Description:
I
taught 6th grade students the names of the planets and ordinal
numbers. They previously learned about the verb Estar, so I am integrating it
into the lesson as well. The day before
I look pictures of the students so I could “put them” on the planets. The
lesson begins by watching a short YouTube video, in Spanish, that is of a dog
in a rocket ship and he travels through the universe to the different planets,
in order. He gives random information about the planets and I stop the video to
ask the students which planet he was at and the ordinal number. We then watch
it the whole was through. Then I pass out a worksheet that has each planet and
a line for who is on the planet and a line for which planet it is. I have
visuals of planets with the students on it. I model sentences using the verb
Estar and the ordinal numbers. The students complete the worksheet and write
which planet they are on and its ordinal number. To end the lesson, we go over
the worksheet and learn a mnemonic device. Originally I was going to have the
students create their own video that was similar to the YouTube video that they
saw. I decided against this because it would take a lot of time, they already
learned names of the planets and the ordinal number very well and I wasn’t
going to take time to complete everything.
Narrative:
I
taught this lesson to one of the sections of 6th grade students that
I have at the new LTS substitute job I am at. The district starts Spanish in
Kindergarten, so much of the students have had Spanish since then. The lesson went very well and I was able to
teach it completely in Spanish. I asked
one of the other Spanish teachers if she could observe me lesson and give me
feedback. The students really enjoyed
the video and they weren’t distracted by any of the “fun facts”, but the native
speaker did speak fast, so I think they were paying more attention to the
information that they knew. The students really enjoyed seeing the pictures of
themselves on the planets. Some of the students were getting distracted by
this, so I went through and said who was on each planet quickly, in Spanish. I
did most of the first planet for the students; modeling the correct sentence
structure and having the students repeat me. I asked the students for help for
the second planet and they did the rest of the planets on their own. Some
pictures have only one student, so I could have them use a different subject
pronoun. They also had to write which planet they were on and its ordinal
number, so they were able to use multiple subject pronouns. We went over the worksheet and then I taught
the students a mnemonic device, in Spanish, to remember the order of the
planets. The mnemonic device was Mi Vecino Educa Muchos Jóvenes Sobre Un Nuevo Planeto. The teacher that observed me really
liked the lesson. She liked that I incorporated the video and visuals of the
planets and the students. She was impressed that I was able to teach the lesson
completely in Spanish. The only criticism that she had was that I could have
students come up to the board and write their answers, instead of them telling
me their answers while I wrote them on the board. Overall, I think the lesson
went very well. Here are two pictures that I
took:
Reflection:
The
students learned the names of the planets, in Spanish, how to use Estar with
different subject pronouns to describe someone’s physical location and the
ordinal numbers. The assumption was that the students remembered the
conjugations for the different subject pronouns, which they did, and that they
would be able to understand a lesson entirely in Spanish. The affordance of the information is that it
went together very well for this specific lesson. Another affordance was that
the content is not difficult, so I could teach the lesson in Spanish. The
constraint about this information is that the curriculum is content-based so there
are not too many activities that you can do, while incorporating the different
grammar and vocabulary concepts of the unit. Another constraint is that they do
not have a very extensive vocabulary, so they missed a lot of the information
in the video. Learning takes place through modeling and direct instruction. The
students were able to receive the presentation, structured practice, guided
practice, independent practice and assessment/conclusion.
My lesson
was intended to supplement the existing curriculum. Different learners were
taken into account because they received input through video, speaking
(auditory learners) as well as through the many visuals (visual learners).
Students were also working with partners, the class and independently. In order for the students and the lesson to be
successful, the students needed to know the names of the planets in Spanish, the
conjugations of Estar and the ordinal numbers, in Spanish. The demands placed
on the teacher was to deliver a lesson, in Spanish, at a level that they would
understand and I would be able to use circumlocution to get around words that
they may not know. I assessed the
students by having them tell me their answers and I wrote them on the board. I
also collected the work.
Technology played the role of opening up my lesson. I selected an engaging video, in Spanish, for the students to watch that was age appropriate. The advantages of the technology were that the students were engaged from the beginning, they were excited for the lesson and they enjoyed watching a video, in Spanish, and seeing how much they understood. The disadvantages were that the students did not understand all of the video. The technology helped to show the students what they would be learning as well as grabbed their attention. The students did not use technology during the lesson because I decided that they were not going to make their own videos. The students were able to watch the YouTube video and connect that video to content of learning the planets. They were also able to understand supplemental information, like Marte es el planeta rojo (Mars is the red planet).
