I had quite an interesting weekend, and I'd love to tell you a bit about it. I spent this past Friday and Saturday at the LALISA conference hosted at the beautiful Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon. LALISA (Latin American, Latino, and Iberian Studies Association of the Pacific Northwest) is a group of scholars that presents their investigations into various literary, anthropological and cinematic themes at an annual conference hosted by the group. I was invited to present, and chose to share an investigation that I had completed during my fall term at Portland State University. In this investigation I delved into the work of Lope de Vega, Spain's prolific playwright of the Golden Age, and took a close look his brilliant 1615 play, El perro del hortelano. In my investigation, entitled "Las mujeres ingeniosas de Lope de Vega: Un 'examen para las ciencias' del personaje de Diana en El perro del hortelano de Lope de Vega", I analyzed the strong female lead, Diana, in one of Lope's well known plays, The Dog in the Manger. In my investigation I argue that Diana, the play's fearless and headstrong female lead, could in fact have been classified with a "sanguínea" temperament, rather than the "flemática" classification that she would have been afforded at the time that Lope's play was published in 1615. Throughout the investigation, I compare the play with the Examination of Men's Wits, the scientific treatise written by Juan Huarte de San Juan in 1575 and widely circulated during Lope de Vega's time. This treatise describes the four possible temperaments (sanguíneo, flemático, colérico and melocólico), but interestingly, the only temperament afforded by Huarte to the women of the time was the "flemático" temperament, which hardly describes the headstrong Diana, the Countess of Belfor. If you haven't yet had a chance to read Lope de Vega's brilliant play El perro del hortelano, you should really take a look! And don't forget to view the gorgeous 1996 film El perro del hortelano by director Pilar Miró. Miró's unique vision for the bold female lead of Diana is unforgettable. This weekend was such an enlightening and fascinating experience - I can't wait for next year's conference.
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It's that time of year. Students are restless and excited for the holiday season, and teachers are getting tired and looking forward to the holiday break. One of the best things you can do in your classroom at this time of year is introduce something new, that shakes up your classroom and gets your students excited. Why not try out the song warm-up procedure? With the beautiful new song "Recuérdame" from the movie Coco by Carlos Rivera, also sung by Miguel and Natalia Lafourcade, this song warm-up procedure will have your students singing along in no time, and will even give them some practice with the future tense! Follow this link to access the FREE song warm-up resource. This beautiful tune is timely and goes along with Pixar's new film, Coco. This beautiful film highlights Mexican culture, and features many famous actors such as Gael García Bernal. Another beautiful bilingual rendition of the song features Natalia Lafourcade, a favorite artist of my students. This video would also be great to show and analyze in your classroom. My students absolutely love the song warm-up procedure and the beauty of this gorgeous song. I hope your students enjoy it too, and the song brings light and life to your classroom this holiday season! Follow this link to access the song warm-up resource. El Internado. Have you caught on to the craze yet? Newly released on Netflix last year, this television series from Spain has Spanish language students all over the country really looking forward to watching TV in the target language, and even watching the show on their own time outside of class! Featuring a group of high school friends who investigate together the macabre events that are occurring at their boarding school in northern Spain, this show will have your students on the edge of their seats, and looking forward to watching the next episode each week. In my classroom yesterday after the screening of Season 1 Episode 3, I heard students bragging about how much of El Internado they had watched at home, with one student winning the competition by stating that they were already on Season 4. No easy feat, when we just started Season 1 in March, and each season features between six and eleven hour-long episodes! I always screen movies and television shows in my classroom with no subtitles, or subtitles in Spanish when available. I find that this creates an excellent immersion experience for students without the distraction of interference outside of the target language. I often pause the show or movie to ask questions of the class in the target language, which helps to ensure comprehension of the challenging authentic language practice. If you're interested in screening a high language level, high interest show to your students, look no further. There are many resources that can be found to enhance your instruction of the series, and I will list a few for you below, to help begin your search.
Best of luck screening this compelling show to your students. I'm sure they will be hooked on the series in no time! One of my favorite ways to provide authentic listening practice for my students is through hit television shows in the target language. In my classroom, I have a few different shows and movies that I like to show for students throughout the year. Not only do the movies and television programs provide invaluable listening practice in an authentic way, but also the programs introduce students to various aspects of Latino culture that would be difficult to replicate through another technique. My current favorite program to show students is the hit telenovela Celia. This television program depicts the life of the queen of salsa, Celia Cruz, beginning from her time in Cuba as a young woman developing her talent for singing. Celia broke barriers and overcame stereotypes in a genre that at the time was dominated by men. As a groundbreaking heroine and incredible force in the music world, Celia is an incredibly strong woman and musical superstar that you do not want to miss introducing your students to! (*As always, please preview each episode before you show it in class. There may be a scene or two that you will want to skip!) Celia highlights the beginnings of Cruz’s passion for singing in Cuba in the late fifties and her recognition as the most decisive singer of La Sonora Matancera. After leaving Cuba with her husband Pedro Knight, the series showcases how her career conquered markets in many languages, as she became one of the most recognized Salsa singers of all time. After taking a group of students from our high school to Cuba two years ago, this program has also served as a wonderful to introduce my current students Cuban culture and accents, in the hope that they will have the chance to experience life in Cuba for themselves in the future. All eighty episodes of the series Celia can be found free of charge online, streaming through www.telemundo.com, as well as Netflix. The first episode is also available through youtube at this link. I have also created two activities to help your students to analyze the television program in the target language. If you would like to access the activities, please follow this link to my TpT resources for the first episode and the second episode of the telenovela. If you're a Celia fanatic like I am, I bet that your students will be big fans too. My students loved learning Celia's tune La Vida es un Carnaval, and it would be a great song to consider teaching in your classroom. I have created a warm-up resource as well as a corresponding song exam to teach students this optimistic, upbeat tune. It's been one of the favorites in my classroom for the last three years, so I feel confident that you'll have success with this tune. Take a look at the resource by following this link. Enjoy! And happy teaching! My International Baccalaureate Spanish 1 students are nearing the end of their year long course, and as you could imagine, they are quite excited for the summer break. As we near the end of our school year, we are reviewing for finals and studying our comprehensible Spanish I novel by Carol Gibb, Esperanza, which has my students quite engaged in the story of the struggles of a Guatemalan family that immigrates to the United States in the 1990's.
