Overall Goal of the Unit

Students will be able to talk about their family and friends, describe people and things,
and express ownership. Students will also learn and practice subtopics covering terms for family
relationships, descriptive adjectives, possessive adjectives, present tense of common regular er
and ir verbs, the present tense of tener and venir, and geographical and cultural information
about Ecuador. Students will be able to focus on high-frequency descriptive adjectives, forms,
agreement, and position of adjectives ending in o/-a,-e, or a consonant.
Colorado Standards
The standards for Spanish addressed throughout this unit are as follows:

Standard 1.3 (Novice-Low) Communication in Languages Other than English

compromises. Students present (written or oral) in a variety of situations based on
familiar and unfamiliar vocabulary and learned grammatical structures (presentational

mode).
Standard 2.1 (Novice-Low) Knowledge and understanding of Other Cultures. Students
analyze how the perspectives of people who speak the target language are reflected in
their practices.

Novice-Low World Languages Standards

Reading, Writing, and Communicating:

Understand and interpret written and spoken language on a variety of topics (inerpretive

mode).
Present information, concepts, and ideas to an audience of listeners or readers on a
variety of topics (presentational mode).

Engage in conversations, provide and obtain information, express feelings and emotions,
and exchange opinions (interpersonal mode).

Literacy
Literacy was addressed multiple times throughout this unit. Students were expected to
understand and interpret written and spoken language on a variety of topics (inerpretive mode).
These topics included but were not limited to the family, identifying people, professions and
occupations, srnames and famlies in the Spanish-speaking world, Spains Royal Family,
descriptive adjectives, possessie adjectives, present tense of er and ir erbs, and present tense of
tner and venir.
Additionally, students were expected to write and speak in every lesson. For one of the
activities of the Family unit students had to draw their own family tree and label it with names.
Then, I asked students questions about it and helped them identify the relationships between
members. Afterwards, students had to present their family tree to the whole class. The purpose of
these promts is to help students speak, read, view, and comprehend the language of Spanish in
order to participate effectively in interactions with their classmates and members of other
cultures.
Furthermore, students had the opportunity to interpret the concepts, ideas, and opinions
expressed by their classmates and members of other cultures throgh media and literature. An
example of an activity that allowed students to infer knowledge consisted of a photos. Based on
the visual aspect, students had to write a fill-in-the-blank sentence to go with each photo.
Working in pairs, they had to guess what was happening in each others photo and complete the

sentence. Every lesson assessed students knowledge by putting their speaking, writing, reading,
and listening skills into practice.
A very important skill that students practiced and developed further throughout the unit
was communication. Students were given the opportunity to cultivate strategies that empower
them. These included the ability to guess intelligently. For example, when students were
introduced to new vocabulary, I encouraged them to look for cognates. The ability to recognize
cognates, allowed students to derive meaning from context and it also allowed them to make
connections between the language of Spanish and their own. Additionally, students had the
opporunity to understand, interpret, and produce gestures effectively. A lot of the vocabulary
learned throughout the unit was taught through gestures. For example, I used gestures to help
students understand and interpret descriptive and possessive adectives in Spanish. Doing so
allowed students to produce the gestures effectively and learn the material through a total
physical response (TPR). It also made them be more patient and tenatious with the learning and
communication process.
Numeracy
Numeracy played a role in many units, including La Familia. For the Mi Familia
lesson, numeracy was used extensively. One part of the lesson required students to put their
numeracy skills into practice through a visual and auditory activity. The other part of the lesson,
required students to put their numeracy skills into practice through interpretation.
First, I presented to the students an imaginary scenario that consisted of an email that my
brother had sent me in regards to my upcoming graduation. The story line of the activity was that
I had recently found out that my whole family was coming from Mexico to Fort Collins for my

graduation. Although I was very excited to receive the news, it was causing me a lot of stress
because I needed to figure out how many family members were coming, and for how many
people I should make a dinner reservation. In order to make the scenario look even more real, I
provided students with my familys trip itinerary. The itinerary displayed flight information,
arrival and departure times, as well as quantity of family members flying into Fort Collins for my
graduation. Furthermore, the itinerary gave students the opportunity to activate prior, as well as
current knowledge, and apply it to a real-life scenario. They utilized their knowledge of numbers
and telling time while linking it to newly acquired knowledge of the Family unit. Afterwards, I
integrated an auditory activity in which students had to listen for names and family relationships,
and write them down. At the end of the activity, students had to draw a family tree based on the
auditory information that was presented to them, as well as write down how many people were
coming to my graduation and for how many people I needed to make a dinner reservation.
Second, I presented to the students a map of Ecuador that included information of its
area, population, currency, languages, main cities, and more. Students put their numeracy skills
into practice as they analyzed numbers and transferred the visual information into writing.
Overall, the lesson on Mi Familia offered positive and powerful opportunities for
students to strengthen their skills. It challenged them to apply and further develop their range of
literacy and numeracy skills through the Spanish language. Discussion, presentation, translation,
interpretation, comparing numbers, and analyzing population statistics in Spanish challenged the
learners numeracy competence and gave them real exposure to the Spanish language.

Technology

I incorporated Technology into this unit in several lessons. For one of the lessons I used
Bitstrip. Bitstrip is a web and mobile application that allows users to create a cartoon of
themselves and their friends. In the case of the Family, Bitstrip seemed to be the most
appropriate tool to utilize. The goal of the lesson was for students to demonstrate their
knowledge in an innovative manner. Bitstrip is an innovative tool that challenges students in
multiple ways and it makes learning more exciting.
Students had to create their own animated avatar by adjusting multiple physical
characteristics and accessories. Their avatar had to look as similar to them as possible. Once their
avatar was created, they had to create 6 textboxs in which they described their life, in Spanish.
They could use my Bitstrip as a guide in creating their own. Once students were done, they were
to comment on 3 their classmates' Bitstrips. They had to write at least 3 sentences for each
comment. When they commented, they had to express likes and dislikes, as well as agreement.
Overall, students were very excited to work with Bitstrip. They were challenged to make their
avatar look like them, as well as to write about themselves in Spanish.
Another tool that I utilized in the Family unit was Pear Deck. Pear Deck is a different
educational technology tool that offers a web-based application. One of the goals of the lesson
was to make learning interactive. Pear Deck enables teachers to teach with an interactive
slideshow displayed on student devices. When students answer questions or solve problems
using Pear Deck, the teacher can display the results anonymously to the class.
I used Pear Deck to teach students about descriptions. Specifically, how to write a
sentence using descriptive and possessive adjectives in Spanish. Throughout the Pear Deck
presentation, students had to fill in blanks with the appropriate descriptive adjective(s), draw
lines to distinguish between right and wrong, choose the appropriate answer for multiple choice,

and write a small paragraph describing 2 characters. Overall, students really enjoyed using Pear
Deck. I noticed an increased amount of participation with the use of Pear Deck. I think that, as a
student, being able to produce as you learn in an interactive manner is very motivating. It makes
learning more exciting and it allows students to become better acquainted with the material.
Additionally, Pear Deck also allows me to check for understanding and see where I need to stop
and what I need to explain in more detail.
Higher Order Thinking Skills
For the objectives that address higher order thinking skills, please see the lesson plans in
the instructional plan section.
Demonstratation of Proficiency
Throughout the unit students had many opportunities to demonstrate proficiency during
the lessons. (For specific examples, please see each individual lesson in the Instructional plan
section). Generally, through Do-Nows, formal and informal assessments, class participation,
worksheets, posters, presentations, models and small papers, students demonstrated individual
proficiencies.