Author: Franco Ignacio Rivas Quiroz (Page 1 of 2)
Language Resident: Franco Rivas Quiroz
Level: Intermediate
Class theme/topic discussed: Wild animals
Goal of the class:
Students will be able to:
- Identify and categorize vocabulary related to animals and pets.
- Use conditional and past subjunctive to talk about possible scenarios
- Discuss the benefits and risks of having a pet.
- Compare, contrast and rate animals using a given criterion (danger to humans)
Class structure:
Warm up:
Juego de la Canasta: In a circle, one of the students chooses a subcategory of the main theme (example: body parts of animals, wild animals of the sea, dangerous insects, etc.) and each one will say a work without repeating what someone else said. When someone repeats a word or says something that does not belong to that category, that person loses and start another subcategory.
Activity:
Students answer the questions in small groups: If you had been an animal in a past life, what animal would you be?
They discuss the following questions:
¿Cuál es tu animal salvaje favorito? ¿Por qué te gusta tanto?
¿Has tenido alguna experiencia cercana con un animal salvaje? ¿Cómo te sentiste?
¿Crees que las personas deberían intentar tener animales salvajes como mascotas? ¿Por qué? ¿Qué animal tendrías de mascota?
“¿Cuál te asusta más?”: Students see pictures of 6 animals that might dangerous to humans. In groups, they compare them and rate them in terms of which one would be more dangerous and which one would not be as much; creating a list. They later share it with the rest of the class and compare their rating with the other group. If their results are different from the others, they will make a little debate in order to show the others why they think it is how they are determined.
Discussion:
Students discuss the following questions about ethics on animals. After that, the class is divided two groups and they do a little debate on 2 different postures.
¿Qué tan diferentes son otros animales a los humanos?
¿Hasta qué punto es válido que no sean tratados como sujetos de derecho?
¿Qué soluciones podrían existir para evitar el maltrato a animal?
¿Qué piensas sobre los zoológicos? ¿Son buenos o malos para los animales salvajes?
¿Deberíamos dejar que los animales salvajes vivan en libertad o deberíamos mantenerlos en cautiverio para su protección?
¿Qué responsabilidad tienen los gobiernos en la protección de los animales salvajes?
Wrap up:
Students wrap up the debate and give their final thoughts on the topic
Resources used: Powerpoint presentation.
Reflection: What worked/did not work? How can it be improved?
Some students were very passionate about the topic, especially in the debate. However, there were some students that were not as engaged. But the class went well. While they were in groups, I went around helping with vocabulary and trying to ask direct questions to the students that were not participating as much.
Level: INT/ADV
Class Topic: Chilean celebrities and gossip
Students will be able to:
- Practice using colloquial language and expressions in Spanish
- Practice expressing opinions, making predictions, and giving personal information in Spanish related to Chilean celebrities and gossip.
Class structure:
Warm up:
Students talk about what the most important celebrities are in the US, and the facilitator writes down vocabulary words that they use on the board. They are asked whether they know about any celebrity from a Spanish-speaking country.
Activity:
Students watch a short clip of a Chilean celebrity (Nicole Moreno Luli). In groups, they describe the situation on the video and make assumptions on what might have happened before that video.
Jigsaw Gossip: Each group receives a different scandal from a Chilean celebrity, they learned the details, watch a short video on it, and talk about what they think about it.
After that, each person is placed in another group. That new group will have a participant from each previous group. The idea is that each participants shares the scandal with the others and they all give their opinion on them. They rank each scandal considering the celebrity that acted the worst.
Wrap up:
In groups, students perform the favorite scandals in front of the class
Resources used: Youtube, Powerpoint presentation
Reflection: What worked/did not work? How can it be improved?
