French the Natural Way

I am teaching Spanish language B IB higher level and my students have to read two works of literature. Since I have a group of only girls, I have chosen La casa de Bernarda Alba which is written by the famous poet Federico García Lorca.

To introduce my students to the book and its author, I made this slideshow based on the biography written by Aroa Moreno, Lorca, la valiente alegría. I thoroughly recommend this collection of books as they always come with an audio CD which Spanish learners can listen to and they have comprehension questions.

Please note that this slideshow is also available to download in pdf version for free on http://www.teacherspayteachers.com
I have put other resources there and I intend to load more of them in the near future. So far everything is free!

 

This is a fantastic idea from one of my emails from the mflresources@yahoogroups.com: “I show the students some clips (2-3 mins each) from YouTube and they play the role of critic – after each clip they get 30 seconds to write their opinion of each clip and then a further 30 seconds to share their opinion with their neighbor. My lesson starter is a task magic/matching exercise to revise opinions.” (Thank you Heather for sharing!).

I am planning to do with my grade 8 and 10 students as their topics is about TV programs and films. I created my started activity on Quizlet:

I will show some clips from Spanish series on my YouTube playlist “series” and trailers from Hispanic movies on my playlist “películas“.

I believe reading in the target language is crucial because it promotes fluent reading skills which then leads to fluency in the other language skills such as speaking and writing. Fluent reading means reading without a dictionary, which can be challenging if students read an authentic text or a book. Choosing a text which is not too easy neither too challenging is difficult but I have found that the Mary Glasgow magazines offer interesting articles which can be read a 3 different levels from beginner to advanced; the advanced level containing more details and complex structures. For example I found this “surprising” article about a television for dogs which is perfect for grade 8 (13-14 years old) topic about media.
When my students read an article, they should first read it in silence. If there is a recording of the text (which is the case for Mary Glasgow articles), they can follow the text as they listen to it. They then highlight what they understand. That way, they can notice at a glance that they actually understand quite a lot! They then choose another color to highlight the words or parts they really do not understand and they think they need in order to comprehend the article. They also highlight in another color the parts they don’t understand but they think they don’t need or they can guess. Students usually work in groups of 4 to discuss what they understood. They help each other out to comprehend the difficult parts and to make connections, i.e. is this word similar to an English/German word I know?. The use of dictionaries should come as a last resort.This part is done in English but I think it is important to check comprehension. At the end of this process, students can then move on to the comprehension questions followed by personal questions and discussion in Spanish!

You can download the article with the comprehension questions here: television para perros

I am back to school after a wonderful summer vacation and in order to get back into the swing of things, I found this catchy song which I played to my grade 8 and 10 classes:

As I mentioned in an earlier post, when we listen to a song in class, we listen to it several times in the week at the start of each lesson. My students have the lyrics (in Spanish with the English next to it) in front of them, they listen to the song and they follow the lyrics at the same time. The following week, I usually give my students a quiz with gaps to fill in. This allows students to acquire vocabulary and structures in a kind of “passive” way but after all this is what toddlers do when they acquire their mother tongue! The song also leads to personalized questions and answers such as:
¿Tienes una persona favorita en tu vida?
¿Quién es tu persona favorita y por qué?
¿Cuál es tu animal favorito y por qué?
¿De quién/qué eres fan de y por qué?

You can download the lyrics in Spanish and English here: persona.favorita.rio.roma

 

 

As the school year draws to a close, I have chosen to read a book in Spanish with my students. If we don’t manage to finish the book, my students will have to finish reading it over the summer holidays which will be an excellent practice to keep up their Spanish.

For grade 6 (11-12 years old), I have chosen Agentes secretos y el mural de Picasso by Mira Canion. It is an easy Spanish reader containing just 100 new vocabulary words and many English-Spanish cognates. It also repeats many key structures my students have learned over the year so it is perfect to recycle and introduce new and old material at the same time. The plot is set at the 1937 International Exposition when Pablo Picasso’s mural Guernica is on display.

Before starting to read the book, I wanted my students to get an overview of Picasso and Guernica. I prepared a slideshow to familiarize them with the painter and the mural. I included some personalized questions in order to connect students with the content and also to make the slideshow more interactive. At the end, students viewed a well explained video of the Guernica and its symbols:

El GUERNICA, SÍMBOLO DE UNA HISTORIA from Cristina Chinchilla on Vimeo.

You can download the slideshow here: Pablo Picasso(.pptx) or Pablo Picasso(.pdf)