Archive for the ‘Spanish’ Category
Filed Under Photos, Spanish
In the lab, Señora Lopez’s 8th grade Spanish students practice identifying reflexive verbs through paintings by famous Hispanic artists, such as Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo, Fernando Botero, Diego Velázquez, Salvador Dalí, among others. To play the game, students look at works (and biographical info about artists) displayed in a Power Point presentation and use DILL to ring in with the reflexive verbs they can identify in each of the paintings. First student to ring in, wins a point! Software used: Power Point, DILL, and overhead projector.
Game: Hispanic Artists and Reflexive Verbs
Filed Under French, Photos, Spanish
Welcome the World Language Lab’s 2009-2010 school year! We’ve had plenty of changes to mark the new year, not the least a new lab coordinator (me, Colin Warren)…
As the new lab coordinator, I’m pleased to announce the lab is up to date with the latest version of DiLL and many other software packages and we have new headsets throughout the lab. We will also be available for reservation during all periods of the day, starting this week. Please check the schedule (easily available through the Yuperstar blog page) and sign up when available.
If you have any questions about using the lab or our software, please feel free to sign up for an appointment, or send an email to me (cvwarren@ucls.uchicago.edu).
We’ve already had several classes in the lab, and are looking forward to watching everyone learn!
Mme. Schneider presenting to her French class
Sra. Hundley working on reflexive verbs
- Colin
Filed Under Chinese, French, German, Latin, Spanish, World Languages
Here is the result of our Flip camera footage taken at last week’s Faculty Development meeting.
Thanks to all of the teachers who were able to participate and share their thoughts. And double thanks to everyone in the department for their valiant efforts to consistently innovate and renovate how they use technology in the language classroom.
Enjoy!
Filed Under Spanish, YuperStars
Sra. Ramos has started a new wave of interest in the department in blabberize.com as a fun and simple way for students to demonstrate proficiency in first person narrative and presentational styles of speaking. She was able to create one login and password that all of the students could use for this project. Students had no problem logging in and uploading their photos simultaneously.
Here are a few examples by Sra. Ramos’ 5th grade students (works in progress):
Example 1
Example 2
Example 3
Filed Under Spanish, YuperStars
Becky López and and Katie Hundley have been accepted to present at the upcoming ACTFL conference in San Diego this November.
The title of their presentation, “Talking back: popular technologies in motivating conversation in Spanish” will feature methods for using popular technologies for motivating conversation practice in young students of Spanish.
Ms. Hundley writes, “The dynamic symbiosis between new technologies and the evolving digital cultures of our learners is revolutionizing our profession, and we are happy to be blazing trails here. Needless to say we are very excited to represent the Laboratory Schools at ACTFL in November.”
Congratulations to Katie and Becky!
Filed Under Spanish, World Languages, YuperStars
Today, 5th graders are celebrating the languages and cultures they study with games, song, dance, and good food! I had the pleasure of accompanying a group of about 60 5th grade students to Little Village (26th street), where we practiced reading, writing, and speaking Spanish. We read signs, bought bread, candy, groceries, and asked people questions to fill out the treasure hunt activity that Ms. Guerrero and Ms. Ramos had prepared. Number one most used phrase of the day: “¿Cuanto cuesta?”
Ms. Guerrero prepared an online Jeopardy game the day before to review Spanish phrases and Mexican history. Great web app for Jeopardy, by the way! Much easier to set up and use than PowerPoint!
Filed Under Spanish, YuperStars
Mr. Craig Reubelt used these scenarios in his HS Spanish class to practice chapter vocab, informal commands, the present perfect, and other tenses. His scenarios included conversations between a mechanic and the owner of a car, dialing 911, a police officer and the driver of a car, and two elderly persons close to death discussing their “Bucket Lists”.
Click here to download his handout.
Filed Under Spanish, World Languages, YuperStars
Maestra Guerrero and her two 6th grade classes have been working on recording PowerPoint presentations to practice comparisons this week and are doing a great job! I should have some samples to post next week.
Filed Under Spanish, YuperStars
Sra. Ramos did the Language Class Idol activity (#23 on our list of DiLL Activities) again this year with her 5th graders. We used http://polleverywhere.com to tally student votes.
Download Sra. Ramos’ handout here.
Filed Under Spanish, YuperStars
Ms. Guerrero attended three workshops at the ICE (Illinois Computing Educators) Annual Conference in Pheasant Run last week.
The Photobook is especially impressive! Way to go, Ms. Guerrero!