I didn’t know if students were going to be engaged, but after they saw the videos, they seemed very interested in gossip of these celebrities. They asked me a lot of questions about the details and they seemed to have fun creating possible scenarios trying to explain why that happened. In some ocassions, I had to remind them to use Spanish, because some cases needed extra vocabulary that they didn’t have, so I tried to be around and helped them as much as I could. If I did this class again, I would have extra vocabulary to provide them in order to support them while discussing.
Level: Advanced
Class Topic: Chilean memes and viral videos
Students will be able to:
- Practice using colloquial language and expressions in Spanish
- Identify popular Chilean memes and viral videos and their cultural significance
Class structure:
Warm up:
The facilitator starts by showing a picture of a popular Chilean meme and asking the students to describe what they see and what the meme means. The facilitator writes vocabulary words in the white board that are relevant to use in the class
Activity:
In groups, students are assigned list of popular Chilean memes and viral videos, such as “Papi ya bájame”, “Instinto de madre leona”, “No soy material de los weones”, etc., and ask the students to watch them and analyze the language and expressions used. They are allowed to use their phones to watch them. Then, in their groups, they will practice using the new expressions in their own sentences.
Activity: Role play
The class is divided in 3 groups to work on the cases at first.
In small groups or pairs, students choose one of the videos and perform it in front of the class. They plan and prepare for it, discussing how they want to perform it, what elements they want to change and the kind of vocabulary that they want to use
Wrap up:
Students discuss and vote on the performance that was best in the class. They consider their acting, use of vocabulary and creativity
Resources used: Cellphones, Youtube, Powerpoint presentation
Reflection: What worked/did not work? How can it be improved?
It was a bit difficult for students to understand the vocabulary on the videos, which is why I wouldn’t do this class for the intermediate class. I tried to show them the kind of words that they would find in the videos, so they had an idea. They had fun though, and they did a great job performing the videos.
Level: Intermediate/advace
Class Topic: Crime and law
Students will be able to:
- Use vocabulary related to law, trials, crime.
- Identify and discuss differences between legal systems in the US, Chile and other Spanish-speaking countries
- Simulate a mock trial with a case taking roles as the different participants of a trial
Class structure:
Warm up:
The facilitator shows a picture of a crime scene in Chile and asks the students to describe what happened and what they think the motives were. The teacher will then introduce the topic of crime and law and ask the students what they think about it.
The facilitator writes vocabulary words in the white board that are relevant to use in the class
Activity:
Students see an image of how the judicial system in Chile works. In groups, they compare it to the system in the US. They discuss similarities, differences, as well as pros and cons of them. They answer the question, what’s the good and bad thing about having a jury?
Activity: Mock trial
The class is divided in 3 groups to work on the cases at first.
First, each group decides what the case is going to look like: what is the crime in hand? Who is the suspect? What can witneses say about it? What evidence has been found?
Second, one person in the group becomes the defendant and another person becomes the lawyer. Then, for each case, the facilitator assigns people from other groups to participate in each case: a Fiscal (prosecutor), a witness and a judge. At the end of that part, for each of the 3 cases, each students has a role, which means that for one case, a student will be the attorney, but also the witness for another case and the defendant for another case.
Third, they role-play the trial of each case. Each student has a role for all of the cases, so they can all participate.
Wrap up:
Students discuss what they learned and how the trials went. They provide feedback on what could have been different in the trials and the evidence that could have helped.
Resources used: Powerpoint presentation
Reflection: What worked/did not work? How can it be improved?
The class was fun! At first, I was a little bit afraid that intermediate students might not be able to use legal jargon, but once we had vocabulary on the white board, they were able to access it at any time and they did a good job. Organizing the cases was a little bit messy, so I think I’d be good to show them a diagram of how cases are going to be organized, so that they know what they’re supposed to do. But it was fun to do the mock trials and students seemed to have fun doing it.
Language Resident: Franco Rivas Quiroz
Level: Intermediate/Advanced
Class theme/topic discussed: Holidays
Goal of the class:
Students will be able to:
- Discuss the differences of celebrations among cultures in latin america and the US.
