Text Set número dos: "Me gusta"

This text set features the grammatical topic of the verb "gustar" in Spanish. This verb is used to express like or dislike in the target language, and translates directly to English as "_____ is pleasing to me". For this text set, I chose a grammar topic instead of a thematic topic, because I see gustar come up again and again in both Spanish I and Spanish II. It takes a while for students to grow comfortable using this verb with an indirect object pronoun, because it is so different from how we express the same thing in English with "I like ____". I also chose this topic because there are so many text resources available that I love to use when teaching it.

Books


Casi Se Muere  (A TPRS novel)
by Lisa Ray Turner and Blaine Ray
Ages: 12 and up

This short and simple novel is written entirely in the present tense and provides a great context for teaching grammatical constructs like "gustar" as it appears in different chapters. I love that in chapter 4, when gustar is used a lot, I can then introduce and teach the forms of the verb more specifically as students see it in an authentic text and story.

¡No me gusta mi moño!
by Hans Wilhelm
Ages: any

This short children's book may seem a bit young for high schoolers, but they are easily entertained by the silly storyline of a dog who doesn't like to take a bath, and the reading level is perfect for novice learners. It is a great short piece of a lesson, providing them the grammar, once again, in the context of a story.



Websites

http://www.colby.edu/~bknelson/SLC/gustar1.php
By Barbara Kuczun Nelson
Ages: 12 and up

I really love that this website is like an online interactive worksheet. It asks students to fill in the blanks in sentences by typing in the correct form of the verb gustar. Interactivity is so important, and this is something that most students could do at home.


http://www.lingolex.com/swom/wom-gustar.htm
Ages: 12 and up

This website could be supplemental material for students to see how the verb gustar is used. It has some great examples that show translations from English to Spanish, and the layout of the site is kind of old school but simple.


http://www.spanishdict.com/conjugate/gustar
Ages: 12 and up

When students get into upper levels and learn to speak in different tenses, it is often useful to have a go-to tool online that will show them all the conjugated forms of a verb in every tense. This website provides that tool for students. It is organized in a way that is morphologically logical and is something that I often refer to if I can't grasp a complicated tense of a particular verb.


Other

http://zachary-jones.com/zambombazo/documents/tirate_a_escribir/tirate_a_escribir_conylu_musica_navidena.pdf
by Zachary Jones
Ages: 12 and up

This humorous document put together by Zachary Jones uses a funny comic ("tira") as inspiracion for students to then produce the language using gustar to talk about what Christmas songs they like or don't like. I love that this text is a comic strip, or somewhat of a meme that is interesting and funny to students. It is authentic and they can really relate to it, and it thus provides a great prompt for a bellringer in which they must write using gustar.


Tweets Using "Gustar"
Compiled by Zachary Jones
Ages: 12 and up

I love the layout of this worksheet for students that presents various Twitter tweets in Spanish using the verb gustar, and asks students to identify which things the tweeter likes or does not like. This worksheet encourages skills of interpretation and recognition and pushes students a bit out of their comfort zone by askign them to interpret a text genre that they are not as accustomed to. And it's FUN!


Reading and Writing Tweets with "Gustar"
Compiled by Zachary Jones
Ages: 12 and up

This handout is similar to the previous Zachary Jones twiccionario handout but it of course provides a totally new text since it uses different tweets. The task that is presented to students is also different because they must respond to tweets by producing a whole sentence and expressing their personal opinion. Another great starter!


El monstruo de la laguna (tira)
Compiled by Zachary Jones
Ages: 12 and up

This comic strip compiled by Zachary Jones is a funny and authentic way to introduce gustar to a Spanish II class, and then have them complete the pdf worksheet as practice. This comic comes from a different artist, could be the inspiration for a project in which students make their own comic using gustar.

Comic for Un-fans of Futbol

Ages: 12 and up

This comic strip is another funny and simple text that students could interpret and translate, as well as use to discuss the use of the verb gustar. It is a great thing to integrate in a unit on sports or likes/dislikes.

