So after the relative success of my last post about what I did with the commercial: "Me voy de casa", I decided to go ahead and share a majority of things that I did last year in my Spanish 1 classes.
Feel free to open the folder, download things to your Google Drive or to your computer and enjoy!
My hope is that you can find a new activity or a new spin on an old activity you have used. Or maybe something to inspire you as you try out more communicative-based teaching via TPRS or Comprehensible Input methods!
I tried to include a plethora of things to give you an idea of what you could do in your classes as well to push kids towards proficiency by de-emphasizing grammar in actual grammar lessons each day (Don't worry, I, Señor Jordan, still teach grammar to my kids. But it's more of a back-door approach!)
Let me know what you think and happy perusing!
So click here to see my google drive folder (minus Agentes Secretos stuff since some of that has images from the teacher's guide by the very talented Mira Canion).
*Disclaimer* Please don't judge me too much for how I might have done an activity. I am far from an expert on teaching via TPRS. But I figure the best way to get better is to share with others who might be farther back on the path to encourage them and maybe the more experienced people can offer a suggestion or two!
Showing posts with label songs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label songs. Show all posts
Sunday, October 2, 2016
Monday, January 4, 2016
Last minute gem - Una papa - simple song
I always find myself planning late at night before bed (for some odd reason) and stumbling across something that I really want to use with my students (because I LOVE to mix things up each year with new activities).
I stumbled across this really cute little song about potatoes that like to dance!
It could be great for elementary teachers or middle school/high-school students to get those wiggles out for a brain break. (Of course you know your classes better than I do. As a wacky teacher, I can often encourage them to do things like this or the mascota activity.)
But I digress. I found this song a few minutes ago and HAD to use it tomorrow for the following reasons:
I stumbled across this really cute little song about potatoes that like to dance!
It could be great for elementary teachers or middle school/high-school students to get those wiggles out for a brain break. (Of course you know your classes better than I do. As a wacky teacher, I can often encourage them to do things like this or the mascota activity.)
video:
But I digress. I found this song a few minutes ago and HAD to use it tomorrow for the following reasons:
Monday, October 6, 2014
TPRS year 5 - Movietalk - Simon's cat - Scary Legs
I am trying to do storytelling this year, but also to add in another component after every story or two: an extension (commercial, song, video, movietalk, cultural connection, etc). This way I can further recycle the structures from our stories, but bind them in a new way for better acquisition.
Our Spanish 2 students will be reading Noches misteriosas en Granada 2nd quarter this year and we are pre-teaching them structures from the book to be successful.
One of our first stories was:
Our Spanish 2 students will be reading Noches misteriosas en Granada 2nd quarter this year and we are pre-teaching them structures from the book to be successful.
One of our first stories was:
- sigue ___ndo (s/he keeps __ing)
- se va para (s/he leaves for [place])
- "tienes que ayudarme" (you have to help me)
Then I had done Total Physical Response (TPR) during brain breaks for some other words:
- aplasta (s/he squishes)
- [se] sube (s/he climbs/goes up)
- muere (s/he dies)
And for fun, I also went over the song: la araña pequeñita
Sunday, September 22, 2013
TPRS year 4 - song - El Pollo
Many years ago, I learned this song from an Argentinian gentleman in Guadalajara, Mexico on a missions trip. He was in charge of the activities of this sports camp at a park.
One of the favorite things of everyone was this song where he said the following:
El pollo (Hold hand up on eeeeeeeeeeel and stomp when you say pollo)
El pollo con una pata. (step with one foot)
El pollo con otra pata. (step with both feet)
El pollo con una alita. (step with both feet and move an arm like a wing)
El pollo con otra alita. (step with both feet and move both arms like wings)
El pollo con la cabeza. (step with both feet, move both arms, and move head)
El pollo con la colita. (turn around and shake your caboose)
Even with high school students, this is one that was a crowd favorite at my first school. I kind of forgot about it at my previous school. But some of my students asked about a poster I made of it that was hanging up and so we went over it and they seemed to enjoy the simplicity and silliness of it.
