Happy New (School) Year!

¡Hola!  I am so happy to see everyone again!  New beginnings are such lovely things.  During the summer, I came across a quote from Blessed John Henry Newman that I want to share with my students as a focus for this year:

"God has determined, unless I interfere with His plans,

that I should reach that which will be my greatest happiness.

He looks on me individually, He calls me by name,

He knows what I can do, what I can best be,

what is my greatest happiness, and He means to give it to me.

We are all created to His glory--we are created to do His will.

I am created to do something or to be something

for which no one else is created;

I have a place in God's counsels, in God's world,

which no one else has;

       whether I be rich or poor, despised or esteemed by others,

God knows me and calls me by my name.

...I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons.

He has not created me for naught.

Therefore I will trust Him. Whatever, wherever I am,

I can never be thrown away."

~ Blessed John Henry Newman

En español:

Dios ha determinado, a menos de que yo interfiera con Su plan, que debo alcanzar lo que será mi mayor felicidad. Él cuida de mí personalmente,  Dios me llama por mi nombre, sabe lo que mejor puedo hacer, cual es mi mayor felicidad y pretende dármela.

Todos fuimos creados para Su gloria — fuimos creados para hacer Su voluntad. Yo fui creado para hacer algo o ser alguien lo que ningún otro fue creado; yo tengo un lugar en los consejos de Dios, en el mundo de Dios, que nadie más tiene; sea yo rico o pobre, despreciado o estimado por los hombres, Dios me conoce y me llama por mi nombre…  Yo tengo un papel en esta gran obra, yo soy un eslabón de una cadena, un vínculo de conexión  entre  las  personas.  Él  no me ha creado para la nada...  Por lo tanto, voy a confiar en Él. Sea lo que sea, esté donde esté, nunca podré ser arrojado fuera.

http://www.fcpeace.com/spanish/actualidad/EsperanzaenDiosnuestroCreador.pdf

5th Grade Study Guide for the Final

These 5th graders have worked so hard!  Instead of coasting through the last few weeks, we are working hard on our verbs.  The final for this class will be Monday, May 16th, during our regular class time.  Here is a list of what they need to include in their study guides (and for any prospective students who are interested in testing into 6th grade Spanish for the 2016-2017 school year, this is what you will need to know, too!).  

• ·        Complete vocabulary for Unidad Preliminar __________________________
  ·        Complete vocabulary for Unidad 1.1 ________________________________
  ·        Complete vocabulary for Unidad 1.2 ________________________________
  ·        Complete vocabulary for Unidad 2.1 ________________________________
  ·        List of all subject pronouns and their definitions ______________________
  ·        List of all conjugations of ser and their meanings ______________________
  ·        List of all conjugations of tener que and their meanings ________________
  ·        List of all definite articles, their meanings, and when to use each one _____
  ·        List of all indefinite articles, their meanings, and when to use each one ____
  ·        Rules for adjective agreement of adjectives ending in –o/a/os/as ________
  ·        Rules for adjective agreement of adjectives ending in –e or a consonant ___
  ·        Indirect object pronouns, gustar, and verbs to talk about likes/dislikes ____
  ·        Rules for making nouns and adjectives plural _________________________
  ·        Rules for telling what time it is right this minute ______________________
  ·        Rules for telling what time something takes place _____________________
  ·        Spellings for numbers 0-59 ________________________
  
  

Remember to check out the ¡Avancemos! website for additional practice or vocabulary lists (the links are on the right hand side of the blog).  You have done well all year, and I know that you will do well on the exam.  ¡Buena suerte!

Me gusta el español

I am firmly convinced that having fun is the best way to learn.  I Corinthians 13 says that we can speak with the languages of men and angels, but without love it is a noisy gong or a clashing cymbal. As a teacher, I take that verse to mean that if my students don't feel loved, ultimately my teaching will be meaningless.  But although the Bible is talking about love for people, I think there is also an application for language learners--if my students don't develop a love for the language, they aren't going to really be able to use it.  So, we play lots and lots of games.