Do you like the Google Olympic Doodle? Handout
Compiled by Zachary Jones
Ages: 12 and up

This handout is the introduction for a writing activity that shows various Google Olympic doodles and asks students to write a simple paragraph about which ones they like and do not like, and why. This is an interesting prompt, especially around the time of the olympics (winter ones, or right after summer, I suppose), and gives the text of the graphics leading to a prompt in which students must produce written work using gustar which they would have already been introduced to. This would be a great ticket out the door.

Gustar Infograph
Ages: 12 and up


This infograph is not only an alternative way to present and read text, but it also is graphically organized in a way that is easy to read and contains the most important information about the topic. This text could be a tool that a teacher refers to as they are introducing gustar and its constructs, and could be something students keep in their notebook to refer to. It is entirely in the target language, so students would have to interpret it and comprehend it.









Music and Song

Me Gustas Tú
Song and Lyrics by Manu Chao
Ages: 15 and up

This song is catchy and rythmic, and could be used for some great cloze activities with the lyrics. Although the song misuses the verb gustar, it presents a great segway to discuss this with students, and talk about the cultural incorrect uses of grammar in various cultures and contexts. I would not use it with younger students because the song mentions marijuana.


Gustar Song
Lyrics by Sr. Mara
Ages: 12 and up

This song is a great learning tool for students being introduced to the verb gustar, because the song is a fun rap and it is interactive! Students must participate and sing along. They also must identify a few errors in the lyrics that appear on the screen. I have used this several times and Sr. Mara always creates helpful grammar song videos. Students remember the concepts better.


Me Gustas Tú
Lyrics and Music by Luis Fonsi
Ages: 12 and up

I promise this is not the same as the song above! :) This is a song by Luis Fonsi that is a bit more advanced, and could be used with a Spanish III or IV class to review the use of the verb gustar in the context of the entire song. I like the cloze activity for this song, because it emphasizes student's aural skills and input.

Reflection #10: BBR ch. 10

I thought the topic for this chapter was very interesting. Students clearly have almost unlimited access to technology outside of the classroom. However, at least for me, we don't spend a ton of time during class doing research on the internet. This topic made me think more about how I can provide those opportunities for my students to search the world wide web for information pertaining to our class without wasting too much time. (Because seriously, going to the computer lab is quite an ordeal with 34 students!). I thought the two strategies proposed in this chapter were fairly straight-forward. I suppose I like the SAND technique because it immediately asks students to assess the credibility of the source they are looking at, before getting too immersed in the content. If they site seems credible, it suggests they bookmark it to go back. This seems like a more efficient way to go about finding information, and I think it would be very applicable for subjects like history and sciences. For my class, I think they are generally going to find good information, and even authentic sources can sometimes be hard to tell if they are credible enough for a Bibliography. It's important for us to sometimes use the opportunity to teach students about the more formal processes involved in research.

Reflection #9: Long

I thought this brief article was very interesting. It actually gave me a bit more background knowledge and information regarding the implementation of Common Core, on the government side of things. It was interesting to see some of the priorities expressed in the article that surprised me. I was particularly intrigued that they would have the goal that all the assessments be technology-based. This just doesn't seem like a very high priority to me, and it seems like an expensive thing to implement in all schools, but I understand (as the article pointed out) that it has a lot to do with getting feedback and scores in a timely manner. The only thing that bothers me is that I don't like taking online assessments, and it is a whole new big kahuna for students of all ages and especially those who are not very good test-takers to begin with to learn to take their assessments in a new format online. I was also interested to learn that so many states had tried to resist the implementation of these CCSS. It's one thing to implement the standards, which I think seem pretty good, even though it's so hard to read them all, but another thing altogether to tell teachers their pay will now be tied to scores. My perspective of Common Core has been one that sees it a bit distantly, since it does not currently directly affect my content area of Spanish. However, we have talked as a department about implementing the CCSS in the ELA areas. To be honest, this stuff in common core is really intuitively already integrated into the ACTFL proficiency standards that we try to use in our language classes. Translating a text or reading a simple yet authentic text for comprehension in the target language includes having to cite evidence explicitly from the text. 

Web Resource Review Número Dos

2nd Web Resource Review:

Photo Vocab
Spanish Word of the Day
http://zachary-jones.com/photovocab/


I found this website through another site that is created by Spanish teacher extraordinaire, Zachary Jones. Apparently, Señor Jones has multiple websites containing an infinite amount of Spanish teacher tools! Yay!

