The Immigrant Archive Project is a really neat website that I found through the Esperanza Teacher’s Guide. It contains pages upon pages of videos of immigrants to the United States telling their stories. The possibilities for classroom use of this site are endless! The activity that is published in Chapter 9 of the Esperanza’s Teacher’s…
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You have to study! Script
This script was inspired by the song “Llueve el amor”–only in that it uses three high frequency structures from the song (hay que – you have to, vuelve a – goes back/returns to, and poco a poco – little by little). It turned into quite the unit, however, when I realized that it was easy…
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A las tres – Los Enanitos
This is a beautiful, sad song about the life of an immigrant that lives and works alone (presumably in the US) for many years to provide for his wife and son that live in another country. The music video, as you can see, tells the story visually even without understanding the lyrics, and so it…
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El chico del apartamento 512 lesson plans
One of the first lesson plans that I posted on this blog several years ago was for a unit based on the song ‘El chico del apartamento 512’. I’ve learned a lot about TPRS and unit planning since then, so I am now posting a new and (I think) improved unit (click here to download…
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Ketchup lesson to accompany El nuevo Houdini Chapter 4
I wrote this lesson plan to go with Chapter 4 of El Nuevo Houdini (see all Houdini plans here) after Carol Gaab suggested showing a video about the making of ketchup in the Teacher’s Guide for the book. And every good Spanish teacher knows that one cannot talk about ketchup without talking about Las Ketchup…
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Stand Up, Hand Up, Pair Up to find a partner!
Need a quick way for students to find a series of partners on the fly and with ease? The Kagan “Stand Up, Hand Up, Pair Up” strategy is just what you’ve been looking for! Step One: Stand Up! First step? Easy! All students STAND up! Step Two: Hand Up! Is everyone standing? Great! Put one…
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La Universidad Lesson Plans
I’ve been way behind on my posting lately (probably because I’m pregnant again and all I want to do is sleep!!), so this is probably coming after most of you are way past this vocabulary. Save it for next year, I guess! Here are the plans that I used to teach the story La Universidad.…
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Juramento a la bandera
#LoMejorDeMéxicoEs
Here is another fun activity to use on Mexican Independence Day or as an introduction to a unit on Mexico. I compiled a bunch of tweets from the trend #LoMejorDeMéxicoEs and wrote some reading comprehension questions and a writing activity to go along with it. Just make sure that you begin by teaching your students…
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México lindo y querido – Javier Solís
This is a great song to sing on Mexican Independence Day! I give a short intro to the video in Spanish, with a little background on Javier Solís and ranchera music, before we watch the video. The reading I use is in this file. Watch/listen to it several times while students complete the CLOZE lyrics ( The…
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