- Describe a celebration that is relevant for them using frequency adverbs such as: generalmente, a menudo, la mayoría de las veces, casi nunca, siempre.
Class structure:
Warm up:
Students are asked to think about a good/funny/interesting/bad memory they had related to a holiday and share it to the class.
Activity:
The instructor shows some images/videos related to holidays that are celebrated in Chile (fiestas patrias, La tirana, Semana santa, minga etc) and then other celebrations of Latin America (Inti raymi, fiesta de las flores, carnaval de barranquilla, etc). Students see images of celebrations of other countries in Latin America and ask questions about what happens in each celebration.
Students are asked to talk about the most common holidays in their country, the differences between those and the ones that were shown to them and their favorite celebrities. They will do that in pairs or groups of three, and then share to the rest of the class.
¿Qué celebración es?: Each students is given 3 pieces of paper: an image, the description of a celebration and the name of one. Those pieces don’t match, so they have to go around walking in the room and they talk to their classmates to negotiate and exchange them, so as to match each image with the right name of celebration and its description. The only rule is that they can’t show the images or the descriptions, but they have to describe them with their own words.
Wrap up:
Students discuss whether holidays are important and whether there is something that they would change to any of the ones that they have talked about.
Resources used: Powerpoint presentation.
Reflection: What worked/did not work? How can it be improved?
Conversations about this topic with this class were very reflexive and there was a lot to talk about. Since they come from different cultural backgrounds, there were many things that they did, others that they did differently and students were interested to know more about their classmates’ celebrations.
The matching images to celebration was a bit challenging but it helped students use their own words to describe celebration. They ended up learning a lot about traditions without being explicitly taught about them.
At the end of the class, there was a little bit of a not-planned debate on whether holidays were important, since one of the participants raised the point that even though it was nice to have them, we could still live without them. At first it was going great, but then the conversation got a little bit intense among them. It was time to go anyway, so I basically thanked them for their great opinions and finished the class.
Language Resident: Franco Rivas Quiroz
Level: Intermediate
Class theme/topic discussed: Animals and Pets
Goal of the class:
Students will be able to:
- Identify and categorize vocabulary related to animals and pets.
- Discuss the benefits and risks of having a pet.
- Compare, contrast and rate animals using a given criterion (danger to humans)
Class structure:
Warm up:
Juego de la Canasta: In a circle, one of the students chooses a subcategory of the main theme (example: animals of the sea, animals that have tales, activities people do with their pets, etc.) and each one will say a work without repeating what someone else said. When someone repeats a word or says something that does not belong to that category, that person loses and start another subcategory.
Students are encouraged to speak up when they think someone has said something that is not necessarily part of that category and explain the reasons for that. Whoever is alluded can either refute the other’s claim or lose and start a new subcategory
Activity:
Students talk about their current pet, a pet they had in the past or a pet that they might like to have in the future. They are encouraged to show a picture of it to the class in order to illustrate it.
In couples or groups, they discuss the benefits and risks of having a pet. They can use the chipboard to remember main points and then share with the rest of the class.
“¿Cuál te asusta más?”: Students see pictures of 6 animals that might dangerous to humans. In groups, they compare them and rate them in terms of which one would be more dangerous and which one would not be as much; creating a list. They later share it with the rest of the class and compare their rating with the other group. If their results are different from the others, they will make a little debate in order to show the others why they think it is how they are determined.
Wrap up:
Each student briefly describes an animal of their preference without saying what it is. The rest of the class asks questions to find out what that animal is.
Resources used: Powerpoint presentation.
Reflection: What worked/did not work? How can it be improved?
Animals seem to be a relatively popular topic and so students will engage with it. Activities went well with no major difficulties. They went through a lot of vocabulary at the beginning of the class so that they could use it later on in the activities. Maybe one of the challenges is that students get very excited and conversations might go off topic a little bit, which i don’t think is necessarily bad. Students seemed to have fun
Language Resident: Franco Rivas Quiroz
Level: Intermediate
Class theme/topic discussed: Work and future plans.