Ok, so this site is very simple, but very cool. It basically has a daily post (like a blog) that includes an interesting photograph and a new Spanish vocab word to go along with that photo. I really like that it first introduces the word through the context of a short paragraph in Spanish, and THEN if you scroll down it explains what the word is (in English).

This is definitely something that would be appropriate for students in middle school or high school, although I would say that it might be a bit better for students in Spanish II or above if the teacher is going to expect them to struggle through the paragraph at all, simply because it's a whole paragraph of normal Spanish (normal as in not super elementary). This is definitely a site that could be used in school, which is awesome! The first thing I thought was that it would make a really cool daily starter. It could be a part of the routine that students come in to class, the teacher has this site pulled up, students answer a few questions about it quietly on a sheet of paper, or work on translating some sentences from the paragraph. It would also be a neat springboard into using that new vocabulary word in the context of the grammar that is being learned that week. This has clear connections to the content of Spanish, since the whole purpose is to introduce new words in this specific target language. It's also really neat to see how they incorporate culture into these words. For example, this weekend the Day of the Dead is being celebrated in Mexico, so one of the words this weekend was the specific name for a Mexican marigold, the flower that marks the weekends festivities and is used to decorate altars on this special occasion.

The site is not very interactive for students, although they can navigate to see past words, and can click on a little "play" button to hear the word pronounced correctly aloud. The site is not commercial at all. There are no distractions or advertisements. I love how simple the layout is! I think some other pros are that it is simple to read and navigate, that it is so useful and the purpose is so straightforward, and that it has really engaging and cool photos. I also like that it tells where the word comes from, because there is usually a particular cultural connection. I suppose the simplicity could also be a con. I almost wish there was more there! I also wish they gave a few synonyms or related tags or something, maybe that could take you to their other site that has a ton of stuff on it. No sign-up or login in required, and there is no adult supervision required because it was made for students of Spanish.

Great resource!

Reflection #8: Bromley

I was a bit nervous when I started reading this article, because many of the techniques and things that the author mentioned in the first column are things that I do with my class, such as writing definitions, using words in sentences, memorization, and vocabulary quizzes. The reality is that there is a lot of vocabulary that one must learn to be able to speak a language. Needless to say, I was eager to hear what the author had to say!

I thought it was interesting that the author addressed the dynamic and shifting nature of our language. It was neat to think of asking students to brainstorm words that may be added to the dictionary (tweet? google as a verb?). Number two in the list really stood out to me, because in my content area, teaching the essentials of English grammar and using it as a comparison to teach Spanish is a must, and helps strengthen students' skills in knowing English grammar as well as Spanish. I really liked the points that discussed oral proficiency and the importance of sometimes "speaking above" your students to a certain extent. I think this is really helpful and in a modern spoken language, it's something that I am trying to grow in in order to promote oral proficiency and help my students have to struggle a bit to understand. 

Text Set Numero Uno - Un viaje

Text Set Uno:

The topic for this first text set is travel. I chose this because it's a theme that I enjoy teaching, it appears often in multiple chapters of the textbook that we use, and I know that it provides a link to some very authentic types of texts that I hope my students will eventually use more and more. Perhaps, many of them will eventually travel to a Hispanic country someday!

Books:


Spanish Phrasebook for Dummies
Susana Wald (Author)
Ages: 12 and up


This book contains thousands of helpful phrases in Spanish, beginning with the most simple and essential phrases that native Spanish-speakers use every day. This is written as a guide for English-speakers traveling to Spanish-speaking destinations, and thus would be an excellent resource for a travel unit in Spanish.



Pobre Ana bailó tango - a TPRS novel in Spanish
Patricia Verano, Verónica Moscoso, and Blaine Ray (Authors)
Ages: 12 and up (Spanish II level class)

This short novel is written completely in Spanish, and in the preterite tense (past). It is a simple story about a girl named Ana who travels to Argentina. I have enjoyed using these books as a text in the target language because it provides an interesting and authentic story as rich context for teaching grammar concepts that appear throughout the chapter.


