Mini Project 3

This video activity would be used in a second year high school Spanish class during a 50 minute block. It would be included in a unit where the students are studying daily routines which include reflexive verbs, which would have been introduced during the previous class period. The main goals of this activity are for the students to be able to interpret meaning in the video, be able to recognize the reflexive verbs, and be able to determine the appropriate uses of reflexive verbs. Also, the students will be able to compare the daily routines seen on the video with their own through communication in Spanish.

Activity – Reflexive verb video
(All to be completed in the target language)
· Prior to viewing: Students will be asked the questions “What is a reflexive verb?” “When do we use reflexive verbs?” and will be asked to jot down some examples of reflexive verbs. (5 min.)
· While viewing: Students will be instructed to jot down any and all reflexive verbs that they hear in the video. Video will be shown two times. (10 min.)
· After viewing: Students will write about the daily routine of the person in the video. They will then get in to pairs and discuss how their own daily routines are similar and different from the person and the video and from each other. (15 min.)
· Students will then individually create a story line including illustrations which will depict their own daily routines. Students must use a minimum of 5 different reflexive verbs. (20 min.)

Assessment:
--Active participation in class discussion/interpersonal task: 40%
--Completion of daily routine story line: 60%
- minimum of 5 different reflexive verbs: 25%
- grammatical accuracy: 25%
- original illustrations: 10%

a Podcast about Podcasts! PS - i dont have a lisp in real life. i think the microphone was too close to my face.

Second Life...

Before exploring Second Life in class last Monday, I have to be honest, I thought the idea behind Second Life was rediculous! It seemed silly to me that people would want to create a "virtual alter ego". While I still think the idea in general is a little silly, I had so much fun exploring second life through my "avatar"! I got really in to it and found myself wanting to continue even after time was up in class. That lets me know that if I enjoyed it so much then students certainly would be interested and excited to! While I am not sure at this point if I completely agree with pedagogical benefits of using Second Life, I do see the validity of the arguments behind the idea. I can certainly agree that the affective filter would be low using second life because of the degree of anonymity that Second Life offers. Students that may be timid using the language in the classroom setting would probably be comfortable communicating in the TL in Second Life. Also, although it is not genuine "face to face" interaction, communicating on Second Life does resemble the flow of natural conversation. My question is, would using Second Life to communicate in the TL provide opportunities for oral proficiency or just for written proficiency???

Mini Project 2

Trying this again...Here it is for REAL this time!

MINI PROJECT 2

Thoughts on Intercultural Communication...

I enjoyed the readings and discussions on the intercultural communication topic. I believe strongly in the inclusion of culture in the teaching of a foreign language and can definately see the value of using intercultural communication in the FL classroom. As stated in some of the articles, it is important to have discussions in order to prepare students for such communication to make sure that everyone is on the "same page" to begin with. I could see how having differing expectations could certainly create tensions and missed communication. I also do think that it is important to make students aware of the existence of cultural stereotypes so that they are not reinforcing cultural stereotypes through the communications. In all, I think that it would be neat to use intercultural communication in the classroom. It is the modern version of pen-pals and I think that this is something that students (particularly at the middle/high school level) could get really excited about!

Video Project Ideas...

I am not completely sure what I would like to focus my video project on yet but I do have a couple of ideas. I know that I will be teaching at the high school level in the coming year so I would definately like to gear my topic to be appropriate at the high school level. I think that something dealing with the theme of travel would be nice but I am not exactly sure how to set that one up. I also like the idea of making commercials. Another neat thing would be to film dialouges. In the high school classroom, students could create dialouges or skits dealing with different situations (at the restaurant, phone conversations, meeting someone for the first time, etc). As you can see, I am not sure where I would like to focus my project yet but any ideas/feedback would be much appreciated!

Mini Project 1

Here is my Mini Project #1