Submitted by Catherine Chilton-Werner

Objectives:

Content:
Students will:

1. Use prior knowledge of health concepts to categorize activities as good or bad health habits.

2. Combine categories of activities to create a working definition of good and bad health habits.

Cultural:

Language: Content Obligatory
Students will:

1) Use prior knowledge of Spanish to categorize vocabulary into good and bad health habits.

2) Expand their knowledge of Spanish by seeking additional vocabulary that will fit the two categories.

3) Arrange vocabulary into sub-categories

4) Define good and bad health habits in two to four concise statements in Spanish

Language: Content Compatible
Students will:

1) Demonstrate correct use of Spanish verbs in the present tense and correct use of infinitives.

2) Demonstrate ability to apply knowledge of sentence structure to create complete sentences to define good and bad health habitls.

Learning Strategies / Social and Skills Development:
Students will:

1) Work coooperatively in small groups to brainstorm and categorize vocabulary and create a definition of good and bad health habits.

2) Contribute to whole class discussion of vocabulary categories and editing of definitions

3) .Work cooperatively in small groups to create an illustrative poster.

Time Frame:

One 55 minute class period for activity.  One period and time outside of class for

Materials Needed:

Handout 1 - La Vida Sana: Buenos Habitos, Malos Habitos

Description of Assessment (Performance Project):

Pre-Task1: Prior Knowledge

The purpose of this part of the activity is to draw on students’ prior knowledge of health issues and health related vocabulary in Spanish. Students are asked to categorize previously learned vocabulary into lists of good and bad health habits. Students then expand the list by adding words in English then look them up in a translation dictionary.

1. Organize students into small cooperative groups. Group roles include a recorder, a timer, a presenter and a language facilitator who makes sure language use, such as spelling and word order, is accurate.

2. Hand out one copy of graphic organizer SQA to each group (see handout "La Vida Sana: Buenoa habitos, malos habitos" located in the handout section).

3. Ask the students to make two lists in Spanish related to the topic of health:

a. words and phrases used to talk about good health habits and

b. words and phrases used to talk about bad health habits.

The Spanish words and phrases are listed in the "Ya Sabemos column" of the chart. Allow 7 to 10 minutes depending on the class.

4. Next students list words in English that apply to the categories of good and bad habits but they haven’t learned yet in Spanish. These are written in the "Queremos Saber column." Allow 3 minutes.

5. Students use a translation dictionary to look up the words they listed in the "Queremos Saber" column and write the Spanish equivalent in the Aprendimos column. [teacher could also serve as a "human dictionary" if necessary... unless using dictionary is really a skill you want student to practice] Allow 7 to 10 minutes depending on the lists they have.

6. The teacher should provide examples of what is expected for each part of the task by displaying a partially completed SQA on an overhead. See "Handout 1 -- La Vida Sana (example of activity completed by Ss)" to get an example of student response to this task

7. After the groups fills out the SQA chart, the groups share lists of known vocabulary and learned vocabulary with whole class as the teacher writes them on the board/overhead. [Are you going to ask questions to Ss at this point to elicit their answers? If yes, what structures will you use? (these should go into the language section of the objective) Can you think of any additional language structure you could plug in at this point to "up the ante" and expose Ss to more complex/new language structures (this could go into the language compatible section of the objectives)... these are just ideas to think about]. Start with the good habits. The teacher organizes the students’ ideas into logical groups as the students present them. For example, all ideas having to do with good diet are listed in one column, all items having to do with exercise in another, all those about personal hygiene in another, all those about good mental health in another. Do not label the categories because students should be left to decide what they represent. Using the items listed above you would have lists like these:

Comer bien Ejercicio

Tomar agua Los deportes

Tomar vitaminas Correr

Nadar

Caminar

Lavarse los dientes Llorar

Ducharse ReÃ∆r

Bañarse Orar

Cepillarse el pelo

During Task 1 – Generalizing

The purpose of this activity is for students to create a generalization about what it takes to have good health from the vocabulary lists they have generated.

8. Once all of the ideas about good habits are listed in categories on the board, each of the small groups must write in Spanish a one to two sentence statement that summarizes what their lists suggest about good health habits. To do this students must decide how to label each of the categories of ideas listed on the board and then incorporate those labels into one or two sentences that summarize what it is important to do to maintain healthy habits. They can begin their statement with the phrase, “Para vivir la vida sana es importante . . . .â€Ω [this language structure as well as any other language you will require Ss to use should be included in the language objectives]. Allow 5 to 7 minutes. The following is a possible summary students might come up with: “Para vivir la vida sana es importante comer bien y hacer ejercicio y descansar y hablar y escuchar y gritar y reÃ∆r y orar. Otra cosa es tener buen higiene [from the example you provide here I can see interesting things in terms of language practice you could have Ss play with: for example the structure "hacer + ___", "es importante + verb in the infinitive form", "tener buen+ _____" . Do your Ss already know these structures? If yes, are you going to remind them to use these or are you going to try to include more complexity? If no, what type of scaffolds are you going to provide? (e.g., write specific examples of structures on the board or else)].

9. Each group then puts their sentences up on the board and the whole class must come up with the final statement using the best parts of the small group sentences. A possible revised statement might be,"Para vivir la vida sana debes comer bien, hacer ejercicio cada dÃ∆a, expresar las emociones y tener buen higiene.â€Ω [Here is another interesting structure you need to include in your language objectives: "Para + Verb in the infinitive, debe(s)+ verb in the infinitive _____". Here is how this could be phrased:
- Ss will practice using infinitives in Spanish with the structure "Para + Verb in the infinitive, debe(s)+ verb in the infinitive _____" to discuss ways to live a healthy life using words and phrases such as "vida sana, ejercicio, comer, beber, etc."

Do the same with the structure below for bad habits.].

10. The process is then repeated for bad habits. The students can begin their statement with the phrase, “Para evitar mala salud es necesario . . . .â€Ω A possible revised statenent might be,“Para evitar mala salud es necesario alejarse de drogas, evitar comida grasienta y de poco valor nutritivo. Es preciso evitar mal higiene y evitar pasar tiempo in actividades sedentarios.

Post Task 1 – Illustrating

The purpose of this task is to illustrate the concepts that they have defined from prior knowledge when they wrote their generalizations.

11. When they have their two statements, each group must create a poster aimed at a junior high audience incorporating the statements and illustrating them with pictures cut from magazines, drawings, or clip art. The poster can be done by hand or by computer. Since my class is small I had them create a bulletin board for my classroom. [I really like your attempt at creating an authentic task with a real purpose for your students. I am a great fan of this! I am wondering if you could not include some elements here to have students practice speaking Spanish while completing the task. You could prepare scaffolds for them to use with expressions compatible with the task or whatever else you might think of. If they use computers to complete the poster, you could have them practice with vocabulry related to computers (if they do not know these yet) like "mouse", "copy/paste" etc in Spanish... just a thought.]

Assessment:

Formative assessments are done through the process of small groups sharing information with the entire class and whole class editing of final statements about healthy habits.

Summative assessment is given by rating the small group illustration on 1) how well the picutres illustrate the statements 2) how well the statement is incorporated  3) appropriateness for intended audience 4) creativity and neatness.

References and Resources:

 

Attachments:

NOTE: some attachments are in PDF form (get Acrobat Reader)

Handout 1 -- La Vida Sana (example of activity completed by Ss) 
La Vida Sana: Buenos Habitos, Malos Habitos

A Lesson from the CoBaLTT Project
/cobaltt
Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition
University of Minnesota