Other Materials:

Menu (Nena's Restaurante Mexicano)
Nena's Mexican Restaurant, San Bernadino, California
Ages: 11 and up (Spanish I or II)

This menu is written completely in the target language, whereas some other Mexican restaurants list the food items in both Spanish and English. This is a wonderful piece of realia that provides an interesting and mouth-watering context for students to discuss traditional food and dishes from Mexico. Because it comes from a real restaurant in California, students can see ways that these texts are all around us, and that we don't necessarily need to leave the US to encounter them.

Map of Puebla, México
Brought back from Puebla
Ages: 11 and up

This map shows major tourist destinations in the city of Puebla, in Mexico. It also marks any historical sites. The great thing about this map is that it is taken from Puebla, bringing an authentic piece of the city to students in the US. This is something they would use when traveling, and they can use it in activities to practice reading and giving directions.

La misma luna  (movie case)
Patricia Riggen (Director)
Ages: 15 and up (Spanish III or IV students)

This is a more unique text that a teacher might use in a unit on travel to talk about immigration and some of the hardships that immigrants face in coming to this country. Not all travel is for vacation! The film is a wonderful and emotionally gripping tale of Mexican immigrants crossing the border to the U.S. I like to have students read a bit about the story before or after, and reading the sleeve of the DVD case is an excellent way for them to summarize, translate, read aloud and comprehend the story a bit more.






La fiesta brava (worksheet and reading on the topic of bullfighting in Spain)
Ages: 11 and up (Spanish I or II)

This handout that I have inherited from my Mentor Teacher (who inherited it so long ago she can't remember where it originally came from) is the first text featured in this text set that is actually in English. This would be great to use as a cultural highlight in a travel unit on Spanish festivals and traditions. The great thing about this, is that it relays valuable information, while not intimidating students by too much
Spanish text. It also has a helpful word bank on the back to introduce thematic vocabulary relevant to the unit.









Chico Chile - ¡Vamos a celebrar! 
Teacher's Discovery (Publisher)
Ages: 11 and up

This booklet is really interesting because it presents traditional stories and recipes from various Hispanic countries that pertain to different holidays, which would be valuable information to know if a student were to travel to another country. I like that this booklet features so many different countries in one little book. I also love that some of the stories have graphics included throughout the text, which would be a great visual aid and provide cues for struggling readers.














Websites: 

Cruises to the Galapagos Islands
http://www.galapagoscruceros.ec/galapagos-cruceros-especiales.html
Cruises
Ages: 12 and up (Spanish I or II)

This website features various cruises leaving from South and Central America to take tourists to the Galapagos Islands. This would be an interesting text to use on a cultural and travel unit featuring these islands. It might even be a type of text that students have never encountered before. I like that I could show this to students and have them "book a cruise" as they plan a trip. The website is entirely in the target language, but students would be able to pick up on some details.

Travel to Chile
http://chile.travel/whynot/ 
A tourism website
Ages: 13 and up (Spanish I or II)

This website is one of my favorites! I love that the text throughout the website, which focuses solely on the country of Chile and is geared towards young people seeking adventure, is displayed side by side with such vivid and thrilling graphics. It makes this site exciting for students to peruse. There is a wealth of information regarding Chilean culture, geography, people, places, and activities categorized under easy-to-access tabs that students can easily navigate for a research project. This makes this text very "cool" and appealing to teenagers. (C'mon... don't tell me the photo isn't a draw!!)

Lonely Planet
www.lonelyplanet.com
A travel resource
Ages: 13 and up (any Spanish class)

This site is an amazing resource for teachers OR students. It features travel information for planning a trip to any part of the world. This is a quick resource that I have used before in assigning a general "plan a trip" research project for students. The graphics are great, and this site is so authentic because it's something they would use if they were planning a real trip. I like the fact that I could have them explore the site in Spanish or English. The text is simple and presented in an organized way.

Conocer Barcelona
http://www.conocerbarcelona.com/mapa
Interactive map of Barcelona
Ages: 11 and up (Spanish I or II)

This interactive online map of Barcelona not only is presented completely in the target language and geared for tourists and visitors to the city, but it also features lots of helpful symbols and keys that show where different neighborhoods, museums, parks, featured historical sites, restaurants, etc. are located around the city. This would be a wonderful interactive tool to use to send students on a webquest in order to learn their way around a city using directions or commands. They could also use this to plan a trip itinerary to Barcelona, because when you click on one of the symbols, it reveals to you all the details of that place!