So If you would like to try it out in your class, I'll upload an audio file later of me saying it or maybe even a short video clip of me doing it.
One of the favorite things of everyone was this song where he said the following:
El pollo (Hold hand up on eeeeeeeeeeel and stomp when you say pollo)
El pollo con una pata. (step with one foot)
El pollo con otra pata. (step with both feet)
El pollo con una alita. (step with both feet and move an arm like a wing)
El pollo con otra alita. (step with both feet and move both arms like wings)
El pollo con la cabeza. (step with both feet, move both arms, and move head)
El pollo con la colita. (turn around and shake your caboose)
Even with high school students, this is one that was a crowd favorite at my first school. I kind of forgot about it at my previous school. But some of my students asked about a poster I made of it that was hanging up and so we went over it and they seemed to enjoy the simplicity and silliness of it.
So If you would like to try it out in your class, I'll upload an audio file later of me saying it or maybe even a short video clip of me doing it.
Thursday, August 29, 2013
TPRS year 4 - song - pulgarcito
So I've been continuing doing a warm up, basic conversation, TPR and PQA for my 90 minute classes. It's going ok. I started trying to do brain breaks about 20 minutes into PQA and then we finish more refreshed.
I think it also reminds my students how important their attention is.
But today, for the brain break, I wanted to do something a little different. I thought a change of pace would be to turn around to the projector (which is strangely at the back of my classroom). And then I made a very basic PowerPoint with the lyrics to the little song: "Pulgarcito".
This is a Spanish version of a song "Where is Thumbkin," which I had never heard of, but saw on an episode of Sesame Street. In the Elmo's World section, there was a Spanish version of it called: "Pulgarcito." It's to the tune of Frère Jacques.
Here are the lyrics I used, I changed it slightly for my students and added a gesture for, "¿Dónde estás?"
Pulgarcito (hands behind back)
Little thumb
¿Dónde estás? (put hand up over brow looking for someone)
Where are you?
Aquí estoy. (bring out right hand, thumb up, moving to say "Aquí estoy")
Here I am.
Aquí estoy. (bring out left hand, thumb up, moving to say "Aquí estoy")
Here I am.
¿Cómo estás? (move right thumb as if talking)
How are you?
Muy bien, gracias. (move left thumb as if talking)
Very well, thanks.
Ya me voy. (put right hand behind back)
Gotta go.
Ya me voy. (put left hand behind back)
Gotta go.
Then repeat as much as you want with students having them gesture and sing along/move their mouths so you don't know they aren't singing.
Most of my students seemed to enjoy it. I saw them smiling. Many of them are freshman/sophomores. I think the simplicity of the language helped them and the fact that I explained how important music is in my classroom and how studies show how music can enhance learning a language.
Good activity! Saving this one for later.
*revision: My mother swears she used to sing "where is thumbkin" to me when I was little (in English) but I don't have any recollection of it.
*revision #2: Some of my students will say "Ya me voy" as they leave class now in Spanish 1.
I think it also reminds my students how important their attention is.
But today, for the brain break, I wanted to do something a little different. I thought a change of pace would be to turn around to the projector (which is strangely at the back of my classroom). And then I made a very basic PowerPoint with the lyrics to the little song: "Pulgarcito".
This is a Spanish version of a song "Where is Thumbkin," which I had never heard of, but saw on an episode of Sesame Street. In the Elmo's World section, there was a Spanish version of it called: "Pulgarcito." It's to the tune of Frère Jacques.
Here are the lyrics I used, I changed it slightly for my students and added a gesture for, "¿Dónde estás?"
Pulgarcito (hands behind back)
Little thumb
¿Dónde estás? (put hand up over brow looking for someone)
Where are you?
Aquí estoy. (bring out right hand, thumb up, moving to say "Aquí estoy")
Here I am.
Aquí estoy. (bring out left hand, thumb up, moving to say "Aquí estoy")
Here I am.
¿Cómo estás? (move right thumb as if talking)
How are you?
Muy bien, gracias. (move left thumb as if talking)
Very well, thanks.
Ya me voy. (put right hand behind back)
Gotta go.
