rwd6132's blog

Visión y Voz:  A Complete Spanish Course

No, the textbook does not have students look at the title. There are many pictures in the book used to represent various concepts, vocabulary words, common phrases, etc.

No, it does not have students guess what the text will be about. Each chapter seems to go immediately into vocabulary words and grammar.

The majority of the chapters do provoke discussion of things such as likes and interests, asking students to apply their knowledge of Spanish to respond to questions relating the topics in the book to their life (comparing the information in the book to their culture), such as “What would you order if you went to Lima?” or “Will you or someone else you know be celebrating any of these events in the near future?”

The book includes one article in particular in Spanish for which it provides much more than 5 vocabulary words.

The book is filled with vocabulary and grammar throughout every chapter.

The book seems to have students simply read a text and then answer questions about the text, without having them skim it first or read the first paragraph to determine what it means and then guess what the rest might be about.

The book asks students to notice how the uses of ser, estar, and gustar vary in the imperfect and the preterit.

I found it interesting that the first chapter covers the verb estar and the second chapter covers the verb ser.

The book includes an entire section on how to organize and edit a formal letter in Spanish.

The book has a short story or fable of some kind which contains blank spaces in which students are to fill in either the preterit or imperfect form of the verb indicated.

A section at the end of the book has students discuss their feelings about love at first sight before they read a text related to this idea.

Many sections of the book seem to have students analyze a text based on grammar (find certain forms of verbs in the text, fill in the blanks with either “por” or “para” as appropriate, etc.

I believe that technology can be incredibly beneficial to both students and teachers in the foreign language classroom. Students can go online and perform searches in the target language, allowing them to access a virtually unlimited number of websites in the language. Students can view videos of many different aspects of the culture surrounding the language, such as festivals, food, art, and architecture. There are even instances of virtual tours of various locations around the world which would allow students to, for example, walk the streets of Madrid, Spain without even having to leave their computer. I performed a Google search for “Madrid virtual tour” which returned about 16,200,000 results. The first search result that came up was “Madrid Virtual:  Fotos 360 panorámicas de Madrid, España”. (http://www.madridvirtual.com/) This site features 360 degree panoramic photographs of many different areas of Madrid. Another excellent site I found was “Arounder Madrid” (http://madrid.arounder.com/), which also has beautiful 360 degree views of museums, palaces, and theatres. This is just one example of how technology can be utilized to enrich the foreign language curriculum. Using this example, a Spanish teacher or professor could develop a lesson plan in which students are organized into groups which are each given a different area of Spain to research and study. They can explore the many cities of Spain, collect cultural information, and make PowerPoint presentations which include a virtual tour of their city. The students could become “tour guides” in a sense and walk their fellow students through cities such as Barcelona, Madrid, and Sevilla. This project would be incredibly visual and interactive and would provide students an excellent opportunity to virtually visit Spain, which would be the next best thing to flying there.

Other uses of the Internet to develop lessons in the foreign language classroom could be simply to explore the culture of the target language through videos on YouTube. There are millions of videos that could be used to teach the culture of a country or region. There are even separate YouTube websites dedicated to many different languages. Students can access clips of TV shows, for example, on the Spanish version of YouTube, which would obviously be an excellent indicator of the cultural environment of the country being studied (Spain, Mexico, Puerto Rico, etc.) Watching and interpreting YouTube videos would be very useful in practicing listening skills. A class discussion could be provoked upon watching a clip of a talk show in Mexico. Questions could be posed such as “What does this video say about the political/social/economic environment in Mexico?” or “How do you feel that certain values in Mexico differ from those in the United States?” Another possibility could be a student blog in which students would periodically view websites or YouTube videos in the language and comment on their cultural or social aspects in their personal student blogs. This activity would incorporate practicing writing skills as well as listening skills. Students would enjoy this activity even more if they were encouraged to freely express their opinions regarding the content of the websites or YouTube videos.

