Viva El Toro

Our second unit of the year for 10th grade is a reader and our goal is an interpersonal assessment.  We read Blaine Ray's Viva el Toro (and hopefully we'll get the new edition next year!). This unit has definitely shifted and grown as we've incorporated IPAs to be our structure for a unit.  There are so many fantastic authentic resources that support bullfighting and I'm sure that we'll include more in the future.  We wanted to structure this similar to a Socratic Seminar in which students referenced different resources to link them together.  We set our goal for Intermediate Low and try to model and encourage effective communicative skills throughout the lesson and also focused on asking questions on a regular basis.  We set daily learning targets and try to hold the students accountable each day with closure in regards to that goal. 

Playlist

My Five Favorite Lessons

Following Martina's lead of #MyFive, I'm sharing my top five fave lessons that I think are useable with all units.

1. Beanie baby toss
1 did my mariposa lesson in my unit called perspectivos de muerte that we studied to align Día de los Muertos. It's a lesson plan format I'll copy again because it engaged students and increases their level of accountability.

Teacher provide hook. in this case we did a Mariposa hand clap (just replace chocolate)  https://youtu.be/zWCLNACNObg

Teacher provide first round of comprehensible input. I pulled out my objects with butterfliesbutt at a time and gave input and asked questions (pics below)

Beanie baby toss as a class:  class stands in circle and give one word you associate with mariposa when you get beanie baby.

Teacher provide more input. I created a "book" and had students readalone before more comprehensible input and engagement via plickers 

Beanie baby toss with partner (same as before but not each student shares out more)

2. Salad bowl

Martina shared this 8 years ago. Carrie Toth describes with pictures on her blog post. It is fin and really gets the vocab into their heads!

3. "Close Watch"
When we have students read, we do a lot to get them to do a close read. I started doing that with videos this year as well. Whether it is a music video or not, the first viewing requires students to watch and write on whiteboards all they can see in Target language. They write nouns, actions, people, etc. Teacher calls on everyone to report out a word and then writes on front board. Watch again to try to get five more. Teacher can pause video and provide more CI and refer to the words the students provided.
The next watch can then be specific to your goals of the video.

4. "What's that?"
Gather around table in the middle to see what teacher has. I leave all objects in the giant "pot" for an suprise element.  As I pull out, I describe and ask some questions (thinking about giving them ideas and vocab they'll need for next idea)

Then hand out sentence strips (aka sentence starters) and students form their sentence when ready and teacher can elaborate or comment on students sentences when appropriate

5. Achi Pachi

Trick them into practicing questions through repetition.  My friend Senorita Walpole wrote a blogpost about it

My 5 Blog post Influences

Here's my top 5 Blog posts that had a huge impact on my classroom:

1. Encouraging L2 from students
La Maestra Loca Points System
Huge game changer and easy to implement!

2. Sentence stems

THE THREE-STEP SYSTEM FOR GETTING STUDENTS TO DO THE TALKING

Such an easy trick to prepare students to participate in a group conversation. No more crickets!

3. CI Tips
Notes from NTPRS 2017
high-leverage strategies ...those yielding amazing results with minimal effort

4. Deskless
Joining the trend!

Benefits of going deskless

5. Vocab List-Less

I saw Amy Lenord present this idea at ACTFL 2016 and was inspired!  I have really tried to lessen the list and depending the unit may have no list!  Added support from Carrie Toth