized my Thursday beginners' class needed some extra practice with the interrogatives last week, so I decided to put together some cards for them to use in today's class.  I figured I would share them here, even though they are easy to make, just in case someone out there can use them.  Download the Spanish Interrogatives Flash Cards here.

I used these in class as a memory matching game and a game (with no name) that involves grabbing the correct card faster than your partner.  In order to play Memory with these cards, I had to print them on separate sheets.  However, I mirrored the cards so that you could print them front/back in order to use them as flash cards.  If your copy machine is good, they should line up correctly - just make sure not to print one side upside down or they won't line up right at all.

My goal today was to focus on the meaning of the words, not the grammar.  For that reason I did not include the plural quiénes or cuáles.  And, I did not include any of the inflected forms of cuánto.  Nor did I include de dónde because it really is not a separate word or a separate idea in my mind.  There will be time for us to hammer out the grammar specifics of the inflected forms of the interrogatives soon enough. 

I did include the word hay - even though it is not technically an interrogative.  My beginning students never ever seem to remember the word hay in the long term and it is so important.  Furthermore, it is one of the first ways they learn to form questions, so I put it in the stack as an extra review.  If you want to leave it out, that will not offend me in the slightest.

And, on a completely different topic, I'm still loving the spring.  It was 72 degrees here today!  (That's 22 degrees for my friends from around the world.)  So I found a lovely little quote together with some stock photography and presto - classroom graphic.

I downloaded about a dozen new fonts today because I'm feeling the graphic design monkey on my back, so I'm likely to have more classroom graphics in the coming days.

Feliz viernes, amigos.  ¡Que tengan un lindo fin de semana!

Hasta pronto,

--AnneK

Sol, Solecito, Caliéntame Un Poquito

I'm thinking of warmer weather today and I'm taking a moment to appreciate the sunshine as it streams through my window.

This little rhyme is traditional and it has such a positive feeling to it that I can't help but smile.  Additionally, it is actually a nice little teaching tool.  We have some very basic vocabulary that beginning students may already know: sol, un poquito, hoy, mañana, toda la semana.  It also gives us the chance to talk about diminutives: solecito, poquito. 

So I found some stock photography and made a little graphic to share with my beginners' class on Thursday.  Ironically, it is supposed to rain all day Thursday.  Such is my luck.

I hope, wherever you might be, that you are emerging from the grip of winter into spring's gentle embrace.  ¡Qué linda es la primavera!

Hasta pronto,

--AnneK

Palabras Afines: Bailando

Bailando by Enrique Iglesias has been the big Spanish-language hit on the recent charts.  My students begged me to buy it and I read the lyrics and originally determined that it was not appropriate for the classroom.  But, upon further thought, I changed my mind.  Ultimately I decided that: 1) There probably wasn't a teen on the planet who hadn't already heard the song a hundred times already and 2) The mention of beer and tequila was no more of an endorsement than all the commercials my students regularly see when watching sporting events on television.

I have an adult class of beginners (novice low) in a local community college on Thursday nights, so I decided to use the song to make an activity for them on the topic of cognates.  This activity is easy and it highlights a lot of cognates in the language, making the point that there is already a lot of Spanish that my students know before they even begin to study.  (Even the wrong answer choices are cognates, so it will give you plenty of examples to work with.)  You can download it here.

Is the activity appropriate for middle or high school students?  Well, I deleted the words "cerveza" and "tequila" in the song; that helps.  If you play it, there is likely to be someone in the room who either notices the words or knows the song well enough in English to point it out.  And, I am not unaware of the fact (ironic though it is) that deleting something draws more attention to it than just leaving it alone in the first place.  But, for better or for worse, there is nothing on the paper about alcohol.

One might argue that there is some sexually suggestive language in the song.  Yes, and the counter argument would be that is only one interpretation of the lyrics and furthermore the song is in a language that the students do not grasp well enough for such things to come through.

Would I use this activity with my high school students?  If I talked to my principal first, yes.  I would lay out some ground rules and express my expectations to the students before we began the activity.  (The same talk I give them when we have to deal with poner in the preterite.)  Would I use this activity with middle school students?  No, I would not.

Still . . . proceed with caution.  No song, no activity, no lesson is worth your professional integrity.  So, if you feel this song and this activity is not appropriate for your class and your students; do not use it. 

All of that said, I love the song.  I think it is very singable and danceable, and it has a tune that won't get out of your head.  I love the repetitive "contigo" parts especially.

Have a great Friday and an even greater weekend, amigos.

Hasta pronto,

--AnneK

Formación del Subjuntivo - Sub Lesson

I was called on the phone one day last week and told that I had to come get my son from school - pink eye, it turns out.  It required a doctor's visit and there was no one available that day to take him except for me.  That meant that I was away at a moment's notice and sub plans were needed.

I had lesson plans for the day, of course.  But I cannot expect a last-minute substitute to be proficient in Spanish or able to provide my students with a proper review of the present subjunctive.  And my so-called "emergency lesson plans" are just one step above busy work.  Sure, they are about Spanish and they are relevant in a way . . . but we were preparing to go on spring track-out and I didn't want to waste time with busy work.  We are reviewing for the National Spanish Exam and they needed something that would help prepare them for that - not just keep them in their seats and quiet for 50 minutes.

I put this review of present subjunctive together on the fly while I waited for my son's doctor's appointment.  It is nothing fancy or inspiring.  There is no cultural context and there is nothing very clever about it.  But it fit the bill perfectly for my emergency need.  I wanted my students to review the present subjunctive forms - regulars, irregulars, and tricky CAR-GAR-ZAR verbs.

Here it is, in case you have an emergency and need a practice for your students.  Heck, put it in your emergency sub folder, if you like.  The sub can copy it and hand it out, even if (s)he doesn't speak a lick of Spanish.

I put a mystery phrase into the puzzle too - trying to be funny or clever, I suppose.  It is La clase de español es fantástica.  Students who have correctly filled out the rest of the puzzle will have 10 of the 27 letters in the phrase.  Several of mine did indeed figure it out on their own, so it's not impossible.  And, in case you or your substitute need it, I'm providing the answer key too.

I do hope that you don't have any need for emergency lesson plans.  But, at least for me, it seems like something or another comes up about once per semester - so it is always good to have something on hand.

Hasta pronto,

--AnneK