I believe that technology definitely has its place in the foreign language classroom. Obviously, there is a virtually unlimited array of resources that are available to students and teachers for foreign language learning and teaching. The Foreign Language Teaching Methods lesson on technology has some interesting and useful ideas. The use of student blogs to practice communicating with “chunks and scripts” seems like a very sound idea to me, which would allow students to use real-world, authentic, native phrases in the foreign language to write their blogs. This goes along with my ideas in the previous blog in which I discussed how I try to expose myself to as many instances of Spanish as possible through reading literature in the language, watching TV shows in the language, and listening to music in the language as well. The practice of periodically writing blog posts in the foreign language would give students an excellent opportunity to regularly develop their writing skills in the language, which they may not do on their own. Students could be encouraged to use these blog posts to write about any subject of interest to them in order to expand their vocabulary and improve their grammar.

I loved the idea of the podcasting series “Tá Falado”, which is a type of Portuguese lesson for Spanish speakers or those who are already familiar with Spanish. I have read Portuguese on occasion while learning Spanish, and it is remarkable how similar Spanish and Portuguese words appear to be, although I have realized that many Portuguese words are pronounced quite differently. The Tá Falado podcast features lessons which attempt to increase the student’s awareness of the pronunciation of consonant combinations such as “lh” and “nh”. The podcast makes comparisons such as “también” and “também” (which means “also” in Spanish and Portuguese, respectively). This is an example of putting an unfamiliar language in “context” by comparing it to a similar but different language. For example, I happen to know that the phrase “a little more, a little less” in Spanish is translated as “un poco menos, un poco más” and in Portuguese is “um poco menos, um poco máis.” The Portuguese version is almost identical to the Spanish version, with a couple of variations.” The Tá Falado podcast also utilizes Spanish and English to put the Portuguese language in context, using the phrases “Ping Pong” and “King Kong” to demonstrate how epenthetic vowels are used in the Portuguese word “Piquenique”. Relating the third language (Portuguese) to the first and second languages (English and Spanish) in my opinion would be an excellent way of introducing students to a new language. I am always intrigued to learn new languages, and becoming familiar with Spanish as well as I have has enabled me to recognize a significant amount of words in Portuguese and it has even allowed me to get the gist of various sentences in the language. Students in my Spanish class may be similarly encouraged to become familiar with Portuguese through lessons such as Tá Falado.

The Foreign Language Teaching Methods module on culture gave me some good insight into how to augment one’s exposure to the target language that one is studying or teaching. From my own experience, I realized that one does not magically become fluent after taking four years of high school and/or college foreign language classes. I did make higher grades in my high school and college beginning Spanish classes than most of my classmates, but I still was not able to carry on a casual conversation on a whim with complete fluency and confidence even after three years of high school Spanish. Most students that I have encountered in beginning Spanish classes that I took or in which I practice taught (briefly) have not had nearly as easy a time as I did. I was shocked by Dr. Thomas Garza’s comments regarding how many total hours of language instruction that the University of Texas can provide to students (if they take every possible class), as opposed to how many total hours are required to be considered proficient for a State Department job. Dr. Garza suggests some ways in which to increase one’s exposure to a foreign language, such as communicating via Facebook using the target language. This seems like an excellent idea to me, as it is using a form of social networking that is currently extremely popular among high school and college students. I have noticed that in the past few years while working on a computer in the library or other study area, there is almost always someone using Facebook beside me. If students were to use the target language to communicate on Facebook for twenty-five to thirty hours a week as Dr. Garza mentions, they would gain many more hours of experience in the language through just one habit change. Using Facebook, students could communicate with their friends that may be native speakers or even possibly communicate with students in Spain. I believe this would also be a much better use of students’ time than simply chatting with friends in English and not challenging their minds very much.