Ya me voy. (put left hand behind back)
Gotta go.
Then repeat as much as you want with students having them gesture and sing along/move their mouths so you don't know they aren't singing.
Most of my students seemed to enjoy it. I saw them smiling. Many of them are freshman/sophomores. I think the simplicity of the language helped them and the fact that I explained how important music is in my classroom and how studies show how music can enhance learning a language.
Good activity! Saving this one for later.
*revision: My mother swears she used to sing "where is thumbkin" to me when I was little (in English) but I don't have any recollection of it.
*revision #2: Some of my students will say "Ya me voy" as they leave class now in Spanish 1.
Friday, June 7, 2013
TPRS year 3 - review
Well the school year ended a week or two ago and it was my third year of using TPRS and CI.
As far as the year, I would say it was a success. It was probably the most intense year I have ever gone through with ups and downs and the variety of activities.
I worked hard in making sure things stayed fresh while at the same time maintaining the general consistency of class.
In first quarter in my Spanish 1 classes, we did PQA about the students, their loves, their interests. They picked up some basic conversational words and a lot of the third person forms of verbs that interested them. Then we finished up with TPR of the body parts and some other concrete action words that we could act out.
By the time we got to second quarter, I introduced the routine of class:
Monday - Trending Tweets and Weekend chat
Tuesday - Joke and Oral Story (past tense)
Wednesday - Miáucoles and finishing Oral story
Thursday - song
Friday - Fail and written story
We continued to prep the Spanish students' understanding of words that would appear in the first book Agentes Secretos y el mural de Picasso.
Then by the time we read the book, we still did a little storytelling and the usual warm up activities and by the time second quarter had ended, my Spanish 1 students felt a sense of success. A couple of the kids weren't doing as well as the rest for various reasons, but they were still learning. Some did hate the book.
Third quarter, we started off with a PQA activity because of a structure common to Spanish 1 students and in the next book to be read, ir + a + infinitive. So I had the students talk about a goal they had for the new year. We talked about those for a few weeks and I tried something new out….
I wanted to try to get some of the first and second forms into the verb paradigm. In my first two years of TPRS, I noticed students didn't do much more than the 3rd person singular of the verbs. This is the most easily acquired form in language, which is why children speak in 3rd person at first.
But I still figured we should try to introduce those other forms little by little in the year. So I had the question written on the board, "¿Qué vas a hacer?" (What are you going to do?) and then underneath I wrote "Voy a ____r" (I'm going to…) and "va a ____r" (s/he is going to __).
Then I asked kids to own their phrase so that when I asked them, they could respond, "Voy a _____." It was a great attempt. Some kids didn't seem to get it as well. Perhaps to have butcher paper on the wall for different classes so that the words stayed on the wall until the unit was over might be nice. Maybe next year we can do that. Otherwise, I thought it went well. The complete conjugation of verbs is something that not even traditional Spanish students completely get the hang of. So I figured I was doing a better job. They had a pretty good understanding of the "n" at the end meaning "They" from second quarter.
So long story short, I think we managed to get the other forms hit during the year.
After the PQA activity, we started storytelling and further prepping the kids to be able to read the second book Piratas del Caribe y el maps secreto. While reading, we continued doing the other activities (storytelling, jokes, songs, etc).
By the final test on Pirates, I was able to see that my students were learning this year and were learning to write sentences to express their understanding of the book.
All in all, I would say the year was a success. Many of the kids retrospectively appreciated the books because they realized how much Spanish they had learned this year.
I would say that this year has further reinforced my love for TPRS and CI teaching. Throughout the year, I was able to converse with my Spanish 1 students daily. I was never able to converse with my Spanish 1, 2 or 3 students as well before when we "covered" grammar and vocabulary.
I look forward to the coming years!
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
TPRS Year 3 - Song - Las cosas pequeñas
I wanted to share something I did in my classes yesterday.
Usually on Thursdays, we listen to a song in Spanish. They can be a kids' song, a pop song, a traditional song, an old song, etc. Sometimes they'll have gestures that we can teach with certain lines. But once in awhile, the song is a song that I want the kids to hear.
