• Language Resident Name: Hugo Briones Cáceres
  • Day and Date: Tuesday, January 29th
  • Language and Level: Spanish Conversation Advanced

  • Class theme/topics discussed: Latin American history, Latin American music
  • Goal of the class:

To promote talking through small talk

To get to know about Latin-America through music

  • How did you structure the class? 
  • Ice Breaker: In pairs, students talk about the question “With what historical figure would you have dinner with?”, so they can practice conversation. We follow up by sharing their answers and working on questions regarding vocabulary or grammar. This is to activate their Spanish conversation abilities before moving forward.
  • Activity 1: We listen to the song “Latinoamérica” by Puerto Rican duo Calle 13. Students pay attention to the lyrics and topics in the song. Students get the lyrics with highlited topics.
  • Activity 2: In pairs, students are assigned one theme tackled in the song Latinoamérica alongside a set of questions related to the topic. They are related to the life, history and culture of the subcontinent. They are asked to research on the topic and present it to the rest of the class. (Refer to the appendix to see the topics). 
  • What technology, media or props did you use? (internet resources, playmobiles, handouts, etc.)
Latinoamérica – Calle 13
  • What worked well in this class? What did not work?

The class worked out very well. Particularly in advanced, students are really eager to talk to each other, so the first activity worked out quite well. The second activity worked out well too, but this activity requires more than one class.

  • How could this class be improved/ modified?

The class worked well. Maybe it is important to consider two classes to work on this instead of one.