I would like to suggest other ideas in which students can increase their exposure to the L2 language. For years now, I have tried to come into contact with as many instances of the Spanish language as possible. For example, I like to watch telenovelas to practice my Spanish listening skills. At first I used English subtitles to be able to understand the storyline, but now I am able to watch telenovelas with no subtitles and I can usually understand on average 80% of the dialogue, which is a vast improvement from when I started learning the language. I have many hours logged listening to Spanish simply by watching telenovelas, which has allowed me to recognize slang and other phrases commonly used in Spanish. Another idea might be to read magazines in Spanish, such as People en Español, which I have found to be an excellent source of Spanish reading material. It incorporates the Spanish language, pop culture, and entertainment (tv, music stars), which could be a very effective way for students to learn Spanish and develop their reading skills by doing something that they usually consider a leisure activity.

I was very impressed with Sir Ken Robinson’s ideas on education and his philosophy on reforming it. One point of his struck me in particular – the fact that we are basically turning students into zombies by pumping them full of Ritalin and other ADD and ADHD drugs just so they will pay attention and absorb the material. I agree completely that we are anaesthetizing our children to get them through formal education and that we should be doing the complete opposite by waking them up and allowing them to discover their own innate abilities. So much of the educational process has been about standardization, about a standard set of skills and abilities that the state and national governments feel is best for students to acquire rather than focusing on what each individual student’s natural academic strengths and weaknesses. No wonder that a great percentage of students in public schools find themselves excruciatingly bored in class. Robinson suggests that education has become all about conformity with the rise in standardized testing, and that we should be going in completely the opposite direction. I could not agree more. With standardized testing, school officials do have a baseline with which to measure the required knowledge that students have obtained, but students that have even greater potential and have the ability to master more complex and varied concepts are truly losing out with this system. Teachers are severely limited in terms of curricular development because they are under a great deal of pressure to ensure that their students will be able to pass the standardized tests. Fortunately, the idea of end-of-course exams has been raised in the discussion of educational reform, and I believe that is a step in the right direction, which could give teachers more freedom to decide what material should be on the test based on their students’ unique talents and abilities. I believe that it is not realistic to expect students to be engaged in learning in American classrooms today which are riddled with standardization, regulation, and broad, impersonal guidelines for educating students.

Robinson’s commentary on divergent thinking is another valid point. He mentions that divergent thinking is coming up with multiple answers to a question rather than just one standard, generally accepted answer. Again, with the environment of standardization that exists in today’s educational system, opportunities for divergent thinking do not often present themselves. Teachers who have to “teach to the test” have to drill the general, widely understood information that is likely to appear on a standardized test, which is usually multiple-choice. In this case, there is only one correct answer, A, B, C, or D. The class time teachers and students have to dedicate to test prep I believe is lost time that could be spent discussing salient, relevant issues that we are currently facing. For example, students in a U.S. history class may be required to know something like “Which U.S. president was in office during the civil war?”, which is a basic knowledge level question. Multiple-choice tests such as these typically do not allow students to engage in higher-level thinking through open discussion. A more divergent thinking curriculum might allow students in the same U.S. history class to discuss a more complex and thought-provoking question such as “How do you think that the issue of states’ rights, an issue relevant to the U.S. civil war, applies to current political issues?”

The Foreign Language Teaching Methods video on the challenges of group work in the lesson on speaking made me think of how group work activities unfolded in classes I took in learning Spanish. Just as the beginning teachers described, I remember many instances in which students were off-task in group activities discussing things completely unrelated to the activity in the L1 language (English). This actually bothered me, because I was engaged in the material and I cared about participating in the activity. One student in particular mentioned another issue of importance, which is the fact that in some groups the students who are good at talking do most if not all of the talking and the students who are more reserved do little if any talking. This was actually a problem for me in beginning to learn the language and I still have issues speaking up in class to this day. I feel that the first issue could be resolved if the students understand first that they should try to avoid speaking in the L1 during group activities and to assign a monitor to each group to keep them on task (hopefully speaking exclusively in the L2). The second issue could be dealt with by limiting each student to speaking only a certain amount of time (such as 2 minutes) during group work, allowing all students to have an equal opportunity to contribute to the discussion. The group monitors could also be in charge of timing their group members.

