TPRS year 5 - Spanish 1 mini-unit - Alma

For a few weeks this quarter, I wanted to work on a unit in Spanish 1.  I thought we could review the super seven (hay, quiere, tiene, está, es, le gusta, va a) and add more.

Last year around this time, I did the Movietalk with Alma.  It's a neat little video about a little girl who finds a surprise in a store in Barcelona.  My classes are always sufficiently creeped out by it, which is wonderful!

This year language-wise has been a little bit different so I thought I would do the following to lead up to Alma.

TPRS year 5 - Cultural reading - los niños no acompañados

I realize that for our students, things that are novel are more interesting.  I'm also aware that one of the best experiences I had with my classes (ever) was being real with them in Spanish about a discussion where I was prepping their understanding of the words "las cosas pequeñas"(the small things) before listening to a song, "Las cosas pequeñas" by Prince Royce. (see blog entry)

While we prep our Spanish 2 students to be able to read Noches Misteriosas en Granada by the wonderfully talented Kristy Placido.  

And so a friend and I had decided to create a breakdown of new vocabulary per chapter for the novels so we would know how to pace ourselves and what/when to pre-teach structures.

This has been very helpful to determine which words we could teach through different contexts.

TPRS Year 4 - Comercial - Snickers - Dramático

It's that time of the year when I need to throw in some other activities I don't normally think about doing, and also throw in some more authentic texts where we actually can figure out some of the language to realize we have been learning this year!

Here's a fun one I used in my Spanish one classes.  It has some out of bounds vocab, so I had that translated.

Here's the handout I used: (Click here.)

Possible Extensions:
1. Notice how they pronounce Snickers in Spanish... why is it pronounced "eh-snee-kayrs"
2. Is this similar to something you've seen in English?
3. Who is this most likely being marketed to? (Do they sell Snicker's overseas?)

TPRS year 4 - The Day of the Dead

     So almost every Spanish teacher has some sort of activity or activities that they do in their Spanish classes around this time of the year!  Since November 2 is celebrated as "The Day of the Dead" in Mexico and countries in Central America, this is an opportunity to talk about something involving culture.

    Last year, I wrote a reading for them involving Day of the Dead.  I believe this was the Spanish 2 reading, but maybe a simplified version was a Spanish 1 reading, there were more out-of-bounds words than there should have been.  See reading.

    This year for Spanish 1, I found a neat video through the Moretprs yahoo group.  It's a silent movie about a girl who misses her mom and somehow gets whisked away to the land of the dead, where she finds her mother.  See movie.

TPRS year 4 - Commercial - Jimmy Dean - "Listo"

So my wife and I have a MOHO digital antenna.  Pretty neat in and of itself.  But we somehow got a Spanish channel suddenly through it in the KC area!  So we're pumped.  Well, the Spanish teacher nerd in me always thinking of authentic resources is... she likes the idea of watching television she understands. ;-)

But I noticed this commercial by Jimmy Dean...