Travelocity
www.travelocity.com
Book a flight
Ages: 11 and up (any Spanish class)

This is my go-to website to teach students more about the process involved in traveling by air and booking a flight. Many of them have never even been in an airport or on an airplane, let alone booked a flight online. I love the simplicity and layout of this site, and the fact that they can see the various airline options and prices and routes that appear. The text is basic and it is an interactive research process. Students feel like they are really planning a trip as they plug in their destination and pick a flight option.

Zambombazo
http://zachary-jones.com/zambombazo/panorama-tematico/#viaje
A great resource for Spanish teachers

Zachary Jones is an incredible Spanish teacher who has compiled lots of authentic resources on his website for teachers to purchase and access. He is famous for using current themes, articles in newspapers, and songs to teach Spanish grammar and themes. Teachers can search through all the resources on the site by theme, and travel is one of those themes! The links that pop up include cloze song lyric sheets, music videos, tweets, comics, and magazine articles, all having to do with travel! What a great variety of authentic texts!

Visit Chile Tweets
https://twitter.com/visitchilecom
Tweets: The text of this age!
Ages: 12 and up (any Spanish class)

I am a big proponent of finding relevant and authentic pieces of texts to use in my classroom in order to teach the language of Spanish to high schoolers today. One of the most common forms of text that these teenagers will read daily are tweets, as nearly all of them have a twitter account. I really enjoy finding tweets like these ones about traveling to Chile, and having them translate the text into English. Funnily enough, a tweet is the perfect length of text to read, even for struggling readers. And really, who can resist a cool spanish #hashtag?

Tripadvisor Hotels and Hostels
http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotels-g294305-c3-zff26-Santiago_Santiago_Metropolitan_Region-Hotels.html
Booking a hotel in Santiago, Chile
Ages: 12 and up (any Spanish class)

I have enjoyed using this website in a research project on Chile in which students had to plan an imaginary trip to Chile. Part of the process was that they had to "make a reservation" at a hostel or hotel in Santiago. The text presented on this site is shown in small chunks, and with pictures, helping students to rifle through them quickly and with ease. They also learn to read reviews that people write on different hotels.

Clarin
http://www.clarin.com/
Buenos Aires Newspaper
Ages: For Teachers and upper level Spanish students

This website of a large Buenos Aires, Argentina newspaper is a bit hard to read for students who don't know the target language as well. However, it's a great resource for teachers to tell students about current events in other countries during a travel unit. It also can feature cool texts that are easier to read, such as recipes, sports statistics, or brief tabloid messages about celebrities.

New York Times Travel
http://www.nytimes.com/pages/travel/index.html
A general travel resource in English
Ages: for Teachers and students 12 and up

This resource is extensive, and features some recent and exciting travel destinations all over the world. I have often found museums in Hispanic countries recommended on this site, as well as particular foods or celebrations highlighted. This is a great resource for a teacher to keep up to date on current world and travel news to share with the class, as well as a resource for students to explore. It is in English.



el fin.

Reflection #7: Tierney and Readance Ch. 8

I like the fact that this chapter opened by immediately listing some strategies for vocabulary development. I was pleased to see that many of these are natural to implement in a world language classroom. The strategies "Possible Sentences" as well as "Contextual Redefinition" were two that stood out to me in particular as being definitely applicable every day in any reading in my Spanish class. What I liked about this chapter, as I have liked about most of the readings for this class, was that it made me think more carefully about how I can implement this strategy more explicitly and actually TEACH my students how to read using these strategies! In "Possible Sentences" I like how reading aloud and pronunciation of the words is emphasized to an extent. In a world language, this is obviously very important, as the end goal is communicative proficiency in the target language, and one cannot communicate effectively if one cannot be understood due to incorrect pronunciation. I also like that this strategy uses student-generated examples as the driving examples behind the lesson, and allows for students to make mistakes and all learn from those mistakes together. This encourages the natural process of learning through commiting mistakes and then checking them against the text. The "Word Map" was another strategy that I'd like to try to implement more. I like the idea of having a mixture of concrete and abstract vocabulary terms and letting students organize the words (after defining them correctly) in a hierarchy that they determine individually depending on what it most memorable and significant to them. 

