Spanish 1 Curriculum

I finally have a draft of my curriculum with general year-long ans weekly plans.  I've updated the "curriculum" tab above to link to this curriculum.  Now, I'm going to go back and work on resources and individual lesson plans.  I'll update here when I make progress!

Latino Culture: Holidays and Celebrations

Students google holidays and celebrations in Latin America.  We discuss them and any interesting things students found.

Students get in groups and research a specific holiday.  Then, they present their holiday to the class.

• La Semana Santa y Pascua
• La Nochebuena y la Navidad/Día de los Reyes Magos
• Día de los Muertos
• Día de la Independencia - many countries (contrast with Cince de Mayo)

Latino Culture: History of Latin America

Who are the ancient civilizations of Latin America?
How was Latin America conquered?
How did Latin American countries gain their independence?

1. Split into three groups, each with one question to answer
2. Spend the first half of class researching and preparing presentations
3. Walk back to class/take a break.
4. Groups present information (10 minutes each).

Latino Culture: Genius Hour Introduction

Coming soon!

Latino Culture: Who are the Latinos?

This lesson plan is designed for students to learn exactly what and where Latin America is.
Essential questions:

• Who are the Latinos?
• Where is Latin America?

Latino Culture: What is culture?

As I'm gearing up for my Latino Culture class, I'm writing my lesson plans and getting a clear idea about how this is all going to work.  I've written my lesson plan for day one, where I'm going to introduce students to the class and get them thinking about what culture is!  Read more to see my entire lesson plan.

Tips, Tricks, and Ideas

Here are various tips and tricks I use to create a classroom,  curriculum, and individual lessons centered on TPRS.  Click the links for more information and practical applications!

Story Writing 101

There is a common theme and pattern to every story in TPRS:  There is someone and they want something.  They go somewhere to get it, but they are unsuccessful.  So, they go somewhere else and resolve their problem.  Once you understand this structure, writing your stories are simple.  Here's how...

Class Story Books
Have your students create a wonderful resource for your classroom that can be used to review the next day as will be a keepsake and reading material for years to come!

Inter-class Pen Pals
Get students reading, writing, and building a class community all at once!

Spanish Nicknames
During the first week of school, students choose nicknames that they will use throughout the year.  I provide a list of nicknames, but students are also allowed to create their own as long as it's school-appropriate.  I love this activity!  It achieves many things that are critical in my classroom.  First and foremost, the students learn to "play" and develop a unique relationship in my classroom with me and their peers.  Another perk is that students have a jump-start to their vocabulary as they're already interested in what the names mean and will get many repetitions of these words throughout the year! Rather than real Spanish names, I use nicknames such as "Pato" (duck) or "Vato" (dude).

TPRS in a Week
This is an example of how I would structure my week.  Each "day" is a 45-minute period.  Because most schools in my area are on various types of block scheduling, I have combined the days into 90-minute periods, with one flexible half-day.

Structure/Word Cards
I got this idea from a fellow TPRS teacher and added my own ideas and adaptations to it.  I'd love to hear what you would do with something like this!  For me, it makes me more intentional about what I'm teaching without a lot of effort on my part as well as helps students become more engaged and focused.  Plus, we keep track of the things we've already learned and are able to continually review them as we progress!

Interactive Notebooks

Interactive notebooks are a note-taking method I plan to utilize in my classroom.  Students create their own interactive notebook out of a composition notebook.  Tabs are added to create sections, and students fill in the contents of the notebook throughout the year.  In general, students take notes (teacher input) on the right-hand page, and personalize the information on the left-hand side of the page.  At the end of the year, they will have created a comprehensive record of their classroom experience.

Teaching through Novels
There has recently been a discussion in the MoreTPRS yahoo group about doing novel-based classes, and I am very excited about it!  Similar to how I am pulling structures from the LICT extended reading stories, I would take them from the novels themselves.  It may take a week or a few weeks to complete a chapter as we ask stories in class that circle the structures and vocabulary students need to know in order to comprehend what they are reading.  In addition, I would want to choose books with which I could integrate other activities for students to explore and describe themselves and the world around them.

Games
TPRS-friendly games to play with the class!

Shopping List
The list of items I'd like for my TPRS classroom!

