miércoles, 8 de octubre de 2008

Ponerse al día

Ponerse al día is an idiomatic expression in Spanish which means "to update onself." And given that it has been some time since my last entry, I thought it was a good time to teach it to you. Anyway, read on to see what we've been doing for the last 3 weeks!

PRIMARY
The primary students are probably sick and tired of listening to me drill them on the different responses to the greetings Buenos días, Buenas tardes, Buenas noches, and ¿Cómo estáis? but after 3 sessions, I think they have it down. On September 23rd, we learned another song (to the tune of "Where is Thumbkin?") to help students learn about these differences as well as to introduce them to the days of the week- lunes, martes, miércoles, jueves, viernes, sábado, and domingo. On the 30th, we added the song Diez deditos (to the tune of "One little, two little, three little Indians") which makes learning how to count in Spanish very easy. Nonetheless, "Waking Up Song" continues to still be their favorite, they ask to sing it in every class! Last week, I also introduced a new question ¿De qué color es? by walking around the room and asking them what color a student's shirt was. We ended that class by reading two nursery rhymes, Pito, pito, colorito and Cinco lobitos. Like songs, rhymes are an excellent way to remember language. On October 7th, I followed up with colors again but this time in reference to articles of clothing, which is new for them. They learned camisa [shirt], cinturón [belt], pantalones [pants], pantalones cortos [shorts], falda [skirt], vestido [dress], calcetines [socks], and zapatos [shoes], although it may take another class or two to really keep these words fresh in their minds.

LOWER ELEMENTARY
Three weeks ago, I started asking los estudiantes de Sra. Gardner the question ¿Dónde está? and it has been absolutely great to see how these kids get it (¿Dónde está? means "Where is it?"). On 9/23 and 9/25, I used this question to follow up on the classroom objects that we learned earlier by asking ¿Dónde está el reloj? or ¿Dónde está la puerta? and everyone did very well. I even threw in a few words that they had not officially learned but could assume their meaning based on their similarity to English, such as teléfono and computadora. On 9/30 and 10/2, we learned 3 different ways to ask the standard "How are you?" (¿Cómo te va?, ¿Qué tal?, and ¿Cómo estás?) as well as 5 different ways to respond- Muy bien, gracias; Así, así; Cansado; Enfermo; and Mal. In the latter of these two classes, I raised the bar a little with questions related to their Spanish tarjetas de identificación, such as ¿De dónde eres tú? [Where are you from?] and ¿De qué nacionalidad eres tú? [What is your nationality?]. These questions were a little difficult for the youngest students but the older ones were there, as always, to help. And finally on 10/7, we spent the class discussing Me gusta and No me gusta. I started by reading a very easy story ¡No me gusta mi moño! about a dog that whines about everything she doesn't like and later learns to use them to her advantage. The students followed the story very well even though all the words were new (with the help of illustrations). We ended class by doing a worksheet exercise in which the students filled in the blanks for things that they liked and did not like using a number of new verbs such as bailar [to dance] and escribir [to read].

UPPER ELEMENTARY
In the last 5 classes, the students in Upper Elementary have really progressed at spelling in Spanish. I will detail in another entry the words they have been learning to spell in each class but the highlights are two particularly difficult words which many spelled correctly- estadounidense and aula. To appreciate what this really means, you'd have to hear these words pronounced but I can assure you that they are not simple, especially for students their age and for ones that only get an hour per week to study Spanish. Since 9/23, we have been able to read two more chapters in our textbook as well as the Capítulo de Repaso, a section that reviews the first 5 chapters that we have read. Their reading skills and comprehension are progressing with each class and, as a teacher, it is especially rewarding to see them put the pieces together and make sense out of Spanish. Yesterday (10/7) has been one of the best classes yet for me. After we read in each class, I always ask questions based on the text but this time I strayed from the text and started asking questions about the students themselves. Although the answers were similar to what we read, they needed to think about them in the context of their own lives rather than simply repeating what was written in the book. And..... THEY DID GREAT! I was able to ask about their houses and families in a fair amount of detail and they were still able to follow along and respond correctly. We kept the conversations yesterday in Spanish for at least 50% of the class, a record!