Showing posts with label Teaching with Music. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Teaching with Music. Show all posts

Friday, February 3, 2017

Nuevo Sencillo de Natalia Lafourcade: "Tú sí sabes quererme" - Natalia Lafourcade's New Single: "You Know How to Love Me"



Natalia Lafourcade has been a favorite artist of mine for the last four years, since I first taught her gorgeous tune "Amor de Mis Amores" to my Spanish I students. In a homage album to Agustín Lara, Natalia captured the hearts of my students with her cheerful and fresh rendition of a 1930's Mexican classic. 




Throughout four years of teaching "Amor de Mis Amores" as the Spanish I introduction to "Haz Ahora" songs, now most students at my school that have taken Spanish know the tune, and students tell me that the tune helps them connect with upperclassman who have fond memories of the class and their first Spanish song. Music has such power to invoke memories, and I love that students have such fond memories of Natalia's rendition of this classic tune.


Since then, I have taught Natalia's "Adventurera" from the same Agustín Lara tribute album, as well as her tune "Ella es bonita". 


I am a big fan of her newest album, "Hasta la Raíz", but have yet to teach my students those beautiful tunes. 


So, you could imagine my excitement, when on my Instagram feed last Friday, I saw that Natalia had released a new surprise single. I immediately took a listen, and made a new "Haz Ahora" sheet for my Spanish 2 students. In a beautiful and uplifting love song, backed by "Los Macorinos", Natalia has done it again. She's created an immaculate and instant classic. 

I started teaching it this week, and my students are hooked! I hope you enjoy the tune as well.




If you're interested in teaching this song to your students, please follow the link below for the free PDF resource on TpT. 



If you're curious about how the song warm-up structure works: 

The instructions for the eight-day warm-up cycle can be found in the following post.


To see the Song Warm-Up resource, please follow this link on my TpT page.







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Friday, January 27, 2017

How to teach "La Carretera" by Prince Royce

Along with a professional development day at school comes a bit more energy to blog about things that I love! I love music and I love Spanish, and sharing these passions with my students is, for me, one of the great joys of teaching.


A favorite artist of mine, and of my students, is the famous crooner Prince Royce and his bachata ballads. Royce is a 27 year old who grew up in the Bronx with Spanish-speaking parents, and his bachata tunes are incredibly catchy. One of my favorite aspects of teaching Royce's songs is also teaching students basic bachata moves to go along with the music. His songs are meant for dancing, and teaching the basics of bachata is a great way to help students engage with the beat, language and culture of his tunes. I usually teach the bachata around "Day 8" of the song cycle, before the exam, to promote engagement in the tune and encourage studying for the exam the next day.

 I love to show students the introduction to bachata dance from HowCast found at this link below:

 http://tinyurl.com/bachataintroduction
As well as this link, while students try out the dance for themselves:

 http://tinyurl.com/bachatabasics
I have posted my resources for "La Carretera" by Prince Royce on the links found below. 

The instructions for the eight-day warm-up cycle can be found in the following post.


To see the Song Warm-Up resource, please follow this link on my TpT page.


To see the Song Exam resource, please follow this link on my TpT page.


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Monday, November 21, 2016

Music In the Spanish Classroom: Latinoamérica by Calle 13



One of my favorite bands to introduce to students is the group Calle 13, a hip-hop group comprised of three "hermanastros" or step-siblings from Puerto Rico. Their work is catchy, with quick, witty stanzas of rap set against a gorgeous, rich chorus. Calle 13 often raps about social injustice in Latin America, and this song is no exception. 

Not to mention the music video is absolutely beautiful too! Enjoy!


The instructions for the eight-day warm-up cycle can be found in the following post.




To see the Song Warm-Up resource, please follow this link on my TpT page.




 To download the Song, you can follow this link.


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Thursday, November 17, 2016

Song Warm-Up Procedure in the World Language Classroom

As mentioned before, song warm-ups bring incredible life to my classroom. In the first five minutes of class, students are energized and re-set to a full immersion classroom experience. 

The song warm-up procedure is simple, but knowing the pattern of each song's warm-up helps students to feel comfortable in the activity and keeps the warm-up relatively simple.



Each day, students begin by writing out the date in the target language. 

Day 1

In day one, students begin by listening to the song in its entirety. This gives students a day to analyze the words of the song to see which words they recognize.


Escribe 5 palabras que escuchas en la canción. 

Write five words that you hear in the song. 

Then students are asked to analyze the tone of the music of the song. 

¿Qué es el tono de la canción? Triste? Feliz? Emocionante? Enojado? Amoroso? 

What is the tone of the song? Sad? Happy? Exciting? Angry, Loving?

Finally for Day 1, students are asked to analyze their opinion of the song. 
        
¿Te gusta o no te gusta la canción?

Do you like the song or do you dislike the song?

Day 2

In day two, students again listen to the song in its entirety, but this time they read the lyrics of the song (Day 3 - 7) and chose five different words that they understand from the song. This gives students another day to analyze written text of the song to see which words they recognize. 



Lee el texto. Escribe 5 palabras diferentes que entiendes de la canción. 

Read the text. Write five words different words that you hear in the song. 

Then students are asked to analyze the tone of the music of the song. 

¿Qué es el género de la canción? Salsa? Merengué? Pop Cubano? Son? Bachata?

What is the genre of the song? Salsa? Merengue? Cuban pop? Son? Bachata?

Finally for Day 2, students are asked to analyze the theme of the song. Spanish 1 completes this task in English.
         
En inglés, ¿qué es el tema de la canción?

In English, what is the theme of the song?

Day 3 through 7


In day three through seven, students again are listening to the song, but this time they are completing a different style of warm-up activity. Students complete a CLOZE listening activity, in which the teacher plays the section of the song for students for the appropriate day, and students fill in the blank spaces with the appropriate word from the song. 



After they have completed the CLOZE activity and listened to the excerpt twice, I usually give students one minute to translate the stanza themselves. In Spanish 1, students are asked to translate at least two words from each line of the text during this time. In Spanish 2, students are asked to translate as much of the stanza as possible, with the help of a dictionary. 

After the three minutes have passed, I ask students (in the target language) for the answers to the blank spaces, and then with student assistance, we translate the stanza together. 

Day 8

In day eight, students watch the music video and write three sentences in the target language that describe what they see in the video.

Day 9 culminates the song warm-up procedure with a CLOZE activity exam that includes student's ability to analyze the song. 




If you would like to download a free song warm-up sheet and accompanying exam, please go to the following link:

Please let me know if you have any questions, and enjoy the light and life this procedure brings to your classroom!






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