I love Valentine's Day - not because it's a day about sweethearts, but because it doesn't have to be about that only. Years ago, I decided to expand the idea of Valentine's Day to include all the people in my life that I love - my family, my friends, and my students.
My husband is included in that list too, of course. He and I have a reservation at a Mexican restaurant for Saturday and, as is our custom, we will exchange video games and high end electronics. No joke! I always remind him not to be swayed by the guilt trip diamond and chocolate commercials out there. (And there is one teddy bear company out there with an offensive commercial that I don't think they showed to any women before they aired it. I certainly don't want anything from them!)
Anyway . . . back to Spanish - that is what the blog is about, after all. I put together a Bésame Mucho activity to add to Friday's lesson. While I was working on it, I did a little research and discovered some fun facts that you might want to share with your students.
- It is the most recorded Spanish song of all time.
- It was written by Consuelo Velazquez when she was so young that she had never actually been kissed.
- The topics of loss and distance in the song touched a strong chord with people during World War II when boyfriends and husbands were being shipped away to Japan and Germany - though Miss Velazquez didn't have that in mind when she wrote it.
Here is the activity sheet with a cloze practice, a link to the original song online, and a few discussion questions. You might need to help your students with the history of the song. I put a few present perfect sentences in there that might be stumbling blocks for beginners.
And here is a shout-out to my adult student David W who sang this song to his wife on their golden wedding anniversary. Both he and his wife are students of mine in a continuing education class at our local community college. Bien hecho, David. ¡Muy romántico!
Hasta pronto,
--AnneK
3 comments :
Wow! You read my mind!
I teach a heritage class and discussed the famous song as well as showed several versions on YOUTUBE, but your lesson is PERFECTO and I can't wait to add it to my mini-lesson next year...Thanks for sharing!
Karen, I'm absolutely delighted that this will work for your lesson. It makes me so happy to hear from fellow teachers that they can use my materials. Thanks for your comment - it's nice to feel connected to the outside world. :-) --AnneK
This is a wonderful lesson! Unfortunately, I'm unable to download the worksheet - it is no longer available. Is there any way you could make it available again? Thank you!
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