Hola! ¡Buenos días! ịBuenas tardes! are just some of the ways that the 4th -8th grade students greet each other and me, as they walk into Spanish class. Excitement and curiosity are always in the air.
Fourth and fifth grades continue to travel to various Latin-American countries using the Descubre textbook series by Santillana USA. They learn new vocabulary and verb conjugations all while exploring different cultures. So far we have visited Nicaragua, Bolivia, Spain and Paraguay.
Besides transitioning into Middle School, the sixth grade also made the jump to a new textbook. Realidades 1 is a first year high school Spanish text by Pearson publications. This level focuses on vocabulary input/output, as well as reading and writing in the target language. The first few chapters allowed for a solid review of basics such as present tense verbs and adjective use but additionally, the sixth grade is learning to become more independent and detail oriented while still having fun!
Seventh grade began Realidades 2, a second year high school text by Pearson Publications. They have found it challenging and are well prepared to take on the more advanced material.
The eighth grade continues to work in Realidades 2 preparing themselves for Spanish 2 or 3 Regular/Honors as they move on to high school.
Besides learning vocabulary and grammar, one of the goals of the Spanish program is to practice Spanish through presentations and projects. Most recently, the fourth grade drew floor plans of their homes and wrote sentences using prepositional phrases they had learned. The fifth grade created “Arboles de familia” (family trees) and wrote detailed sentences on their familial relationships.
The sixth grade recently reviewed “me gusta (I like)” and “no me gusta (I don’t like)”. They created posters using verbs to express these concepts and presented them to the class. Everyone was confident and spoke with a very beautiful accent.
Creativity and humor describe the latest seventh grade project; creating rules for the Spanish classroom. From the basic “Hay que respetar a la profesora” (You should respect your teacher ) to the humorous “Se prohíbe hablar en inglés en la clase de español” (Speaking in English is prohibited in Spanish class); the class enjoyed being the “principal” for the day.
New this year, is Spanish Enrichment Class which allows new students who transferred to East Lake to get extra-help in clarifying Spanish grammar and any lessons they may find confusing. The class meets on Monday-Thursday from 3:00-3:20 p.m. It has been so helpful to all!
Spanish is fun, exciting and challenging but we know that ¡Sí se puede! (Yes we can!)