French the Natural Way

I created another blog for my Spanish students where I want to share resources and students’ work. As a matter of fact I already had another blog on Posterous but it closed down and therefore I had to look for another free platform. I found Kidblog which is free for up to 50 students and does not require students to sign in with an email address. A blog is very easy to set up and the easy login menu allows students to select their name from a list of students in the class which avoids memorizing complex user names. Each student ends up having his/her own blog which he/she can customize and the central blog directory and simple navigation links make it easy for students to find classmates’ blogs. However students’ blogs are private by default – viewable only by classmates and the teacher. Apparently teachers can elect to make posts public, while still moderating all content but I haven’t found out how yet!. Therefore you can see the overall outlook of my blog but you cannot read the posts if you are part of our community. On one hand it stops spam and adverts or unsolicited comments from outside sources to clutter the blog but on the other hand, I strongly believe blogs should be opened to the world, otherwise you might as well write in your old diary! However as I started it, I decided to continue with it… At least until I find another better option.

One activity I did with my grade 8 and which was very productive was inspired by the song by Juanes, La historia de Juan:

As Silvia Rosenthal Tolisano mentions in her fantastic blog: “A blog is a tool. A TOOL!!! It is NOT about teaching the tool. It is about allowing teachers to integrate all subject areas (if desired) by addressing multiple skills and literacies.” So here are all the skills students learned and practiced on the blog:

Creative writing: after listening to the song and working on its meaning, I asked the students to imagine the life of Juan in more details: when and where he was born, what his parents did, what he did to survive… It was a good opportunity to talk about children living in the streets. I asked students to write their stories as their first post on the blog. Some students imagined a complete different story with a different name but I was fine with it as long as they enjoyed writing in Spanish and that they used the simple past!

Publishing: the next step was to publish the post. Students were taught what tags and categories are, how to save as draft before publishing on the Web, how to embed media… All the tools they need in order to publish work on the Internet.

Commenting: another lesson was spent showing students how to comment and what a productive comment was. Students had to read different comments and discuss which ones were good and useful to the author of the post and which ones were not so useful. I pointed out that blogs were meant to be conversations and not a monologue!
This is in fact peer assessment and students learned how to use the conditional tense and how to give opinions in Spanish, some very important language skills.
Download the file to use with your students: comentario.blog

Answering a comment: students not only had to comment other posts but also had to take time to answer their own comments. I wanted students to realize that if people take the time to comment your work, you should also take the time to respond.

Here is another story script which follows the last story about little Pedro losing his notebook. This story has lots of repetitions to focus on “lo siento” and “no sé qué hacer“. I am telling those stories using wooden ice cream sticks which the students love. They think it is funny and even though the story is repetitive, they enjoy listening to it because I add drama and faces. For example when Pedro cries a lot “llora mucho“, I do cry a lot! I do make a fool of myself but it does get the class attention!

After having told the story and having made the students repeat the key structures, I hand them out the script which they read in silence highlighting the key structures and words in different colors. I then have a pair activity in which one of the students read the text aloud and stops when it is a key structure or word. The other student has to say the word or sentence missing. So one students reads the script while the other listens and remembers. This activity works well as it emphasizes repetition as well as pronunciation and intonation.

4. Lo siento.

Estructuras claves:

• Está triste – he/she is sad

• Llora – he/she cries

• Lo siento – I am sorry

• No sé qué hacer – I don’t know what to do
  

Palabras claves:

• Ahora – now

• mucho – a lot

• muy – very

Pedro está muy triste porque no tiene su cuaderno pequeño. Elena tiene su cuaderno pequeño en su estómago. Pedro llora mucho porque su cuaderno pequeño es muy importante para él.

Elena está muy triste también porque quiere a Pedro. Elena dice a Pedro “ Lo siento Pedro”. Pero Pedro llora. Pedro llora mucho.

Juan está triste también porque es el amigo de Pedro. Juan dice a Pedro “Lo siento Pedro”. Pero Pedro llora. Pedro llora mucho.

Pilar está triste también porque es la amiga de Pedro. Pilar dice a Pedro “Lo siento Pedro”. Pero Pedro llora. Pedro llora mucho.

La Señora Martinez está triste también porque es la profesora de Pedro y quiere a Pedro. La Señora Martinez dice a Pedro “Lo siento Pedro”. Pero Pedro llora. Pedro llora mucho.

Elena está muy triste. Elena no sabe qué hacer. Elena dice “No sé qué hacer”. La Señora Martinez dice a Elena “¡No es aceptable Elena. Ahora Pedro está muy triste!”. Elena dice a Señora Martinez “Lo siento Señora Martinez.”

Juan dice a Elena “¡No es aceptable Elena. Ahora Pedro está muy triste!”. Elena dice a Juan “Lo siento Juan.” Elena está muy triste. Elena no sabe qué hacer. Elena dice “No sé qué hacer”.