Filed Under Chinese, French, German, Latin, Spanish, World Languages
The department has continued to discuss what the ideal language classroom would look like. Last Tuesday, we met to brainstorm a few more concrete ideas and then I attempted to bring everyone’s ideas, needs, and requests together into an actual drawing using OmniGraffle. It’s nothing professional and not to scale, but the experience was actually kind of fun. What does language learning heaven look like for teachers at Lab? Click on the image to see a larger version and tell me what you think!
Download the entire World Language Department Outlook here.
Points to guide your viewing are listed below:
Performance Corners, carpeted in a different color in the corners of each of the outer 4 Performance/Kitchen classrooms are the same level as the floor and demarcate a place to read, tell stories, rehearse plays, and play games (“C”). Spotlights overhead create a stage-like atmosphere.
Speakers installed on the wall with a 3-input amplifier make it easy to hear students when parents come to see plays and presentations.
Lockable and mobile storage cabinets are available in each of the classrooms (“S”) for the teachers in that share the room. Mobile storage in the classrooms by itself would not be enough, however. There would need to be additional space for teachers to store curricular materials.
Adequate storage space for teacher materials exist between each set of faculty offices (“S” on salmon color). These storage closets include sturdy shelving and a place to hang costumes, coats, and other materials used in class.
Adequate storage space for rolling carts, A/V materials, office supplies, peripherals for check out, the document camera, the laminating machine, and other resources shared across the department (“A/V”).
Isolated studio for recording DiLL clips and interviewing other students on video without background noise. Audio and video editing stations (“Studio”).
Office space for Lab Coordinator with an indoor window view of the WLL. Table just outside for one-on-one consultations with teachers (“Tech”).
Overhead projectors and speakers in every classroom and two in the World Language Lab for more sophisticated presentations (“P”). Wireless technology would allow the presenter can be anywhere in the room controlling projected visuals.
Two bathrooms (“B”) and one drinking fountain (“D”).
Kitchen for faculty to store their lunches, prepare food and to support small community events (“Kitchen”). If this kitchen were shared with another department, it might also house a photocopier.
Office spaces large enough to accommodate two to three faculty (“2-3”). Each office would have its own black and white printer. One color printer would live in the Kitchen and the other in the WLL.
Teachers would save money and enjoy the office spaces even more if the ceiling had access to natural light.
Large conference rooms with capacity for 8 people (“8”). Conference rooms would be a shared resource across the Schools and might include a flat screen monitor for collaboratively discussing information on one individual’s screen, or for viewing satellite TV (The Graduate School of Business has excellent examples of these types of spaces on the lower level).
Mini conference rooms large enough for 4 people (“4”). Ideal for the numerous parent-teacher conferences that occur throughout the year or for Independent Studies.
Study “booths” would be ideal for working on laptop, working in groups, individual study, and socializing (“5”).
Gathering places with soft seating ideal for informal socializing and discussion-based learning with smaller classes (“6”).
Round tables for students to talk with teachers, take Independent Study courses, or socialize (“3”).
Natural light overhead. Floor underneath these tables (on either side of the WLL) should be carpeted to keep conversation at a moderate level. These spaces create ample opportunities for teachers to interact with students.
Lockable glass display cases or bookcases with glass doors near the round tables (“3”) for displaying objects, artwork, student projects, and language books. Hallways also give ample space for bulletin boards to display work.
Desktop computers in World Language Lab and in Tech Focus classrooms (Maroon dots).
Small kitchenettes in the four outer Performance/Kitchen classrooms with half-size fridge, ample cabinet storage, and counter space for preparing food (“K”). Medium-high counters could be designed with bar stools.
One desk per classroom, relatively easy to move, for teachers to set out props and supplies for the incoming class (“T” on yellow).
Twenty individual desks with breaking wheels, or that are relatively easy to move on floor surface (blue rectangles). Each desk would be accompanied a durable, stackable chair (not shown).
Closet in World Language Lab (“WLL”) for server (“X”).
Indoor windows (floor to ceiling when possible) allow visitors to peak into classrooms or World
Language Lab without disturbing class or obstructing flow of traffic in the outer hallways. Windows are also bring in natural light coming from outer hallways (“W”).
World Language Lab (“WLL”) doubles as a conference room and meeting room for the entire department. 3-Desk configuration in the middle is relatively mobile and can be pushed to the front of the room against the wall and under the projector screens. Additional seating can be brought in for a maximum occupancy of 60.