BBR Ch. 8

This chapter consisted only of strategies to promote critical reading in the classroom. I had not heard of any of these strategies before, so this was all new to me. To be totally honest, I find the formatting in the BBR text to be a bit confusing to follow. It is really difficult for me to really envision what the activity or strategy is truly supposed to look like, even though it's presented visually with lots of check marks and bullet points and things. I also feel like the titles of these strategies get me confused. For example, in reading the Phony Document Strategy, I could not for the life of me figure out what about it was "phony" exactly. Nonetheless, I will comment on each of the four that were presented. I like the Polar Opposites strategy as a writing prompt or as a prompt for a small group discussion. It seems like a great way to let students express their opinions while also having them back up their ideas. I think some sort of assessment connected to this would be imperative in order to keep students accountable for how they rationalize their answers. At least that would be the case for my class. I struggled to grasp the concept of Opinion-Proof, but I also like how it emphasizes that students can have opinions but need to be able to rationalize and justify them from a text. (How delightfully "Core" of us!). To me, REAP seemed more like basic inductive study of a text, but simply put to a catchy acronym. This is the first strategy that I felt like I have and can really use in my class. When my Spanish II class was reading a simple novel, I often had them translate aloud and "encode" the passage by putting it into their own words, rephrasing it either in English or Spanish. This shows that whether or not students have a true grasp on the reading, if they can explain it again in their own words. I often have students write this down in some way before asking them the question aloud. Again, I honestly don't really get the Phony Document Strategy, and I don't particularly like it. I don't know that I would choose to use this in my classroom. It might work better in an English or a History class.

Tovani Ch. 5 and 6

One thing about this chapter (Ch. 5) that really stuck with me is the concept of becoming an expert in something and then struggling to teach it, as was conveyed with the illustration of the girl, Mary. As Tovani reminds us, students are going to be learning things for the first time, things that have become oh so familiar to us, their teachers. It can be frustrating and difficult to learn something for the first time, and we are quick to forget how valuable that struggle of learning truly is. There is no moving forward in learning without some struggle, and oftentimes, the greater the struggle the greater the revelation, discovery, and "enlightenment", if I may.

I wrestled with this when I first considered becoming a Spanish teacher. I felt uneasy teaching a language that was so much a part of a culture that was not my own, even though I had spoken Spanish from a young age in a school setting. I have come to understand that to some extent, I will never have the benefit of teaching Spanish in the context of my "own" culture, and that means I must draw and rely heavily on true native speakers to be ambassadors for their culture in my classroom. I want to model having humble relationships with native speakers in which I am eager to learn from them. However, as I have started teaching, these initially uneasy thoughts have been put to rest as I see the ways that I as a non-native speaker of Spanish can relate to the struggle that kids experience as they learn it for the first time. Granted, I have to stretch myself to learn to explain why we say certain things the way we do because I have grown so accustomed to just saying it without really knowing why, but I have a different perspective on the process than a native speaker. Not only have I walked through the learning process, but I very much still am, and not being a native speaker gives me freedom to readily admit to my students that I don't know everything and that there is much I have yet to learn. Like them, I too forget the meaning of a word, and have struggled to grasp certain grammatical tenses. I get to model this (hopefully with humility) to them, and my hope is that it causes them to be more eager and more humble learners.

D and Z ch. 3 and 4

I have been really intrigued by all this conversation on the topic of the effectiveness of textbooks. I enjoyed the points brought up in the D and Z chapters 3 and 4.

In chapter 3, I especially agreed with the fact that textbooks are badly designed. I have found this to be the case with the Spanish textbooks that we use at the school that I'm interning in. The text will introduce a certain grammatical tense, but only the regular form of the tense, then 5 chapters later return to the same tense to then introduce the irregular forms. It doesn't make sense to me, or to other teachers I have talked to. For this reason, I think one of the wise decisions in using a text could sometimes be to use it as a tool, but as a tool that one can "jump around" in, as the teacher sees fit. I think the point on page 40 that talks about textbooks being exceedingly hard to read could be changed to say that they are boring to read. The graphic organization of information on a textbook page can actually be quite helpful and easy to read, but simply not interesting. Both can be true.

