Fun activity #3: ¡Arriésgate!

Fun activity #3 is Jeopardy (¡Arriésgate!) courtesy of the great web 2.0 tool Jeopardy Labs (free and no account required!).

photo by Justin Levy

I've known about this tool for a long time but never just sat down and used it. It's easy to make and easy to use (except there's not really a function for no one to get the answer right--it keeps the question on the board until you give someone points for it).

I recommend that you stay away from categories like "conjugations" and "fill in the definite article." You can easily make it fun and more communicative by looking at your vocabulary and asking yourself, "What actual questions can I ask with these?" So you could have 'ropa' (clothing) 'comida' (food) 'opuestos' (opposites) 'en la casa' (at home) and then make all your "answers" target-language clues. So for 'closet' put 'where you put your clothes in your room' - avoid students getting confused by making all the "questions" start with the same letter.

Try mine (in Spanish, of course). My students are advanced so you can see some of it would be way over level 1.

And remember - answer in the form of a question. :)

#Charlando para aprender

¡Hola!

Soy profesora de español en el estado de Kentucky en los Estados Unidos. Unos cuantos otros profesores y yo hemos decidido pedirles a nuestros estudiantes que se involucren en Twitter - twitteando en español, con otros hispanohablantes, para que aprendan comunicarse mejor en la comunicación interpersonal.

¿Es usted un hispanohablante que quiera twittear con nosotros y nuestros estudiantes para ayudarles y formar cyber-amistades? Conéctese ahora a Twitter y siga nuestra conversación usando el hashtag #charlando. Cuando quiera entrar en la conversación, añada #charlando a cada tweet- y ¡bienvenido!

Interactive comic creator using Maya & Miguel

The Pbs Kids website's Maya & Miguel section not only has a nice selection of Spanish fun, but one of the features is an interactive comic creator, in which you select the background and then choose which words you want to use and which pictures match the words.  Wait-- it's in Spanish, you choose the words, and then you choose the pictures that match the words? Does that sound like some seriously fun vocab acquisition and practice or what?  I don't care if your students are nine years old or in ninth grade, you've got to try this out.

My corporate Spanish links, all in one place

I just tagged on my Delicious all the Spanish-language corporate websites that I've mentioned on my blog.  It makes it a lot more convenient to find the sites that my students have found interesting.  You can find it here:

http://delicious.com/wandermami/Corporate_Spanish_sites

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, 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!

Build your perfect tenis (en español)

Here's another website idea--use nikecorre.com's shoe-builder to build the shoe that's right for you. I mean, for your students.

http://nikerunning.nike.com/nikeos/p/nikeplus/es_LA/footwear_finder

I just made my first Yodio

I love professional conferences, particularly KWLA! What could be better than a bunch of awesome teachers getting together and sharing their best practices? That's how I found out about Yodio. My students in Spanish 3 today wandered the school taking pictures of teachers and staff "commanding" people to do things. They've written the commands and tomorrow we'll add the audio. I'd share it but I think I should keep photos of my students off this blog. But meanwhile I made my own, just with two pictures. Grab your kids, a camera, and a cell phone, and tell your own digital story!

CNN launches Latino in America

Follow them on twitter-- @LIACNN

Bob Esponja on Mundonick

I'm not sure why, but in my students' flurry of Spanish-language corporate sites they used for this project, we didn't run across Nickelodeon's Mundonick.com, probably because I was looking on Nickelodeon's US page and not finding a language change, so I figured they oddly didn't have one. But then recently I googled 'nickelodeon español' and what a cool site! Games! Fun! It surprised me how much my teenagers knew, all the characters' names and such, and instead of thinking it was a goofy kid thing, they really enjoyed the throwback and clamored to be the one to choose where we should go. Enjoy some Bob Esponja or Los Pingüinos de Madagascar.

I am in technology heaven

Kids motivated by technology?
Want to get them creating AND listening to their own Spanish?
This could be the most revolutionary tool I have seen for my classroom in a long time.

