Spanish Lesson on April 28 and Change to the Assignment!

My Relfection
Today was my first time teaching the Spanish language. I was actually very nervous. In fact, I was so nervous that I forgot to say the winner of today's competition: Congratulations Team A!
If I had to give myself a grade for today's mini-lesson, I would give myself a B. My goal was to prove to you that even if you are a beginner at a foreign language, you can learn a lot from input alone if the input is comprehensible. I think that some of you understood a lot of what I said today. However, I was so excited about teaching you Spanish that I probably gave you more language than you could have handled; I probably did not need to talk about when my grandparents died and the worksheet should have been shorter. I deviated from my goal of teaching you family titles such as padre, madre, hermano, hermano, abuela, abuelo etc. At the ending, we did not go over the meanings because I ran out of time. In the left-handed column of your hand-out there was a column for the Japanese meanings. I did not have time to confirm the meaning which, in hindsight, I think I should have done. If I had made the worksheet and the presentation shorter, I think that more of you would have understood. Thanks to this experience though, I think I can do a very good mini Spanish lesson next time.
Lastly, for those of you who were sleepy, next time drink some coffee before coming to class! (ha, ha, ha)

Change to the Blogging Assignment

Part I (Due May 9)

I have changed your blogging assignment. Please answer the following questions instead of the ones on your handout:
1) How much of the presentation in Spanish did you understand? What made the input comprehensible and what could have been done to make the language easier to understand?
2) Did you learn any new words or new grammar in Spanish?
3) How did you feel about being a beginning foreign language student?


Part II
Please comment on another classmate’s entry. Please try to comment on the entry of a person you have yet to write a comment for. This should also be completed by May 9. After you have written your comment please e-mail me and tell me on whose blog you commented.

Here are the definitions to the words/ phrases we studied today:
hijo = son; hija = daughter; hermano = brother; hermana = sister; padre = father; madre = mother; padastro = stepfather; madastro = stepmother; abuelo = grandfather; abuela = grandmother; madre de mi madre = the mother of my mother or my mother's mother; padre de mi madre = the father of my mother or my mother's father (This would have been eaiser if I had said "mi abuelo maternal" meaning "my maternal grandfather". )

I am looking forward to reading your comments.