Goal of the class:
Students will be able to:
- Describe job positions, tasks, different work settings and eventual future plans.
- Talk about hypothetical situations and things that they would like using the conditional form (for example, trabajaría, ganaría, me gustaría, etc.)
- Simulate job interviews
Class structure:
Warm up:
Word Box: students come up with vocabulary words related to the topic and the facilitator writes them on the board. There will be a chart on the board to organize them, in terms of objects, actions and characteristics.
Students discuss the following question in a small group, then share it to the class: have you ever had a job? What was it? What kind of job would you like to have in the future?
Activity:
Students watch a video of a woman talking about her job routine and tasks. They talk in a group and then share the following:
- ¿A qué se dedica?
- ¿Cuáles son sus funciones?
- ¿Cuál crees que son las ventajas y desventajas de su trabajo?
- ¿Trabajarías en algo similar?
Choose the right person for the job: Each student chooses one occupation for which they will be looking for a candidate. In two rotating circles (one inside of the other) students will interview each other simulating short job interviews. First, half the class will interview and the other will be interview. Those who interview have to describe the job position and ask questions to the other. After a couple of minutes, the circle rotates and they interview the next one. After the circle does a whole round, they switch and those who were being interviewed, take the other role.
At the end of the activity, everyone shares who they would hire for that position. The person who gets more job offers wins.
Wrap up:
Students talk about what their ideal job would be, describing hypothetical work settings, talks, routines and so on.
Resources used: Powerpoint, projector, youtube video https://youtu.be/3AgAj069znc
Reflection: What worked/did not work? How can it be improved?
Students seemed excited to go back to class after finishing the project. They seemed to have fun with job interviews and choosing the right candidate, since they ended up acting as real hr agents and being critical about the candidate’s background. It might have been a bit repetitive but it seems that it helped them by being exposed to certain questions that they could be potentially ask one day if they ever have a job interview in Spanish
Language Resident: Franco Rivas Quiroz
Level: Advanced
Class theme/topic discussed: Películas y series
Goal of the class:
Students will be able to:
- Express interests using expressions such as “me gusta, me encanta, me fascina, prefiero, detesto”.
- Describe movies considering elements such as plot, characters, genre and setting.
- Use the present subjunctive in adjective clauses using expressions such as “buscamos a alguien que…” “necesitamos un ____ que…”
Class structure:
Warm up:
Juego de la Canasta: In a circle, one of the students chooses a subcategory of the main theme (example: horror movies that start with A, comedy movies of the 80’s, etc.) and each one says a movie or series without repeating what someone else said. When someone repeats a word or says something that does not belong to that category, that person loses and starts another subcategory. They have to use titles in Spanish only.
Activity:
Students talk about their interests in movies using expressions such as: me gusta, me encanta, me fascina, prefiero, detesto”, etc. The following prompts will be displayed on the screen as well as examples of how to respond. After that, they share it with the whole class.
- Películas/series que encuentras interesantes
- Películas/series que consideras raras
- Tus placeres culpables
- Películas animadas que te gustan
- Películas /series que te decepcionaron
- Películas/series que son aburridas
- Películas/ series que nunca verías
Movie producers: In groups, students are the producers of a new movie that’s going to be released. They discuss what kind of movie they want to make, how they want it to go, what kind of director they need; using expressions such as: “buscamos a alguien que…” “necesitamos un ____ que…” . They will focus on the following aspects:
- Genre
- Plot
- Setting
- Director
- Actors
- Budget
They will present their idea to the rest of the class
Wrap up:
Adivina la película: They play in groups. In turns, each student gets a random movie genre and picks a card, where there will be the name of a movie. That student describes the movie and his group has to say the name of the movie in order to get a point. The group that has more points wins.
