8th Grade Spanish Happenings

8th Grade Spanish

Tik Tok video we made in the fall when we were talking about Tik Tok dances the students liked. (Sorry it's sideways! My video editing skills are low) 

Our Day of the Dead Altar

Students playing a vocabulary game in the core structure of the class: the Circle

Fall vocabulary about the Food Unit: health good, junk food, spend, global warming, employees, they grow, to name a few.... 

Asher, Campbell and Sebastian (Jesús, Pedro y Nacho) acting out a favorite scene from a holiday movie. 

Words about all kinds of superstitions we have when we got on the topic of good luck and bad luck after eating 12 grapes in 12 seconds (good luck in many Spanish speaking countries at the stroke of midnight on New Year's Eve)

Walker deciding that this was the most comfortable way to write. 

Students trying out the tradition of eating 12 grapes in 12 seconds. Turns out, it's really hard, and maybe even a little bit dangerous. 

In Spanish, communication and proficiency are the goals. Students are moving deeper into the Novice High and even Intermediate Low level, aiming to produce complete sentences most of the time. We work on Interpretive (reading and listening), Interpersonal (speaking and interacting spontaneously on unrehearsed topics), and Presentational (presenting, convincing, give your opinion) skills every week. The curriculum comes from them and their interests, and as you can see from some of the snapshots below, our vocabulary lists are truly organic. What ends up on the board are the words students can't say when they're trying to talk or write about a topic and they get stuck. As conversations evolve each day, students are faced with the task of communicating about unexpected topics: a night on an outdoor trip when the boys tried to scare the girls, a scene from the show Wildkratz, or how they spend Christmas day (we still can't believe Carter can wait a whole day to finish opening all his presents).  

This fall we dove into the 8th grade Food Unit by talking about their trip to the Tetons, what they did there, and the impact that food has on our planet. They watched a movie called Landfillharmonic about a student orchestra in Paraguay in which students play on instruments made from recycled materials from the landfill where their parents work. 

Students studied maps of the Spanish speaking world and all were able to reach 100% accuracy on seterra.com. We made a Día de los Muertos altar and honored loved ones who had passed, and we studied the tradition of Three Kings' Day in the Spanish speaking world and compared it to Christmas. One day we ended up making a TikTok video (see below) when we were talking about what made up their personal sense of culture. 

Most recently, Gaston Zuain has joined Calysta as an intern from the Teacher Training Academy. He is both observing and teaching parts of class and bringing his unique perspective having been born and raised in Argentina. He's a wonderful asset to the class, and the kids love his Argentinian accent (y's, ll's and j's sound like "sh")

 Students have been talking about superstitions they have and why they believe them. We have recently been comparing the differences between the Upper School and Middle School based on their visit day to the Upper School. Most students decided they think the Upper School is better, and one student shouted out, "¡He terminado con la escuela media!" ("I'm finished with Middle School!")