Music, Culture and Current Events

Today in class we used Maná's song to review future and tú commands and practice subjunctive. This was the information set up if you used the BK Nelson's grammar site. However, in March 2011 this has a new meaning. It's a great teachable although sad moment when your book lesson, vocabulary, and music mesh. The students sang to ¿Dónde jugarán los niños? We discussed the vocabulary introduced with the song and connected it with the text vocabulary. Students were able to see the group Maná and how their music was distinct from their own. They also discussed the impact on Japan and how this song was still relevant more than a decade later. The final activity students took the mnemonic device WEDDDING and wrote a sentence related to the song and Japan. From this point, I was able to get students to discuss how all 5 Cs were in this activity. They all see communication and culture. Connections are finally coming along and comparatives was easier this time. They know what communities should be ... I have my fingers crossed to see if someone will come and tell me what they did with it later.

9 Weeks and Testing...Not!

Today we worked on a combination of grammatical structures. I had to take a day and review the framework for the subjunctive tense. However, there was more purpose because they will have to use the subjunctive to discuss the current events. There are two projects going- my traditional news presentations. We will see how it works. The other groups are working on audio podcasts for other Spanish classes. We will see how it works. The freshmen 35 know much more about what is happening in their world. Today, they had to explain how the podcasts reflect all 5 of the standards- Communication, Culture, Connections, Comparisons and Community.