Teacher Tips

• A very good Spanish film that you might want to consider for your classes is “Carol’s Journey”. It is in Spanish with English subtitles. Set in Spain at the beginning of the civil war it follows the visit of an American girl -Carol- with her mother’s family in Spain. It really got my students talking about everything from the civil war, to women’s roles in Spain, to Franco and his lasting effects on Spain, to religious issues, and anti- American sentiments. It is available from Amazon or Netflix.
  — submitted by Lila Brock, Lakeview High School, Columbus, NE

• What a great video to show in Spanish IV class or perhaps III. (All in Spanish) It deals with the changing environment and the things we can do to change our habits and of course the consequences if we do not. Check it out.  http://www.omnilife.com/videos/calentamiento_global.php
  — submitted by Rebecca Gill Renken, Palmyra Junior/Senior High
• Here’s a fabulous website for graded readers: Reading A-Z. It is a subscription service, but a group can be created (and the participants don’t have to be in the same school!) and then it costs about $50 a year. You can download and print out hundreds of little readers and novels. It has both Spanish and French, as well as English. www.readinga-z.com

Another source of simple free printable booklets is
http://www.hubbardscupboard.org/printable_booklets.html#SightWordBooklets    Check it out!

— submitted by Pat McGill

• Do you ever run out of fun things for your students to read? Here is a website with some cute stories that you can use in your Spanish classroom for added reading practice. They are very elementary but they allow you to put in your student’s names to make the story more interesting.
  www.storyplace.org/sp/eel/activities/threelilcritters.asp?themeid=10

  — submitted by Lila Brock

• Another website that can be useful for reviewing complicated grammar topics is listed below. I recently used the exercises for determining preterite or imperfect and suddenly my students were finally “getting it”!! It can be used as one more tool in a teacher’s bag of tricks!

http://personal.colby.edu/~bknelson/SLC/

— submitted by Lila Brock

• I really wanted students to label a Central and South American map in a creative manner other than on paper when Marlene Knobbe’s idea from a few years ago came back to me. I took a white shower curtain, outlined a map of Central and South America with a few of the more important land features, gave the students labels for each and we held timed labeling races (with two shower curtains). Students could walk on it and actually move around it. Flags of the countries were also incorporated since we had recently reviewed a number of these. Marlene also mentioned using products of the countries as well. Students really wanted to play TWISTER with these. Something to think about!
  — submitted by Rebecca Gill Renken, Palmyra Junior/Senior High

• Retratos: 2000 years of Latin American Portraits   http://www.retratos.orgThis site is really fabulous.  Retratos: 2,000 Years of Latin American Portraits is an overview comprising more than 100 portraits from over 15 countries. The exhibition begins in the Precolumbian era, continues through the viceregal and independence periods, and into the modern era. It ends with contemporary portraiture, which demonstrates the sustained vitality of this tradition. As a group, these paintings and sculptures suggest not only common artistic threads but also provide important insights into the social and political history of Latin America. There is a teaching guide to assist you as well as maps, a glossary of terms, and it’s all bilingual.  Can you imagine the things you can teach using art?

— submitted by Rebecca Gill Renken, Palmyra Junior/Senior High