With my Spanish 2 kids, I found a song called Las cosas pequeñas by Prince Royce.
We hadn't really done much with the word cosas (things) in Spanish 1 or in the Spanish 2 class up to this point. This is quite crazy since that is an incredibly high frequency and important word.
But I wanted my kids to follow the song a little better and have a good conversation with them. So I tested the waters by starting class after the warm up by writing on the board:
¿Cuáles son las cosas más importantes? (Which are the most important things?)
Then we proceed to talk about the most important things in their lives. Some kids already got the cue and started mentioning things like "familia" (family). Others joked around and I noticed that
I proceeded to ask them, "¿Las puedes comprar? (Can you buy them?)
The idea was to talk for about 20 minutes and then to listen to the song a few times with a cloze activity.
In one class I could tell that the students got very serious after a few minutes of my talking to them and explaining things that might be important. We came to the conclusion that things like my saying "hello" to them every day at my door were very important and yet small. I explained to them as well that every day I go home and I open the door, I see my one-year-old daughter smile and dance around because she's happy to see me.
In that class we actually talked the rest of that class about this topic of "small things." The neatest part was that so often in class we are silly and talk about random things in Spanish. During this activity, my students actually paid attention because I was being real with them and telling them about something that we don't normally talk about in class.
Note to self, talk about serious issues more often in class throughout the year.
Usually on Thursdays, we listen to a song in Spanish. They can be a kids' song, a pop song, a traditional song, an old song, etc. Sometimes they'll have gestures that we can teach with certain lines. But once in awhile, the song is a song that I want the kids to hear.
With my Spanish 2 kids, I found a song called Las cosas pequeñas by Prince Royce.
We hadn't really done much with the word cosas (things) in Spanish 1 or in the Spanish 2 class up to this point. This is quite crazy since that is an incredibly high frequency and important word.
But I wanted my kids to follow the song a little better and have a good conversation with them. So I tested the waters by starting class after the warm up by writing on the board:
¿Cuáles son las cosas más importantes? (Which are the most important things?)
Then we proceed to talk about the most important things in their lives. Some kids already got the cue and started mentioning things like "familia" (family). Others joked around and I noticed that
I proceeded to ask them, "¿Las puedes comprar? (Can you buy them?)
The idea was to talk for about 20 minutes and then to listen to the song a few times with a cloze activity.
In one class I could tell that the students got very serious after a few minutes of my talking to them and explaining things that might be important. We came to the conclusion that things like my saying "hello" to them every day at my door were very important and yet small. I explained to them as well that every day I go home and I open the door, I see my one-year-old daughter smile and dance around because she's happy to see me.
In that class we actually talked the rest of that class about this topic of "small things." The neatest part was that so often in class we are silly and talk about random things in Spanish. During this activity, my students actually paid attention because I was being real with them and telling them about something that we don't normally talk about in class.
Note to self, talk about serious issues more often in class throughout the year.
Thursday, November 1, 2012
TPRS Year 3 - Halloween and Día de muertos
This year has been crazy. I probably haven't been blogging as much as in years prior because I've been finding myself stretched rather thin. Between working on my YouTube channel and trying to maintain consistently new content: Phrase of the Day, Storytelling adventures, & jokes, in addition to teaching full time and having a wife and 9 month old baby, I don't have as much time to blog.
But I'm pretty excited. Last year, there was this great activity idea that I got from Kristy Placido about using a Luis Pescetti chant about a vampire in a castle at night who butters bread with a knife. It was wonderful. What I ended up doing was TPR'ing the different phrases from the chant with my students by acting it, saying it in Spanish, and quickly telling them in English the first time and occasionally checking for comprehension. We did them out of order (so the kids wouldn't guess it was a narrative) and then at the end, they saw Kristy's graphical representation of it (She might have taken it down. I can't seem to find it this year). It had pictures of some things which you could have with the voice of Luis Pescetti that represented the different lines. My kids still remembered the actions from last year. Not to mention, it was great to throw into stories, "And DOES he butter bread?" Always good for a laugh.
