3. Curriculum Implementation*

In this introduction I describe the essential question that connects the Spanish 9 & 10 program and how it is broken down in each class. I discuss how we weave resources into our class to connect students to the Spanish speaking world. Included in this portion of the portfolio are various documents that outline the content objectives, standards, assessments, and the timeline for each class as well as an overview of the program. I also include possible areas the Spanish curriculum could reach beyond the required two trimesters.

When I began thinking about how we wanted to frame the Spanish 9 & 10 program, we first focused on developing an Essential Question for the program that could span both Spanish 9 and Spanish 10 curriculum, as well as transcend a Spanish classroom and be of value to any student’s future. With that framing emerged the question What do I need to know to be a knowledgeable traveler? The skills that we develop and hone in our Spanish 9 and 10 program could be universally applied to any new learning or traveling, from learning about and traveling to different communities in Pittsburgh to anywhere in the world.

The essential question focuses on global awareness. If you are to be a knowledgeable traveler, you are going to know to seek understanding of cultural differences instead of passing judgement on something that seems strange. You will be aware of ways you can communicate effectively through verbal and physical communication in common situations like introducing yourself, asking and answering basic questions, ordering food and asking for directions. So we plan lessons and activities that are based in practical experiences students will have when traveling.

Every week the students are expected to answer how what they have learned that week in Spanish class has helped them become a more knowledgeable traveler. We have found a successful model in week-long units. For example an outcome of an early week in Spanish 9 is to be able to have a basic conversation with someone in Spanish. We start the week explaining how that ties into the essential question and at the end of the week we ask students to explain in their own words how what they have done this week will make them a more knowledgeable traveler.

This essential question can be answered both in language learning and cultural understanding. One of the first cultural units we expose students to is learning about what is Latin America. This is a week-long unit that helps break down stereotypes and common misconceptions students often have. In this instance the unit ties into the essential question through becoming more aware of the nuances and diversity within Latin America.

Our program evolves in Spanish 10 to connect culture to language learning. For example, when we discuss the Costa Rica program in our Spanish 10 class students also learn clothing vocabulary, and they practice shopping for clothing or souvenirs in a Spanish speaking country. Students learn how to order a meal in Spanish as well as various regional cuisines that are available in Hispanic countries. The idea is that these are practical scenarios that students can see themselves actually doing in their future, thus preparing them to be knowledgeable travelers.

Through framing our units and lessons under our essential question What do I need to know to be a knowledgeable traveler we have created a course of language and culture study that prepares students to be engaged and successful in a global community. In order for us to maximize student learning in these units we use a variety of resources. As much as possible we use current music, fashion, and authentic videos on YouTube to engage students in Spanish language and culture. It is vitally important that students believe that the materials and activities we do in class do not come from a workbook and are meant to keep them busy, but rather that everything we do helps them connect to people and places around the world. We include all resources in the trimester lesson plan Google Doc, which was discussed in Component 1.

Remembering that my greatest success came when students felt that what we were doing in class was relevant to their lives, I wanted to provide them with an opportunity to actually speak Spanish with someone who is not a classmate or their teacher. Inspired by the mock interviews done in Career class, I decided that the final project of Spanish 9 would be to invite native Spanish speakers to have bilingual conversations with students.

We invite native Spanish speakers to come to the school and speak with our students. The first part of the conversation is done in Spanish, asking and answering basic questions like What is your name, Where are you from, When is your birthday. They also converse in Spanish about their personalities and activities they like or don’t like to do. Then the native Spanish speaker asks the students questions about City High, and the students describe their school day in Spanish. (These questions are based out of the vocabulary in the first 5 sections of the textbook.)

The next part of the conversation the students are interviewing the native Spanish speaker in English about their culture. The student asks about where their family is from, and what is like there. The students also ask why they moved to Pittsburgh, and if there is anything they miss about their home country. Finally, students ask about what it was like for the native Spanish speaker to learn English. (These questions have been previously taught during the trimester in cultural units about Latin America and issues regarding immigration.)

In Spanish 10, we hope to continue to create units that have similar speaking assessments to Spanish 9. My goal is that the final assessment for Spanish 10 is to have a bilingual conversation with a student in a Spanish speaking country. I am currently working with WeSpeke, a Pittsburgh based video conference program that I believe will help us reach this goal. We found that while students are excited and engaged in the Spanish 9 native speaker interview day, they really want to speak with youth their own age.

Now that we had a vision of an authentic, engaging final assessment, we had to work backwards to present the material in manageable steps students can follow. We created clear weekly goals that were connected to ACTFL standards, and tied them to content and appropriate assessment. From there we broke the weekly goal down to daily objectives. This work can be found on the following pages.

Spanish 10

• syllabus
• scope and sequence
  • this document shows the order in which we teach our content
• objectives, content, assessments and state standards
  • this document shows how our weekly objectives are assesses and aligned to state standards
• big and small objectives
  • this document shows how the weekly objectives are broken down to day-to-day objectives