Gone are the days when students could spend a week making a country project and then another week presenting the country project in English to the rest of the Spanish One Class!
We need to use our class time for as much Comprehensible Input as possible! So let’s deliver culture in the target language and in small chunks!
Start the pre-class or bell ringer activity with students listening to and watching the national anthem of a Spanish-speaking country sung in Spanish with written lyrics and with over 20 pictures showing national symbols and country highlights.
Introduce the idea by asking students if they think visitors should be familiar with our national anthem? Most think they should! So let’s have our students be equally informed! Appeal to knowing what is being said when the anthems are sung at soccer games, Olympics, and other sporting events. Music is a great way to deliver culture – by Wednesday they are humming it, some without realizing it!
Monday: Lyrics in both English and Spanish
Tuesday: Wordsearch with pictures – this can carry over into next day or be completed at another point.
Wednesday and Thursday: Coloring book
Friday: Complete word search and coloring book. The last 5 minutes of class we play a Bingo game using the pre-printed bingo cards placed in page protectors and markers and the Picture PowerPoint.
I think using these in a Heritage class would be very useful. I have the 20 anthems recorded and am now creating the videos. So far I have two: Equatorial Guinea and Venezuela. I’ll continue with the Central American and Caribbean countries that relate to our Heritage Speakers and then expand to the rest of South America. I’ll add to this post as the others become available.
I used to live in Venezuela. It’s heartbreaking to see what is happening now to such good people. The folks I still know there want work, not charity. I am delighted to provide them this work. THe singer, the graphic artist and the videographer live in Venezuela.
The money goes straight to them – no charity administrative fees.
I decided to start with Equatorial Guinea because I really know very little about this country.
