A case for free-topic blogging

I despise traditional homework. I think in language acquisition, it doesn't help. If you want kids to learn to drill conjugations, give them worksheets, but otherwise, keep ALL your assignments and assessment communicative. For me, this means that most of what I could ask them to do at home, they'll get frustrated doing on their own. I'd much rather they collaborate in class. Language is a social tool, not a solitary home exercise. So, if you're going to assign homework, make it social. For me, this means the only exercises my students do outside of class are reading, some sort of developing fluency activity (more on this later), and blogging. Here are some tips for starting a blog in your class.

* Make the blog private. I know some of my Twitter friends like to tweet what their students are blogging, but I think that is walking on very thin ice in any class with minors. I'd love to link my students' blogs here, and tweet about what they write, but I choose the high road rather than risk it. I set my student blogs on the most private setting Google allows. You can't find it on a search engine and you can't find it unless you know the address, which is pretty well coded for me and my students. Then when you get there, it asks for a username and password to sign in.

* Get permission forms. Even if you've set it extra private, still get a permission formed signed by parents. Give them an option to be added as a reader of the blog. Most parents tell me just to go ahead with it without them (most can't read Spanish anyway), but several do ask to be a reader and I add them. Only once have I had a parent refuse permission altogether, on the grounds that you can't be too careful on the internet, and that student turned in his blog on paper all year.

* Let them write about WHATEVER THEY WANT. Research shows that we acquire vocabulary that is meaningful and useful to us. You know this. I'm a teacher, reader, techie, Christian, blogger, new mom, hiker, and that's where my vocabulary is. Get me in a conversation about building houses (either in English or Spanish) and my language breaks down. I had a student who will always remember the word for 'deer' and 'hunt' because that's what he always blogged about. He's a hunter. It's important to him. I can't stress this enough-let them write what they want!

* Define what the rules are.
--I set a reasonable word count (answering questions in Spanish 1 first semester, 25 words in Spanish 1 spring- Spanish 2 fall, 35 words Spanish 2 spring-Spanish 3 fall, 50 words Spanish 3 spring-AP Spanish).
--NO English. My students know that if there's a word in English that's not a proper noun, they cannot get an A.
--Grammar does count some. Above Spanish 1, a subject with an infinitive cannot get an A either. They have to show me they know something has to happen to the verb, even if it's the wrong thing.
--Translation websites are an automatic zero. You can tell if they've used one. I can often even find the one they used to prove to the parents they used it. wordreference.com is linked on the blog and it's the only site they can use.

* Skim to grade. Set a scale that makes it easy for you to grade them quickly or you'll give up on them. Look for outstanding = perfect grade. No English, met word count, no infinitives with subjects = A. Translation = 0. And so on.

* Accept them handwritten for students who just won't blog. You can't force technology. Also, sometimes students' power goes out or their computer dies. It's an alternative.

* Set a time when they're due and rules for accepting late. Mine are due by 8 am Friday morning (yes I'm aware they can change the time-stamp but I tell them that's lying and leave it at that). Handwritten ones have to be signed by the secretary because I don't get to school until 10:45 (I'm part-time). The grade is 25% off at one day late and 50% off at 2-5 days late. At 5 days late the student has to complete the blog in a forced after-school study hall. All of that is part of our school-wide policy.

* Encourage creativity. Reward/compliment students who post video, songs, pictures, links, etc. I once had a student write FIVE HUNDRED WORDS about Dropbox and give me links to tutorials and the download. I gave him a pass from the next two blogs.

* MOST IMPORTANT: Resist the temptation to accept English or to suggest the topic. It's not the purpose of a blog. Let them make the post their own. PLEASE. They're going to acquire the vocabulary that's meaningful to them whether you like it or not. This gives them a way to do it without fighting you.

Give your students the chance to express themselves and you'll be amazed at the progress in their communicative competence, at least in writing!

It's 19 de noviembre!

19 De Noviembre - Carlos Vives

Take advantage of today's date to play Carlos Vives' song 19 de noviembre. Here are some ways to use it:

Listening:
-See if they can hear the date at the beginning without seeing it (Spanish 1).

Culture:
-Tell students to look under "Historia" in this article to see why 19 de noviembre is an important day in Puerto Rico.
-Offer a bonus to someone who can find out why a Colombian singer wrote a song about Puerto Rico. (Interesting that now he and the 2nd wife he wrote the song for are separated.)

