Hola a todos!!
Lately on my Instagram (@maestraehlert), I have talked a lot about the new #Netflixoriginal show, Go! Vive a tu manera, that I have been watching with my 8th graders. I first heard of the show on Spanish Mama's blog!
I am a huge fan of bringing movies/shows into the Spanish classroom! Like Spanish Mama says, it allows us to bring native speakers right into our classrooms! It lets our students experience new cultures, customs, and dialects of the Spanish language.
The problem I was having was finding a TV show that was:
1. comprehensible for my students
2. find a show that my middle school students would be interested in (tough, trust me)
3. completely appropriate - something that I wouldn't have to send home permission slips for
Trust me when I say, this show meets all three criteria! Currently on Netflix, there is one season. Season 2 is coming out in June! I personally have my students watch this show on Wednesdays because our schedule is a little wonky that day! This would be such a fun show to integrate on Friday's or even Monday's for a little pick me up!
Now to the good stuff, what are some activities that I do during class time to make this show comprehensible for my students? During the first two episodes I had my students watch the show with English subtitles. With the actors being from Argentina, I wanted my students to get used to their accents and get a feel for the fast paced speaking. After the first couple of episodes, I changed the subtitles to be in Spanish.
1. Mini-White Boards:
Mini whiteboards have been my best friend while watching this show with my students! While watching the show I give the students a task to complete on their whiteboards while watching. These tasks ensured that the students had to be completely engaged and paying attention to the show! Those tasks are:
With the very first episode, every time a new character was introduced in the show, they had to write their name down.
Write common phrases/verbs/vocabulary words that they understood right away on their board. We would share these out with the rest of the class.
Draw the episode as they watched it. I had had them include Spanish subtitles to describe their photos. We did a gallery walk after the episode was completed.
Write questions that they had as they watched the episode in Spanish. We discussed their questions after the episode!
2. Google Classroom:
I know many of us use google classroom in our classrooms, but I think sometimes we can forget how useful and meaningful it can be to student learning! Many times before watching an episode, during watching an episode, and after watching an episode I would post a question (in Spanish) on google classroom. Students had to post their reply in Spanish. I also had the students reply to 3 other students in Spanish explaining if they agreed with or disagreed with them. They also had to provide a reason. Some questions were as simple as: Who is your favorite character? What was the most important part in today's episode? How do you feel about how Lupe is treating Mia? Who is your least favorite character? Do you want to go to Saint Mary? This is something that you could easily adapt to the level of your speakers, or to the level of Spanish that you teach.
3. Character Talk:
If you are familiar with the comprehensible input picture talk, this is very similar. I would put a picture on the board of one of the characters. I start by asking some questions about the character in Spanish. Pretty soon my questions have begun a jumping off point for the students to discuss that character more in length. Conversations soon turn into who likes who in the show, what characters we like/dislike, and why each character is important to the plot line of the program. My goal is to have this discussion be as much student centered as possible!
4. Shade Bingo:
I know that a lot of us use rip bingo in our Spanish classes! This is basically the same concept. I give each student a row of verbs, phrases, words, and/or sentences that will be heard in the show. Whenever they hear that word being spoken, they use a highlighter to shade it in. I like to make a little contest out of it. Whoever gets all of the words shaded in first (correctly) gets a little prize from me! The competition gets them totally into it, and they have to be listening very closely in order to be able to shade in as soon as the word is spoken.
5. Acting it out!
Many times after we finished watching an episode, or sometimes even during an episode, I would put the students into groups. The students would have to come up with a 2-3 minute skit in Spanish that had either summarized what has happened in the show so far, or what happened in the entirety of the show. Of course they present their skits to the rest of the class. Having them speak in Spanish in their skits was how I really knew that they understood what happened in the show, plus it got them up and moving! (If you know me, you know I LOVE some movement every day in class.)
6. My favorite one!!! Socratic Smackdown (#socraticsmackdown)
ALL SPEAKING IS IN THE TARGET LANGUAGE!
I explained this in my Instagram, but in case if you didn't see it, here we go! :) I was always hearing of the social studies and language arts teachers doing socratic smackdowns in their classrooms, and I figured why not try it in my Spanish classroom? If you haven't tried it, I highly encourage it!! Here is the slideshow that I used with my students so that you can get an idea of what it can look like in your classroom. Feel free to make a copy of it, and adapt it for whatever you would like to use it for!
I start by dividing students up into ability based groups. That way, my high flyers can really take their conversation where they want it to go, and I can help be there to assist some of my lower students. If you take a look at my slideshow, you will see that there are students sitting in an inner circle, and students sitting in an outer circle. Students in the inner circle speak first while their partner in the outer circle score first. I had my rounds go for 10 minutes. Once the 10 minute timer went off, the circles switched places. Whoever scored now speaks, whoever spoke no scores for their partner. In my slideshow, you can see a copy of the rubric that I used. Students can earn a different amount of points depending on how they aid in the discussion. For example, students get two points if they agree with someone and state their reason why, or get one point if they ask someone else a question in Spanish. They can even lose points if they interrupt someone - the perfect way to keep it staying respectful!
Overall, I hope you found something to be helpful from this post! If not even for Go! Vive a tu manera, maybe for some other type of movie/show in your Spanish classroom. If you have any questions or want more clarifications on something, please email me at mehlert@htschool.org
I also LOVE to hear when something worked well!
Saludos,
Maestra Ehlert