I believe that both the inductive and deductive approaches to learning have their advantages and disadvantages, although I would probably lean more toward the deductive method to be absolutely sure that my students understand the essential ideas such as basic grammar. If the students are expected to learn the material, a combination of the two methods would be most effective, in my opinion. For example, students in a foreign language class need the instructor to explain more complex concepts (deductive) such as how verbs are conjugated across the various tenses (present, past, future) and moods (indicative, subjunctive, imperative). However, an inductive lesson plan could be employed that has students identify what is happening in a photograph or an illustration in order for them to discover the various functions of verbs. For example, the instructor could describe a picture in the target language (“El estudiante está leyendo el libro”) and then ask for feedback from the students (“¿Qué está haciendo el estudiante?”), requiring them to reproduce the sentence. This will allow the students to learn the structure of the present progressive (estar + present participle) through examples rather than providing the structure first and then giving examples. The two sample lesson plans given at the first of the Foreign Language Teaching Methods lesson on grammar show the differences between inductive and deductive lesson plans. In the first lesson plan, the rules of how commands can be used are given explicitly at the very beginning, and then examples of commands and practice exercises follow. This is obviously an example of the deductive approach to learning. In the second lesson plan, the lesson starts with a YouTube video that students are to watch and notice ingredients that are used in a recipe, followed by exercises that require the students to derive the infinitive form of the verb from the imperative form and describe how commands are formed. This is a very good example of an inductive approach. The lesson starts with a real-world example of how commands are used in Spanish in cooking, which is utilized to have students figure out for themselves the structure and function of commands. Of the two lesson plans, I would use the second lesson plan in my Spanish class. I love the idea of teaching the imperative verb forms in Spanish using recipes, because commands are commonly used in cooking instructions in recipes, just as they are in English. I love the idea of this lesson, as it incorporates inductive learning, grammar instruction, and culture into one lesson. This is precisely the way I first learned commands in Spanish, by studying recipes in Spanish and recognizing the imperative forms. Those lessons were some of my favorites because I love to cook and so it was a very effective way for me to learn this aspect of Spanish grammar. Showing a YouTube video is something more visual as well, which is also one of the ways in which I learn best. I’m sure that a lesson plan involving food would be a very effective way to teach my students grammar.

As a student in lower-level Spanish classes, I found the listening activities somewhat daunting. Because I am more of a visual and tactile learner than an auditory learner, it was especially challenging for me to try to comprehend listening exercises, such as listening to a telephone conversation between native Spanish speakers. I got the general idea of the conversation, but I seemed to be missing every few words which made it quite difficult to understand the conversation as a whole. I was not very satisfied if I could not understand every single word that was said, as I am a perfectionist in my academic endeavors. I was very engaged in every written, spoken, or listening activity in class because I seemed to excel in every aspect of learning the language, even though listening was probably the most challenging one for me. I don’t recall having homework assignments in which I had to do extensive listening nearly as much as writing or reading assignments. As a student of a foreign language, I would probably have benefited immensely from having more listening exercises assigned as homework. Now that I have years of practice reading, speaking, writing, and listening in Spanish, complex conversations that were difficult for me to understand when I was beginning to learn the language now are much more easily understandable. I believe that this lesson should be communicated to students of foreign languages. If the students understand that it is not the end of the world if they are not able to comprehend the spoken language word for word at the outset, then they will be much more productive and efficient in the classroom.

