I really enjoy presenting stories of Latin Americans who have imagined creative solutions to the problems facing their communities. My students enjoy a balance of non-fiction and fiction stories. I think that these human-interest stories provide a better insight into cultural values than most lessons on cultural products and celebrations. This is a story that I have wanted to tell for a while now; I am always on the lookout for stories that are positive and tell inspiring stories about the cultures we study. It is now the 50th Maravilla that I have posted within the CI Master Class.
We start with a picture talk. I have captions for each of four pictures, but I don’t want to rush through this as I get my students familiar with the topic-specific vocabulary. The first photo is of a beach covered with seaweed. The seaweed has piled up and stinks! I want to repeat the words sargazo and huele mal in many contexts. My students will quickly forget the type of seaweed, but the phrase huele mal will be recycled over and over again throughout the next few days.
This is a complex problem that affects human health; the rotting seaweed releases gases that cause headaches, nausea and breathing problems. It is also a major environmental problem affecting fish and their habitat. And it has economic consequences on the tourism sector. All three components can be expressed in simple level one language using the white board. ¡Es un problema!
After establishing the problem, I will continue the picture talks which essentially outlines the entire video. No worries about ‘spoiling’ the ending! You can download a PDF of my picture talk here. It should take about five minutes; much less and you probably are not providing enough repetitions of new vocab, but if you talk much more then you’re probably hammering away too much, imho. 1-2 minutes per photo, unless your students can handle more.
The video is on the long side, about 8 minutes, and fully in English with subtitles for the parts spoken in Spanish. I am not going to beat myself up over a video in English because, in my opinion, getting my students to know this wonderful man is well worth it. You can view the video here.
We started in Spanish, received much of the content in English, and now I have a reading in Spanish which my students will be able to complete independently. And I suspect that, even if you have some classes that just are not getting it or refuse to ‘play the game’, your students will still be able to complete this cloze reading (yes, download it here). Let them do it on their own. After the initial picture talk followed by the video, they’ll have the background to complete the puzzle. My one essential rule: they must pencil in the definitions of the words in the word bank. Having them do that first will make the reading much easier. Some will need the help of the margin notes while they read, while others will fly through the text without consulting the notes. That is the beauty of this activity: it is magnificently differentiated.
At this point we have been working on this topic for close to 20 minutes. Almost time to switch gears. But first, have students flip the paper over and write 5 questions about the video. 5 easy comprehension questions that, I warn them, could very well become their real exit quiz. Let’s see what is in their short-term memory. The effort to produce language, at this stage, is appropriate and will help them retain the language that they were exposed to. In fact, after silently writing their questions, have them put the papers down. Turn and talk to a partner, without looking at your paper… nobody is reading… yes, just turn and talk about the video. You make a statement, or ask a question, and then your partner speaks. One minute. Afterwards wrap up by asking for a few questions that you write on the board and, in the students’ eyes, the circle of accountability is complete. That was 25-30 minutes altogether, just enough time now to look at one of our weird little drawings or talk about the weekend.
Here is the Write and Discuss that we created at the end of the lesson. I love how the transition word magnets inspire even my level one students to create lovely texts:
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