ePals

Good Morning,
The first time I ever traveled outside of NYS I can remember thinking, "Wow, there is a whole world out there for me to discover." Unfortunately this is rubbed in my face everyday as I teacher right next to the Buffalo Airport and I can literally watch planes take off outside of my window. So, at times, I wish I was on those planes on my way to explore another part of this big ol' world.
Since I do not have the money or time to do so right now, and neither do my students. I should you things such as ePals to being the world to them. ePals is used in many classrooms across the world to practice languages, understand customs, and communicate with other classrooms.
If you have a classroom that is studying Spanish in the United States, it is very easy to connect with another classroom in another Spanish speaking country that might be learning English. Students can practice their language skills with other students all across the world. Students are able to learn languages through experience.
Immediately as I explored this site, I thought about using it in my classroom. There is a section on this site called "A Taste of Culture". Students participate in creating a cookbook in the target language and eventually bring one of the dishes in. I thought about using this during a food unit. Students could each pick a different recipe and different country. They could research a fairly easy recipe and write it out in English and in Spanish. At the end of the week, students could make the dish, bring it to class, and share it with their peers. They could tell them what is in the dish by making a list of the items in Spanish and leaving it next to the dish.
Another obvious idea is to connect with a teacher and their class that is using the target language. My students love to learn the "slang" of Spanish speaking countries. I think it would be fun to share some of this slang with another classroom across the world. Eventually we might be able to exchange addresses and send them some fun things from the U.S. I know I would love a Spanish spekaing teacher to send me things in the target language. Even if it was a newspaper, my students would love that kind of stuff.
Any suggestions?

Hasta luego,

Alissa

Imperfect Video!

Hey everyone,
I am checking back in to share a video that I created to teach my students the imperfect tense. Here it is! I decided that I would use this video in my classroom to introduce the imperfect tense. It's a quick video that I think that they students will appreciate. I would like them to be able to create their own video when they have a good understanding of the imperfect tense. I think that they could use either site GoAnimate.com or Animoto. I liked both of these sites and found it very easy to use both of them.
I think that teachers could create small videos with listening activities as well. I could have easily put these in the imperfect tense in Spanish and presented them and then gone over them with my class.
Both are awesome ways to incorporate more technology in the classroom. Go ahead! Try them!
Hasta luego,
Alissa

Your homework is to go home and play video games, and don't make me say it twice!

That's right, I said go home and play video games...
Weird, right? This isn't something that students might expect their teachers to say. In fact, I myself was given an assignment to play a computer game, and thought, how will this work? 
In an article that I read called What is Gamification, it gives us a definition of gamification. "Gamification is the concept of applying game-design thinking to non-game applications to make them more fun and engaging." So, this could be used in the classroom or to practice a new language. Ogigames offers a wide variety of games for students to play, including educational games. 
I played Empire two times and noticed that it could definitely be used for students learning the command forms in Spanish. In the game, your "ruler" is commanding you to do things to help build the empire. In fact, all words are commands. How perfect for Spanish commands!? I think that I would have my students play the game, and write down ten command forms that they saw in the game. In class we could discuss all of the commands that they found and put them back in their original verb forms. I would grade their participation in class, or collect their ten commands as a homework grade and as I returned them I could give them to different students and they could put them in their original verb forms. If they could recognize the verb forms, and could report them the next day, all of them would be held accountable for their homework. They would all be actively involved in the game. 
I would not be using a walk-through (definition) for this type of activity, but I could see myself using one in future activities if the game was more difficult. In this game, they are commanded to do everything so it is easy to follow along with. 
After the students compared the commands that they were given, we could come up with our own images based on the game.  They could draw the images based on images that they saw in the game. The images could be put up around the room and we could refer to them when talking about "Open, Close, Construct, Use" etc. 
Instead of this being just a fifteen minute game that students play, we could turn this into a two-three day lesson.


Think about it...
Hasta luego, 
Alissa