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.
Tuesday, January 26, 2016
Saturday, January 16, 2016
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:
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!
Friday, January 8, 2016
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!
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!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)