Positive Reinforcement (Rewarding Great Behavior!)

Kindergarten and Movie Days

Syllabus

This is a sample syllabus for a Spanish 1 class.  The main changes for different levels would be to raise the expectations listed in the "Course Objectives" section as appropriate to include speaking for a longer period of time and writing more words in a given time.  In addition, should a grammar requirement be necessary due to curriculum requirements, I would create an additional standard addressing this goal.

¡Bienvenidos a la clase de español!

Welcome to Spanish Class!

Class Description: Spanish I is an introductory class stressing basic language skills and acquisition. The method we will be using is called Teaching Proficiency through Reading and Storytelling, TPRS®. Be prepared to listen, read, write, speak, sing, dance, and act in Spanish to learn the language effectively! In addition, we will be learning about other cultures that speak Spanish.

Classroom Rules:

1. Follow directions.
2. Be ready to begin when the tardy bell rings.
3. No put downs, name calling, or hate speech.
4. No swearing.
5. Bring pen, pencil, and notebook everyday.
6. Be respectful in the classroom.
7. No electronic devices unless I permit it.

Your Role During Class: LISTEN

• Look me in the eyes
• Involve yourself
• Show me when you get it and when you don’t
• Tune back in if you tune out
• Español
• No talking over others

Homework: In addition to nightly study and review (about 15 minutes/night) from their Interactive Notebooks, students are required to read in Spanish for a total of 30 minutes each week and record what they read in their Interactive Notebooks.  Students may split this time up and read whenever works best, and students may occasionally get to apply class time toward their weekly reading.  This can be completed independently or with others.  In addition, they may choose from a variety of sources, such as books, magazines, articles, and the internet and I have a class library for students to check out materials.  Anything read online must be printed out and included in the IN, and at least 20 minutes of reading must come from non-electronic sources. 

Class Materials: Every day you need to bring the following:

• 3-ring binder notebook with a pocket with 5 dividers
• Loose-leaf Paper
• Pencil and a colored pen
• Other supplies may be needed and will be announced.

Course Objectives: You will be evaluated based upon the following standards and each is worth 20% of your grade:

1. Comprehend spoken Spanish.
2. Comprehend written Spanish.
3. Write 100 words in comprehensible Spanish within 10 minutes.
4. Speak in Spanish for 30 seconds.
5. Be an excellent member of our class, including
• Regular attendance and participation
• Keeping an organized and complete notebook
• Completing practice and homework activities
• Enhancing your cultural knowledge

Absences and Tardies: You are responsible for the notes, vocabulary, work, quizzes and tests that you miss when you are gone. ALSO, you will need to write a 100-word story (200 for Spanish 2-4) in Spanish for each day that you are absent. The absence stories need to be handwritten on the story form and they are due by the end of the quarter. You will not be able to make up work for unexcused absences or tardies.

Bathroom Privileges: Please use the restroom before you come to class. However, if you need to use the restroom during class, you may ask permission and sign out on the clipboard to leave class.  Keep in mind that trips outside the class will be reviewed when assigning participation grades.

¡Buena suerte en la clase de español!

For information on the class, check out the class website at profabaros.blogspot.com

Assessments and Grading

These standards-based assessments correspond with my five course objectives for my classroom.  These objectives address the major components of communication and aim to develop students' abilities to effectively communicate others in Spanish.  Thus, their grades will depend on what students can actually do.  Each will be assessed independently, enabling students to identify where their strengths and weaknesses lie.

Moreover, learning is a journey that students complete on their own terms and at their own pace.  As such, the final product is the most critical subject for evaluation.  In my classroom, students will be provided numerous opportunities for formative self-evaluations as well as those I complete.  Students will keep track of their progress in their notebooks and should have a fairly good idea about how they will perform on the summative assessment.

I will conduct summative assessments collected for a grade at a few points throughout the semester.  These assessments will be unannounced as I want to evaluate what students are actually capable of rather than what they studied for.  Because students will be evaluated based on the final goal, initial check-point evaluations may appear to be "basic" or even "poor", but students will be given a realistic expectations as to what they should be achieving at these checkpoints and will be able to evaluate whether or not they are "on track" and temporary grades will be entered based on whether students are meeting these check-point goals.  However, as grades are a reflection of what students can actually do at that point in time, they will be replaced and updated after each summative evaluation to reflect the most recent data.  Thus, at the end of the semester, the only grade that will count will be their performance on the final assessments (with the exception of the "Citizenship" grade).  In addition, these "final" grades will be completed with enough time prior to the end of the semester so that students who wish to try again may have the opportunity to do so.

