I love our middle school classes. When you genuinely look forward to seeing 6th, 7th and 8th graders every day, it is a good thing, and I truly enjoy these kids!
A quick note about homework: in general, I try to give about 3 assignments a week, and leave the weekends clear. However, at this level, all students should be reviewing their vocab daily, and reading through vocabulary from previous chapters about once a week. They have learned so much that it can easily be forgotten if they don't review!
6th Grade: We have covered the basic irregular verbs (ser, estar, tener and ir) and regular -ar, -er and -ir verbs in the present tense. Our new vocab for this unit covers all of the family members and pets, as well as giving dates, expressing age, and the numbers beyond 100. Our grammar points are going to focus on showing ownership with ser + de, the possessive adjectives, expressions with tener and the comparatives. Our culture theme is still Puerto Rico, and will will be talking about celebrating the quinceañera, government elections, and portraits by artists from Puerto Rico and Peru. We are going to be alternating oral and written quizzes nearly every week. I would encourage the students to review the verb tener, because we will be using it frequently.
7th Grade: The kids are already excited about the vocab for our new unit, which is all about sports. We have several cognates in this chapter, so it will be pretty easy to remember the vocabulary. Our grammar for this unit is also very easy compared to some of our previous chapters--we are doing the only u to ue stem-changing verb, jugar, and then the two verbs that mean to know: saber and conocer. After all of the other stem-changers, and the differences between ser and estar, this will be one of those "catch your breath" units. We will move through it very quickly, though, since I expect them to master the vocabulary and grammar easily.
8th Grade: This unit is also sports-related, expanding on the vocabulario that the students learned in 7th grade. The grammar from this chapter is all review--the preterite of -er and -ir verbs, along with the demonstrative adjectives and pronouns. These concepts are important, but our class did a great job with them last year, so we are going to go through them very quickly and then move through the next unit, which is also review of the reflexive verbs and the present progressive. We will be doing a great deal of speaking and writing during this unit, and focus on refining both oral and written communication so that it is more polished. The wonderful thing about units where most of the grammar is review material is that we can devote more time to truly using the language instead of explaining it!
Upcoming: There are two very exciting things in the future for our 7th and 8th graders. One is that they will be able to earn service hours by tutoring the 5th and 6th graders. Explaining grammar concepts to someone else is the best way I know of to make sure that you have them down yourself. This will be tremendously helpful to both the students who are being tutored and the ones who are doing the tutoring. Sometimes just having a different person explain it makes all the difference. Also, we are going to be doing the National Spanish Exam in the spring, and will begin preparing for it after Thanksgiving. The exam is given to more than 150,000 students nationwide, and I am delighted that our students will be participating. More on that soon!
As I count my blessings this month, the students here make me more grateful than I can adequately express in either language. <3
