One of the best ways to motivate students to learn a second language is to put it into practice. When they see how useful it is and all the doors it can open, they will ideally get more excited and motivated to learn that language. Since my mom teaches 5th grade in California, I knew I wanted to take advantage of this opportunity to have them communicate with native-English-speaking students their own age.
At first I wanted to do pen pals, but then I realized that my 6th graders already had pen pals in the U.S. Then I remembered how much fun my students had last year making science videos about plant growth and reproduction. So I decided we should make an English video about life in Spain. They could talk about their school, their hobbies, Spanish food, traditions, popular sports, etc, and we would send it to my mom´s 5th grade class. It would be a virtual pen pal of sorts. And they loved the idea!
To get started, I had the class brainstorm potential topics to talk about in the video. I wanted them to focus on things that were unique to Spain and would be interesting for California students to hear about. It was interesting to realize which customs they considered to be universal. It never occured to some of them that other countries don´t eat 12 grapes on New Year´s Eve nor do they celebrate the Three Kings´ Day on January 6th (their Christmas celebration). Many of them were still able to come up with great things to talk about, like Spanish authors, famous places in Madrid, and bullfighting. Next I had them write dialogues (I´ve been using this word because they never understand when I say "script", no matter how many times I put it up on the board!) and practice their lines.
When it finally came time to film, I was consistently asked ¨Kelsey, are we going to grabar today?¨ (They always forget the word "to film" too!). They loved getting pulled out in groups of 4 to come film with me. And they´re very creative- they brought props, thought of different ways to film, etc. And they kept asking to film intentional bloopers afterwards (tomas falsas)! They love bloopers but are definitely missing the main point, since they keep thinking up ways to create bloopers. They were excited about the outtakes though because last year I included a surprise bloopers section at the end of their science plant videos, and it was their favorite part!
Also, the craziest thing happened while we were filming part of the video. I was preparing for take #4 with one of my students, Claudia, when all of a sudden she began to yell "Papa, papa!" and wave her arms up and down. I had no idea where she was waving. The only people I saw around were the high schoolers playing basketball across the way, so I figured maybe her dad taught high school PE. But then I realized she was waving and looking up in the air! I looked up to see a man in a sort of paraglide contraption- but it had an engine! He waved back enthusiastically and yelled "Hola!" to his daughter as he zoomed close above us. I couldn't believe it. This was like a scene from a movie! I asked her if her father does things like that often. She looked at me nonchalently, shrugged her shoulders, and said, "yes" :) Oh the magic of working in a small town!
At first I wanted to do pen pals, but then I realized that my 6th graders already had pen pals in the U.S. Then I remembered how much fun my students had last year making science videos about plant growth and reproduction. So I decided we should make an English video about life in Spain. They could talk about their school, their hobbies, Spanish food, traditions, popular sports, etc, and we would send it to my mom´s 5th grade class. It would be a virtual pen pal of sorts. And they loved the idea!
To get started, I had the class brainstorm potential topics to talk about in the video. I wanted them to focus on things that were unique to Spain and would be interesting for California students to hear about. It was interesting to realize which customs they considered to be universal. It never occured to some of them that other countries don´t eat 12 grapes on New Year´s Eve nor do they celebrate the Three Kings´ Day on January 6th (their Christmas celebration). Many of them were still able to come up with great things to talk about, like Spanish authors, famous places in Madrid, and bullfighting. Next I had them write dialogues (I´ve been using this word because they never understand when I say "script", no matter how many times I put it up on the board!) and practice their lines.
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| Alba, Claudia, Rachel, and Paula with their video props! |
Also, the craziest thing happened while we were filming part of the video. I was preparing for take #4 with one of my students, Claudia, when all of a sudden she began to yell "Papa, papa!" and wave her arms up and down. I had no idea where she was waving. The only people I saw around were the high schoolers playing basketball across the way, so I figured maybe her dad taught high school PE. But then I realized she was waving and looking up in the air! I looked up to see a man in a sort of paraglide contraption- but it had an engine! He waved back enthusiastically and yelled "Hola!" to his daughter as he zoomed close above us. I couldn't believe it. This was like a scene from a movie! I asked her if her father does things like that often. She looked at me nonchalently, shrugged her shoulders, and said, "yes" :) Oh the magic of working in a small town!
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| Claudia waving up at her father in the air! |
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