March & April Spanish Blog

This year is flying by and I am continually impressed with the students’ comprehension, reading, and writing skills.

Cultural activities are an important part of learning another language. Students from Lower Elementary through Middle School enjoy playing games to help them absorb the language.

Lower Elementary practices listening comprehension. As I tell a new story to the class, the students draw it.

After we make sure that everyone understands the story, the students retell the story to a classmate.

Lower Elementary students are integrating Spanish into the classroom curriculum through various activities. The students have been writing their own stories. This one is about a boy who lives in Egypt:

They colored and labeled flowers and parts of the plants.

Student had a chance to talk about their favorite animals, and afterwards they wrote some facts about that animal.

The students performed a play about the animals.

They worked with a story about animals that live in the jungle. The students read the story that was written on the board and then either drew the story or rewrote it in English.

Middle Elementary students are practicing reinforcing.  To reinforce the list of words that they are working on, I write these words on the board and the students write a story using these words and adding more words.

One of the activities that Middle Elementary students enjoy is looking up Spanish words in the dictionary. They use these words in their stories.

 

Middle Elementary students wrote their own musical.

Middle Elementary students are writing a play about a group of friends on an adventure.

Every week, students from Upper Elementary choose what Spanish assignment they would like to do. It is a great joy to see students present what they have worked on. They love that they already know what they are going to work on the next week. I call this “Entusiasmo!” 

The students read a book and answer questions about it. 

They wrote about the importance of learning Spanish.

They write stories.

Upper Elementary students write Spanish songs and translate some English songs into Spanish (Ex: "Hello" and "Let it Go").  They really like the part when they sing it. 

The students performed a play...

...And do puppetry.

A TPRS program is not complete without a very heavy emphasis on reading. Upper Elementary students translate passages aloud into English to demonstrate comprehension.

Middle School students practice grammatical accuracy.  Before they start a chapter from the novel that they are reading, or before they write a story, we will ask questions and reword their responses. We usually write verb agreements as the story is being written. Students simultaneously write in their notebooks as we draw attention to features of the language that are important for writing accuracy. 

I change the guide words on the board to help students retell the story from a different perspective or tense, explaining the meaning before and after the changes.  Some explanations are done in Spanish and others in English.  Another way to change the guide words is to read sentences from the novel in the present and past tense.

Middle School students did research about specific foods that a country produces and presented it to their group. All the presentations were presented with Powerpoint. The students took a survey around the school asking other students or staff what kind of food they eat. They found out that 90% of the people they interviewed eat food that has corn in it. The students used visuals to help everyone understand.  They brought in some food from the country they chose. Their presentations were done in Spanish. Buen trabajo!!