Objective 1: Comprehend spoken Spanish.

• According to level, students will listen to a word, phrase, or passage using the words and structures they are familiar with and indicate what they understood.
• I try to avoid words in isolation as they are generally presented, practiced, and used in meaningful context both in class and real-life situations.
• Students indicate what they understood in English as this is a clear indication of full comprehension.  Partial credit may be given for the correct Spanish answer as this is evidence of partial comprehension.
• Formative Assessments: I will use a variety of assessment techniques, including self-evaluations using rubrics for translations and summaries, so that students and I can get a feel for their comprehension level.
• Summative Assessments: I prefer exact evaluations with right and wrong answers so that they are not open to interpretation or bias.
• Examples:
• Students may hear a sentence and indicate which picture matches the sentence they heard.
• Students may hear a story and put pictures or English sentences in order to match the story.
• Students may hear a story.  Then, they may write a summary or answer questions written in English about who the main character was, what problem they had, and how they solved it.

Objective 2: Comprehend written Spanish.

• Very similar to assessments for Objective 1, but with written Spanish!
• According to level, students will read a word, phrase, or passage using the words and structures they are familiar with and indicate what they understood.
• I try to avoid words in isolation as they are generally presented, practiced, and used in meaningful context both in class and real-life situations.
• Students indicate what they understood in English as this is a clear indication of full comprehension.  Partial credit may be given for the correct Spanish answer as this is evidence of partial comprehension.
• Formative Assessments: I will use a variety of assessment techniques, including self-evaluations using rubrics for translations and summaries, so that students and I can get a feel for their comprehension level. 
• Summative assessments: I prefer exact evaluations with right and wrong answers so that they are not open to interpretation or bias.
• Examples:
• Students may read a sentence and indicate which picture matches the sentence they read.
• Students may read a story and put pictures or English sentences in order to match the story.
• Students may read a story.  Then, they may write a summary or answer questions written in English about who the main character was, what problem they had, and how they solved it.

Objective 3: Write 100 words in comprehensible Spanish within 10 minutes.  (Note: As level increases, so does the word count requirement.)

• Formative assessment: I do not ask students to do free-writes until about halfway through the first semester.  This is the first time their output is assessed.  By this point, they have generally acquired enough language that most students surprise themselves with what they are able to write, setting them up to have a positive attitude toward writing.  Students are asked to do 5-minute free-writes or re-writes of stories told in class on a regular basis.  Though this is only half of the time they will be given for the summative assessment, it is not such a huge task and they generally have a pretty good idea of how they will do based on their 5-minute writes and students are usually.  However, these are not collected and it is usually the student's responsibility to ask me if they would like me to read and review their writing, particularly to evaluate comprehensibility.  I may, on occasion, review their writing without being requested to do so.
• Summative assessment: The only summative writing assessment that students complete is at the end of the semester for a final grade.  However, this "final" is completed early enough that students have the opportunity to do a re-take if needed.
• Evaluation:  When the timer goes off, students put an X after their last word and count all of their Spanish words.  They write the number of words at the top of the page, circle it, and turn their writing in if you are collecting it.
• Grading: 
• Words: The number of words they wrote represents the percentage grade they earned up to 100 (If a student wrote 120 words, they would still just receive 100% and pride that they went beyond the expectation).  If the student wrote any English or completely made-up words, five percent is subtracted off their final writing grade for each English word.  (For instance, if the student with 120 words wrote 2 English words, their score would be 100%-2*5%=90%)
• Comprehensibility: The goal is for students to be comprehensible to a native speaker.  Even broken and basic Spanish with incorrect spelling and grammar can be understood by native speakers, so comprehensibility is evaluated on a fairly lenient rubric.  With time and more exposure to Spanish, correct grammar and more complete and complex sentences will emerge.
• I also like the way Scott Benedict does his grading and would like to look into it more in the future: How to Assess Writing Effectively

Objective 4: Speak in Spanish for 30 seconds.  (Note: as level increases, so does the time requirement.)

