Description
Una maravilla in Spanish means “a marvelous thing”, and so that is how I refer to this series which I use to introduce the people and cultures of Latin America to my students. The presentations, embedded in power points, use the techniques of Picture Talk, Movie Talk, simplified readings and Write & Discuss. There is an hour long demonstration video included showing I use these power points in my own classes.
Poor readers tend not to visualize what they are reading, so the purpose of the first two activities is to create a picture in the minds of students, preparing them for the reading. Do not worry if students do not understand every word of the video; the video prepares them to visualize the reading, which is written to be slightly above their independent reading level. If you follow this with an assessment, base your assessment on the Write & Discuss which reveals what students truly understood. For a detailed description of how these Maravillas are constructed please read the blog post.
You do need Power Point (version 2013 or later) on your computer in order to use this product.