October 10, 2016

I Do It Erryday..Or I Could…

I feel like we could do a One Word Image every day.  They are just so fun.  Especially with the student artists drawing them for us – the big reveal at the end is so fun.  Ben Slavic, my guide in almost everything, and the best mentor I could hope for, considering the similarities of our dispositions towards working with kids, and his endless creativity and plasticity, had a genius idea when he started putting the artists behind an easel at the front of the room.)  Today we were going to use the computer lab in my Spanish classes for the last twenty minutes of class (to get set up with Sr. Wooly for when Hargaden is absent!)  So what better time to work on a OWI during the first thirty or so minutes before heading down there?

Some people might wonder how you would keep the kids learning new words when doing the same activity throughout the year.  A few ideas here:  A.  You can just add in words that you think they might want, like today for example I asked if he was enojado (mad) and used gestures to establish that meaning.  (I was talking about other emotions so I was able to slip it in with no translation, just gesturing, due to the context.  I would probably not just use gestures without that extralinguistic support – the context of emotions.)  Then I asked if he was furioso.  They, of course, chose furious.  So much fun!

I am continuing to sense that folding in new words at the moment they are needed and NOT from a list that is already up on the board drives the words deeper into the brain.  I would love to read research on that, because I am just sensing it.

Another point that I thought of in reviewing these videos is that you do not have to translate everything into L2.  I did not translate “Pumpkin Spice” because I just wanted it to be called a Latte de sabor pumpkin spice because translating everything is so much new language for their brains.  Sabor is prolly enough!

Spanish One – Pumpkin Spice Latte
Spanish One – Ramen
Spanish One – McPollo Part One      Part Two

Till such time as they make M. Wooly, French does not have any online accounts to set up, so we just continued on with the saga of the fat genderfluid purple vegetarian chicken, KFC.

French One:  Review Artwork and Write and Discuss:
Part One
Part Two
Part Three

French Two is continuing to work with readings I wrote up, and will continue to do so until they start asking for stories again, and then I will be expecting them to contribute more energy, and not just sit back waiting for me to bring all the noise.

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