Our new song of the week before "Semana Santa" for IB Spanish 2 is the pop tune Despacito by Luis Fonsi, featuring Daddy Yankee. This extremely catchy tune was voted as the favorite tune out of sixteen by my IB Spanish 2 students, and if you take a listen, it will be easy to see why. Luis Fonsi was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and moved with his family to Florida at the age of ten. Fonsi was trained professionally, studying Vocal Performance at Florida State University's School of Music before beginning his career as a recording artist. His latin pop tune Despacito was released in January 2017, and is a collaboration featuring the singer Daddy Yankee. The tune was the first Spanish-language song to reach the Top 10 Global Chart for Spotify Music, and has seen international recognition since the release date in January. The music video is also quite beautiful. Filmed in Puerto Rico, the music video shows scenes of the Puerto Rican coastline, as well street scenes of Puerto Rico. When I show my students the music video, I usually show the first three minutes, as the dancing gets quite intense towards the end of the video. Use your discretion to decide how much of the music video you would like to show. The music video can be found by following this link. Intrigued? If you'd like to teach this song to your students, consider using the song warm-up resource I have created by clicking this link. To find out more about how to start each day with a song warm-up in your classroom, follow this link. Enjoy! Happy teaching!
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We have a winner! The La Locura de Marzo activity, otherwise known as March Madness, was a huge success. My IB Spanish 2 classes include quite a few basketball players, as well as music aficionados, so the activity was quite a hit. We included sixteen songs in our Locura de Marzo bracket, which made for stiff competition and heated discussion once we reached el Úlitmo Cuatro or Final Four. These four teams, highlighted below in bold, made it to the tense vote for el Último Cuatro, with our final ganador selected by class vote. March Madness selections: IB Spanish II (Sweet 16)
We had a few broken hearts, but overall a successful round of La Locura de Marzo. I have a feeling I may have to teach a few more of our Úlitmo Cuatro songs before the year ends! If you're interested in teaching the extremely popular Despacito by Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee, please follow the link here. For instructions on how to run La Locura de Marzo in your classroom, click here. For instructions on how to teach the song warm-up activity to your students, click here. Any chance that you're feeling a bit intimidated by the thought of teaching music in the target language as a classroom warm-up? I know that when I first started this technique in my classroom, it seemed a bit daunting. But the rewards of a lively and musical start to your day with your students is well worth the work to try a new strategy in the classroom. In fact, it is the perfect bridge to help your students switch their brains to the immersive classroom experience in an engaging way. So, where do you start? The first song that I ever taught in the classroom as a song warm-up was the beautifully simple song Amor de Mis Amores by Mexican artist Natalia Lafourcade. Natalia has since become a favorite artist of my students, for her beautiful voice, haunting lyrics, and the hip beat that she infuses into her songs. Amor de Mis Amores is an ideal song to introduce students to the song warm-up procedure, as the tune is slow and the lyrics are clearly enunciated and simple. This tune was originally written by Agustín Lara, and adapted in a beautiful, modern rendition by Natalia Lafourcade and Devendra Banhart. I hope that you'll take a chance and try the song warm-up procedure! Perhaps, with this simple and engaging tune, you'll find the procedure not as daunting as it may have first seemed. I have created a song resource, with instructions, for the tune which can be found by clicking this link. To see a live version of Natalia performing the piece, follow this link. For instructions on how to facilitate the song warm-up procedure in your classroom, follow this link to find the complete instructions. Enjoy! Happy teaching! |
HEY THERE! NICE TO MEET YOU!I'm Katherine Lupton: language teacher and author. I live in the lovely state of Oregon. My favorite things include my energetic dogs, music and books (both reading and writing them). Blogs I follow
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