Finding Skype partners can be difficult for a teacher while asking questions to strangers can be a scary situation for students. I tried to make the first opportunity my students had to skype a less fearful day by having them skype with my daughter or husband. Originally, the students had to write 10 questions for Jesus about his family in Spain, his favorite activities, etc. When it turned out that he had to work all morning last Friday, I convinced my daughter to skype with two of the classes. Kim is a Spanish major studying at Simpson and just happens to begin her Friday classes at 2 p.m. What perfect timing for her mother.
Kim has always been a guinea pig, in my classroom. When she was 3 or 4, she used to come and help me teach parts of the body. She has been behind the scenes more than her dad in recent years but she willingly answered more than 150 questions from more than 30 students in about 25 minutes. The last class of the day skyped with Jesus; this class had a harder time with the assignment. Jesus has a true Spaniard's accent while Kim's is a mixture of Spaniard, American, and Argentine. Kim also has the advantage of being bilingual so she can guess at what students are attempting to say while Jesus is left completely in the dark.
All in all, it was a good first attempt at skyping. Already I am looking through my list of inlaws and contacts in Spain to see who our next skype "victima" could be.
Wednesday, January 23, 2013
Balonmano- ESC Style
On December 14 and January 11 five sections of Spanish classes learned a bit about the sport of balonmano (team handball) from Jesus Arlaban, a former coach of the sport who lives in Iowa. Jesus also happens to be my husband which is why he gets "roped into" helping with all sorts of activities (seen and unseen) in my classroom.
Team handball is a combination of soccer, basketball, and waterpolo so to speak. We played in our school gym with what equipment I could round up. The balls were not really the right ones, we did not have a net so we had to imagine where it would be, and we invented some crazy rules to fit various classes. In the two largest ones, each time a boy touched the ball he had to pass off to a girl; I wanted to make sure that everyone was included in the "scrimmages" and not just the super-competative boys. Jesus taught the students some warm-up exercises in Spanish to get them moving and used to dealing with the ball and some of the rules (you can take three steps in balonmano before being called for traveling). My students did get used to the commands for throw, pass, etc. by the end of the period.
Every Friday they now want to play balonmano. I think perhaps this day was the most that some of them had moved in the gym--- ever.
Team handball is a combination of soccer, basketball, and waterpolo so to speak. We played in our school gym with what equipment I could round up. The balls were not really the right ones, we did not have a net so we had to imagine where it would be, and we invented some crazy rules to fit various classes. In the two largest ones, each time a boy touched the ball he had to pass off to a girl; I wanted to make sure that everyone was included in the "scrimmages" and not just the super-competative boys. Jesus taught the students some warm-up exercises in Spanish to get them moving and used to dealing with the ball and some of the rules (you can take three steps in balonmano before being called for traveling). My students did get used to the commands for throw, pass, etc. by the end of the period.
Every Friday they now want to play balonmano. I think perhaps this day was the most that some of them had moved in the gym--- ever.
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