As we finish our latest song warm up and exam cycle, (Latinoamérica, by Calle 13, which fits directly into the themes in our current novel), I have been searching for a song that relates to my student's summer-is-around-the-corner mentality. One song that caught my ear (and my eye, with a beautiful music video) is the January 2017 release El Amante, by Boston native Nicky Jam. Nicky jam grew up in Boston with his Dominican mother and Puerto Rican father, but moved to San Juan with his family at age 10. This move helped to inspire his Reggeaton-based tunes. Discovered in a supermarket by a scout at age 11, Nicky Jam has been working on his musical career ever since, collaborating with artists such as Daddy Yankee as well as Enrique Iglesias, his partner for his most recent hit, El Perdón. If you are interested in teaching El Amante by Nicky Jam, please follow this link for the song warm-up resource at The Immersive Classroom through TpT. Please follow this link for the song exam resource at The Immersive Classroom through TpT. Or, if you are interested in both resources, follow this link for the song exam resource and warm-up resource at The Immersive Classroom through TpT. The music video can be found on youtube by following this link. For instructions on how to teach a song through the song warm-up process in your classroom, follow this link. And, for the next two days, I am throwing a sale at my TpT store! In honor of Teacher Appreciation Week, all resources in my store for the next two days are 20% off. Enjoy, and happy teaching! 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! 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! I am incredibly excited to share a new song warm-up resource I created today. On Friday, Prince Royce and Shakira released the official music video for their most recent single, Déjà Vu. This powerhouse combination of the young Prince Royce, the bachata superstar, and Shakira, the classic dancing and singing beauty, is sure to have the fans of both Royce and Shakira in your classroom joyfully singing along.
The tune Déjà Vu includes a rich bachata beat, and features the duo singing in harmony and dancing bachata throughout the track. Although the song was released on February 24th, 2017, I decided to wait until the official music video was released to introduce the song to my students. This tune will be included in our "March Madness" bracket for both IB Spanish 1 and IB Spanish 2, and if it wins the bracket, I will be teaching the tune my students starting next week. Intrigued? Check out the beautiful music video at this link. Would you like to teach this song to your students as a two week interactive warm-up and song exam? Please click here see the resource for Déjà Vu at The Immersive Classroom Teachers Pay Teachers store. To begin the song warm-up procedure in your classroom today, follow this link to a page on my website that includes comprehensive instructions. I hope you enjoy the light and life that this song and warm-up procedure brings to your classroom. Happy teaching! One of my student’s favorite artists is the young bachata star Prince Royce. Geoffrey Royce Rojas was born in 1989 to Spanish-speaking parents, who raised him in the New York City borough of the Bronx. Royce’s bachata tune “Culpa al Corazon”, or “Blame the Heart” was released in January of 2016, and I quickly converted this catchy classic into a song warm-up and exam for a February Valentine’s theme. Royce’s tunes are incredibly catchy, which lends itself well to one of my favorite aspects of teaching Royce's songs; teaching students basic bachata moves to go along with the music. His songs are meant for dancing, and teaching the basics of bachata is a great way to help students engage with the beat, language and culture of his tunes. I usually teach the bachata around "Day 8" of the song cycle, before the exam, to promote engagement in the tune and encourage studying for the exam the next day. I love to show students the introduction to bachata dance from HowCast found at this link below: http://tinyurl.com/bachataintroduction As well as this link, while students try out the dance for themselves: http://tinyurl.com/bachatabasics I love to show students the creative music videos that go along with most songs that I teach, as I find that it enhances student’s engagement in the text. I usually screen the music video in class the day before the song exam, and have students analyze the music video by describing the scene in Spanish. Although the music video for “Culpa al Corazon” is once again very creative and well done, unfortunately I would not recommend screening this music video for your class. The music video was filmed with Prince Royce and his girlfriend, Shadowhunters star Emeraude Toubia, and could be seen as inappropriate for the classroom. Often in a case like this, I would censor the racy scenes and still show a segment of the music video, but unfortunately the design of the music video is such that these scenes are spread throughout the video, making the “censoring” of this music video difficult. Just a warning – screen at your own risk! I have posted my resources for "Culpa al Corazon" by Prince Royce on the links found below: The song Warm-up Lesson Plan for "Culpa al Corazon" by Prince Royce: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Song-Warm-Up-Culpa-al-Corazon-Prince-Royce-3074223 The song Exam Lesson Plan for "Culpa al Corazon" by Prince Royce: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Song-Exam-Culpa-Al-Corazon-by-Prince-Royce-2983506 To begin the song warm-up procedure in your classroom today, follow this link for comprehensive instructions. |
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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