My 3rd graders have been learning the infinitives of common verbs, and how to use them with gustar and the indirect object pronouns to talk about things that they like.  We did a Gustar Bingo with singular nouns and some infinitives, and they went around the room collecting signatures of classmates who like the items on the sheet.  Some were challenging (la tarea) and some were easy (jugar a Minecraft), but they loved finding out which likes and dislikes they had in common.

The 4th grade class has moved on to -er verb conjugations, as well as practice with gustar.  We created our own game boards last year, and the kids use them with different flashcards or dice to practice vocabulary or conjugations.

Our 6th graders have proven that their brains are tougher than our rompecabezas (puzzles).  We have been doing a variety of Vocubes and others that require them to match all of the sides on each square.  Some of them are Spanish-English vocabulary, and others have subject pronouns that must match the verb conjugations.  They are always up to the task.

Our 8th graders have reached the point where our focus is primarily on producing the language.  Most of our class time is spent alternating between speaking and writing in Spanish.  When the weather cooperates, we try to do it outside.  The consistency of their writing and speaking ability is so impressive to me.  I am going to miss these students so much when they graduate, not just because of their excellence academically, but because they are fun, kind, and thoughtful people.

Your kids make it so, so easy for me to love teaching.  I hope that they will develop a love for Spanish, and that it won't be meaningless noise for them.  Even more than that, I hope that they know how very loved they are, by their families, by their teachers and friends, and most of all, by God. 

Springing Forward

The kids' mastery of Spanish is growing by leaps and bounds!  Earlier this month, our 7th and 8th graders participated in the National Spanish Exam.  We are awaiting the results, but I am so proud of all that they have accomplished. The 8th grade class will be taking the Spanish Placement Exam for Bishop Kelley high school in April, so they are practicing for that, as well.  But the whole point of learning a language is communication, so we don't limit it to pen and paper or online tests.  

We have spent several class periods in our 7th and 8th grade classes with our own Spanish improv days.  The students get a random topic, come to the front and speak about it as much as they can, entirely in Spanish.  Today the 8th graders told stories about what they were like as six year olds, using the imperfect tense.  I have a hard time believing that they could be as mischievous as they claim!  

The third graders finished learning about animal names, and demonstrated their máscaras.  Leones, tigres y osos, oh my!

Mr. Shildt's fourth graders blew me away today.  They created original presentations on the present tense conjugations of their favorite regular -ar verbs, and taught all of the conjugations to the class (yes, even the vosotros form). They acted them out and demonstrated correct subject verb agreement, even in the acting (such as pointing to a girl jumping and saying, "Ella salta").  They were brilliant!  (I admit to some bias--I love these kids--but even so, I have also been a teacher for nearly 18 years and I am not that easily impressed.)  They were phenomenal.  It is so exciting, because although we are not an immersion program, we are able to spend more time in Spanish than most schools, and we focus on building a strong foundation with the grammar as well as the vocabulary.  

It is one of the things that makes All Saints unique.  We are able to serve families that would not be part of an immersion program, yet still make sure that their children learn to speak Spanish in a way that prepares them for real life and any Spanish program that they will enter as they grow.  One of the many reasons that I love teaching here!

Hace buen tiempo

Our weather this week has been warm and beautiful, and the students have been taking the ITBS, which created the perfect storm for holding class outside this afternoon.  It was all fun and games, but very specific, Spanish-oriented ones.  As the kids played tetherball, each hit was accompanied by preterite verb conjugations: ¡Gané! (I won) ¡Ganaste! (You won!) ¡Ganó! ¡Perdiste! ¡Perdió! and many others.

They took turns talking about what they ate, what they learned, what they studied, and what they played, using the regular -ar/-er/-ir preterites.  Some did monkey bars with a verb conjugation for each bar, and each game included variations in Spanish.  It gave us the chance to get outside and show God our appreciation for the beautiful day, work off any wiggles from the testing earlier, and still stay focused on learning and speaking Spanish.  I call that a win in any language!

