Year at a Glance Politics of Latin America South American governments: Argentina, Colombia Central American governments: El Salvador Immigration to the U.S. Film and Art of the Spanish-Speaking World Art and politics in Latin America Film: La Ciudad; Immigration to New York Artist: Fernando Botero Spanish films

School Profile
Lori Langer de Ramirez teaches 12^th-grade Spanish at Herricks High School in New Hyde Park, New York. Located on Long Island about 20 miles from Manhattan, New Hyde Park's 25,000 residents are mostly professionals. The town is culturally diverse and includes a large Asian immigrant population. Approximately 53 percent of the school's 1,270 students speak languages other than English at home, and over 40 languages are spoken in the district. The curriculum emphasizes college preparation.

Lesson Design
The Herricks Spanish department takes a thematic approach to Spanish IV and V. The department selects two semester-long thematic units for each course. The teachers then choose the topics within these units based on their interests, their students' interests, and the availability of materials.

When designing her lessons, Ms. Langer de Ramirez refers to the National Standards for Foreign Language Learning. During the first semester, Ms. Langer de Ramirez's class studied a unit on the politics of Latin America. To prepare, Ms. Langer de Ramirez watched Spanish-language news broadcasts and read Spanish-language newspapers to keep up-to-date on current events and to be able to provide a historical context for her students' lessons. For the second-semester unit on film and art of the Spanish-speaking world, Ms. Langer de Ramirez drew on works that have inspired her.

The Lesson
This videotaped lesson was a bridge between the Politics of Latin America unit and the Film and Art of the Spanish-Speaking World unit. Ms. Langer de Ramirez wanted students to work on their oral and written communication skills while focusing on culture. "Students at this age are fascinated by issues of identity," she says. "This topic speaks to that question: Who are Latinos in the world in terms of being cultural beings, and what is this idea of the split identity?" The goals of this lesson were to have students understand the visa issue under debate and to produce appropriate language for a formal written response. Ms. Langer de Ramirez used a rubric to assess students on their performance during the debate and their contributions to the final class letter.

• Acquiring Knowledge of Current Events: The teacher helps students research print and Web sources to gain a knowledge base for classroom discussion on recent events.
• Content-Based Instruction: The teacher promotes language acquisition and/or cultural knowledge through subject matter from a range of disciplines.
• Cultural Role-Playing: The teacher designs an activity in which students learn about a culture by studying and then portraying a member of that culture.
• Providing Interactions With Native Speakers: The teacher designs opportunities for students to use the target language with native speakers, either in person, over the phone, or via email.