Most of the larger rooms have two entrances both for safety and ease of entrance/exit. Neither entrance will disturb performances in progress in the Performance Corners.
Spaces are multipurpose. If the Schools should decide to reconfigure or rent out any of the classrooms, conference rooms, or the Lab, they would be readily usable for other purposes (i.e. conferences, small group work, faculty, staff, and committee meetings, or small gatherings requiring a kitchen).
Where there isn’t a window (marked with a bold line and a “W”), there are tall white magnetic boards, cork strips, bare wall, or bulletin boards permanently installed and suitable for hanging visual laminated images, tag board presentations, and large posters.
Tech-focused rooms feature flat screen TVs for viewing movies in smaller groups and accessing satellite TV (“TV”).
If the WLD Hub was positioned adjacent to Early Education classrooms, it would address the need of Lower School teachers to be closer to Lower School homerooms. Middle and High School students would not mind walking to another building for their language class. Depending on the layout, perhaps this area could be situated in a place equally accessible by students en each of the three Schools. This is particularly critical with Lower School classes, since the short 25-minute sessions are regularly shortened by long transit times between homerooms and classrooms.
The department has not discussed the flooring. For ease of cleaning, I might think about some kind of laminate or tile flooring for everywhere except the performance corners (“C”) and the round table gathering area (“3”).
Sturdy and portable whiteboards with breaking wheels, about 3 feet wide are ideal for bring written instruction to wherever students are working or are seated, instead of having to move students to where they can see a permanently installed whiteboard. These portable surfaces can also be used by students to show what they know.
Filed Under French, Spanish, YuperStars
Yesterday in our Faculty Development meeting, we heard from three of our faculty about activities they have done with DiLL that have kept their students engaged and having fun.
The abridged version of their activities go something like this:
1. Teacher pre-records 1-4 simple stories and ask students to illustrate what they are hearing in Keynote, a way to check comprehension.
2. Teacher hands out scenario prompts to students, based on vocab and language structures they have been studying. They have 2 minutes to plan out a dialogue with a randomly-selected partner and then 2 minutes to record. Mr. Reubelt then broadcasts student recordings to the rest of the class.
3. Teacher hands out different fairy tales that they students must write up as a play. They submit the play for corrections, make corrections. Then students rehearse the play during class time and then, instead of performing for each other live, they all record at once in DiLL. The final recordings are downloaded and saved on a CD for the students to enjoy.
Filed Under Best Bytes, Spanish
I’ve just downloaded two classes from buenoentonces.com for my iPhone and I’m very impressed. Each class session starts with a story (TPRS-style) that creates a believable context for introducing new vocabulary concepts, grammar concepts, and pronunciation tips. The interface makes it easy for the learner to pause the dialogue and reference a special “Key” that the creators use to describe the most frequently used language structures. The natural, full-speed dialogue helps listeners to decode quickly and make quick connections as to the meaning of words. The entertaining banter will make these episodes fun to listen to on more than just one occasion. All of this simulates in a very real and supportive way the language immersion experience. Two thumbs up! Five stars! I wish this series all the success in the world!
Filed Under Chinese, French, German, Latin, Spanish, World Languages
Yesterday, the World Language Department met (after a rather unproductive but historic Inaugural school day!) for a very productive Faculty Development meeting. See details here. The longest portion of our meeting was devoted to narrowing down everyone’s comments from the master plan survey to a list of our top five priorities. Here’s what we came up with and plan to share with FGM and VDTA:
1. Classroom Spaces
- Rooms need to be big enough to truly accommodate 23 students. This is especially true than when we are working in groups or rehearsing plays.
- The Lower School needs dedicated rooms for language instruction that are relatively close to lower school students’ homerooms.
- Each language (Spanish, German, French, Latin, Chinese) needs one or more dedicated language classroom with storage space for that language’s visual aids and project materials. Currently, teachers are doing a lot of traveling between departmental storage in UH207, their offices, and their several classrooms across the schools. This arrangement will also allow each language group to decorate the room with appropriate visual materials, which will greatly enhance the learning experience.
- It might be nice if performance and rehearsal spaces were built into the language-themed classrooms and/or the lower school language classrooms.
- Quality classroom spaces need 1. adequate sound proofing (real walls), 2. climate control, 3. technology & A/V in every classroom (unlike UH301, UH219, UH217, Judd 207d), 4. natural light as well as the ability to turn all of the lights off for movies and projecting the computer on the screen, 5. allow for multiple configurations in the same room so teachers don’t lose time setting up the room for different activities (part of the classroom with desks, another part with a rug for stories, and an open space for dancing).
