Wednesday, December 18, 2013

Celebrating the Holidays and Teaching Culture Through CI

I created a lesson to talk about Christmas traditions.  The targets were communicative and also cultural;  I want my students to be able to converse in Spanish about these celebrations, and also to compare and contrast their traditions to the traditions of other countries.
I chose high frequency vocabulary to use in this activity:

1) los dejan = they leave them
2) traen regalos = they bring presents
3) los ponen = they put them

Yesterday, I began with a Power Point introducing vocabulary and having students write down in their vocabulary lists.  We decided on a gesture for each of the structures and practice them with TPR. 





Then, following the power point, we continued with conversation as I tried to personalize each of the structures.  I pointed out the different verb forms in our conversation using pop-up grammar: "Pedro, tú traes regalos para tu maestra?" What does the "s" in "traes" mean?" etc.
The power point introduced them to Los Reyes Magos, and I explained (in Spanish, using their new vocabulary) what is that tradition all about. 
After the presentation and conversation/circling of structures, recycling old vocabulary, I asked them to do a Venn Diagram comparing Santa Claus and Los Reyes Magos.  I had them do this as a Think-Pair-Share activity, and then we created a class Venn Diagram on the board. 
Today, we watched the commercial "Santa vs Los Reyes" (below) using Movie Talk.  At the end of the powerpoint, I included screen shots of the commercial, so that students could retell with partners for more practice.  They enjoyed it! Afterwards, we used individual white boards: Students are in pairs, I ask a question and they write their answer on the boards and compare/discuss with partner.  Tomorrow we will write the story as a class (students dictate, I write on white board) and then have them write on their own.  What are you doing to celebrate the holidays and teach culture through comprehensible input?


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