Spanish 1001: Midterm Review

I know everyone’s getting nervous about the midterm and all the new material they need has been both presented and reviewed to some extent, so I wanted to mainly focus on their questions today. While I have some idea on where they could use some help, I want to give them the opportunity to give me feedback on where they believe they need help. I gave them back their quizzes (on which they generally did quite well) and asked if they had any questions about those, then wrote up a quick “study guide” and asked what they wanted to review from it. In case they didn’t have questions (always a danger), I also had some review activities planned, such as Pedro Pistolas to practice vocab and verb conjugation competitions – games they are already familiar with so they didn’t take a lot of time on setup.

Results on September 29, 2010: Thankfully, both classes had a lot of good questions and we were able to review just about everything I think they need to know for the midterm. I feel as though they left class satisfied and confident today or, at the very least, more confident than when they came in. I feel as though I used a bit too much English today, though – I’ll have to be more careful about that.

Spanish 1001: More on possessives, adjectives and the verb Deber

Specific objectives: Students should

Work together to organize sentences with possessives and adjectives

Understand and use correctly the verb Deber in both verbal and written form

Since we’re gearing up for the midterm at this point in the semester, there’s not a whole lot of new material right here. Thus, we can really focus on some fundamental concepts and engrain well the new material. The idea that “should” functions as a verb can be a tough one for native English speakers, so I really wanted to dedicate a good portion of today’s lesson to it.

Results on September 28, 2010: Interestingly, the first class, which went somewhat poorly yesterday, was far more “on the ball” today. They knew their possessives and were able to use them well and had obviously studied up on their adjectives. Working in their teams, I had them come up with lists of things that they should and should not do in given situations, then gave teams points for having unique answers, allowing the students to work communicatively and talk about things that interested them. They had some fun with this one, stating such things as “We should not dance in our Spanish class.” I feel like today got everyone on the same page and that the day was effective.

Spanish 1001: –er and –ir verbs and possessives

Specific Objectives: Students should. . .

Learn some basic verbs

Correctly conjugate basic -er and -ir verbs

Recognize and begin to use possessive pronouns verbally.

After introducing some new verbs and their conjugation patterns (using pictures on a powerpoint rather than simply putting the English word with the Spanish word), I gave them a bit of culture in the form of a poem, Borges y yo but with many of the verbs unconjugated. My main objective in doing this, beyond giving them some cultural flavor, was to give the students confidence by showing them tgat they now had the basic tools needed to conjugate A LOT of verbs, even if they were unfamiliar with the verb itself.

I then used a photo album from my time in Guatemala to demonstrate some possessive pronouns and planned to have the students talk about some objects they were carrying in pairs or small groups.

Results September 27, 2010: Things didn’t quite work out as hoped in my first class – the students got a bit frustrated with the poem (while it uses comparatively simple vocabulary, they got caught up in the existentialism) and ended up taking longer than hoped with it. As a result, I didn’t quite get to all that I had planned. Since the students were already a bit frustrated, my brief presentation on possessives using my photo album from my time in Guatemala kinda fell flat. I reorganized things for the second class, placing the students in pairs to work out the poem together and worked a little more on the presentation of the poem itself, so the second class went a bit more smoothly.

Spanish 1001: Chapter 2 review

Specific objectives: Students should . . .

Identify family-related terms and expressions

Express (both verbally and orthographically) age with numbers up to 100

Demonstrate some fundamental cultural knowledge

Prepare for Quiz

Results on September 22, 2010: I feel that today went exceptionally well. I set up a jeopardy-based powerpoint to review the major concepts, including a column for culture (some reading for which was assigned as homework). I had the teams working together but, instead of a race to state the answer first, I had each time write the correct answer to the question. This gave an opportunity for all of the students to participate (as they discussed the answers among themselves) and allowed everyone an opportunity to succeed. Thus, I think the class was both useful/informative and enjoyable, as well as a good confidence booster for the quiz.

Spanish 1001 Chapter 2 day 2: Family in practice

Specific objectives: Students should

Understand basic information about family members

Be able to express information about their own family members

Today, to make sure they could work with family terms in a written context, I gave them a family-based logic puzzle in which they had to fill in a blank family tree based on clues. Having organized the students into teams, the new teams set to work to be the first group finished. After each team finished, I assigned the students to each write a brief description of their family, using the new nationality vocabulary and other adjectives.

Results on September 21, 2010: While some of the students were mildly frustrated by the end of the logic puzzle (I recognize it’s not everyone’s cup of tea but every student has a different learning style), even that frustration may help them to lock in the vocab. Their comprehension was good as were their writing samples. In general, I think it went fairly well, in spite of a small mistake I made in my directions for the logic puzzle (I took 5 points off from myself, turning the situation into one of humor rather than frustration).

Spanish 1001: Beginning Chapter 2

Specific objectives: Students should. . .

Understand basic family vocabulary

Ask and express ages verbally

Use numbers up to one hundred in those expressions of age.

I decided that the best way to talk about the family was to use examples from my own. I prepared a series of photos (pulled from Facebook) with various members of my family. I planned things so that, where possible, I could introduce one or two family members then use another picture with them and some other family members, showing a natural progression of building outward. (i + 1 model) For example, I first showed a picture of me with my wife, then one with the two of us together with my brother, his wife and their son, then one with all of them plus my parents.

Results on September 20, 2010: I feel as though today’s class went fairly well. I got every student to speak briefly about a member of their family, including telling their age and having them ask another student a similar question. While that particular activity might have taken a bit too long (maybe I should divide the class in halves next time), I think it really helped to engrain these new terms and concepts for them.