I too have experimented with my Mentor Teacher with not having a text for a portion of our class. Instead, we have used supplemental materials that she has collected, as well as a simple novel to drive the grammar review (in a story context) for Spanish II. I've really enjoyed this. I think it's refreshing to have a break from the textbook. I personally find it quite boring. Some of my students have voiced a similar opinion, while others, like one particular young man yesterday, ask "When are we going to go back to the textbook in this class? I learn better from the textbook". Thus, I think it really varies according to learning style and preference.

Putting together all these extra materials and resources takes lots and lots of TIME and ENERGY. Sometimes I think it works out really well, and sometimes it doesn't. As long as there is balance and accountability. I personally believe most teachers are qualified enough (better qualified, in fact) than textbook publishers to tailor and design a curriculum for their students, whom they know well.

The nice thing about putting these things together, is that it leaves room for a wide variety of genres, as discussed in chapter 4. I love the variations that are recommended in this chapter. Scanning the internet for sources is a wonderful idea. I have really enjoyed using some more modern "authentic texts" that students read everyday in the context of my Spanish class, such as Tweets in Spanish or Facebook status updates. One of the greatest challenges that come with this is time constraints in finding all these amazing resources, and fitting them into the curriculum without losing time with what we really need to "get done" before the EOC.

D and Z ch. 5 and 6

In this week's reading, I was encouraged as I read the many different instructional strategies, because I realized that I have used some of them in my Spanish II class just this week! We have used Think-Alouds and Reading Aloud as we read the final chapter in a short Spanish novel. Some of these strategies need to be slightly adapted for students who are learning a language and trying to read really basic texts in that language, but most of it really works.

On the other hand, some of these strategies, in fact most of them, are totally new to me. Before this class, I had never heard of a Double-Entry Journal. I was intriguied by the illustration of the Vocabulary Tree as well, which was another concept that was new to me. I really like that some of these strategies incorporate different learning styles, such as more tactile and visual learning.
"Sketching my way through the text" was also one of these that I thought would be really interesting to try. Dialogue or Partner journals are also an interesting concept, and I wonder if high school students would let them get too goofy or inappropriate.

I thought the suggestions in Ch. 6 for how to use textbooks more effectively were really helpful. I particularly like the point that textbooks should be supplemented heavily. Some textbooks are great, but to be honest, most of the ones I have seen and used are not. There are also SO many neat resources available in the field that are being shared amongst teachers, that it would be a shame to look over them or not dedicate a tiny bit of extra time to sift through them. Also, I identified with Jeff Janes who was mentioned on page 158 as not really using the textbook as his primary teaching material any more. My mentor teacher and I have been doing that, and it has made a bit more work for us to put together materials, but once we create them, we can use them again and I've really enjoyed it. 

Web Resource Review

I chose to review this website: Chile.travel

I have used this one before in my Spanish II class this semester. I had a research assignment on Chile in which students had to plan their own trip to Chile, and research flights, hostels, climate, geography, and activities that they would do while they were there. This website is PERFECT because it has amazing graphics, interesting videos, and a lot of very accessible and well-labeled information. It also obviously connects to my content perfectly, as it portrays a particular hispanic culture that I would love for students to one day have a spark of interest to visit. I would love to use it for research with upper-level students as well, and they could switch the language of the site over to Spanish. That would make it more complicated for their level.

I would let some middle school and high school students use this website. I think all of the content is appropriate for young people, although it does talk about the wine on the website a bit. This site could be used in school. Ideally, I could take students to the computer lab and use our class time to let them do research and explore the site. Unfortunately, our computers at our school are very very slow, and one of the best things about this site is the amazing graphics and videos, which took FOREVER to load, so it was discouraging and I almost wish I had navigated the site on my faster computer in class and projected it on the smart board for us to look at it as a group.

This site is pretty interactive, as there are lots of videos and graphics to click on, but doesn't include activities or games, per se. I easily created a handout with guided questions to go along with it. The site is also fairly commercial because it's trying to get people to come visit Chile, but that is what makes it an authentic text, so I really like that about it.

