***By far one of the most popular things we do in Spanish class, at all levels, is Música Miércoles (M.M.). I got this idea from Allison Wienhold of Mis Clases Locas and wrote about it in a more detailed post for the American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese (AATSP) South Carolina Chapter's blog. *** "I love wednesdays"The above is a real comment from my recent teacher evaluations. Thanks, kiddo. I love Wedensdays, too, because it's Música miércoles! Music was an invaluable resource for me as a language learner. The same year we moved to El Sal, Reik released their first album. For the uninitiated, Reik is a Mexican pop group. I listened to that self-titled album on repeat until I could sing along. Mimicking the sounds, even though I didn’t completely understand what I was singing, helped me develop intonation and pronunciation skills, and reading along with lyrics in the liner notes helped my listening comprehension. I still know those songs by heart. 😆 “¿Listos para Música miércoles? Necesitan una hoja de papel y un lapiz o lapicero (bolígrafo).” When students hear this cue at the beginning of class on Wednesdays, they know they should find a clean sheet of paper and a pen or pencil. A PowerPoint slide with the day’s song is already projected as students enter the classroom and find their materials. I purchased an editable PP template from Mis Clases Locas’ TpT store back in 2015. Each slide includes the title, artist, flag of the country of origin (my addition to Allison’s template), two discussion questions, and some instructions. I record the necessary links to the video and lyrics in the notes section. When everyone is listo, we begin:
At this point I show the music video associated with the song and students write down any words or phrases they hear in Spanish. Sometimes you have to be pretty creative and/or patient in order to find a song you think students might like that also has a video appropriate for school. I have shown live versions, lyric videos, or only a segment of a video in order to meet school environment standards. Students definitely prefer to watch choreographed music videos over any of those options, but sometimes there’s no way around it! (Definitely used the Sesame Street "El Patito" parody cover of "Despacito" for my seniors' M.M. the other day...lol). Where I've found songs: iTunes; http://www.billboard.com/charts/latin-songs; past Grammy winners or nominees; or Google search for country and genre/artists or country and top 40 ex) Chile top 40; Bolivia pop artistas. After the video, I ask “¿Te gusta o no te gusta?” and students give me a non-verbal response in the form of a thumbs up. The thumbs get pretty technical: I’ll get half way thumbs up/half way thumbs down and a student will explain, “Well, I like the video and the artist’s voice, but the lyrics were silly.” ¡En español! I always ask for at least two volunteers to explain their thumb vote, usually one that liked the song and one that didn’t. Then I go around the room and ask each student to say a word or phrase they heard in the song. This is quick. We then re-play a portion of the video, audio only, and follow along with the lyrics in Spanish. I just Google “letra” and the song title to find the lyrics online. Be careful! Some lyric sites are better than others in terms of commitment to Spanish grammar. The repetition of the listening comprehension with the added benefit of reading along with the lyrics can create some neat ah-ha moments when students put two-and-two together, or when they can confirm they heard. Nicely validating for a language learner! We usually listen through the first chorus at which point I’ll stop, and we try to translate what we’ve heard as a class. This is a great time to discuss word order, idiomatic expressions, slang, and any grammar topics you might currently be learning that appear in the lyrics. Sometimes even vocab words pop up!
That’s it! Depending on your students’ level of interest or your desire to get a discussion going, this whole process can take anywhere from 10 minutes to the entire class period. I’d say we average about 20 minutes for M.M. If students are working independently, I ask “¿Quieren escuchar a música en español?” and I’ll put on our M.M. playlist. Some M.M. picks have even made their way to being played during the Senior Halloween carnival and varsity basketball workouts. No better feeling than when a student tells me they’ve been listening outside of class! Check out our playlists and happy listening!! Música miércoles 2015-2016 Música miércoles 2016-2017 Música miércoles 2017-2018
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorSC native, Salvadoran at heart, Spanish teacher, trivia nerd, and novice blogger. Archives
January 2018
Categories |