                In the Foreign Language Teaching Methods lesson on listening, I was struck by Dr. Mahmoud al-Batal’s commentary on why authentic texts are utilized in the classroom. If instructors of foreign languages simply were to have their students listen to materials produced by the Spanish textbook which include vocabulary with which the students are already familiar, they will not develop skills for learning real-world materials such as newspapers or magazines. Providing authentic texts that are accessible to students yet are at the same time challenging would definitely be something I would employ as a foreign language teacher. For instance, I might allow students to read local newspapers in Spanish and find articles of interest to them or ones that discuss current events that would be relatable to my students. Then, I would create a group activity in which the students would read to each other sections of the articles in order to build their listening comprehension skills. Dr. al-Batal seems to have some sound methodologies for having students participate in group work. One suggestion fits in very well in my example of a group listening activity. He suggests that two students work together and ask each other what they understood from the text. In my example, one student could read a section of the article and then ask their partner what they understood, and then they could reverse roles.

                I liked the idea of having students of foreign languages write a selective passage in order to enhance their comprehension of the passage, as discussed in the Foreign Language Teaching Methods lesson on reading. This practice involves using multiple senses, which is a good way to promote learning. The holistic curriculum seems to me a very sound method of teaching foreign languages. Having students understand that reading is related to speaking, writing, listening comprehension, and culture would be essential to teaching a foreign language effectively. In order to fully comprehend a text, I agree that teachers should have their students employ pre-reading, initial reading, and rereading. Starting with lower levels of cognitive difficulty, such as basic comprehension, and gradually increasing to more complex tasks, such as a written analysis, would be a common practice in having my students participate in reading activities. Another element of teaching reading skills discussed in this lesson is avoiding misinterpreting readings due to “horizons of expectation”, a concept theorized by Hans Robert Jauss. Personally, I love to study the various cultural aspects that surround a foreign language, in my case Spanish. Anything relating to Spain or Latin American countries intrigues me. As part of learning reading skills in another language, teaching about the culture in order to provide my students the appropriate context would automatically be a part of my curriculum.

                I love the ideas described in the article “Personalizing Language Learning in Large Classes” by Chao-ching Lin. In teaching College English as a Foreign Language, Lin utilizes the students’ vocabulary and personal knowledge that they already possess to help them learn the English language. He believes that teachers of foreign languages should stress to their students that learning should be meaningful. By allowing his students to research topics they are interested in and read about them in English, they were learning English as well as learning about enjoyable things. This method of instruction would be something I could adapt very easily to suit my Spanish classroom. For reading comprehension as well as speaking activities, I could encourage my students to find information in Spanish related to their interests and have them discuss their findings in groups or have them make a presentation in front of the class. This would incorporate practice using reading, speaking, and listening skills into the curriculum, as well as enhancing students’ learning and comprehension because they are learning skills through topics that they care about. For instance, if a student was interested in cooking, they could create a PowerPoint presentation that teaches cooking vocabulary in Spanish and includes information about dishes that are typical to Mexico or Spain. This would allow students to gain cultural knowledge of the Spanish-speaking countries as well as learning Spanish vocabulary and reading skills in the language. As Lin mentions, if students learn a foreign language through reading about activities of interest to them and thus discover their own passion for reading, they will not see reading as a mundane academic chore but as something very joyful.

The issues discussed in the article “Of Cliquen and Kneipen: When One-Word Translations Are Not Enough” by Lana Rings are very fascinating to me. Observing how one culture interprets a word or a concept as opposed to how another views the same word or concept is one of my favorite aspects of foreign language study. As the author mentions, there are “semantic primitives” that carry basically the same meaning across all languages. (8) For example, there is no semantic difference between the phrase “algo pasó” and its English equivalent “something happened”. However, there are various examples of Spanish words that are not what they appear to be. These include the words “padres” (which can mean either fathers (pl.) or parents (mother and father). The word “parientes” is a commonly confusing word for beginning Spanish learners, because it looks very similar to the English word “parents” but it actually means “relatives”. In Spanish, considering the gender of vocabulary words is very important in order to accurately convey meaning. When referring to someone’s nationality, if the person is American, you would say that a man is “americano” and a woman is “americana”. Also, the masculine plural form of vocabulary words is used to include both males and females, such as the word “gatos”, which can be an all-inclusive term for gatos (male cats) and gatas (female cats).

