Tuesday, April 15, 2008

This is a video-based activity to be used in a beginning Spanish 1 class. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zl7qK6aIPHA.
The goal of this activity is to enhance the students’ listening comprehension skills. The video uses vocabulary describing the holidays, more specifically the month of December and the activities done by an individual. I decided to use my own personal experiences and pictures for this project and narrated my own activities.
First the students will watch the video twice. The first time they watch it they will not have the handout I have made for this activity. This will be handed out before the video is played a second time. This handout, which can be found here
http://docs.google.com/View?docid=dh2c6cg_2r95ww4d4
contains questions based on the video. The questions will be in Spanish and they will also be answered by the students in Spanish. The purpose of this is to have them listen the first time and understand what they can, so that the second time they watch it and have the handouts they will know what to listen for more specifically.
As a follow up activity, the students will be expected to make their own small video, either individually or in groups, describing their favorite holiday or trip and what they do during that time. Once they have all completed their videos, there will be a day in class when each group or individual presents their video and its explanation in a presentation no more than 10 minutes long. The students’ videos, like the activity, will be uploaded to www.youtube.com so that they will all be together and easier to access.
The pedagogical benefits of this activity are that the video is an easy way to present material to the students making the activity more interactive. The visual clues used in the video will help the students identify what the narrator is talking about if they do not understand. Furthermore, the use of a native speaker’s narration helps students listen to naturally spoken Spanish with its particular rhythm and intonation, which prepares them for listening to a real conversation with a native speaker. Finally, the students will learn about a different culture’s activities on a certain holiday and will help them compare and contrast their own personal activities during the same holiday.
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CUBA

This may seem a bit out of place, but it's something I thought I'd like to share on my blog. This is a video I always show to my classes on culture days. It always amazes me at first to hear how many students do not even know where Cuba is or why they can't go...most of the time when I ask what they know about Cuba, they say that they know Cuban cigars and rum, and Fidel Castro. Oh, Fidel...once again, he has succeeded in catching the world's eye by supposedly resigning from power this week...which means absolutely nothing as long as he's still breathing. Most of my students are intrigued when we talk about Cuba, because I usually bring in personal items, such as plane tickets and magazines and photographs, all faded with time, much like the country itself. I also take this opportunity to remind them of how lucky they all are, as am I, to have been born in this country, and that we should never take for granted the fact that we are Americans. I talk about this topic fully aware of the fact that politics is usually a subject that most people like to keep out of the classroom, and I think that a lot of our society's problems would be solved if people weren't so afraid to air their opinions once in a while. Almost all of my students have thanked me, not only for showing these videos on Cuba, but also for making them aware of the fact that being American is a privilege, and not a right. It was very satisfying for me both as a teacher and an American of Cuban descent to see that my words made my students appreciate their country. A lot of them are also surprised by the fact that teachers are arrested for teaching democratic ideas and for reading certain books to their students. Most of the things that happen in Cuba are not even fathomable to people who don't see past the beaches and palm trees. It just goes to show you that things are not what they seem, and that until things are exposed, the world will see Cuba the way Fidel sees fit, and unfortunately, so much time has gone by, that most of the people who were primarily affected by his ideals are now dead, in addition to the indifference many people have in regards to Cuba and its situation. I would like to be wrong, but the more time goes by and the more I see the way Castro skillfully plans his exit, and the more the world buys it, the more I believe what he said during the early days of the revolution, "History will absolve me."