This year I found out some traditional songs for Día de muertos. My favorite was called: Los esqueletos. There are various versions of it on YouTube. The lyrics are about how skeletons come out of their graves and do various things, then they sleep again. It's great for the present tense 3rd person plural ending in Spanish (-n). It helps me get some reps of those in class and some good pop-up grammar to get them to notice that "n" on the end of the verb just means "they."
So I did something similar to last year's activity. Since today was song day, I mixed up the different things the skeletons do (10 of them) and then TPR'd them. So we went over 2-3 phrases and played around with them. I mixed them up. I changed a detail sometimes to use the verb structure some more. My students seemed to enjoy the movement today. I think it was needed.
Then after we TPR'd it for 25-30 or so minutes, I went over the PowerPoint that I had made with the song on it and some pictures that went along with it. I taught them the gestures for the first line and for the "graves here" and "graves there." I spoke through it with them first and had them do the gestures with me. Then I sang it and had them follow with gestures. Finally, they stood and "sang" (or pretended) while gesturing with me. And it took up pretty much all of class. It was a different activity for the songs. We usually do a cloze activity. But I wanted them to interact more with the song today. :-)
If you had extra time before singing you could also do a competition with a partner where they race to do the action first. You could do the incorrect action. You could say 2 actions and they would have to do those in order. There are many things you could do as well.
Here's a version of the song that I basically used to sing today (and I changed a few of the things the skeletons do).
If you want to try it, let me know your email address and I can email you the PowerPoint and/or the lyrics I used.
But I'm pretty excited. Last year, there was this great activity idea that I got from Kristy Placido about using a Luis Pescetti chant about a vampire in a castle at night who butters bread with a knife. It was wonderful. What I ended up doing was TPR'ing the different phrases from the chant with my students by acting it, saying it in Spanish, and quickly telling them in English the first time and occasionally checking for comprehension. We did them out of order (so the kids wouldn't guess it was a narrative) and then at the end, they saw Kristy's graphical representation of it (She might have taken it down. I can't seem to find it this year). It had pictures of some things which you could have with the voice of Luis Pescetti that represented the different lines. My kids still remembered the actions from last year. Not to mention, it was great to throw into stories, "And DOES he butter bread?" Always good for a laugh.
This year I found out some traditional songs for Día de muertos. My favorite was called: Los esqueletos. There are various versions of it on YouTube. The lyrics are about how skeletons come out of their graves and do various things, then they sleep again. It's great for the present tense 3rd person plural ending in Spanish (-n). It helps me get some reps of those in class and some good pop-up grammar to get them to notice that "n" on the end of the verb just means "they."
So I did something similar to last year's activity. Since today was song day, I mixed up the different things the skeletons do (10 of them) and then TPR'd them. So we went over 2-3 phrases and played around with them. I mixed them up. I changed a detail sometimes to use the verb structure some more. My students seemed to enjoy the movement today. I think it was needed.
Then after we TPR'd it for 25-30 or so minutes, I went over the PowerPoint that I had made with the song on it and some pictures that went along with it. I taught them the gestures for the first line and for the "graves here" and "graves there." I spoke through it with them first and had them do the gestures with me. Then I sang it and had them follow with gestures. Finally, they stood and "sang" (or pretended) while gesturing with me. And it took up pretty much all of class. It was a different activity for the songs. We usually do a cloze activity. But I wanted them to interact more with the song today. :-)
If you had extra time before singing you could also do a competition with a partner where they race to do the action first. You could do the incorrect action. You could say 2 actions and they would have to do those in order. There are many things you could do as well.
Here's a version of the song that I basically used to sing today (and I changed a few of the things the skeletons do).
If you want to try it, let me know your email address and I can email you the PowerPoint and/or the lyrics I used.
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Día 39 - Song day
I think I've mentioned this before. Once a teacher said that you should do one thing every day that you as the teacher enjoy. If the students hate it, no big deal. We need to show our passion to the students and see what they do with it!
I've often tried to incorporate music into my classroom but I wanted it to be purposeful to the students and to have to do with a certain grammatical structure we're going over. That would be swell. But my memory of songs in Spanish is not that great and therefore I wouldn't add as many songs only because they didn't have the grammar or vocabulary that I wanted to practice.
