Minute by Minute Spanish

Spanish Lessons

Just Prep during Your Prep Spanish Class Lesson Template for Daily Tech Guide

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How to create your own CI classroom using a PPT/Google Slides with links to CI activities .

Game Changer Alert! If you want to structure your class with routines and varied activities, stay in the target language and prep for each lesson during your prep and not at home, then use this PowerPoint template. Use it every day to establish routines and create an interesting class. Choose from among the 75 activity slides for your activities. Never forget something you wanted to do in class because you have a slide for it.

Save each day’s presentation “daily tech guide” in a folder with handouts and label it day 1, day 2, day 3, etc. and next year spend even less time prepping for the day’s lesson. If you have already purchased a bundle of videos or the videos included below, go here and I will send you the template.

Some of the routine videos are embedded. You can always add more by clicking on the icon on top of the slide. There are 75 suggested activities and many have links to blogs. This is a growing bundle. Follow instructions inside to join our group and share new activities that we can add to the resource. Or send me your email for monthly updated slides.

It doesn’t open in a Chromebook if you want a Google Drive™ version, click here.

After downloading, if you want to order a bundle of videos, email me and I will insert them for you and set up your custom bundle.

You should use a remote presentation device or wireless mouse so that you can stand anywhere in the room and click to the next slide.

You will need to be able to open a zipped file to find:

The PowerPoint is editable, but 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.

Are you like me and wish for four things this school year?

 

13 Minutes of Instructions on how to personalize  your template.

 

If you would like to purchase the template with the videos, click here.

If  you would like to join our FB group and share new activities and slides, click here.

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.

If your school won’t provide you with these tools, you may consider this:

Thanks for Visiting For the Minute by Minute Spanish!
Thanks for Visiting For the Minute by Minute Spanish!

Top 5 Engagement Strategies for Virtual Synchronous Spanish Class

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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.

  1. Virtual Spanish Transition Videos

  2. Use pre-recorded audios and videos

  3. Use Zoom’s private chat to engage students

  4. Use warm-ups with engaging visuals

  5. 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.

How to Engage Students in Distance Learning Escriban en el chat
How to Engage Students in Distance Learning Lo Veo Lo pienso ¿Me pregunto?

4. USE WARM-UPS WITH ENGAGING VISUALS WHILE CHECKING IN STUDENTS

Fourth, it takes me at least five minutes to check in each student individually, to keep us safe from Zoom bombers.   During daily warm-ups, students look at an intriguing image and write what they see, what they think and what they wonder.  We always go over the answers the next class period and they enjoy exploring images of money, landscapes, and other cultural items that pique their curiosity and keep them engaged. I ask them in the chat if they would want to visit this place when it is safe to do so, offering them hope and a vision of better times.

How to Engage Students in Distance Learning Choice Board

5. USE ASYNCHRONOUS TIME FOR CULTURAL CHOICE BOARDS

On Wednesdays, the students work asynchronously for forty minutes.  In class, they are drenched in comprehensible input.  I debated using this time for them to practice on Quizizz or some other input program. I decided that when they aren’t with me, they have the chance to pursue their interests and fall in love with the culture, increasing their engagement.  Families report it has been a great decision.

Each week we highlight a different country in our choice board that lays out everything they need.  They choose one activity:

  1. Review the artist’s work and recreate American Gothic in the artist’s style – submit the picture.
  2. Read about a sports figure and answer questions.
  3. Make one of the recipes and submit a picture.
  4. Try a dance and answer the questions.
  5. Create a craft and submit a picture.
  6. Record saying the tongue twister.
  7. Listen to the song and answer the questions.
  8. Complete a sudoku with this week’s vocabulary.

Choiceboard _1 from ellen shrager on Vimeo.

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.

Thanks for Visiting For the Minute by Minute Spanish!
Thanks for Visiting For the Minute by Minute Spanish!

Spanish Winter Songs – Ojála que Nieve y Súper Juego

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Spanish Class Snow Day!
Sing about the impending snow in Spanish!

 

As students return after Winter Break, help them to express their thoughts about the football playoffs and about potential snow school cancellations.

These catchy songs  will work their way into your students’ speech and will help build a sense of community about anticipating future events.

 

Nieve Folding Instagram5 from ellen shrager on Vimeo.

 

Update nieve! from ellen shrager on Vimeo.

 

 

Spanish Class Snow Day song.
Stay on task and in the target language as students discuss their hopes for a snow day!

Purchase here:

 

 

explanation súper juego 2020 from ellen shrager on Vimeo.

Purchase here.

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.

If your school won’t provide you with these tools, you may consider this:

 

 

Thanks for Visiting For the Minute by Minute Spanish!
Thanks for Visiting For the Minute by Minute Spanish!

Five Rules for Spanish Class Transitions

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Use these 5 rules for any world language class.
Don’t let transitions undermine classroom management!

