We spent the first semester watching a few minutes of Tierra Incógnita each day in my level 1 classes, available on Disney+. During the first episode we were very intentional about our process: we would watch a small scene with English subtitles, discuss it afterwards in simple Spanish with the aid of screen shots, and then complete a Write & Discuss. Students complained, of course: can we just watch the show?

This is a very labor-intensive way to watch. I treated the show as a CI resource to aid in language acquisition.

Midway through the second episode, we started relaxing into a more casual viewing approach. I had found it difficult to continue finding things to describe in our W&D texts. It would have helped if I had watched the entire two seasons beforehand, but I was going in blind just like my students and thus missing where the plot was heading. I was frequently distracted by unclear character motivations. I turned on the English subtitles and stopped using the show as fodder for language acquisition.

Frankly, I wasn’t that impressed by the show.

And yet.

What I didn’t anticipate was that watching a show with English subtitles would end up strengthening—not distracting from—the most language-focused parts of class.

Our classes had settled into a comfortable rhythm: every day we start with a conversation (with W&D), then complete a reading, and end class with a little of our show.

Some days the reading was longer and we missed the show. My kids took it in stride. I began to think that, like me, maybe they just were not too interested. When I floated the idea of watching a movie instead, I was met with an insurrection. They were very interested.

This realization came to me sometime in October, so we became more serious about finishing the two seasons. The show had stopped being a “CI resource” and had become a motivator, a class ritual, a bridge into the Spanish-speaking world, and perhaps a buffer between my passionate best intentions and my most disengaged students.

I focused more of our reading time on quick “tiny daily readings” so that we would consistently have time to watch our show. Our first conversations also became more focused. While we missed out on some of the cultural presentations I had planned to do, our class developed a sense of anticipation.

The show didn’t directly “teach” Spanish, but it made students more available to learning Spanish. The show became a motivational scaffold, not a curriculum shortcut.

But is there an impact reflected in the assessment data?

I have just finished recording grades for the first two quarters, along with midterm exam grades, and I think this is interesting: across the board, daily assessments taken by my least engaged students improved over the course of the semester rather than dropping. These daily assessments record effort and engagement.

I think this is especially notable because I got the vibe that my first period loathed me. Maybe they were just typical first period zoned out zombies. Or maybe they did loathe me! But if they did, the show drew them into the Spanish speaking world in spite of me. Not bad… I’ll take it.

Early on, I tried to apply a hyper-controlled CI approach to watching a TV show in class. Then we relaxed—and learning did not collapse. In fact, engagement increased. And it increased across everything that we were doing.

Teachers don’t need to love the content for it to work. What mattered wasn’t my enthusiasm for the show, but the students’ sustained relationship with it. That’s reassuring (and humbling) for teachers who worry that they must be the motivational engine at all times.

I’m increasingly convinced that sustained, shared stories— even imperfect ones—can do pedagogical work that no amount of intentional planning can fully replicate.