高級西班牙語：識字、口語、科學和數學。

Hola y bienvenidos to “Spanish for Beginners: Literacy, Speaking, and STEM.” This is an ongoing subscription course that meets 3 days a week. Each day features digital activities (completed live together as group) specifically developed for beginner Spanish speakers to develop crucial skills in the areas of phonics, reading comprehension, listening, speaking, and writing.

Schedule: Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday
**THERE WILL BE A BREAK FOR THE MONTH OF JULY**

**IS THIS CLASS RIGHT FOR MY LEARNER?**
This is NOT a class for “absolute beginners.” An absolute beginner is a learner who has never taken a Spanish class before and has little to no experience hearing or using Spanish. Learners are not expected to speak in Spanish for the full duration of the course. This course will most benefit learners who have had some experience with Spanish.

Learners should be capable of reading and writing in English at a minimum of end of 1st / beginning of 2nd grade levels. 

**DIGITAL AND PRINT RESOURCES**

This class uses paper worksheets to supplement whole-class activities completed together on my shared screen. Some learners enjoy using the paper worksheets during class, while others prefer to simply watch or participate orally.

**SCHEDULE - every week follows the same schedule**

Tuesday:
Literacy (identifying syllables, high-frequency words, easy-reader texts, comprehension questions)
Speaking (collaborative story-asking *more info below)

Wednesday:
STEM (high interest areas like animal habitats, outer space, weather, as well as topics like addition, subtraction, greater than and less than, cardinal directions, and more.)
Literacy  (identifying syllables, high-frequency words, easy-reader texts, comprehension questions)

Thursday: 
Speaking (collaborative story-asking *more info below)
STEM (high interest areas like animal habitats, outer space, weather, as well as topics like addition, subtraction, greater than and less than, cardinal directions, and more.)

- SKILL AREA INFORMATION --

**PHONICS**
Spanish is an almost entirely phonetic language, meaning that learning to decode syllables is vital to reading ability. This class has literacy activities focused on mastering the Spanish vowel sounds and forming words through syllables.

**READING**
Reading comprehension in this class will include easy-readers supplemented by activities including drag-and-drop comprehension questions and whole-group talk-alouds. Learners are encouraged to take turns volunteering read out loud for the class, but it is not required. I often call on students to read or offer an answer or thought. If your learner prefers to not be "cold-called" (asked to answer without raising their hand prior, etc) please message me prior to class.

**SPEAKING**
This course uses the “story asking” instructional strategy to create authentic, structured conversation opportunities. 

What is story asking?

Story-asking is an instructional strategy in bilingual education that provides sheltered, structured conversation practice through collaborative story-telling. For every story-asking session, I have a basic outline of a silly story, but there are details missing. I ask the students guided, open-ended questions in Spanish order to illicit specific details to add to the story, thus merging conversation and story-telling. 

How does story asking help learners to speak?

Language acquisition goes through several phases, the first being the “silent phase” in which learners cannot yet speak words in the new language but are still internalizing the language that they hear. When a learner is ready to exit the “silent phase,” and enter the “early emergent” phase, they will begin to use high-frequency single words and short phrases with a mixture of their primary language. Creating truly spontaneous conversation (aka not “thinking before you speak”) is not possible in the “early emergent” stage of language acquisition. Story-asking simulates spontaneous conversation by asking learners comprehensible, highly-engaging questions for which responses can be single words or short phrases. These single words and short phrases are merged into a collaborative story. Each story contains a minimum of 3 parts or versions, each featuring the same high-frequency sentence structures so that learners hear the key phrases enough that they begin to use them with me as we tell the story TOGETHER. This is where story-asking diverges from JUST listening or JUST repeating/parroting back words. Hence the name of the strategy! I don’t TELL the story, I ASK the students what the story should be! Students understand the vocabulary and language being taught and use it in context immediately.

**WRITING**
Learners will complete whole-group, structured mini-writing activities during the phonics and reading comprehension areas of class. Learners will also have the opportunity to write their own answers to the “story-asking” story template. Learners will also compete whole-group, structured mini-writing activities related to the science and math topics that we cover. I provide a word bank, sentence frames, and space to also draw a picture representation of their responses.
 
**STEM (Math, Science)**
Completing math activities in Spanish is a great way to boost learner confidence- math is the same in all languages! We will complete traditional exercises as well as word-problems containing high-frequency language during class.

The science portion of the class features high-interest topics such as animal habitats. We will view mini-presentations and short stories featuring images and text. The science portion of the class focuses on reading and listening comprehension with a large focus on activating a learners’ background knowledge of a topic and identifying English-Spanish cognates (words that look or sound similar or the same.) Students may answer questions via drag-and-drop digital activities, write short responses, or draw on physical paper/white boards/digital white boards.