Each card will not only have the name of a movie, but also 3 words that are related to that movie. Students are supposed to describe it without saying any of those words. If they do, they lose their point.
Resources used: Powerpoint presentation. Printed out pieces of paper.
Reflection: What worked/did not work? How can it be improved?
The topic seemed to be engaging to students. First activities were easy to follow, and for the “movie producers” it was a bit more challenging. They had been practicing the uses of the subjunctive in previous classes so I went around giving them some extra support and asking questions. They ended up doing a great job and they laughed a lot. The activity that probably worked the most was the Adivina la película. The restriction of words that they could use made them have to find other ways to use the language to explain something, and they managed to do it eventually.
Language Resident: Franco Rivas Quiroz
Level: Advanced
Class theme/topic discussed: LGBTIQ+ Issues II
Goal of the class:
Students will be able to:
- Discuss issues that affected the LGBTIQ+ both today and in the past.
- Compare struggles among the communities in the US, Chile or their own countries.
- Make hypothetical assumptions using the conditional form “ría” (i.e debería, podría, etc.) and negative ones using the subjunctive (i.e no creo que sea, es poco probable que intente, etc.)
Class structure:
Warm up:
Students see an image of a piece of news of a recent piece of news in Chile that equal marriage is now officially legal since March 1st. Since there are students that took the class the previous semester, they compare the situation about that bill that they learned about the previous semester. They answer the questions “what do you think about this piece of news? what are the struggles that the LGBTIQ+ faces in your countries/states?”.
Activity:
Students see the extract of a videio in which discrimination situation occured in the middle of an interview. https://youtu.be/qh7WNAG117w
In small groups they discuss the questions: ¨Do you know about any similar situation in the US or in your own country? What do you think about it?¨
Students see headlines of Chilean old news about different situations that involved the LGBT community. They discuss the way language was used and the normalization of instults to reffer to someone gay. They are encouraged to use the conditional form for affirmative assumptions (i.e “podría estar intentando mostrar…”) and the subjunctive for negative statements (i.e “no creo que esté diciendo…”).
Lenguaje Inclusivo: The facilitator briefly explains the general rules to use inclusive Spanish in order to refer to a neutral gender or groups. In small groups, they create a story – each person ads a sentence to continue the story– using inclusive Spanish.
Wrap up:
As a group they exchange ideas on what would be some good ideas to make visible the realities and issues that the LGBTQ community faces today and how to support those who are struggling.
Resources used: Projector, Powerpoint.
Reflection: What worked/did not work? How can it be improved?
Students were very engaged with this topic. Students had a lot of questions about the situation in Chile and it was interesting for students who took the class last semester to see the progress that has been made over the last year. They practiced using inclusive Spanish and it was a bit challenging but they were able to do it. There was a lot of vocabulary that they asked to know, and we spent some time talking about words or expressions –and some words to avoid that might be offensive– related to the topic. In general people seemed engaged.
Appendix: Newspapers’ headlines
Language Resident: Franco Rivas Quiroz
Level: Advanced
Class theme/topic discussed: Fake News
Goal of the class:
Students will be able to:
- Discuss the concept of Fake News, the ways it happens both in the US and in Chile
- Identify good ways to be informed about the news.
Class structure:
Warm up:
Think-pair-share: Students answer the questions: how do you usually get informed? How much time do you spend on that? Why do you think it’s relevant?
Activity:
-Students discuss in groups whether there is fake news in the US, how it usually happens and whether they want to share one in particular. They do that in groups and then they share to the class.
-Students see images of news papers/ social media posts of fake news that had an impact on Chile. Some of them were true and others were false. They discuss which ones are true and which ones were false, choosing some criteria to affirm that.
-Mentiras blancas: In groups, students discuss the following questions about white lies:
- ¿Son buenas? ¿Pueden ser buenas a veces?
- ¿Mienten mucho?
- ¿Son buenos mentirosos?
- ¿Te han descubierto alguna vez mintiendo?