Time of Preparation

One of my favorite things about All Saints is that our faith permeates every part of our day.  All of our Spanish classes have been talking about the importance of ayuno (fasting), limosna (alms-giving) and oración (prayer) as we begin our observance of cuaresma (Lent). As part of our practice of oración, we prayed La Coronilla de la Divina Misericordia (Divine Mercy Chaplet) together this week.  We are preparing our hearts in this Lenten season to receive the mercy of God, and to share that mercy with others.

Academically, we are also in a time of intense preparation, looking ahead to the coming year.  We are in the part of the year where the concepts move up a few notches, and it is exciting to see the kids rise to the challenge.  Our 4th graders are learning all of the conjugations of ser and how they match with the subject pronouns. Next week, our 5th graders will be writing compositions about themselves with appropriate adjective agreement and sentence structure. Our 6th grade class is deep in the intricacies of stem-changing verbs. The 7th graders have been learning about spelling changes in the preterite, and the 8th grade class is finishing the last set of irregular preterites before moving on the the imperfect. Our goal is to have learned the material covered by most Spanish II courses before the end of the year.

Our 7th and 8th grade students are also preparing for the National Spanish Exam in March, and our 8th graders are also planning to take the proficiency exam for Bishop Kelley to test out of Spanish I or II.  Although the BK exam is not used by other high schools in our area, I am confident that any students who pass it would also test out of Spanish I or II in other schools.  

We have had a very special way to balance the intensity of our studies by working with our buddies from pre-K, kindergarten, first and second grades.  Together with Mrs. Stafford's elementary classes we have done centers, learned about Hispanic saints such as Santa Rosa de Lima and Santa Laura de Colombia, and reinforced vocabulary skills.  Most of all, we love seeing the camaraderie and joy of our students of all ages working together. 

4th Grade-Subject Pronouns, Verbs and More!

This week, our 4th grade classes learned all 12 subject pronouns in Spanish.  This requires a little out of the box thinking, because the subject pronouns in Spanish are different from English. For example, we do not have a subject pronoun for "it", but we have FIVE different subject pronouns for "you", and they are not interchangeable!

My college students frequently ask at the beginning of the course if we are going to cover the vosotros forms.  Most Spanish-speaking countries use the word "ustedes" for the plural you.  In Spain, however, they use "ustedes" for the formal plural you, and "vosotros" and "vosotras" for the informal plural you. There are many schools that don't bother to teach those forms, but if the students go on to study in Spain, or to read literature that was published in Spain, or to take higher level courses, they need to be familiar with them.  My college students are usually a bit surprised to hear that even our elementary students learn these forms.

At All Saints, we work to establish a strong foundation.  Both our faculty and our families are very mindful about what we want to build in our children, academically, socially, spiritually and physically. It only makes sense to start off with a solid base of knowledge, so that when we add material on top of that, we won't find big gaps that fall through.

These are our twelve subject pronouns:
yo = I
tú = you (singular, informal)
Ud. (usted) = you (singular, formal)
él = he (Side note: I loved that our kids immediately understood that the accent mark was to keep it from being confused with the definite article!)
ella = she
nosotros = we (all boys, or both boys and girls)
nosotras = we (all girls)
vosotros = you all (boys or both boys and girls, informal, used in Spain)
vosotras = you all (all girls, informal, used in Spain)
Uds. (ustedes) = you all (everywhere, formal in Spain)
ellos = they (all boys or both boys and girls)
ellas = they (all girls)

Soon we will be adding in regular -ar/-er/-ir verbs in the present tense, and also some of the irregular verbs like ser, estar, tener and ir.

3rd Grade--Ir and Places in the Community

I am so excited that our 3rd graders are already learning the concepts of masculine and feminine, verb conjugation, and adjective agreement.  They have actually been learning these things all along since Pre-K Spanish with Mrs. Stafford, and thanks to her teaching and their effort to learn, we already have a strong foundation.

This semester we started learning the conjugations of the verb ir (to go), the prepositions al and a la (to the), and places in the community.  Although we have not taught formal patterns of verb conjugation or all of the subject pronouns yet, once we started learning the places, our students wanted to express that they were going there.  So why not?

