Grade 7 Spanish

Instructor: Señora Oro-Hahn

Course Description:

This year students will use TPRS (Teaching Proficiency through Reading and Storytelling) methodology and curriculum. This curriculum supports the most current and effective language acquisition practices based on comprehensible input. (Dr. Stephen Krashen). The goal of class time is to provide fun and engaging ways for students to gain oral fluency through various modes of learning and scaffolding. Students establish meaning through immersive, selective vocabulary, and vocabulary structures. Students are guided through the process of gaining and expanding oral fluency before they begin reading chapter books and turning in independent written material. Student participation is key to success in oral and written fluency. Students will be give numerous opportunities for participation that range from novice to advanced skills. All essential classroom practices will be taught and will provide easy access to success even for the most novice of language learners. Choral responses, interactive classroom conversations, drama, music and reading will give students growing chunks of conversation and embedded language grammar structures that will become explicit over time and with practice. Authentic music and literature, drama, classroom games, projects and technology will serve to enrich the language experience.

Class will meet for forty minutes every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Students will use the Students are expected to review new lessons and vocabulary daily. Setting aside 15 to 20 minutes daily to review lessons and complete homework assignments will strengthen vocabulary and foster confidence in class conversations.

Course Content:

Students will begin the year by sharing personal learning goals and learning how to participate in the TPRS immersive classroom. They will read, act out scenes, discuss, write, and take tests based on each chapter of the three language learner books, El escape cubano, El chico global, and Esperanza. Based on a true story, El escape cubano, tells about one family’s life in Cuba and their dangerous escape; El chico global, is about a high schooler from Colorado, his international move to Singapore, and his unexpected mysterious search for his missing father in South America. Students will end the year reading Esperanza, about a young woman’s dangerous journey from Guatemala to the U.S. They will conclude the year with a unit called “Gracias” where they learn to say thank you to the community and to God for the good gifts of the year.

Assessment:

Assessments are both formal and informal. Students will demonstrate understanding through a wide variety of classroom activities such as drama, games, teamwork, classwork, homework, interviews quizzes and tests. Performance assessments play a major role in final grades and students will be given rubrics to guide their preparation and presentations. Students will be graded on their written work (such as class work, homework, quizzes and tests); on their oral skills (base on accuracy and frequency) and on their Communicative Expression (based on effective Spanish communication through words, phrases, gestures and questions, regardless of accuracy).