Content Lesson

I would have loved having a Spanish lesson like this in the seventh grade. Even in high school, language classes were about the language rather than content in the language. It would have made class much more relevant and enjoyable. It’s also a great way of diminishing student stress and anxiety since the material is drawn from other classes and past knowledge. The only difference in the medium (language) used to teach it.
However, I would have liked to see a more student-centered approach as well. While we did not get to finish the video and such activities may follow after, this is after all a Spanish class, and students should be given the opportunity to produce output in the TL. We do get snippets of this when the teacher asks a student a direct question, but I’m thinking more along the lines of discussion. This way, students must be novel in Spanish just as they are in English. Surely there will be mistakes and questions, but that is how we learn a language, including out first languages. It’s great their listening comprehension is so high, but it would be a shame if they can’t produce a sentence.

One thought on “Content Lesson

  1. Peter Shaw

    Good point about lack of student output. One follow up could be to have them plan a week’s worth of meals (including a couple of fast food outings) and show their awareness of balance and restraint by adding up numbers for protein, carbs, fats, sodium, etc and making the case for their plan being healthy yet satisfying. And maybe you could add a cultural element by having them include dishes from 2 or 3 Spanish-speaking cultures (with pictures from magazines or the web as illustrations).
    Or, they could create a menu for their own restaurant, again with pictures and nutrition values.

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