Unit: Involucrado para mejorar la comunidad

This unit is soooo great....it feels so authentic!

I've always loved it. (here's our old version that is solid)..but my colleague and I have made some tweaks that are really powerful to create flow as we guide our students to the final evaluation.


First change:  Rename it (again)!  Involucrados para mejorar la comunidad
I wanted to showcase our goal (create a proposal to our partner college to help communities in need of assistance), so the name makes more sense.  I do one daily translation a day and that's with our daily learning target and sometimes I build the title into that procedure.  I just use my magic pointer finger (which requires English which is normally a no-no) and point to what they translate...and I focus on morphemes a lot.  So for example when we translate para as "in order" I immediately put my pointer on the "ar" in mejorar and pause while they say "to" before moving to the root verb and they say "better".

Second change:  Use an authentic photo for my cover page.
No more cute clip art if I can help it.  I want true representation of the target culture and that's great fodder for communication.  We spoke about it various teams throughout the unit because there's a lot going on.  They also asked questions (!!!) about it.  I will promote and encourage authentic questions ALL THE TIME because they are an absolute essential skill for intermediates.

Third change:  re-evaluate our mini themes to ensure that we are giving examples of ways that communities are being helped so the students have a foundation of ideas (and tons of tons of input based on #authres).

Unit: Comunidades

I LOVE teaching this unit.  It started out from the textbook as En La Ciudad and as I worked to implement IPAs I focused on transportation and it was ok...not compelling though.  Then at ACTFL 2016 I got the inspiration I needed.  Megan and Kara from The Creative Language Class presented about making a meaningful curriculum and they shared this image and I was in!  If I was hooked, I new I'd get my students wanting to talk about this.

Unit: Las Riquezas Naturales en Colombia

 

In my level 5 class, we are aiming for Intermediate High as the goal for the course.  Of course, the individual students vary, but I want Intermediate High to be known as I do my research for what authentic resources and what content I choose.

We teach a chapter entitled "Las Riquezas Naturales" and I was looking for a more focused approach as I designed my IPA and after collecting a lot of authentic resources and trying to determine what cultural aspect would be interesting to the students, I decided to focus on the landmine epidemic in Colombia.

Every unit, I aim to use art and music as authentic resources and cultural insight and I felt that I was getting something in this direction through Juanes.  I watched the movie Living on One Dollar with my 9-year daughters one day and knew I had to us
e it in the classroom. The movie shows the reality of true poverty in a country in Central America and is very inspiring to want to help to make a change.  So I was also aware of the nonprofit organization Kiva where people ask for loans.  Some other bloggers have created a project with it also.  Putting this together with a Colombian focus gave me a true vision for the unit.  I knew that I had to get the students to see the beauty in Colombia and the harsh reality that citizens face.  So my backward design and path of study has settled on the following:
(we meet on block schedule.  80 minutes every other day)