Programa de Español en FHS

FHS Español 1, Español 2, SPAN 1020 y SPAN 2020

Teacher: Sra. Christianson

Learning a second language is challenging, however it offers many rewards.

This year your son/daughter will be immersed into Spanish during his/her time in my class; through stories, songs, movies, and opinions; reading stories, novels; writing sentences, paragraphs, letters, notes, stories, and short essays; answering lots of questions; and telling stories … all in Spanish. Your son/daughter will also be learning about Hispanic cultures.

It is important for you to know that the goal of learning a language is to be able to communicate. My main goal is that your child understands Spanish spoken by a native speaker and responds. At first your son/daughter may respond through gestures and body movements, drawings, and may respond in English to double check himself/herself if the response is correct. It is amazing to see the students feel self-assured as they learn.

After the first days of school when all safety rules and classroom rules have been laid out and talked about in English; I’ll be speaking Spanish in class. Your child may be overwhelmed at first but soon she/he will develop an ear for the language and pick out more and more words and sentences in my speech.

Your son/daughter will have an intense language experience during the 50 minutes of Spanish class:

I will be using a variety of activities so that your son/daughter can learn to communicate in Spanish. One of the main methods that I will use in class is Teaching Proficiency through Reading and Storytelling (TPRS). This is a brain-based method that uses listening, visual presentation, and personalization of a story. Students help develop a story as the teacher asks them to add details to the stories. Volunteer students help acting out the stories as they are told in class (with or without props) to help the class see as the stories develop. Some prompts may be stuffed animals, drawings, power point or smartboard presentations. In this process the students will hear and use the words taught often. All the words or phrases presented in class are used and added to our daily vocabulary. These words are recycled during the whole year. Repetition helps the students internalize and acquire the vocabulary structure and thus use the language.

Class participation is a crucial and active part of learning the language. Students participate and earn points by being engaged and being active in class: describing pictures, “playing the storytelling game”, by acting out stories, by giving choral responses, adding details to the stories, answering questions when doing PQA and when doing reading comprehension checks.

We’ll be reading and writing in Spanish. We’ll read Novelas adequate for their age and language master level. Reading is very important, it’s the second main source to acquire new vocabulary and become familiar with language structure. From any reading done; oral and written activities will follow for students to practice using the language. It is important to remember that learning a second language requires practice over a period of time

There will be a variety of activities in class that can help students earn participation points as they practice the language: volunteering as actors, suggesting details to stories, answering questions, making questions, students can get as creative as they want as long as they are respectful of others.

The classroom motto is that all the Spanish Class students are the most intelligent, the better looking ones, the kindest, the most respectful ones, the best of the best. No cut downs allowed!

In occasions students will work in groups, also there will be opportunities for fun learning activities such as games, singing traditional songs, presentations, possibly crafts, movies and if scheduling allows we’ll be sharing our Spanish knowledge with the elementary students