A song for your hip-hop fans

David Bisbal collaborated with reggaetón stars Wisin & Yandel on a unity-themed song called Torre de Babel. You can see the official music video here. Also, with reggaetón you never know, but I read through the lyrics and didn't see anything offensive, but you might want to take a look because while I'm familiar with most of the common expletives, I'm certainly no expert. I was aggravated at the video because I thought I'd be able to show it in class, but then towards the end there's a group of scantily-clad women dancing provocatively, and that's just not gonna happen in my class. Oh well, just thought I'd throw it out there for you anyway!

Developing world citizens

With all the amazing things popping up on the internet, there's no excuse not to help our students become educated world citizens by keeping them pondering important events in the Spanish-speaking world. E.g. last year's rescue of Betancourt and the other hostages was a monumental shift in the situation between FARC and Uribe and dominated an entire project in my Spanish 3 class.

So, today of course we have emerging details on the first coup in Latin America in 16 years. Such a difficult event to evaluate. Which is more important, Zelaya's democratically-elected standing, or his dismal track record/popularity with the people?

Here's a fabulous tool to keep up with what's happening, including real-time info from people on the streets of Tegucigalpa. Tweet the twub #honduras, and if you don't know what that means, just follow this link and welcome to the madness of twubs. Happy exploring!

Honduras twub: http://twubs.com/honduras

Follow me on Twitter

Okay, I succumbed and now you can follow me on Twitter if you care, @wandermami.

Usually, I tweet about relevant Latin American news, bilingual babies, biblical truth, curriculum development, hiking and backpacking. And of course the random events of my life that no one really cares about except my husband, lol.

Aquí Estoy Yo: video oficial

The fabulous group of guys I wrote about two posts down has their official music video out:

Aquí Estoy Yo on universalmusicgroup's YouTube channel

Add to that Universal's "behind the scenes" video including interviews and you've got a solid class's worth of material. All the guys are from different countries and their accents show it (and Fonsi even talks about it). Fonsi's Spanish is way rapid at times but there's something in there for everyone. Any Spanish 1 student should pick up on Syntek's "somos todos amigos" and Spanish 2 students can find a lot in the imperfect/preterite (also other levels--who doesn't need practice with that?).

A new group on my radar

Yesterday I was watching the Today Show (while feeding Zoe, our morning ritual) and caught a segment on a group I never heard of but who apparently won a grammy. They're called Ozomatli and they sing a lot in English, some in Spanglish, and some in Spanish. I found this song on YouTube:
La Gallina
The fact that Universal labels it "clean version" gives me some pause, but I read the lyrics and watched the video and didn't see any reason for concern. I don't really understand it--is la gallina his girlfriend and someone's taken her and he wants her back? So I'm probably missing something--see what you think and let me know.

Two months later, back to the blogosphere (with a companion)

Wow, what a hiatus! I definitely didn't intend to be absent that long. But I have a good reason. Two weeks before the end of school--what timing, Zoe!

The last month of my pregnancy it was crazy hard just to get up and go to school in the morning--and I was in assignment overdrive, trying to get all my students' necessary work assigned and done early, just in case. And the just in case came in handy. The day after I gave most of my final exams, Friday May 9, I had a migraine so bad my midwife told me to come in for evaluation re: preecclampsia. Behold, 5 cm dilated and didn't even know I was in labor. They didn't let me leave. Slept there that night and had Zoe at 12:35 the next day. She's muy preciosa! But that left me with a newborn to care for, all those assignments to grade, and a substitute to supply with ideas & plans. Ugh. I don't remember working so hard since the week my master's thesis was due

But, now it's officially summer and la pequeñita and I are hanging out at home trying to snatch sleep whenever we can. The one parent/one language thing we're doing is both easier and harder than I thought it would be (how on earth do you say burp cloth? and what about when daddy doesn't understand anything?)--maybe I'll blog more about that later.

In any case, I'm back.

I intend to use the blog this summer kind of selfishly, to help myself keep track of what I'm working on for next year. Since it is summer I don't anticipate a lot of need for the blog or much traffic but hey, it'll be there for the next go round.

First tasks on the list:
1 begin reading & charting vocabulary & writing quizzes for Ciudad de las bestias por Isabel Allende for AP next year, and
2 investigate how the AP test has changed and how my 2-year-old syllabus needs to change, since I can't leave the baby to go to an AP workshop this summer. Any ideas/tips on how the AP is different or what the best new tools are--please offer them!

A most fantastic performance at Premio Lo Nuestro

As I wrote in this post, No Me Doy por Vencido by Luis Fonsi is a recent favorite of mine, and Fonsi himself is quickly climbing my list of faves, particularly because of how much he loves his wife and is devoted to her, and refuses to fall into the seductive/hunter/lust-after-these-other-bellezas trap often laid for him by reporters and shows.

So, when I found out that in last month's Premio Lo Nuestro awards, he performed the song, and then sang his new song Aquí Estoy Yo with Aleks Syntek, David Bisbal, and Noel Schajris, I had to find the videoclip. And it's definitely worth watching.

The heroes speak Español

Team USA continued its amazing run on the road to the 2010 World Cup by defeating Trinidad & Tobago last week in Nashville (one of my students went--I'm so jealous!). Of course, Univisión carried the highlights, including brief clips of 3 of the team's stars, including Landon Donovan, speaking Spanish.

Whatever it takes to convince my kids that el bilingüismo is not only possible, it's muy chévere.

A brilliant pair of songs contrasting por/para

In Spanish 3 these days we're looking at the por/para contrasts and for this I like to use two songs that nicely illustrate this unique difference.

The first is Solo por ti by Josh Groban. Yes, some students won't like it because he is a classical singer, but it's a beautiful song. Incidentally, also an excellent illustration of conditional tense, both normal and irregular. It's only available on sappy photo shows on YouTube, but you can listen to it for free at imeem.

The second song is Solo para ti by Camila. What could be better than two songs, exact same title except for the por/para switch? Perfect! Careful with the video, though--there are serious issues w/it (brief thong shot, sadomasochism, & sex scene). Play the song, skip the video. :)

Useless grammar I used to teach

There are a couple of grammar issues I used to teach and I've since decided such explicit instruction on these points is a waste of time. By this, I mean that given the time we have with our students, and what they're really capable of using in fluent speech/writing, explaining the grammatical terms and issues to them isn't going to help their fluency.

One is the personal a. In my experience, you can tell a student all you want that you have to put an a before an object that is a person, but the student will still say veo mi mamá unless they have an overactive monitor, à la Krashen.

The other one is on my radar right now because I'm supposed to be teaching it now, following the sequence in the textbook I loosely use as a guideline, EMC's En sus marcas. It's indirect object pronouns. Or direct ones, for that matter. Again, from my experience, I can tell my students what the difference is (because many of them can't define those in English), which ones are which in Spanish, when they go in front, when they go on the end, when they can go either place, which verbs take one or the other, and they'll still look at something like te veo and read it "you see." There's just too much English background to overcome. So, I opt to include both types of pronouns in all sorts of situations in their vocabulary phrases, so that hopefully their brain will figure out what's going on with all this me/te/etc stuff as they review their vocabulary. Also, when we look at songs, I'm constantly pointing out pronoun/verb sequences and asking what they mean. Yes, I'm asking for an English translation, which isn't what I like, but it's a quick way for me to find out if they know what's going on. And, in increasing numbers, they really do.

If they know that nos ama means he loves us, what do I care if they can define a direct object pronoun? I'll leave that up to their English teacher.