                Understanding the culture is of vast importance in the lexical and semantic meaning of words in the culture’s language. For example, our concept of “lunch” is usually a smaller meal, such as a sandwich or a salad, that can be eaten easily and quickly in the middle of the work day. This could be translated into Spanish as “el almuerzo”, but the meal that corresponds to our “lunch” in Hispanic countries is actually more characteristic of the American dinner or supper, called “la comida”, which can consist of multiple courses. This meal is considered the main meal of the day in the Hispanic culture, although they do have a meal at the end of the day, “la cena”, which is much lighter and is more like a snack. Concepts such as these can be used to create lessons which involve learning vocabulary and grammar as well as culture.

                One of the Foreign Language Teaching Methods videos on the importance of vocabulary reminded me of how crucial it is to connect a vocabulary word or a concept with an image, not just its English translation. In order to teach vocabulary to my students, I would probably make a list of vocabulary words but instead of translating them I would place a picture or a drawing of the concept that the vocabulary word actually represents. Also, I might also develop activities in which I would have students describe a vocabulary word through movement or gestures in front of the class while their classmates try to guess what the word is. This would be a very effective learning tool, incorporating the use of multiple senses in order to maximize learning.

In the article “Cultural Meaning in German Verbal and Nonverbal Behavior and the Teaching of German:  A Progress Report” by Lana Rings, the section on lexical/semantic meaning and its varying cultural perceptions was very intriguing for me, as semantics is one of my favorite aspects of foreign language study. In particular, I enjoyed the paragraph that discusses the differing views American speakers of English and German speakers have of the word “love”. The article mentions that Americans use the word “love” more loosely than do Germans. This makes me think of the way Spanish speakers communicate “love”. Spanish speakers express “love” perhaps more freely than Americans and Germans combined, as they have three different verbs that carry the meaning “to love” – “amar”, “encantar”, and “querer”. One can say “Te amo” to mean “I love you” as well as “Te quiero”, even though “querer” is the verb “to want.” “Te quiero” could even be considered an intensification of “Te amo.” The third verb, “encantar,” is used to express love for inanimate objects rather than people. For example, “me encanta esta comida” means “I love this food.” The fact that in Spanish there are three verbs for “love” while English and German merely have one demonstrates that the cultures surrounding the Spanish language are much more emotive. The article concludes by stressing the importance of cultural awareness, with which I agree wholeheartedly. Latin Americans, for example, have different views on how diseases are manifested and how they are treated as well. In a Spanish for Healthcare course that I took as part of my undergraduate degree, I learned that it is a common belief in various Latin American cultures that there are supernatural causes for disease, and also that people do not have much faith in conventional treatments like those employed by American doctors. Having this cultural understanding may facilitate the treatment of Latin Americans that hold these beliefs in American hospitals.

            In the article entitled “Cross-Cultural Communication Between Latin American and U.S. Managers” by Gary Wederspahn, I realized an important distinction between the Latin American culture and that of the United States. In this country, we do have a very individualized society, with an emphasis being placed on self-advancement and individual success in every aspect of American life. In contrast, Latin American cultures are significantly more family-oriented, with extended families living in the same household. The United States overall is a conservative nation, while Latin American countries tend to be more liberal and socialistic, placing less importance on self-improvement and more on the advancement of society as a whole. American businessmen who understand that their Latin American counterparts will most likely be more indirect, cautious, and diplomatic in their communication with others should have a significant advantage in their commercial endeavors.

            The article discussed above also illustrates the differing perceptions of time that the United States and Latin America have. While the American workplace values punctuality and is fast-paced, business in Latin America is conducted at a much more relaxed pace overall. I believe that American workers can learn something from Latin Americans. The high pressure, high stress atmosphere that exists in U.S. businesses seems to be taking a toll on our overall well-being, and the stress level could be greatly reduced if we adopted some of the practices of the Latin American workplace.