Pilar dice a Elena “¡No es aceptable Elena. Ahora Pedro está muy triste!”. Elena dice a Pilar “Lo siento Pilar.” Elena está muy triste. Elena no sabe qué hacer. Elena dice “No sé qué hacer”.

¡Elena tiene una idea! Regala algo a Pedro. ¿Qué es?

With my current grade 8, we culminated our unit about television with a creative project: to create a new TV program and present it to possible producers!

Before working on the project, we looked at different kind of TV programs in Spain and in South America which lead to different activities and which also provided with a lot of comprehensible input. I put all the resources we worked on on my curriculum wiki: we looked at a game show in Uruguay which was an excellent listening activity with lots of repetition. We also looked at different Spanish series (La Fuga, El Barco ...) which were interesting reading and listening practice. The great thing was that then my students watched the series at home as part of their “a la carte” homework!

After having immersed ourselves in the Hispanic TV culture, I asked the students to work in pairs and to create a new TV program. They had to answer 4 questions on a poster:

• What is it? Series, game show, documentary….
• What is it about? Description, story….
• Who is in it? Actors, celebrities and their role ….
• Why is it going to be successful?

They then had to present it pretending they were selling it to possible producers. They could have notes but they should not be reading the poster. They worked on it over a few lessons and I observed them being engaged, full of ideas and using a lot of Spanish. The day of the presentations, I asked the other students to fill in a table (from Gente Joven textbook) with their feedback on the content, pronunciation, spontaneity and fluency and accuracy of the language. I asked them to spot any errors. I was impressed because they gave productive feedback in Spanish and spotted quite a few errors. I was also pleased with the level of their work. Their posters showed a wide range of vocabulary and complex structures and their presentations were overall of a high standard with good fluency and little hesitation. This is an experience to be repeated as the students got a lot of input and also could use the language in a purposeful way.

 

I teach Spanish language B IB to 5 students this year. I find the programm very interesting as it requires higher level language as well as thinking. However it is quite challenging for my students. One topic we have to cover is about social relationships and it is quite a wide and vague topic, which is good because it leaves us (the teachers) free to dig into what we want to cover. I have chosen to focus on the dictatorship in Argentina and the issue facing many Argentinean families about the disappearing ones. That way I tackle many aspects at once: relationships, nationalism, patriotism, fanaticism, social and/or political structures and social behaviours and stances. I have compiled a list of resources I have used on my wiki from a novel to a song and a poem… There are endless resources to chose from on this topic and the students are interested. It also links to history and Latin American culture.

My big struggle at the moment is to make my students think further and to develop their answers in order to hold a long and interesting conversation. I am working on it and will develop more about it in a later post.

I simplified the story script I wrote about little Pedro losing his notebook to focus on “¿Dónde está?”, “No lo sé” and “es importante para…“. I also changed the ending to make it more surprising and funnier to my students. It worked as they loved the story! As follow-up activities, I had my students reorder the story and I also had them change the ending. They came up with great ideas like: the teacher threw the notebook away, Elena flushed it down the toilets or Elena was joking and didn’t eat the notebook! They used dictionaries and I helped them form the sentences but they were engaged and motivated to write another ending, which was the main goal!

Here is the new version:

3. ¿Dónde está mi cuaderno pequeňo?

Key structures:

• Es muy importante – It is very important

• Para – For

• ¿Dónde está? – Where is?

• No lo sé – I don’t know it

Script:

Pedro tiene un cuaderno pequeño. Es muy importante para Pedro. Un día, Pedro saca sus cosas de su mochila. Primero saca su estuche. Abre su estuche y saca su bolígrafo, su lápiz, y su goma.

También, Pedro saca su regla y su agenda. La Señora Martinez dice “¡Clase, sacad el libro de matemáticas!”. Entonces Pedro saca su libro de matemáticas de su mochila.

Pedro quiere sacar su cuaderno pequeño porque es muy importante para él. ¡No sabe donde está!

Pedro pregunta a Elena “¿Dónde está mi cuaderno pequeño?”. Elena dice “No lo sé.” Pedro está muy preocupado porque su cuaderno pequeño es muy importante para él.

Pedro pregunta a Juan “¿Dónde está mi cuaderno pequeño?”. Juan dice “No lo sé.” Pedro está muy preocupado porque su cuaderno pequeño es muy importante para él.

Pedro pregunta a Pilar “¿Dónde está mi cuaderno pequeño?”. Pilar dice “No lo sé.” Pedro está muy preocupado. Está preocupadísimo porque su cuaderno pequeño es muy importante para él.

Pedro pregunta a la Señora Martinez “¿Dónde está mi cuaderno pequeño?”. La Señora Martinez dice “No lo sé.”. Pedro está triste porque su cuaderno pequeño es importante para él.

Elena dice “Pedro, sé dónde está tu cuaderno pequeño.” Pedro pregunta “¿Dónde está?”

Elena dice “Está en mi estómago. ¡¡Lo he comido!!”. Pedro llora.

And here is the downloadable worksheet to reorder the story. I have students cut the parts and stick them in order in their notebooks: donde.cuaderno.pequeno