As part of digital citizenship we should be teaching students not to use images that infringe on copyright. Did you know that in Google you can search for images labelled for noncommercial reuse? All you need to do is click on tools and make your selection. See how below.

Good websites offering free images and pictures are:

• https://unsplash.com/
• https://pixabay.com/
• https://www.pexels.com/

I think that is extremely important to move away from using cartoon images in presentations to the class, because we are creating an impression that speaking a foreign language is imaginary and unrealistic. I believe that we should be using up-to-date photographs so that the students can connect with modern real world life that gives the impression of languages being practical and applicable to their lives. Below is an example of the images I used with students for the unit of shopping.

I am very excited about the assessment task that my Spanish Phase 2 are going to complete for their inquiry unit called "passport to the Hispanic world". The students have been set the task of creating a web page for a travel agency which will give information about a  Hispanic city or country of their choice, as well as include a tour proposal for tourists. The students have already completed a presentation on a Hispanic country as part of this unit, and they can choose to re-use this information, or they can choose a new country or city of their choice to research. They also already have knowledge of how to create a web page using https://www.wix.com/, but you can see my example here

After the students have written an introductory paragraph about their country or city of choice, they will create their tour using https://tourbuilder.withgoogle.com/. See my example tours below:

• https://tourbuilder.withgoogle.com/tour/ahJzfmd3ZWItdG91cmJ1aWxkZXJyEQsSBFRvdXIYgIDA76HMtgoM
• https://tourbuilder.withgoogle.com/tour/ahJzfmd3ZWItdG91cmJ1aWxkZXJyEQsSBFRvdXIYgIDA743UtwoM

As you can see from my examples, the students will need to research places to visit, be able to pin them in a logical order in the tour, and write a description about each location. The grammatical focus for this unit has been the impersonal <<se>> , the use of ser vs. estar vs. hay, vs. tener, and the demonstrative pronouns este, esta, estos and estas. To see the task that has been set to the students, look at the document below. Hopefully some of my students will be happy to share their finished product with us on this site!
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It is the start of a new semester and new MYP units which means it time for provocations! In a recent workshop with Tania Lattanzio (click here for info on her workshops) I was reminded about the essential criteria for an effective unit provocation:

• open inquiry
• connected to the conceptual questions
• connected to the concepts
• where possible, real people, places and experiences
• provide a hook for interest
• create a sense of curiosity
• enable students to begin to understand aspects of the unit
• promote student agency
• have clear teacher intent

I wanted to follow these guidelines and really spark enthusiasm in my students for this unit, and give them the opportunity to do a hands-on task using real life objects. I was pleased that as soon as my students walked through the door they were intrigued by the bags of objects on the table, and some started asking if we were making decorations or having a party. So, a hook was created immediately! Through this provocation I wanted the students to figure out for themselves what the unit of inquiry would be about and so the students set about completing the following tasks.

1. Working in randomly selected groups (I love my popsicle sticks!) the students had to remove the objects from the bags and identify which objects had aspects in common with each other. They grouped the objects according to these similarities and gave each group or category a name or title which they wrote clearly on a folded piece of yellow cardboard.
2. The students got up and walked around the room, looking at the object groupings on other tables and comparing and contrasting them to their own. We had a class discussion about the similarities and differences between the groupings. What I love about being a teacher is witnessing the insight and perception of my students and the wonderful ideas that they generate that are different to my own. Some groups grouped the objects according to the festivals of different countries, and others had categories such as food (comida) and birthdays (cumpleaños).
3. Next the students used sticky notes to label each of the objects with the correct vocabulary word in Spanish. I hope that presenting the key vocabulary to the students in this manner will be memorable for the students, and that they will consequently be able to recall and use the vocabulary more easily and effectively throughout the unit.
4. It was then over to the students to identify the key concept that we would be studying (culture) and the content that we would be studying in the unit (festivals and celebrations).  They did this successfully and this fills me with confidence that our students are becoming more inquiring students who are truly able to understand the concepts and skills in Language Acquisition .
5. Finally the students embarked on a discussion of the inquiry questions that will drive this unit.

• ¿Cuáles son los festivales y las celebraciones celebrados en tu familia? ¿Cuáles de estos festivales y de estas celebraciones son religiosos y cuales no son religiosos?
• ¿Cómo los festivales y las celebraciones representan los valores y las creencias de una cultura?
• ¿Hasta qué punto respetamos y comprendemos las celebraciones de culturas diferentes?

I loved engaging my students in this provocation task and I'm exciting about the upcoming unit. Next up we are going to be inquiring into the celebrations of Christmas and New Year and discovering more about the students' own cultures and how they spent their winter holidays in Shanghai or abroad. Please see below the pictures of provocation lesson and leave me any comments or feedback that you would like to share.

It's the beginning of the year and I have just started a new unit with my Spanish Phase 2 group called Passaporte al mundo hispano. To launch this unit, the students watched the below video from National Geographic about cultural differences in which a group of men travel to Sudan and discover a whole new way of life in the USA.

The students did not know the theme of the video before watching it and were asked to consider the main theme and message of the video as they watched it. The students then watched the video a second time through and were asked to take notes in Spanish about the examples of culture that were mentioned in the video. We agreed that there were many different examples including food, habits and daily routine, and attitudes. Further to this, we then discussed how this links to our statement of inquiry - Language & Travel help us to understand other cultures. Their first task of the year was to produce a poster in which they would reflect on detail their knowledge of Hispanic culture. See the task below.

lTo continue with this unit students looked at a map of North, Central and South America and checked their knowledge of the countries in a simple oral task i.e ¿Qué es esto? ¿Esto es México, no? Some students needed to review the countries and they  by following these links:

Nivel 1: http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/country_SoAmCA_GL_Click.html 
Nivel 2: http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/country_SoAmCA_G1_drag_drop.html 
Nivel 3: http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/country_SoAmCA_G2_drag_drop.html

This activity gave us the oppotunity to discuss which of the countries in South America do not have Spanish as their official language, and also the countries and islands missing from this task i.e. Equatorial Guinea, Balearic Islands, Canary Islands. The students labeled the map provided in the Gente Joven 1 Unidad 6 Cuaderno de Ejercicios and add Puerto Rico (missing from this document). Unidad 6 of Gente Joven 1 is called ¡Buen Viaje! and contains some fantastic student activities for discovering the famous landmarks in the Hispanic world e.g. La Pirámide Maya de Chichén, and opportunities for describing aspects of the human and physical geography of these countries e.g. Cuba es una isla, Lima es una ciudad y una capital. There is also an excllent chapter in this book by J. Raphael Angel called ¿Viajar realmente nos convierte en ciudadanos del mundo? There are sections on understanding how travelling helps us to understand other cultures through famous quotes and also from blog posts. Equally there are some great links to videos and websites about Valencia and Cuba which enable students to look at authentic texts and use their media literacy skills, whilst exploring tourism and culture in those countries.

To recognise and celebrate international women's day in Spanish, today we started the TPRS storytelling unit <<LAS CHICAS NO JUEGAN AL FÚTBOL AMERICANO>> created by Martina Bex. The story contains a great text to spark a discussion about girls and women in sport. The unit also contains some fantastic cultural tasks such as activities on the football related songs No hay 2 sin 3 and Waivn' Flag, infographics, articles about sports in Spanish speaking countries and an interesting video about basketball in Mexico. To complement this unit, I also did a visual thinking lesson starter on a TV advert for Gol Televisión which you can see here.