Spanish Teacher Sanity Savers – Engaging Spanish Asynchronous Cultural Lessons for Substitutes, Extra Credit, or for You.
If one more well-intentioned person tells me to take care of myself this school year while adding on more responsibilities that prevent me from taking care of myself, I may not react with my filter in place!
Do you feel the same way?
Luckily I was talking to the Venezuelans that I support and these innovative souls helped me to create my three mandatory asynch sub lessons that I need for my virtual and concurrent face-to-face students.
After my students did the first one, and raved about it being one of their better days with a sub, and, my being human, I thought, “these are great why waste them on a sub?”
So we created three more and will continue to add to them. They are available individually or as a group.
At their own pace with Google Slides, students learn about nine cultural icons through YouTube videos, answer questions, and at the end, search the hidden picture for the icons.
Students find this a great break from online games and especially love the food segments.
Treat yourself to the freedom of knowing you have a no-prep lesson for any emergency. The only thing you have to decide is if you will include the answers to the hidden pictures or save them for later. See videos below of each country.
Update: These can also be used for extra credit for students.
If you j
ust need an emergency activity, read the next post about “Encuentra las diferencias” for that emergency activity when things fall apart.
All net proceeds help three Venezuelan families – meet them in the video below as they open three boxes I sent to them.
Spanish Class Cultural Fix for Wacky Schedule Days, Fast Finishers, and Emergency Spanish Back-Up Activities
Engaging Spanish Culture “Find the Differences” drawings are life-savers for when the activities you planned for class take less time – and you are being observed! Either print out a set or set-it up for your online classes and quickly access them seamlessly.
Students find them engaging and they just may give you that break you need to help students catch up or to write that referral.
Keep them in reserve for when students return early from an assembly or a fire drill takes up most of the period and you need a short engaging activity in order to save your planned lesson for the next day. You’ll be glad you did.
Although they come in groups of two, I do use the collection of over 20 with my fast finishers because these puzzles build resilience – one of the major keys to success, according to research that I trust.
Fast finishers enjoy these – even those who tend to quickly go back to their video games – are intrigued.
I also sprinkle them into spice up our bellwork.
Each one has 10 differences and the topics include:
EL DÍA DE LOS MUERTOS GUATEMALA
LA INDEPENDENCIA DE CHILE – BAILE LA CUECA
LA INDEPENDENCIA DE CHILE – COMIDA
PARAGUAY BAILE DE LAS BOTELLAS
Top 5 Engagement Strategies for Virtual Synchronous Spanish Class
As a “Baby Boomer GC Zoomer” Spanish One teacher, I keep my virtual students engaged for eighty-minute periods by adapting five of my tried-and-true comprehensible input activities to our online environment.
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Virtual Spanish Transition Videos
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Use pre-recorded audios and videos
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Use Zoom’s private chat to engage students
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Use warm-ups with engaging visuals
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Use Choice Boards and Mote for Asynchronous Wednesdays
1. VIRTUAL SPANISH TRANSITION VIDEOS
First, I am a big believer of staying in the target language by using musical transition videos.
Music seems to keep the endorphins flowing and to enter their subconscious.
They hear the first few notes and know what to do without using English, because the cartoon videos with students their age show them what to do.
Our Venezuelans made a dozen new videos to match my virtual transitions including:
Buenos días, m’ijos
Abran el chat Escriban en el chat
Reactivan la cámara
Entren en gupitos
Cump_91 from ellen shrager on Vimeo.
2. USE PRERECORDED AUDIOS
Second, as a comprehensible input teacher, I want to drench my students with reading and listening activities. In the past I created many 30 second audios for students in order to preserve my voice. Now these 30 second breaks from my speaking enable me to build community and create bonds with my students. I carry on many personal conversations with students in the private Zoom chat. They tell me all kinds of things from their internet being laggy to it being their birthday this weekend. Students struggling or with questions ask in the chat and I can answer without disrupting learning. Who knew that back in the 70’s when my super strict teacher insisted we learn to type without looking at the keyboard that one day I would be staring into a computer camera and typing words of encouragement to students I can’t even see!