What?! Craziness... right? But this year, I decided to introduce some children's songs that I found on youtube and then it evolved into showing different kinds of musical styles as well from the Spanish speaking world. I like to incorporate pop culture into classes. A lot of Latin Artists are crossing over anyway these days like Shakira, Enrique Iglesias, Daddy Yankee, etc. So it's not a bad thing for me to want to incorporate music into classes.
I've been getting lucky lately because it might appear to the students that we aren't learning anything on music days. What I've been doing each music day is to show them a piece of music and then to have them listen to it two times. A lot of times, a video accompanies it on Youtube. They have to fill in the blanks of words that they should be able to recognize but also maybe that they can pick out thanks to a wordbank at the bottom of the sheet.
The next pass involves us talking about the meaning of the song line by line and I might have them circle or underline certain idiomatic expressions that would be fun to use in class as well as good words. At the end, their reward is to listen to the song again and we can sing along as well. I usually encourage them to at least sing the chorus with me. They don't always. But they're listening to the language and they have the words in front of them to follow along.
Curiously, it might seem boring, but most students really enjoy it. They're being exposed to new music that they can go home and download onto their computer (and some have!) and they are also learning some new words in Spanish. I don't think that it matters if there is a song with somewhat complicated grammar. If I don't make a big deal out of it, they won't either. But they're being exposed to the language and they might learn a word in the song because it's in the song, which they happen to like.
Ultimately, I've realized that my goal is to establish connections between the students and Spanish speaking culture. I can do all that I can to teach them Spanish. But if they are not passionate about learning about Spanish outside of class, then all they will get is inside the classroom. So this one day a week is so important to teach them about the culture and they have been responding positively to it. I've gotten lucky in that the last few weeks they've really liked the songs despite picky musical tastes at the school I teach... [cough: "country music"]
See today's song of the day: click here.
I've often tried to incorporate music into my classroom but I wanted it to be purposeful to the students and to have to do with a certain grammatical structure we're going over. That would be swell. But my memory of songs in Spanish is not that great and therefore I wouldn't add as many songs only because they didn't have the grammar or vocabulary that I wanted to practice.
What?! Craziness... right? But this year, I decided to introduce some children's songs that I found on youtube and then it evolved into showing different kinds of musical styles as well from the Spanish speaking world. I like to incorporate pop culture into classes. A lot of Latin Artists are crossing over anyway these days like Shakira, Enrique Iglesias, Daddy Yankee, etc. So it's not a bad thing for me to want to incorporate music into classes.
I've been getting lucky lately because it might appear to the students that we aren't learning anything on music days. What I've been doing each music day is to show them a piece of music and then to have them listen to it two times. A lot of times, a video accompanies it on Youtube. They have to fill in the blanks of words that they should be able to recognize but also maybe that they can pick out thanks to a wordbank at the bottom of the sheet.
The next pass involves us talking about the meaning of the song line by line and I might have them circle or underline certain idiomatic expressions that would be fun to use in class as well as good words. At the end, their reward is to listen to the song again and we can sing along as well. I usually encourage them to at least sing the chorus with me. They don't always. But they're listening to the language and they have the words in front of them to follow along.
Curiously, it might seem boring, but most students really enjoy it. They're being exposed to new music that they can go home and download onto their computer (and some have!) and they are also learning some new words in Spanish. I don't think that it matters if there is a song with somewhat complicated grammar. If I don't make a big deal out of it, they won't either. But they're being exposed to the language and they might learn a word in the song because it's in the song, which they happen to like.
Ultimately, I've realized that my goal is to establish connections between the students and Spanish speaking culture. I can do all that I can to teach them Spanish. But if they are not passionate about learning about Spanish outside of class, then all they will get is inside the classroom. So this one day a week is so important to teach them about the culture and they have been responding positively to it. I've gotten lucky in that the last few weeks they've really liked the songs despite picky musical tastes at the school I teach... [cough: "country music"]
See today's song of the day: click here.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)