• Students are not formally assessed on speaking until the end of their first semester.  Rather, they are encouraged to focus on comprehension and respond with at least one-word answers.  Their answers become more complete and complicated as they are exposed to Spanish throughout the class.  After their first semester, however, students can be assessed regularly to keep track of growth and improvement as well as their progress toward increasingly difficult goals, such as speaking for a longer amount of time.
• The goal is for students to be comprehensible to a native speaker.  Even broken and basic Spanish with incorrect grammar and in a heavy accent can be understood by native speakers, so speaking is comprehensibility on a fairly lenient rubric.  With time and more exposure to Spanish, correct grammar and more complete and complex sentences will emerge.
• Scores are given out of 25.  As long as the students are comprehensible and continue speaking with a moderate pausing, they will earn 20 points ("B").  Fewer pauses, more complex language, better comprehensibility, creativity, and personalization will increase the grade.  More pauses, minimal to no comprehensibility, and the use of English will decrease the grade.

Objective 5: Be an excellent citizen of our class.

• This is the "everything else" grade.  Various aspects of this grade can be weighted differently, but each on its own will not overpower any of the standards-based grade.  In addition, it sets a clear expectation for students to grow and develop as a citizen.
• Participation and attendance is worth an arbitrary 100 points within the grade book, which I generally weight to be 5% of the total grade.  Students loose participation points when they are absent or do not comply with the rules and expectations for the class.  They keep participation points by meeting class rules and expectations.  Finally, they may (re)gain participation points by completing make-up work for absences and completing any extra credit activities that are offered to the entire class.
• Interactive Notebooks will be central to our class and will help students stay organized as well as provide evidence of their work and achievements.  Moreover, students will develop organizational skills that will assist them later in life.  Thus, they deserve a place in the grade book and are worth half of the "Citizenship" grade, or 10% of the total grade.
• I will check spot-check notebooks for timely completion on a regular basis by asking students to open to a specific page and award a stamp on that page to students who have completed it to my expectations.
• I will only collect notebooks twice: first at mid-semester and again after finals.  Mid-semester checks will only be a quarter of the notebook grade (2.5% of the overall grade) and serve as a check-up to make sure students are on the right track.  Final notebook checks will encompass the remaining portion of the notebook grade (7.5% of the overall grade).
• Notebooks will be graded on a rubric that evaluates how neat the notebook is, how well it is organized, how complete it is, and how many stamps the student received from the regular notebook checks.
• Though cultural knowledge is important, the focus of this class is to learn to communicate in Spanish.  Thus, culture is only worth 5% of the overall grade.  Students will be assessed on important cultural aspects of the Spanish-speaking world as we discuss them.  These will be very minor assessments which require students to write about a cultural aspect, apply it to themselves and compare/contrast it with their culture, and/or answer various styles of short questions (i.e. multiple choice, short answer, matching, etc.)

Stories

I highly recommend first visiting My Story Format to understand how I have formatted my stories and lesson plans.

Look!  I can Talk! (LICT) Series - Blaine Ray
This story series matches the phrases used in Blaine Ray's "NEW Mini-stories for Look, I Can Talk!" Extended Reading and Exercises for Look, I Can Talk! for Spanish 1.  While there is a teachers guide intended to be used with this book, these particular structures and corresponding stories are pulled directly from the extended reading so that the stories and reading would support one another more closely.  Occasionally, it seemed that more than one story would be necessary to cover the important new phrases used in the extended reading.

While I've decided to start fresh now that I have a new list of structures that I like better, you can still find my initial attempt and creating stories for the LICT series here.

Novels

For a while, I thought I would pull my structures directly from novels, teach them for a quarter, and then finish the quarter reading the novel.  However, I found that there wasn't enough

We will be doing a novel-based curriculum, so I plan to pull my structures from the novels we are reading.  I ordered all of Blaine Ray's middle school and Spanish 1 novels ordered, so I'm currently reading them and pulling out structures as well as culture topics to discuss.  Upon receiving my order, I've tentatively decided to center my curriculum around the Pobre Ana series and use the other novels as part of my class library (I discussed this in this post).  Click below for my stories and ideas!

• Pobre Ana