2. Performance Spaces
- The department is regularly rehearsing and performing plays. Second only to adequate classroom space, they would like to have a theater at their disposal with adequate A/V equipment and lighting, clip-on microphones, and excellent acoustics for young voices. This space could be reserved and reservations could be worked out between the teachers well in advance to avoid conflict, since most of these plays occur annually. An ideal space would have a seating capacity of at least 60, ideally 100.
3. Office Spaces
- It is really impossible to work with 12 other people in a single room. We can’t eat, talk, or collaboratively work without disturbing the entire group. 2/3 people max in a single office space.
- We’d like to see our offices closer to the language classrooms where we regularly work. This is not always possible, but it would be great if offices for a particular language were somewhere in the vicinity of the dedicated language classroom(s) (i.e. Spanish teachers’ offices are somewhere in the vicinity of the Spanish language-themed classroom(s).
- It would be nice if all of the language faculty offices were in the same vicinity, instead of divided between U-High and Belfield.
- It would be great if the language offices were closer to a photocopier.
- In our dreams, we’d like to see office space with windows and plenty of natural light.
4. Meeting Spaces
- The department recognizes a real need for spaces where they can meet or retreat to when they need to concentrate (since the office is so busy).
- Spaces for teachers to hold their small (2-5 person) classes or independent studies
- Spaces for teachers to hold parent/teacher conferences
- Spaces for teachers to hold teacher/student conferences
- Spaces for students to collaborate on projects during or outside of class
- Spaces for teachers to go and grade or plan in silence
- At least one dedicated non-classroom space where we can build a foreign language library (think shelves and bamboo plants)
5. Kitchen Spaces
- The department does a lot of in-class cooking. Cooking is a great way to teach culture and interact with language. Currently, the teachers bring their heating elements, pots, and pans from the storage in UH207 to the individual classrooms and cook there from start to finish. There are a variety of solutions to this: create a culinary classroom just for language (and other subject area) use, build small kitchenettes into the dedicated language classrooms (this would be ideal), or at the very least, build a kitchen space next to world language offices, so that there is a safe place for faculty to prepare food. A separate kitchen space and eating area could serve both teachers and classes of 23 if it were big enough, may even double as a departmental meeting room, and could alleviate the lunch-time noise problem, since teachers would have a place to go to eat and discuss work together.
Filed Under Spanish, World Languages, YuperStars
Sra. Baum regularly brings her 3rd grade students to the World Language Lab. This is not always easy, because they’ve never used DiLL (the Digital Language Lab) before. I like these simple instructions that she uses to help them get started:
1. Press play
2. Listen to the question and answer.
3. Hold down the space bar and record your answer.
4. If you have a problem, raise your hand and wait patiently.
Filed Under Chinese, French, German, Latin, Spanish, World Languages
Our community is in the midst of a year-long process working with FGM Architects to design spaces that are even more conducive to learning and teaching. In 2005, the department began jotting down their thoughts about what was needed to improve the learning environment here at lab. You can read some of their thoughts here. During the next three months, return back to this page to see the latest thoughts and ideas coming from the World Language Department.
Filed Under Spanish, YuperStars
Sra. Ramos made her own Flash-based games using linguamate.com last week. Just like Quia and Quizlet, teachers can design their own simple games based on the phrases and vocabulary they use in class. Linguamate is by far the most colorful and fun for Lower School kids.
To publish these games, Sra. Ramos put the .swf files into her website folder and then embedded them in an iWeb page.
Filed Under Spanish, YuperStars
Becky Lopez came up with a fun way of assessing the comprehension of emotions by using Photo Booth. She showed a PowerPoint presentation with 10 emotions and gave students about 20 seconds per slide to take a picture of themselves acting out the emotion. I’ll see if I can get a short clip of the hilarity.
Filed Under Best Bytes, Spanish, YuperStars
Señora Lopez has designed a fun activity for her students. They use blabberize.com to tell somebody’s future. Check out her very nicely designed worksheet. Puedo ver en el futuro que muchos maestros vayan a utilizar este sitio…
Filed Under Spanish, YuperStars
Sra. Baum’s Middle School Spanish class has created web pages using iWeb for their weather report project. Very nicely done, all! The lab headsets make you look like real meteorological professionals.
Weather in Spain
Weather in Spain
Weather in the US
Weather in GB
Weather in the US
Weather in the US