Vocabulary:
-patriotic words (evident even for low learners)

Grammar:
-preterite tú forms (almost as good as Qué Hiciste)
-good example of passive se in "se oyen" (hard to find in songs)
-yo/tú future switch
-pronouns, esp. yo reflexives and a rare double-object on double verb phrase in 'te lo quiero agradecer'

Enjoy--it's a good song!

Camila's new single: "Mientes" (release date 11/24!)

My students are insanely excited about the release of Camila's sophomore album. Several of them can sing "Solo para ti" or "Coleccionista de canciones" or "Abrázame" from memory. The first single from the album, "Mientes," will be released next week on the 24th. Meanwhile, you can hear the whole amazing song on their YouTube channel here. It sounds great, and looks like it will be good for yo-form preterites from er/ir verbs and for all present tú forms. Enjoy!

A case for pleasure reading

Stephen Krashen has done a ton of research on what he calls Free Voluntary Reading. Catch up on his research by checking it out on his website. Basically, the premise is that kids learn more (and language learners acquire more vocabulary) when reading at an appropriate leve and something that is pleasurable to them. I was so won over by the research in this area that last year I decided my students were going to read a fiction book outside of class. Mi criteria were that the book had to be related to Latin culture in some way, preferably by a Latino/a author. As a result, my students read Cajas de cartón in the fall of Spanish 3, Esperanza renace in the spring of Spanish 3, and Ciudad de las bestias in AP Spanish. Watching my AP Spanish students read now, after reading the two books last year, I can see how much their reading comprehension has jumped. Also, they could tell you countless stories of how certain vocabulary are imprinted in their memories because of reoccurrences in context in the books, which they like.

Last year I had them read the chapter and then take an open-book quiz in class the day the chapter was due. There were some problems with that, especially that it was very time-consuming and I value my in-class time too much. So this year, they are doing reading guides instead, and this has worked wonderfully. As a taste, here is the list of Palabras Claves and here is the Reading Guide for Chapter 10 of Ciudad. I'm a firm believer in not reinventing the wheel, so if you want any or all of the reading guides (and vocab lists) message me on twitter at wandermami and I'll upload them all to my Google Docs.

Get kids reading level-appropriate fun stories--it works!

Noviembre - a popular month for songs

November seems to be kind of a popular topic for songs. Celebrate this oddity by playing a couple of songs, starting with Noviembre sin ti by Reik, winners of this year's Latin Grammy for best albúm pop vocal grupo o duo. The things I like to point out in this song are:
--weather/environment vocabulary
--nosotros forms
--understanding 'hojas' by context if they know 'caen' (and it's November, sooo...)
--'otra vez'
--'aquel' for distance in time and not just space
-- who/what is the subject of 'me dice' in the chorus?
Here's another version at a concert. Both of those videos do not have copyright problems; show away!

The other song is packed with cultural connections: 19 de noviembre by Carlos Vives.

What I do with this song:
--Play it and see if they can catch the date at the beginning (in Spanish 1)
--Offer some sort of reward for who can figure out what 19 de noviembre is in Puerto Rico and why Carlos Vives is singing about it when he's Colombian.
--Look for patriotic vocabulary.

¡Disfruta de noviembre!

Zachary Jones's "Clozeline"

Don't re-invent the wheel-often there are magically appealing and effective activities out there on the web if you just know where to look. I just got a link over Twitter to Zachary Jones's post about his activity called "Clozeline." He's got cloze quizzes to a whole bunch of songs, with grammatical topics. Enjoy!

Two songs + resources for Ojalá + subjunctive

The word Ojalá is, in my estimation, the only 'verb' in Spanish that isn't conjugated. It finds its roots in Arabic, meaning "May allah grant that." In any case, in Spanish it's always followed by subjunctive, and here are two songs to help work with that.

The first is with present, Ojalá que llueva café, by Juan Luis Guerra. It's one of those songs that can lead you in a hundred different directions. It's a bit controversial from what I understand, and is a perspective on the life of the poor in the Dominican Republic.