Other than that, this website is great! There is no adult supervision required, and there is lots of authentic and applicable information in easy-to-access categories. No sign-up is required. I ended up having students complete the research "Travel to Chile" packet at home (all my students have internet access that I figured would be much faster than the computer lab computers) for extra credit. A lot of them mentioned how much they enjoyed it! Success!

Tovani Ch. 3 and 4

I really enjoyed this reading! Tovani's writing really resonated with me!

It was new for me to consider the different content-specific types of reading skills that teachers ought to teach to their students. I know, for example, that I would not be a very skilled math reader or science reader. Numbers that are mixed in with words intimidate me, and charts and graphs make me want to skip to the end! However, it made me think specifically of how I read a Spanish-related text and the skills that I can model mentally for my students as they learn a new language. As I reflected on this, I realized a lot of this has to do with (especially in the first years of Spanish) breaking down the grammar in a sentence to understand the different types of words and what they mean. I was encouraged to think of ways that I'm already trying to do this as I teach my students grammar and as we diagram sentences and have quizzes with scaffolded and increasingly complicated grammar and translations. I think this has genuinely helped my students in their learning.

I was really impacted by the analogy of fitness and as compared to keeping all students at the same level of "rigor". It makes so much sense that some need different things than others, but, alas, (and it seriously feels like this is the conclusion of every discussion or reading I've done so far!) it is SO DIFFICULT to meet students "where they're at" and provide such a a wide variety of texts for students at different reading and comprehension levels. Again, (and I'll probably say it again and again!) differentiation is HARD! I want to continue to try to grow in it, though.

I also really enjoyed reading "Di Tri Berres" and even made my boyfriend try to read it out loud! I love this "simulation" of sorts, and that it helps me to know the frustration that some of my lower-level students probably feel when I ask them to read a text or even a sentence in Spanish! They immediately struggle for context and feel rising panic, probably, when they don't understand it at first. (Like I did!) This helps me know how to better break down the text to help them know how to take it slowly and read it.

I like the idea of text sets, but it sounds very time-consuming. I really want to experiment more to know how to do this well!

"Reading Supports for All" Fitzgerald & Graves

First of all, this topic applies to my subject a lot! This article makes me instantly think of things we are doing in the classroom with texts in the target language. All of my students are like the ELLs in a regular classroom, because I'm stretching them out of their comfort zone and asking them to read and inspect a text that will initially intimidate them. They are always using skills that, as the authors put it, "have not fully matured but that are in the process of maturing". That is just how learning a language works, perhaps in a more explicit way than applies to learning in other subjects.

I'd never heard that metaphor that describes scaffolding as training wheels on a bike. Very helpful!

When the article mentioned preteaching difficult vocabulary I was reminded that I learned a lot from implementing this strategy this very week! My Spanish II class is reading a simple novel written completely in the present tense. We started the 5th (out of 8) chapters this past week. In the past, I have had students work with critical and new vocabulary AFTER listening to the chapter while reading silently, and translating it orally in groups. However, this time I decided to introduce them to the vocabulary list (through a fun game, por supuesto) to familiarize them with some of the words I knew they would encounter in the chapter and would not know. I think this really served their learning and helped to even give a hint of curiosity in anticipating what would happen in the chapter and how that vocabulary would appear.

It's encouraging for me to read about these strategies of scaffolding using prereading, during reading, and postreading activities, because that is exactly what I've been doing lately in my class.

As the article discussed using SREs to slice lessons for ELLs, the one countering question in my mind was that of "how do you differentiate skillfully like that and also keep your students up with the pacing guide that you know you have to follow?" I think I am learning that while pacing is important and it is OH SO EASY to get off-track and spend FAR too much time on a concept that you thought would take only a measly week (and therefore pacing is necessary and helpful), understanding is the most important goal. I would rather spend more time on concepts and make some compromises on the pacing guide than speed along without my students understanding the concepts. The tricky part is to differentiate and still make sure you all teaching lower-acheiving students (the ELLs in the article scenario) the same content. But... maybe that's not important??? I need to process this more.

The main struggle in applying these very helpful concepts is how to differentiate in a way that keeps students accountable to all their learning and that is realistic for a hard-working teacher. Still working on this one... :)

Blogging for REED 461

I am Hannah Parks, and this will be my blog for my graduate class, REED 461.

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