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CLASSROOM AT A GLANCE
Teacher
Pablo Muirhead
Language
SpanishII
Grades
9-10
School
Shorewood High School, Shorewood, Wisconsin
Lesson Date
November 14
Class Size
19
Schedule
49 minutes daily
In this lesson, students explore some historical and cultural aspects of the African presence in Latin America. After a warm-up activity of charades, students participate in pairs discussions of stories about an African woman enslaved in Latin America. Next, the whole class creates a web (concept map) for the cultural elements of the stories. Students then work in groups to add these cultural elements to the original stories they created for homework. Finally, student groups narrate their stories while their classmates act them out. The lesson concludes with Mr. Muirhead and the students playing los cajones (the big boxes). This video also shows a field trip to the local Latino community.
Communication: Interpersonal, Interpretive, Presentational
Cultures: Practices, Products
Connections: Making Connections
Communities: School and Community
informal assessment
During an informal assessment, a teacher evaluates students’ progress while they are participating in a learning activity, for example, a small-group discussion. Results are typically used to make decisions about what to do next, namely, whether the students are ready to move on or whether they need more practice with the material.
negotiation of meaning
In this process, teachers and students try to convey information to one another and reach mutual comprehension through restating, clarifying, and confirming information. The teacher may help students get started or work through a stumbling block using linguistic and other approaches.
thematic units
Thematic units are designed using content as the organizing principle. Vocabulary, structures, and cultural information are included as they relate to the themes in each unit. For an excellent example of theme-based units, see the Nebraska Foreign Language Education Web site in General Resources.
Reflect on Your Practice
As you reflect on these questions, write down your responses or discuss them as a group.
Watch Other Videos
Watch other videos in the Teaching Foreign Languages K-12 library for more examples of teaching methodologies like those you’ve just seen. Note: All videos in this series are subtitled in English.
Russian Cities, Russian Stories (Russian) illustrates students interpreting texts (teacher-written to simulate authentic stories) and then writing their own versions, and Happy New Year! (Japanese) shows students working with cultural products and practices and moving toward understanding perspectives.
Put It Into Practice
Try these ideas in your classroom. Where it’s not already evident, reflect on how to adapt an idea that targets one performance range for application to other performance ranges.
World-Readiness Standards for Learning Languages
The World-Readiness Standards for Learning Languages create a roadmap to guide learners to develop competence to communicate effectively and interact with cultural understanding. This lesson correlates to the following Standards:
Interpersonal Communication
Interpretive Communication
Presentational Communication
Cultures
Interact with cultural competence and understanding
Relating Cultural Practices to Perspectives
Relating Cultural Products to Perspectives
Connections
Connect with other disciplines and acquire information and diverse perspectives in order to use the language to function in academic and career-related situations
Making Connections
Communities
Communicate and interact with cultural competence in order to participate in multilingual communities at home and around the world
School and Global Communities
Lesson Materials
Mini-Stories (PDF, 19 K)
The Onama stories and new vocabulary, including descriptions of Mr. Muirhead’s TPRS gestures (Includes English translation)
Mini-Story Worksheet (PDF, 38 K)
A worksheet that students did for homework based on the first Onama story. Note: The vocabulary section was filled in during Mr. Muirhead’s TPRS presentation in class.
Curriculum References
Wisconsin Model Academic Standards
Pablo Muirhead’s Additional Resources
Web Resources:
The African Diaspora
Information about the African Diaspora to Latin America
Cajón Drum
A brief history of the cajón and information on how to purchase one
Language Resource Centers
An organization that works to improve student learning of foreign languages