"The best methods are therefore those
that supply 'comprehensible input' in low anxiety situations, containing
messages that students really want to hear. These methods do not force early
production in the second language, but allow students to produce when they are
'ready', recognizing that improvement comes from supplying communicative and
comprehensible input, and not from forcing and correcting
production." (Stephen Krashen)
Today, we started unit six (unidad 6, en Español) by listening to a conversation between two
girls (Natalia and Celia). They were talking about Natalia’s boyfriend: “Es alto, delgado, rubio, tiene barba…” were Natalia’s words to describe him, her boyfriend (Novio, en Español).
Although Natalia and Celia have been friends for a
long time, they meet each other by chance after a long time, say, without getting
in touch with each other. Well, at least that’s what I could infer after
listening to “¡Hola, Celia! ¿Qué tal? ¿Cómo te va?” (Noticing or perception? You guys tell
me)
(READ THE CONVERSATION BELOW):
Natalia: ¡Hola, Celia! ¿Qué tal? ¿Cómo te
va?
Celia: Bien, ¿Y tú? ¿Qué tal estás?
Natalia: Muy bien, ¿Sabes?, me caso dentro
de tres semanas.
Celia: ¡No me digas! Cuéntame, ¿Cómo es tu
novio?
Natalia: Es alto, delgado, rubio, tiene
barba… pero mira, aquí tengo una foto.
Celia: Es muy guapo. Tiene los ojos oscuros, ¿verdad?
Natalia: No los tiene claros. La foto no es muy buena.
Celia: ¿Y qué hace?
Natalia: Es médico, trabaja en un hospital.
Celia: ¡Qué bien! Es bastante joven, ¿No?
Natalia: Bueno, tiene treinta y cuatro años…
Having listened to the (whole) conversation twice, the
teacher asked us to correct the mistakes based on the prompt:
Escucha otra vez y lee estas frases. CORRIGE la información como en el
ejemplo.
Celia y Natalia no se
conocen. > Celia y Natalia son amigas.
A.
Celia se casa
dentro de tres semanas.
B.
Se novio los ojos oscuros.
C.
Su novio es alto y moreno.
D. Celia trabaja en un hospital.
That was the way the teacher introduced the topic. Even
though she hasn’t set the context by introducing and exploring the context
around the whole situation (dialogue if you like it), the lesson was quite
effective. Students were engaged and acting out a role-play activity by taking
the dialogue as a prompt.
After practicing the dialogue and getting instant
feedback from us, students, the teacher introduced (talked about) the way
people can describe others in Spanish (needless to say, but the whole class is
conducted in the target language, Spanish in this case).
(Como describir a
una persona: descripción física y de carácter)
The teacher provided us with some examples by showing
us some pictures in the conversation (Natalia, her boyfriend, and Celia) and
writing some sentences about them.
1. Es alto, rubio, tiene los ojos azules y el pelo liso.
2. Tiene el pelo rizado y corto. Es morena y bastante guapa.
3. Es morena y bastante mayor. Tiene los ojos oscuros y el pelo liso.
4. Es moreno, bajo y delgado. Tiene el pelo largo y rizado. Tiene los ojos
oscuros.
After focusing
a lot on the accurate way of saying all the sentences above, students were
asked to listen to another part of the conversation, but this time, it was
about Celia’s sister (Celia y Natalia hablando de la hermana de Celia).
After that,
the teacher pointed to some pictures on the book and asked the whole group to
repeat the Descripción física correspondiente
de la hermana de Celia. ¿Cuál de las imágenes es?
I found this lesson really effective and I can say
that it really had students extremely focused on and willing to figure out which
picture it was.
For the production part, I realized that the approach
follows the PPP (presentation, practice, and production)
techniques. The teacher told us to write down the way we see each other. I had
to write about me and the other classmates and then read it aloud.
That’s what I got about me (I won’t expose my
colleagues or the teacher here):
Soy rubio, alto, guapo y joven. Tengo el pelo largo y los ojos claros.
As a way of definitely getting positive feedback from
us (whether we understood it or not), the teacher told us that we had to play
what she called El juego de las veinte
preguntas.
I confess that I was very curious about that game, but
pretty soon I realized that she had been talking about a sort of an adapted
answer-with-yes-no-questions type game in which you have to ask question that
people can answer with a very simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’. ¿Cuántos años tienes? (how old is (s)he?, in English) is a kind of question we were supposed
to avoid because nobody would reply to it with a, say, ‘yes-no’ answer, right?
Un alumno piensa en un campanero de clase. Los demás hacen preguntas para averiguar
quién es. Sólo puede responder sí o no.
A: ¿Tienes el pelo liso?
B: No.
C: ¿Es joven?
D: Sí.
E: ¿Es Joao?
F: ¡Sí!.
I have used that kind of technique to practice WH
Questions in many lessons. It is undoubtedly a very good one – especially when
used to talk about people’s appearances.
Having finished the activities about people’s
appearances, we were introduced to the ways of how one can describe people’s
personalities.
This activity was quite simple because it was just a
matter of introducing more words (vocabulary).
The technique I used to teach myself those mentioned words,
was quite simple: I read the words given and wrote two sentences about myself
so that I was able to practice all the given options:
Soy tonto, serio y antipático.
Soy inteligente, divertido y simpático.
Even though I know that – at the beginning or even
false-beginning levels – I have very little language ‘behind’ me, and aware of my capacity for taking in and retain new
words, structures, and concepts is still limited, I allowed myself to practice as
much as I could.
Having said all above, I imagined famous people and
wrote on my notebook as much sentences as I could – it might sound tiring, but
very effective.
Sandra Bullock es inteligente, divertida y simpática.
Paulo Coelho es tonto, serio y antipático.
Jo Soares es rubio, bajo, gordo, feo y mayor.
Brad Pitt es rubio, guapo, alto, tiene el pelo largo e ojos claros.
…
For extra practicing, the teacher asked us to write a
very short text about any member of our families. Believe it or not, she was in
fact starting a new topic (smooth transition): La familia. I only realized it
later on.
We saw Pablo Picasso’s family tree (Cuadro genealógico de Pablo Picasso).
Apart from learning that Picasso has had seven wives, I
didn’t learn much with the activity because I knew the vocabulary (Primos, cuñada, nieta, sobrina, tía, suegros, madre, padre, hermano,
hijo…) and used the
same technique I used when I had to learn the whole thing in English (but there’s
no genitive case in Spanish).
By the way, this very specific vocabulary for family
members in Spanish is quite similar to the ones in Portuguese – my mother
tongue.
In short, I would say that this class was really good
and very effective. The teacher’s role was pretty important and she did a great
job there. We can take it for granted that it is not easy to get students
engaged on a Saturday morning, but she did well.
I will prove that after learning the second language,
the third one is pretty much easier to learn than the second one.
Look at those pictures and write some sentences about
their appearances. Use the words from the box:
+1.jpg)
