El Dia de los Muertos

¡Hola, clase! 

¡Hoy vamos a aprender sobre el Día de los Muertos! Primero, nosotros vamos a mirar (we will watch) algunos videos: you can choose whichever ones seem most interesting to you.

Start here con un dibujo animado, and then an overview of Día de los Muertos.

Segundo, mira mas información from Discovery Atlas or from a group of young bloggers from Mexico.

Termina (finish) with a more personal view on Día de los Muertos from some Latinos in the Boston area.

Ahora, do some reading and looking at pictures to get more specific details. 

Go to the Smithsonian's Day of the Dead site to learn about the history and symbols of el Día de los Muertos. You can also make your own Day of the Dead altar here!

Ahora (now), check out some common myths about Day of the Dead, and look at pictures from National Geographic.

Still have some questions? Read this article.

Ahora, contestan las preguntas:
1) ¿Cuándo es el Día de los Muertos celebrated? ¿Cuál es la diferencia entre la celebración el 1 de noviembre y la celebración el 2 de noviembre?

2) ¿De dónde viene la celebración of Día de los Muertos? ¿Quién la empezó? (Where does the Day of the Dead celebration come from? Who started celebrating it?)

3) Using tu vocabulario de emociones, describe some of las emociones that people might feel on el Día de los Muertos, and why they might feel this way.

4) ¿Qué actividades hacen para celebrar el Día de los Muertos? (What activities do people do to celebrate the Day of the Dead?)

5) List at least tres palabras nuevas (new words) you learned in español through this lesson, and what they mean en inglés.

6) Does your familia have any traditions that are similar to las actividades that happen on el Día de los Muertos? If not, how are holidays that you celebrate similar to el Día de los Muertos?

¡Disfrútalo! (Enjoy!)

Dia de la Independencia

El 16 de septiembre es el Dia de la Independencia en Mexico! Look at the links below to check out what el Dia de la Independencia is, and how many people will be celebrating in Mexico.

Introductory Video
Background of el Dia de la Independencia
El Grito!

Now that we've seen a little bit about what el Dia de la Independencia is about, let's learn about Mexico's flag.

¿Por qué aprender español? Webquest

Why is it important for people to learn to speak Spanish? The following videos and articles contain opinions and arguments about why it is good to learn Spanish. Some resources are from professionals or important figures, and others are from everyday people. Which reasons are most convincing to you?

Open a Pages document and save it as Reasons to Study Spanish. This is where you will take brief notes about why people should study foreign languages, or why they should study Spanish!

Now, watch the videos and/or read the articles below to get ideas, and type ideas in your notes!
Why it's important to learn another language in general
Benefits for the brain
More brain benefits
Delay Alzheimer's
Social benefits
Communication
Saying what you mean
Funny reasons
Famous bilinguals
Religion and culture
College preparation
Survival
Pass the time

Why it's important to learn Spanish specifically
Barack Obama's opinion
Octavio's opinion
Señora Richardson's opinion
Señora Wags' opinion
Opinions of Spanish speakers in the US
Practical Reasons
Huffington Post's Reasons
Realidades (Spanish textbook) opinions

When you finish, you can comment on this post and post a link to another video or website with reasons why it's good to learn another language. Make sure that your video/website is in English and/or Spanish, doesn't have any profanity in it, and that you only use tu primer nombre (your first name) when commenting.

Mi Vida Loca

Hoy, we watched the first episodio of Mi Vida Loca en el club. If you'd like to do some of the review activities for the episode, or learn more about Mi Vida Loca, you can go here.

Bienvenidos al club de español, y nombres españoles

As part of learning more about Spanish culture, I give students the opportunity to choose a Spanish name to use during our club. Of course, if you are more comfortable with your English name, you may use that instead. You need to decide your name by Tuesday the 27th. Here are a few links for those who are still undecided:

Spanish names for boys and Spanish names for girls, with the meanings of some of the names included.

Much more comprehensive list with names' origins: There are definitely more creative names on this long list. I'd recommend looking at the other lists first, then taking a peek here if you don't see anything you like.

Also, if you do choose a name on-line, write it down so you don't forget what it is before club! If you'd like to hear how a name is pronounced, go to Google Translate, choose Spanish to English in the language options, and copy the Spanish name into the translation box. Once you do this, clicking on the speaker that appears in the Spanish box will allow you to hear how the name is pronounced.

If you'd like to learn more about greetings and customs in Peru, you can watch the full version of travel advice for Peru here.

Postres en Corea!

¡Hola everyone, y felicitaciones (congratulations) on finishing another year of school! An extra special congratulations and shout out to the 8th graders at St. Paul who graduated this year! I'm so happy for you all, and hope that you will have wonderful high school times ahead! Now that you're all finished with the school year, I'm sure you're keeping busy, studying inglés and español, right? So, ¿qué tal tu verano? How's your summer going?

Mi esposo (husband) y yo have been traveling up and down the East Coast, visiting relatives and seeing lots of sights before we head off to Corea del Sur at the end of julio. We're still doing our Korean lessons and trying to get ready, so I thought I'd share one of our adventures. A week ago, we went with una amiga coreana (a Korean friend) to a Korean bakery in Annandale, Virginia, which is almost like a Koreatown with all of the Korean shops and businesses there are there! The bakery, Shilla, was awesome. Don't believe me? Check out these delicious pastries and cakes. Mmmmmm. (The free samples they set out are a very, very good thing.)

What stole the show for us, though, was the bingsoo, which you can see here. It's a popular summer snack - shaved ice with fruit, red beans (which are sweet, not salty!), sweetened condensed milk or fruit syrup, and even pieces of chewy rice cake. Might sound a little weird at first, but it was pretty fantastic. Plus, the picture doesn't do justice to the size of the one that we had. The container is probably the size of your cabeza (head)! We shared one and couldn't finish it, but I'm sure some of you could put us to shame in that arena. The lesson: if you have the opportunity to try some bingsoo or check out a Korean bakery, definitely do!

Hopefully I'll have more info for you on life in Korea soon! For now, hope you all have a great, fun summer!

Annyeonghaseyo, Jeju-do! (안녕하세요 제주도!)

Hmm, you may be thinking looking at the title of this post... That doesn't look like español, and it definitely isn't inglés! Run out of ideas?

It's coreano, or Korean, for "Hello, Jeju!" As you might remember, I graduated in diciembre, and have just recently accepted a job... teaching inglés en el 7o grado on Jeju Island in South Korea! I'm very excited both to be going to Jeju and to be teaching inglés again after the great experience I had en el otoño (in the fall).

Where is Jeju Island, you might ask?  It's a little south of mainland South Korea, and close to Japan (on the right) and China (on the left).

Jeju is also known as "the Hawaii of Korea," and you can see from these pictures that it lives up to its name...

You can check out some more pictures of Jeju here.

There's also an awesome UFO restaurant... no kidding!

I'm definitely looking forward to Jeju, but will also miss all of my estudiantes fabulosos (fabulous students) en Michigan. I wish you all the best, and hope you'll keep checking the blog and leaving me comments to keep in touch and let me know how you're doing!

For now, got some preguntas (questions) about Jeju or about South Korea? Have some travel advice for me? Leave it in a comment!