A student studying to be a Spanish teacher asked, “What frase in the target language should I use to get their attention when transitioning to an new activity?”
The shallow answer is “¿listos o no listos?” My students answer in unison “listos” and occassionaly in a playful mood they will tell me “no listos” and I will tell them “no es la respuesta correcta” and we try again and move on.

Transitions can make or break classroom management and a one-size-fits-all approach is a common pitfall for new teachers. As a reflective teacher in her 30th year in the secondary classroom, I have 5 rules for world language class transitions.

1. Do not try to get the class to be quiet, rather you want them to be attentive. Students respond better to giving you a reply than to hushing. Create responses for them and they will all join in.

2. Do not get their attention until you are 110% prepared with the next activity. Getting their attention and then fumbling for the location of the handouts or the track on the CD or link to the video is deadly to classroom management. You will loose them and their attentiveness for future transitions, as they figure you don’t really mean it . . . yet.

3. Support your transitions with a visual, assuming you can project on to a screen or wall. I make a daily tech guide with a slide for each activity and each transition so that the students look up and know what to do even if they can’t quite hear you above all the paired practice speaking going on around them. Make a list of your weekly activities, make a slide for each one and a transition for each one.  Use a remote presentation device or wireless mouse so you can stand near certain students while you transition through the class.  Click here for videos of my tech-guided classes.

4. If you are using music or a video, embed them in your daily tech guide. This extra prep work will pay large dividends as you minimize down time.

5. Use musical transition videos. Over 50 of them were made by some fairly desperate Venezuelans and all proceeds go to them. They have created the best atmosphere for my level one classes, students delighting in the musical breaks and singing along as they do the transition. My transitions are now seamless.

2023 Update: Check just prep during your prep here  – we now have over 100 videos. 

Get a free version here.

Scroll down this previous post to get a feel for them – there are examples in six languages. They are a game changer!


1.  When I am ready to start, I play the class count down video – students know to be seated and quiet as they count down the 3 -2 – 1 ya!  French version below!

 

 

Students use this expression spontaneously before beginning anything.

2  I greet them, ask how they are, and tell them the objective of the day and the class activities of the day – all on 3 slides.   I play the “Take out the Homework” video and show the answers on the board while I quickly check for completion.  Since day two of the school year when I first played it, my students spontaneously tell me ‘la tengo’ or ‘no la tengo’ and if someone doesn’t have it everyone else asks, “¿en serio?”

 

3. Check for questions and play the musical slide to take attendance – we get nasty emails if we miss attendance for any class!  My students tell me” X está ausente” or “no está ausente, en el baño.”

4.  Play “The Daily Review”song and complete five minutes of review.  My Spanish 1 students can fluently say “cuando necesito gramática perfecta” and “¿Qué hago – repaso, repaso, repaso”

5.   Play “Take Out the Vocab List video and they can all mimic “Favor de sacar la lista del vocabulario.”

I also play the self- talk musical slide that reminds students if they don’t get it right to tell them selves – I don’t have it yet!  I introduce a chunk of vocabulary, practice comprehension with gestures and then show slides with visuals.  My Spanish 1 students use “lo acerté spontaneously in many situations” and even “no lo acerté – todavía.”

6.    Play the video about finding a random partner of the week or if we already did it play the musical slide to find this week’s partner.

My students can say ¿Quién sera? even though they won’t be taught this tense for three more years.

7. Practice with partner(s) usually some kind of spontaneous speech activity – there are videos that show the students how to play guessing games. If we have the computers then they will watch “The Take Out the Computer”  video, “Practice QuizletLive” video, students practice on their own, play the quizlet live video and finally I play the  “Put Away the Computers” video and rearrange the chairs slide.  My students quickly learn the games that have songs to teach the vocabulary and create spontaneous dialogues – month two of Spanish One!  They can all do “más alto, más bajo” and many others.

8. Slide leading into next activity – could be a listening activity or a reading activity or Simon says.  My students all know “vamos a jugar” and can follow it with many games.

 

9. Tidy up the room.

_13 Que desorden Pls no posting – trimmed from ellen shrager on Vimeo.

 

10.Take out the Agenda video and students write down the homework.  My students can say any line from this song at appropriate times.

“ay no me gusta, pero es importante”  “Saco mi agenda, escribo la tarea.”

_20 Saco Mi Agenda Pls no posting – trimmed from ellen shrager on Vimeo.

11. Closure – students sing and then tell me something new they learned.  My students can spontaneously say “Hoy, hoy aprendi ” and complete the thought.

Video 69 Señora – trimmed from ellen shrager on Vimeo.

 

My public school seventh, eighth, and ninth graders in Spanish One produce spontaneous speech even if they don’t want to – they can’t help themselves because music enters their brains and remains like nothing else that I have tried in these past 30 years.  You can make your own songs or use mine.