I found some interesting blogging on the song. For example, read what José has to say about the song and its meaning. Then, use this cool site by Ms. Nelson to work with the song, complete with lyrics linked to pictures to aid in comprehension.
I just found out that the song was re-recorded by Café Tacvba, with some killer fiddling:


The other song unfortunately does not have much in the way of resources but is the best I've heard to work with Ojalá + past subjunctive or just past subjunctive by itself (Si volvieras a mí by Josh Groban is beautiful to me but not so appealing to most of my high-schoolers). It's Ojalá pudiera borrarte by Maná. The video used to be on YouTube but was removed, and now is only available in cheesy photo collages, especially since I can't get imeem to search anything at the moment.

Ojalá que you enjoy them.

A song just for @mamitati

This is a special post out to Tati, amazing bilingual mami blogger at WannaJugarWithMigo?

I caught this song just the other day and I LOVE it! It's a Christian song (I teach at a Christian school). Well, most of my high-schoolers were not as impressed as I was, but it'll be fun to teach to my Zoe anyway. :)

You can't buy this in a textbook

There are so many reasons to dislike conventional world language curriculum; my #1 is that the books are out of date before they go to press. So your students are reading about how there hasn't been a successful coup d'etat in Latin America since the end of the Cold War, and meanwhile Micheletti and the Supreme Court rocked the Honduran world with global repercussions, and some good ole' Costa Rican, Brazilian, and U.S. intervention later, signed a historic agreement to try to resolve the crisis. Our students should know this stuff as they become world citizens but they aren't going to get it from a textbook.

As some recent examples of how this has played out in my class, let me share some ways the vast free material on the internet has impacted my students' learning and awareness.

When you're teaching past participles, you've gotta go to news articles. They're rife with "it's closed" "he was shot" "they have said" "this has happened". So my students were surfing a muy actual article about the US authorities bringing down 300 members of the powerful Mexican drug cartel knows as "La familia." The article contains at least 5 uses of haber + past participle, 9 of ser/estar + past participle, and 12 past participles used purely as an adjective. So they were going through looking for those and we discussed what the article was about.
The next day one of my students said, "We heard about this on the radio this morning and I was like, "Mom, we already talked about that yesterday in Spanish class!" So my students were all informed on this big drug bust before it even came on their radio.

A few days later, a student came in and wanted to write on the board, "Ashley is eating oatmeal." But they've never had the word for oatmeal so she asked me what it was. I told her and she put it on the board. Not 10 minutes later, a tweet came through from @jesseyjoy, one of their favorite pop artists especially lately with the release of Adios, and it came up on my screen because I always have TweetDeck opened. Joy was tweeting that she had just eaten oatmeal as a healthy breakfast but would likely have pizza soon. My student *squealed* at the coincidence of Joy using the word 'avena' right after she had used it.

A couple of days after that, I read a few tweets by @Ricky_Martin, who frequently tweets in English, then Spanish, then Portuguese. He said that rhyming dictionaries suck, in Spanish they 'no sirven para nada', and in Portuguese used a rather, um, colorful word. So I tweeted that Ricky Martin was swearing in Portuguese and I was actually sad that I understood it. Next thing I know I get a direct message from Ricky Martin laughingly apologizing and sending love and peace to me and my family! WHOA! What do you think my students thought about that?

Seriously, like someone said on Twitter this week, if you don't like change, let's see how you like irrelevance.
You just can't buy this stuff in a textbook.

Cultural connections: Four songs to explore using Google Earth

I recently got permission to download Google Earth and it is addictive. For class, we've used it to look at the cropland around the towns in California where Francisco Jimenez grew up as a migrant child. We've used it to explore as much as possible the trip up the Orinoco by Alex and the crew from International Geographic. Recently it's occurred to me that it could be fun to use it as a cultural connector to explore songs as well. Here's a brief list I thought of.

1. What's the distance between Ciudad Nueva and San Pedro de Macorís? How many baseball fields can you see in a quick flyover of San Pedro? La llave de mi corazón, Juan Luis Guerra

2. Where/what size is Medellín relative to Bogotá? Lo que me gusta a mí, Juanes

3. Track the lover's search from Guaynabo to Aguadilla to El Cabo to Miami in No me hagas sufrir, Manny Manuel

4. Have a whirlwind tour of the planet tracking another lover's search in La Travesía, Juan Luis Guerra

Be careful, I promise it's addictive!