-In couples, students select one piece of news that is real and they make up a fake one. They can use their phones to do that. After that, they tell both of them to the class and they have to decide which one is correct and which one is fake news.
Wrap up:
Students vote on which one was the most convincing of all.
Resources used: Projector.
Reflection: What worked/did not work? How can it be improved?
The topic seemed engaging for students. They followed the activities and the discussion prompts well in their groups. Students got the chance to talk a lot in the groups and couples. It was fun to hear their make up news and some of them were very convincing. Maybe what didn’t work so well was that, since there were a lot of couples, it took longer for the whole class to share their news, but students would make comments on them, so it wasn’t like they weren’t participating while the groups shared. They seemed to have fun with it.
Language Resident: Franco Rivas Quiroz
Level: Advanced
Class theme/topic discussed: My hometown (Online)
Goal of the class:
Students will be able to:
- Describe their home city/town and express what they like/ do not like about it. “Lo que me gusta de mi ciudad es que / lo que no me gusta es que” “Lo que más me gusta/ lo que menos me gusta”
Use comparatives and superlatives to express similarities and differences among cities “Sao Paulo es más grande que Valparaíso” “Santiago es la ciudad más grande de Chile”
- Express desires for the future and explain the reasons for that. Example: “me gustaría vivir en Nueva York, porque hay muchos restaurantes allí”
Class structure:
Warm up:
Mi lugar favorito: Students will show us a picture of their favorite place in their hometown and explain why do the like that so much.
Activities:
- -The facilitator describes his hometown (Valparaiso) and shows pictures using a powerpoint presentation. Students are encouraged to ask questions about it if they want to know something else about it.
- -Students are divided in pairs or groups of three using breakout rooms. Each one in their corresponding groups describes their hometown and talk about what they like/do not like about it. After that, some students share with the rest of the class what they like the most and the least about their hometowns, while the facilitator shows pictures about their hometowns using the projector and Google Images.
- -In groups or couples, students talk about the city where they would like to live, and explain why. Then they share it with the rest of the class.
- -Students see 4 images of cities around the world (Santiago, Chile; Sao Paulo, Brazil; Morelia, Mexico; Singapur, Singapur). In breakout rooms, they discuss the following questions: what city do you think it is? Which one of them do you think is more quiet? which one is it closer? which one is more similar to your hometown? They share with the rest of the class after that.
Wrap up:
Using Jamboard, students design how the perfect city would look like and they give it a name. Then they share to the class.
Resources used: Powerpoint presentation, Google Images, Jamboard.
Reflection: What worked/did not work? How can it be improved?
Students participated well. They seemed engaged trying to figure out what cities they were and comparing them to where they came from. It seemed like students had fun with the last activity and laughed. What didn’t work that well was the fact that in one of the breakout rooms, students were not talking at all. I asked them about the questions and they started speaking, but maybe they were too shy to start speaking, or they had already talked about them quickly.
Language Resident: Franco Rivas Quiroz
Level: Intermediate
Class theme/topic discussed: Social Media and Technology II.
Goal of the class:
Students will be able to:
- Determine benefits and opportunities for social media and summarize them by designing a hypothetical social media app.
- Practice verbs and actions used for social media tasks such as “dar me gusta, publicar, comentar, subir una historia, etc”.
Class structure:
Warm up:
Students are asked to remember and say social media-related vocabulary filling a chart on the board that breaks them down into actions, characteristics or things. They are encouraged to ask if there are words that they want to say but are not sure how. Expected words are: viral, me gusta, compartir, bloquear, muro, perfil, inicio, subir, descargar, publicar, etc.
Activity:
Crea tu red social ideal: In couples, students will design a new and innovative social media app they would hypothetically become successful. They will do that through the following steps:
- Consider pros and cons of commonly used social media apps. Determine how to include the good things about it and solve the bad ones.