You can even use  my videos,  created by native speakers, and offered here  on TeacherspayTeachers. Or click here for the starter kit!  They help support several Venezuelan families. We are making them in French, Mandarin, German, and Latin, and English.  What I love about TeacherspayTeachers is that it helps new teachers to quickly climb the learning curve by selecting tried and true activities from veteran teachers still in the classroom, like me!  If you need something new to get your students spontaneously  speaking in the target language – this is it!

 

Click here for English Videos

 

Click here for French Videos

 

Click here for German videos

Click here for Italian videos.

Click here for Mandarin videos

Thanks for Visiting For the Minute by Minute Spanish!
Thanks for Visiting For the Minute by Minute Spanish!

Why is it so hard to get students’ attention?

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Even if you stand on your head or spit coins they won’t listen. Why are there so many responses to this new teacher’s question about getting students’ attention?

A new Spanish teacher posted recently, “What are your best classroom attention getters. Particularly for High School. My freshman still have not learned that talking when I am isn’t acceptable. Nothing I have tried has really worked.”

My first response is to take charge and when you start an activity, explicitly tell students that the “fast finishers” will do X and not talk to one another.  Give them the options that they can do and be explicit up front so that it is impersonal.  If you start redirecting them at the end – it makes it personal and open to negotiation.  This is smart classroom management that comes with experience.  But what if that isn’t enough?

There were close to 100 responses to the above query,  featuring hand claps, sayings, call-and-answer responses, whistles, teen buzz, points-off-behavior-grade and the silent treatment.

What is going on here?  Clearly there is a bigger problem here encompassing two issues:

1.You must eliminate that part of you that gives them permission to talk over you.

2. Rather than trying to get them to be quiet, pique their interest with highly engaging transitions that vary from activity to activity.

 

Step One: Get Your Head in the Game

No teacher wants to admit this but it is true. When a class acts this way, the students are actually bullying the teacher.

I have learned a lot from my dogs. There is always an alpha dog. When we try to interfere and not let the alpha dog take charge, the other dogs are not grateful; rather they are confused and act worse until the alpha dog returns and re-establishes the pecking order.

Be the alpha in your classroom!
Like my beloved pets, students need the alpha to take charge, else they will all jockey to be the one talking the most and in charge. They need you to assert your alpha position.

Children need to know who is in charge and will act out if the teacher does not lead.

In my most still, reflective moments, I have to admit that when a student has more power in my classroom than I do, it is because a little part of my psyche agrees with the student that I don’t have to be respected.

I can blame that on my family legacy of beating us as kids, and most times I have vanquished it.

Sometimes it crops up when:

  • I am stressed with a life event.
  • When there is a really bad combination of students who should never be scheduled together, and I am powerless to make changes because Spanish just isn’t perceived to be that important.
  • When for whatever reason I will have unwanted consequences if my admin finds I am struggling.

I have a friend who let students talk over and walk over her because she is a French teacher and needs her enrollment. Turns out, only when she took charge did she retain her enrollment. You need to fearlessly address what part of you gives them permission to have more power in the classroom and deal with it.

You need to talk to yourself and tell yourself: “I am the adult in charge.

I will be obeyed.

I will not let children take away from those who are here to learn.

When students whine, it is not a moral judgment about me, but more about their own teenage angst. I will not feed their whining and let it grow by responding to it.

I deserve respect and if I don’t get it, that child will be removed for the rest of the period. My other students deserve respect.

There is zero tolerance for talking over me; it undermines my authority and I DO NOT DESERVE IT AND WILL NOT TOLERATE IT.”

Believe this and walk into that room with the steel eye and erect posture that demands respect. period.  Oh and every time you ask for their attention you must be 100% prepared with the next task. No looking for the handouts, or realizing that you have to fumble on the computer to find the video, nada.  You must get their attention and move on – otherwise you will loose them.  I use a daily tech guide and a clicker so that from any part of the room we move on to the next activity with seamless transitions.

Here is a video of what my lesson looks like as I teach weather.

 

Step Two: Vary your transitions and take them to the next level with musical videos.

Rather than trying to get them to be quiet, capture their interest with transitional videos that pique their interest and make them tell the others to shush so they can figure out what is next.  At this point, with three months under our belts, my students catch a hint of a video and they start to do the task it requires or else they listen to the airhorn or the vamos a jugar video to see which one applies to the class.  Rather than telling them to be quiet so that they can write down the homework, they hear the song and start pulling out their agendas and looking for the handouts while singing the song.

Here is a previous blog showing how they work.

Beyond Chants in the World Language Classroom: 3 Steps to Move from Advanced to Master Teacher

Thanks for Visiting For the Minute by Minute Spanish!
Thanks for Visiting For the Minute by Minute Spanish!