I made this video in about twenty minutes.

Raimundo, the bilingual Latin American snail

Ever heard of Sorpresa TV?

It's kid shows, only in Spanish!

Among the many shows is The Wumblers, featuring Raimundo, a bilingual Latino snail. You can watch episodes online. Really, you've gotta check it out. Talk about fodder for early Spanish learners!!

Also check out the site's section of bilingual games.

More interactive websites, courtesy of my students

I'm all about sharing free activities we've found on the internet as opposed to paying a ton of money for not-very-useful curriculum supplements. The internet worksheet project my Spanish 2 students are currently working on has taken them in some really fun directions. They've come up with stuff I don't know I ever would have thought of. I just had to take some time in class this week to play around with them.

New favorites this week:
Hotwheels Mexico -- fun games
Crayola Mexico -- it's better than their US site
Build-a-Bear US/Español -- the games are in English but it's fun to look around at the animals. And the ecards are in Spanish.

Try them out with your class and see what happens. You might think such sites are too kiddie for high schoolers, but I can't reiterate enough how much context children's material gives them, and how their success in understanding and fun with playing with things will motivate them to like it.

Interactive websites: practicing house/location/color vocab

If you have a way to project a webpage somewhere in your room, you've got to check out es.barbie.com. We did this in Spanish 1 today to practice house vocabulary, but you could use it for so many things. We also did the makeover part of it to practice colors. It's amazing how much they can pick up off a website just from context because they spend so much time online! Also, I have to tell you that my freshman boys were almost more involved in this than the girls. For whatever reason--because it was girls or whatever--they were calling out how her hair should be, what color eye shadow, etc. It was a lot of fun.

Remember, if we frustrate them, they'll give up, and that's the blunt truth of it.

A project based on motivation

Here in Kentucky we're still digging out from last week's ice storm. Yesterday I was able to get online for the first time in a week, so today, it's back to blogging!

If you've taught from a textbook for very long, you've found that they're just not motivating to students who aren't already self-motivated, and motivation is absolutely the key to success. Anyone without a brain defect that inhibits language can acquire another language if motivated enough. I'm convinced that our biggest task is finding ways for our students to interact with the language in ways that are 1) meaningful to them and 2) meaningful in light of the world around them, because that's motivating.

A project I came across seems to be especially good for this, because they get to pick the topic of their interaction, in the highly visual and auditory format of the internet (and isn't this generation visual!). I talked about my Spanish 2 students completing last years' best internet worksheets in this post. You can read the entire project description and requirements in this document.

It amazes me the sites they come up with for this--usually something they're really in to that I wouldn't even think of. Some of the best ones I've seen are Coke Costa Rica and McDonald's Mexico. I also had students do Nestle's cooking site and Louis Vuitton handbags. Disney and Nike are always favorites. There are a million choices out there, anything from the Dominican Republic's official baseball league to Warner Bros to Pantene, the White House, the art museum El Prado (careful with that one, some of the art is, well, nude), and Nintendo Wii. The limit is only their imagination!

Internet scavenger hunts

I'm constantly looking for communicative, interesting tasks for my students to either create or complete. My Spanish 2 project for the 3rd quarter is an internet scavenger-hunt-type worksheet. Students choose a Spanish-language website and then create a series of questions for another student to complete. The questions can involve playing a game, listening to music, creating a virtual car, etc. Since I haven't been able to find much in the way of free communicative worksheets on the internet, I definitely wanted to share the best. Here are some of the very best I got last year:



BMW Mexico by Stephanie

Atari by Louise

Disney Latino by Rebecca

Honda Mexico by Clint

Super Smash Bros by Christian



I believe I cleaned up all of them except the Atari one, because I didn't use that one for my Spanish 2 students this year. You may have to tweak that one a bit. The others I did quickly check last week (because my sub is actually using them today) and updated a few of the items since the websites had changed. They had changed surprisingly little, so they should be usable for quite some time with little revision. Feel free!