- Think about a target for the app, see how they would satisfy their costumer’s needs and what kind of content there will give.
- Determine the way it will be advertised and funded (are they going to use advertising on the app?, will they charge a subscription fee?, will they receive donations?, etc.”)
- Design the layout, main colors displayed, logo and slogan, using colored chalk.
Students present their social media app to the class.
Wrap up:
Students discuss whether they would really use that app if it existed and if they would ever stop using the ones that they already use and replace them with another activity.
Resources used: Projector, laptops.
Reflection: What worked/did not work? How can it be improved?
It seems that throughout the weeks students feel more comfortable in the class and they speak more. In general they participated well and carried out the activities creatively. I went around the room helping them understand the instructions and making sure that they were doing what they were supposed to. They ended up creating fun social media platforms that they exposed to the rest of the class. It worked well for the couples, but unfortunately in one of the groups of three people, it was clear that there was a student that was not participating very much. My way to deal with that was just go around and ask them about what they were doing at the moment. It worked apparently.
Language Resident: Franco Rivas Quiroz
Level: Advanced
Class theme/topic discussed: LGBTIQ+ Issues
Goal of the class:
Students will be able to:
- Discuss issues that affected the LGBTIQ+ both today and in the past.
- Make hypothetical assumptions using the conditional form “ría” (i.e debería, podría, etc.) and negative ones using the subjunctive (i.e no creo que sea, es poco probable que intente, etc.)
Class structure:
Warm up:
Students see an image of a piece of news of a recent piece of news in Chile about the fact that the Equal marriage bill passed the congress’ “cámara de diputados”, making it one step closer to become a law. They answer the questions “what do you think about this piece of news? what are the struggles that the LGBTIQ+ faces in your countries/states?”.
Activity:
-Students see images of artistic interventions of Pedro Lemebel, a Chilean queer writer that made a lot of effort during the dictatorship of Pinochet to bring to light issues of the LGBT community. After the facilitator explain a little bit who Pedro Lemembel is, they try to make assumptions on the meaning and purpose of each interventions. They are encouraged to use the conditional form for affirmative assumptions (i.e “podría estar intentando mostrar…”) and the subjunctive for negative statements (i.e “no creo que esté diciendo…”). After that, they are provided with short written explanations on pieces of paper and are encouraged to match the image with the explanation.
–Referentes queer: Students see two instagram videos (30 seconds each aprox.) of the influencers @unafamiliax (a Chilean lesbian couple activists who talk about current issues of the community and make visible their lives as a homoparental family with a child). Students are encouraged to ask questions about them, and then to share some role models or references in their own countries or communities that they know of, what they do, what they stand for and whatever they would like to share.
Wrap up:
As a group they exchange ideas on what would be some good ideas to make visible the realities and issues that the LGBTQ community faces today and how to support those who are struggling.
Resources used: Projector, Powerpoint.
Reflection: What worked/did not work? How can it be improved?
Students were very engaged with this topic. Some of them were closed to the topic because they have previously participated in activist groups in support of LGBTQ students in their communities. Students had a lot of questions about the situation in Chile, the progress that had been made so far and other challenges that the community faces today. There was a lot of vocabulary that they asked to know, and we spent some time talking about words or expressions –and some words to avoid that might be offensive– related to the topic. We were not able to fully complete all the activities of the class and we will continue on the next class and add some more activities related to the topic.
Pedro Lemebel artistic interventions:
Language Resident: Franco Rivas Quiroz
Level: Advanced
Class theme/topic discussed: Travelling
Goal of the class:
Students will be able to:
- Give directions in a subway setting of a Chilean city.
- Use expressions to express directions such as “Toma el metro en la estación…”, “avanza dos estaciones en dirección”, etc.
- Determine the best way to use the subway taking into consideration some eventual difficulties
Class structure:
Warm up:
Students see images of people lost in a city and discuss whether they have been in a situation like that in the past, or have had the chance to help someone in that situation.