Here is our vocab list for the present tense conjugations of ir, the prepositions al and a la, and places in the community:

To talk about going places:

Voy = I’m going

Vas = you are going

Va = he/she is going, you (formal) are going

Vamos = we’re going, let’s go

Vais = you all are going (vosotros--used in Spain)

Van = they are going, you all are going

Al = to the (masculine place)

A la = to the (feminine place)

Places (masculine):

Parque—park

Apartamento—apartment

Campo—country

Restaurante—restaurant

Museo—museum

Zoológico—zoo

Cine—movie theater

Places (feminine):

Granja—farm

Escuela—school

Ciudad—city

Biblioteca—library

Iglesia—church

Tienda—store

Casa—house

We are going to be playing with board games in Spanish to create complete sentences, such as Vamos al restaurante (We are going to the restaurant), Van a la escuela (They are going to school), etc.

We will be having a quiz over this material in the next couple of weeks, so please practice the material.  With all that they are learning, there is no doubt that these kids will go far!  

  

New Year, New Challenges--7th and 8th Grade

¡Feliz Año Nuevo!  I am so excited about digging into this new semester. Here is a quick heads up about what we are doing:

8th Grade: We have been moving quickly through Unidad 3.1, which expands on all of the clothing vocabulary, and introduces several new verbs that are similar to gustar.  They require the use of indirect object pronouns, and the third person conjugations of the verbs.  We have reviewed the verbs gustar and doler (ue) and have added in the verbs interesar, importar, quedar (to talk about the fit of clothing), encantar and molestar.  Additionally, we have been reviewing all of our verbs with irregular yo forms in the present tense, especially poner, decir, tener, venir, conocer, saber, dar, ver and hacer.  We did oral quizzes today, and will be doing a written quiz next week, with the chapter exam the week of the 18th.

I am very excited to announce that our 8th graders will be participating in the National Spanish Exam again this year.  Last year, more than 150,000 students nationwide participated in the exam, and All Saints students performed extremely well.  We are in a rather unique situation, in that our middle school classes are not officially designated for high school credit as being Spanish I or Spanish II, and the material overlaps a bit.  I offered the students the choice of testing at either level, and the class unanimously chose to test at level 2.  That means that they are testing at the exact same level as high school sophomores, juniors and seniors who are taking Spanish II!  It says a lot about this class that instead of taking the easier level, they chose to challenge themselves above and beyond what is required.  We talk about preparing students to go on after All Saints, not just with a strong academic foundation, but also in terms of their character.   So many colleges and universities lament the rise in students who are fragile and coddled. To have entire classes that seek a challenge and are courageous enough to risk lower scores instead of easy winnings, just because they want to stretch themselves and grow, is a powerful testimony to the resilience and motivation of our students.

7th Grade: We are learning the parts of the body, and the use of the verb doler (ue) with indirect object pronouns, and did an oral quiz over them today.  I was delighted when one of our students went blank on the word, and found a different way to express the same idea.  That is exactly what our students have to be able to do in real life to communicate!  We all have moments when we can't come up with the word we want to use, either because we have forgotten, or because it is one we haven't learned yet.  When our students have the gumption and poise (during an oral quiz when they are put on the spot!) to still be able to convey the information, that is a wonderful thing.

Next week we will begin the preterite, and I am very excited about helping our class learn how to talk about past events.  The preterite tense is all about details--accent marks, spelling changes, and all kinds of tricky little things that make a big difference in the meaning.  It is a lot of work, but I know that they are up for the challenge.

Our 7th graders will also be participating in the National Spanish Exam.  This exam is hard.  There is a TON of vocabulary that students are expected to know, as well as a great deal of grammar.  To my delight, students have already been on the NSE website, looking at past examinations and practicing with the online exercises, and even told me that they wanted to do more this weekend!

So, to sum up, our students had oral quizzes the first week of class and were successful on them, they are speaking the language, studying on their own, and taking on challenges even beyond what I would ask--I cannot imagine a better or more inspiring group of kids!