3. USE ZOOM’S PRIVATE CHAT TO ENGAGE STUDENTS
Third, I use the chat to engage students. I replaced asking the class questions and their responding in unison or on a white board with their answering in the Zoom private chat. Every day I ask them ¿Cómo están ustedes? I read some of the answers as they fly in with a commentary. “Cansado, bien, regular, cansada, lo mismo de siempre, cansado cansada cansada, wow es lunes. ¿Cuál es la fecha de hoy?” and I comment on the number writing it in numerals correctly.
In the chat I ask them to predict how many of the listening sentences they will get right and then have them report back to me their actual score. I ask them many of the storytelling yes or no questions or ask them about their preference and they answer the chat in a flurry. I respond to their answers. I always save the chat and am amazed by the high number of responses from my 30 students.
Many parents have told me how they all review the choice board when it drops into their Google Classroom and decide together – building engagement with the families and Shragervilla, as I call my community.
USE MOTE TO RESPOND
When I review and grade their choice boards, I use MOTE to respond. It is a chrome extension that allows me to answer using my voice in the private messages so that students feel like we are talking. I comment on what they made or with whom they practiced the dance.
“You danced with your new puppy? What’s his name? What kind of a dog? I want a picture of this!”
“Wow that tres leches cake makes me hungry – how long did it take to make and who helped you?”
The unintended consequence is that I easily have 50 emails a day from students and families, but it is a small price to pay for the level of engagement they represent.
This is the hardest teaching I have done since I started over thirty years ago. Many students do not turn on their cameras and we don’t use the audio because I average 30 students per class. I miss our little interactions that I never appreciated before. But, by using these five steps to engagement, we are building a sense of community. It keeps students engaged even when their cameras and microphones are off, they are texting me in the chat with their answers, observations, and feedback to the different activities I create.
It is one of my core values that no education is ever wasted.
While virtual teaching is far from ideal, our students need us now more than ever to validate the importance of their learning by investing our time in engaging them.
All net proceeds help three Venezuelan families – meet them in this video as they open three boxes I sent to them.
If you want to read more about class structure and transition videos, read my blog here.
Virtual Transition Videos from ellen shrager on Vimeo.
Spanish 1 Grade Recovery for Marking Period 1 – Giving Grace, Opportunities for Redemption, and Hope
Grade Recovery Grace from ellen shrager on Vimeo.
Let’s give them grace.
How do you help students who flunked the first marking period to recover their grades when secured testing is elusive and there isn’t enough time to go through all of your full lessons?
I teach 160 minutes a week of virtual direct instruction and reduced my weekly lessons to one dense half-hour of essential information in an asynchronous lesson in Google Slides.
It helps them to do the lessons at their own pace without adult supervision.
When they finish they will know what most “D’ students know and be able to continue on to the next marking period, not dragging their flunking grade with them.
If our administrators give us the authority to change grades and offer redemption for genuine effort, we should embrace grace recovery during the Pandemic.
This file includes:
a pdf with eight links to google slides – you must make copies of them.
- Intro Me Gusta Hola Me llamo estudiante profesora 13 slides and Quizlet
- Greetings 17 slides and Quizlet
- How One is Feeling 22 slides and Quizlet
- Numbers 1 – 15 and Days of the Week 21 slides and Quizizzz
- Numbers 16 – 31 and Months 22 slides and Quizizz
- Numbers 40 – 59 Time 25 slides Quizizz
- Numbers 60 – 100 Weather and Seasons 15 slides and Quizizz
- Colors and Classroom Objects and Adjective Agreement 25 slides and Quizizz
This store is my charity work, all net proceeds support three Venezuelan families, so that they can buy food, medicines and send two girls to elementary school.
♥ ♥ Update on family
♥ ♥ For free current events in Venezuela, click here.
♥ ♥ For activities about the price of food click here.
♥ ♥ For activities about the cost of education click here.
♥ ♥ For video about one family leaving Venezuela click here.
♥ ♥ You may also be interested in the Venezuelan National Anthem Video and booklet.
♥ ♥ My blog about the three families click here.
If teammates, coworkers or a school or a school district would like to use my resources, there is a multiple user license that is available at a reduced price.
Click below for more information on the lessons.
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