Activity:
Students remember words and expressions related to giving directions and giving direcions using the subway. “toma la línea _____ en la estación ___”, “avanza tres estaciones en dirección ____”, etc.
Students see a map of Metro de Santiago and practice with three different destinies:
“¿Cómo llegar al aeropuerto?”: Students discuss the best way to help somone to go from Trinidad station to the Airport in Pudahuel station, considering that some of the stations are closed during certain hours. (sheets of paper were printed out with the map of the metro, and some difficulties were added afterwards)
Wrap up:
Students talk about whether they found that easy or not, whether they would see themselves using those expressions in the future, etc.
Resources used: Projector, imovie
Reflection: What worked/did not work? How can it be improved?
The class went well. I realized in the class that students did not know very much about giving directions in Spanish, so I ended up using some more time at the beginning to help them get not only the expressions that they were going to use for the main task, but also other kind of expressions that they could come across when giving directions. They seemed to appreciate the class, because they said that it was very useful if they ever went to a Spanish-speaking country; and that it is something that they are not usually taught in Spanish classes.
Language Resident: Franco Rivas Quiroz
Level: Intermediate
Class theme/topic discussed: Food and beverages II
Goal of the class:
Students will be able to:
- Describe food and use expressions to order food in a restaurant (for example: “me gustaría ordenar”, “quisiera pedir”, “¿Qué lleva el ___?”, “¿me podría traer la cuenta?”, etc)
Class structure:
Warm up:
Students remember vocabulary of ingredients of food by seeing last class’ images of Chilean food and saying the ingredients that they can see.
Activities
-Students watch a video on “how NOT to order food in Spanish” and are asked to identify the expressions that are used to order food, as well as answering: how should the customer have said those expressions in a better way?. After that, the facilitator writes on the board relevant expressions for ordering food.
-Students see an open-ended dialogue at a regular restaurant setting and practice the expressions filling in the blanks the information that they want to add to the situation. They practice asking about ingredients and describing plates in the process.
Roleplay: One of the students is the waiter and the others are customers. They simulate a restaurant setting in which some difficulties happen (they take turns so that someone is not always the waiter):
- Their favorite plate is not available that day and they have to find something that could be enjoyable for them.
- While eating, they realized that there was meat on what they ordered. They are vegetarians.
- While eating, the restaurant is about to close, but they only started eating about 5 minutes ago.
Wrap up:
Adivina el plato de comida: Each students describes a plate, and the rest of the participants guess what the plate is.
Resources used: Projector, Power point presentation, youtube video
Reflection: What worked/did not work? How can it be improved?
Students participated well during the class. They had practiced describing food on the previous class, so it was easier for them to do it that class. It was surprising for me that they remembered so many things about Chilean food ( I thought that they would forget it right after the class). In general, they seemed to have fun, but I realized that, even though I still tried to model before each activity, I could have done it more; because there were a couple of situations in which students were not so sure about how to proceed, so then I would try to show them again.
Food ordering dialog (for controlled practice stage)
Mesero: Buenas tardes, bienvenido/a al restaurante ____________. Mi nombre es ____ y voy a ser su mesero. ¿Qué desea tomar/beber?
Cliente: Me gustaría pedir____ / Quisiera ordenar _____ / Déme un/a _________
Mesero: ¿Qué le gustaría de entrada/entremeses? Tengo para ofrecer ______, ______
Cliente: ¿Qué trae la ______ ? (Nombre del plato)
Mesero: Trae ____ , _____ , (descripción del plato)
Cliente: Déme el / la ________ / Me gustaría ordenar el / la _____
Mesero: ¿Qué le gustaría de plato principal / plato de fondo?
Cliente: ¿Tiene _______?
….
(postre)
Cliente: ¿Me trae la cuenta por favor?
Mesero: Con mucho gusto. ¿Con qué medio va a pagar?
(Indica el medio)
(Se despiden)