1. Students can use their blogs as journals to practice reading
and writing in Spanish. First students search for and read an article online
about a Spanish topic, in Spanish (depending on the class level) about Hispanic
culture, history, etc. Then they write a
blog post about it, adding their own summary, thoughts, perspectives, and interpretations.
This could be a weekly or biweekly assignment and would include commenting as
part of the evaluation. Comments will be in Spanish and on at least two other
classmates’ blogs. This would allow students to research something of interest
in the target culture, read in the target language, or at least write in the
target language, thereby processing and responding to the information in the
articles. This would address all of the ACTFLstandards. If I thought the responses were not targeting all areas of these
standards I could assign topics or themes for the articles.
2. Students could use blogs as a form of group pen pals
with a foreign classroom: I’m not entirely sure how I could start this, but
hopefully I could find a classroom in another country and work with the teacher
in blogging pen pals. An idea for this would be choosing a topic every two weeks
or so (i.e. fast food, popular television, school system, popular books) and
have students from each classroom share from their cultural perspective about this
topic. We could alternate between writing in our native languages and writing
in the foreign language. This could create an ongoing conversation and
authentic cultural look at the other country. This could include pictures,
videos, etc. to pull in speaking the other language as well. It would be
awesome if this led to a study abroad experience, both going to the other
classroom’s country and bringing some of those students to ours. This too would
address all the ACTFL standards,
especially if it led to a study abroad experience.
3. A blog could be used as an organizational and presentational
tool for a final research-based project or a semester-long portfolio of their
work. Students would follow a rubric including a specified number of blog posts
based on research and ideas discovered along the way. Students would have
daily/weekly assignments (depending on the length of the project/portfolio)
that would reveal their productivity, findings, and thought process as they
find and synthesize the information. This could be a neat way to do a variation
on a group project. Each group would have an overall theme: literature, food, or important people. Then
students would individually do research on this theme in a separate country.
The end result would be a group comparison of this theme in their Hispanic
countries to that in the United States. Again, commenting would be involved so
as to keep students on top of their group’s most recent findings. The amount of
Spanish required would depend on the level of the class. This project would
address most of the ACTFL standards; it might be difficult to include the
Communities section. The rubric would be geared toward incorporating the
different aspects of the standards.
7 comments:
I really enjoyed reading your ideas for your Spanish classroom. I used a similar idea close to your #2. In my Spanish class before introducing a new unit, we talk about a Hispanic Country. In my post I talked about how students can be assigned a 'fun or interesting fact' from that country and can post pictures, videos, etc. that show other students the importance of that country. This will be a great way to communicate with other students in the classroom!
Your ideas for using blogs sound excellent. A site you could use for finding schools to exchange ideas with is ePals . Check out mod 12 of the syllabus.
I like your idea for a research-based project. It sounds like an excellent way to keep students organized and on schedule, as well a means for reflection! Paper logs tend to get misplaced and or destroyed at some point during the year, but using a blog would ensure that students can always access their work. Nice idea!
Super interesting ways to incorporate blogs into Spanish class. I wish my foreign language teacher had the technology we have now to have allowed us the opportunity to work with blogs. Maybe that would have made the process of speaking another language easier. Heehee. I think many of us felt that the blog was a great place for a culminating project so I thought that was interesting to also see on your blog.
Nice work :)
I have to say, more great uses of the blog for the classroom. I'm glad others like the idea of the blog as a journal. I think this idea is a lot more valuable than some, like Richardson in our textbook, give it credit for. It's perfect way for a language learner to voice their personal experiences, both positive and negative, while at the same time practicing their skills.
Excellent use of the resource, and if I were to add a fourth use to my first blog post, I think I have been sold on the journal notion!
You're right! blogs are a really good way to practice reading and writing in L2 in this new online world!
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