Spanish 2 news cast

Students in Spanish 2 were instructed to give news casts as an alternative assessment for Semester tests! This group included a commercial for their love of the NEW VAN METER! Go Group!

Alternative for Semester Tests: Spanish 3 students had a choice of creating a music video to re-teach a grammatical concept in Spanish 3 from 2nd semester or re-teach through a "skit". The following example is one of the many very creative example my students produced. Although a little off-key in singing, their video shows they had fun creating a way to teach their classmates how to form commands! Bravo chicas!




After creating this lesson as a semester test project, keep in mind I had students doing videos on Preterite/Imperfect, Subjunctive, Future/Conditional and probability, my students demonstrated an "understanding" far beyond giving them a paper/pencil or online formative assessment. Spanish 2 students had to create a news show, and Spanish 1 students had to introduce their paper people and make a movie of their paper people---similar to a Flat Stanley Adventure! As I get these uploaded I will add these to my blog!

Spanish 3 Semester test example. More to follow.

This example is a rap taught by students teaching reflexives:

La Persona yo era, soy...seré

The Person I was, am, will be....
One of my favorite projects to do with Spanish IV, to have the students share about themselves using past, present and future and demonstrate their ability to switch tenses. In the past 8 years I have done this project students have had to create a poster or brochure about themeselves. Use a writing template to fill out information on themeselves, switching tenses from the current person they are now to what they used to be like as a child, what their school and friends were like, what they used to watch on tv etc. to what they think their life will be like in the future.  Students would share this information with classmates and I would display them on my board.  Now that we are equipped with 1:1 lap tops, the students have so much technology at their fingertips...why not have them share it digitally.  The information they provided was so rich---students uploaded pictures of their childhood, recorded their voice, uploaded video and music that represented that time in their life.  They recorded live their current lives, friends, teachers etc. and then talked about their future with pictures etc. WE LOVED WATCHING THEM AS A CLASS---ALL IN SPANISH!  The only thing that I miss is showcasing their work on the bulletin board! 

Example of student work: EXAMPLE 1

WEB QUESTS

Students in Spanish 1 at Van Meter, paired again with NF and SH schools in order to research and produce information of what they would offer in their “fictional” store.  They researched books, music, food and handicrafts from Spanish speaking countries.  They had digital worksheets to fill out as they worked to help organize their information, teach them how to “site” their work and for them to communicate with their partners.  They communicated on the NING to get everything set up, but then had the opportunity that other students in the school are not allowed yet, to SKYPE with their partners live.  Adding this feature allowed students to communicate and feel that they had control to complete the task at hand.  Students used slide share, voice thread, prezi, or show beyond to present their information for their partners.  The thing the students found most interesting were the music videos from Spanish speaking countries and the food items.  A success full of learning on multiple platforms, Spanish, culture, leadership, communication, collaboration and higher level thinking.  A big thing students had to overcome was just reading the steps with the web quest and not just relying on the teacher to walk them through the steps.  Big learning happening in VM, NF and SH.

Student work:
STUDENT EXAMPLE 1
Student example 2
Student example 3
Student Example 4

Collaborative Bell Ringers to increase writing performance

Monday February 15th, Van Meter students joined conversation groups with students from Newell Fonda and South Hamilton schools to allow students an outlet to practice spanish writing and reading skills and enhance their individual performance.  Students are using a NING to communicate and are paired into groups that students joined via a google doc sent to each student as one working document.  Students have weekly topics with expectations to respond to each group member throughout the week.  Spanish levels 1-3 are participating and conversing of course only in Spanish.  Stay tuned for more tales of the collaboration between 3 escuelas mejores!:)

Cocinando en la clase de Español 2

Move over Emeril and Martha Stewart!  Spanish 2 students are going to show us some authentic spanish food and their cooking abilities.  Lets not forget the use of commands with cooking!  Students have been assigned the task of cooking a authentic meal and producing a spanish production of how to cook the meal and incorporating the use of Spanish into the production.

Español 4:Hace peliculas animados! video animations in Spanish 4

To help incorporate the Future, Conditional and Future/Conditional of Probability students use the program XTRANORMAL (xtranormal.com) to create an animation of their choosing by typing text and choosing voice sounds.  Typing their text correctly is essential so the words are pronounced correctly. Students have choice in characters, setting, story line etc.  The use of Jing is essential to get a recording uploaded so that students can do other editing.  Students are super excited about the project and have learned although the system is somewhat slow with xtranormal, that correct sentences are essential. Examples to follow!

Something cool in the Spanish Classroom! ¡Una Cosa Chevere!

Spanish 1-3 students are completing a collaboration project that I began a week ago requiring students to do research on different topics paired with partners from two other school districts in the state of Iowa.  How do the students communicate?  Through a NING.  What is a NING you say?  A NING is a social networking site that is very similar to Facebook.  It allows students an area where they can manage their own wall and communicate with other people who have been given permission to join the specific NING.  It has Forums, Groups, Blogs, Chats, Walls etc.  It is perfect for a classroom because the teacher can monitor everything that happens on the NING due to emails that are sent to the administrator (teacher) with every post. Students are familiar with this type of communication and enjoy posting to each others’ walls and commenting in the Forum section.  They call it the school “facebook”.

In November two other teachers and I myself communicated and connected these students as a daily conversation piece in Spanish on the Forum to communicate a review concept. The hardest encounter we ran into was our curriculums did not line up, and one of us was teaching something the other had not learned etc.  We definitely want to collaborate this summer to create a curriculum that will work!  Communication between teachers was essential, however we managed…and what the neatest thing about the introduction to the Ning was the fact that the students had the opportunity to communicate in Spanish to someone they did not know and find out they were learning similar things at the same level.  They were no further behind than anyone else.  

Last week we decided to pilot a project for Spanish levels 1-3.  This pilot project required students to join a group with no one from their own school and research the topic listed.  Spanish 1 was researching about sports in Spanish speaking countries, Spanish 2 researched about animals in specific Spanish speaking countries and Spanish 3 researched about Spanish speaking countries and all they have to offer.  This project required students to become LEADERS by taking on these roles they would read the requirements and delegate what needed to be completed and who would do which jobs.  It required students to share the information they found and communicate what else needed to be done to be complete.  Students used Voice thread and Show beyond, their choice as a method of presenting.  This allowed both students to edit the same slide, create a podcast type presentation on a web2.0 application!   Hopefully an example to follow, but until then---what a cool project!  Getting students to THINK, LEAD and SERVE---by representing Van Meter Iowa and be able to collaborate and communicate with students across the state!  ¡Todo es possible! Gracias Newell Fonda and South Hamilton schools!

Student work examples Spanish 2:
Example #1
Example #2
Example #3

Spanish 3 work samples:
Example #1
Example #2
Example #3

Spanish 1 Work samples:
Examples #1
Example #2