Every day in my classroom, Spanish students take a "ride on the hot tamale train" to new worlds using Spanish in fun communicative tasks. Students stay on task because they know at the end of the year, a trip to a Mexican restaurant awaits the top classes!
I am privileged as the Spanish teacher of my school to teach a diverse group of 500 students, PreK-5th grade, and it is truly amazing to watch them grow over the years.
My students love learning Spanish and love being able to express themselves creatively! They also love getting the chance to interact with native speakers.
Our school is a special place to teach and learn. We are an arts magnet school. All teachers integrate the arts into their content and in Spanish, we do skits, music, dancing, visual arts and more! I absolutely LOVE what I do and the fact that we are all growing together!
My Project
As a Spanish teacher, my main goal is that my students fall in love with the Spanish language and culture! This happens best when students engage in real-world experiences with native speakers. So, once a year, as the culminating activity, I take my top two classes out to eat in an authentic Mexican restaurant, where they use Spanish to order food and drinks. During the experience, they also learn about cultural differences between American and Mexican food through an interactive game. Finally, after the experience, students write thank you notes in Spanish to the restaurant.
Taking our students out on a field trip like this is challenging because 100% of our students receive free breakfast and lunch, and many of them do not have the funds to go out to eat.
Many of my students tell me that they never had the experience of eating out at a sit-down restaurant! This trip provides them not only with a good meal, but a good immersion experience in the Spanish language. Moreover, this trip motivates students who may be otherwise unmotivated to learn a foreign language, because they know there is a purpose and end goal where they can use it.
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