Spanish 4 You Blog

Spanish classes at Grant Elementary School in Santa Monica

 

Spanish-4-You started teaching at Grant Elementary School in Santa Monica, CA back in January of this year. Classes are going very well and the kids seem to be enjoying the lessons a lot. I shot a little video of K students when they were learning Colors, a while back (I had not had time to upload the video until now). We always tie-in the Dinosaurs topic when teaching Colors because kids are always fascinated by them. Aside from using colorful play-doh to create scary figures, we also use black cardboard that when scratched reveal colors underneath. It is very cool and kids love tracing dinosaurs with a wood mold and a stick. Please send us an email to get the exact Colors lesson we teach for free.

info@spanish-4-you.com

Video

 

After-school Spanish classes for children in Santa Monica

 

Spanish-4-You has been hired to teach at various schools in the Santa Monica Unified School District in Los Angeles, CA. We have started with Roosevelt Elementary this fall and in January we will teach at an additional school, Grant Elementary. We teach Spanish in their after school program twice a week to two groups, K students and 2nd-3rd graders.There are 9 students in the K class and 15 in the older kids class. The classes are fun and they are conducted entirely in Spanish. Throughout the program, we listen to music, draw and color, play with stuffed animals, work on challenging puzzles and interactive games and do amazing arts-and-crafts projects. Music is a very important component and we always devote the first 10 minutes of class to listening to animated and catchy songs in Spanish. In these videos you will see our group of K and 2nd/3rd grade students singing songs with their teacher Virginia at the beginning of class.  

K students Video

2nd and 3rd graders Video

 

How Babies sort out language

I found a great article in the New York Times about the importance of raising kids bilingual starting very early, even in infancy.

Hearing Bilingual: How Babies Sort Out Language

 Once, experts feared that young children exposed to more than one language would suffer “language confusion,” which might delay their speech development. Today, parents often are urged to capitalize on that early knack for acquiring language. Upscale schools market themselves with promises of deep immersion in Spanish — or Mandarin — for everyone, starting in kindergarten or even before.

Yet while many parents recognize the utility of a second language...continue reading here

Spanish classes for home-schooled kids in Los Angeles and Orange County

I have not written a blog in 3 months! Very busy teaching Spanish to 4 new group classes, including one in HSC (HomeSchool Campus) in Costa Mesa, CA. This is a great place for homeschooled children in Orange County, CA. It is called the Disneyland of HomeSchoolers because they can choose from dozens of fabulous classes. They are all taught by phenomenal instructors and the cost is very affordable. Many of those families do not even have to pay out-of-pocket because they have their kids registered in HomeSchooling institutions such as Sky Mountain.

Here's the HSC website for those who have home-schooled children. http://www.homeschoolcampusoc.com

Here are some cute videos of one of my classes.

In the first one the children are doing some simple oral presentations after doing a fun arts and craft project.

In the second one the children are singing their favorite song in Spanish.

Oral Presentation

Song

Spanish classes for kids in Los Angeles: How to teach Body Parts

Body parts is one of the easiest lessons to teach. Children have a natural curiosity to learn the names of body parts in the second language they are learning. We use a picture of a very ugly monster that for some weird reason kids find very attractive. In this particular video you will see Alex (age 4) answering questions about number of body parts/color the monster has. It was very funny when I asked him to name the monster and he said "Laura" (my name)

Monster Video

If you'd like the exact same Body Parts lesson I use to teach children, email me at lzayas@spanish-4-you.com

Spanish classes for kids in Los Angeles: The importance of Music in language acquisition

Music should be a crucial component in any language class. It makes learning more enjoyable and it helps children learn the words faster. Just to give you an example, I taught the days of the week to a group of 1st graders at a school in Granada Hills last month. They were struggling memorizing the days until I taught them a silly Days of the Week song (watch the first video). It was an instant success. After practicing twice, they already knew how to sing it with a perfect pronunciation.

In the second video, you will see how much a home-schooled boy likes music. His favorite song is "Las Vocales en Español". He is a ball of energy and goes crazy everytime he hears it. It really makes the learning experience so much more enjoyable for the kids and for the teacher.

Days of the Week Song

Las Vocales en Español Song

Spanish classes for kids in Los Angeles and Orange County: McDonalds & Playdoh in teaching Foods

In language class when teaching foods, the instructor should always divide them by topic such as main meals, fruits and veggies, and breakfast. Otherwise it becomes overwhelming for the student. It takes approximately 3 to 4 sessions to teach this important lesson. Aside from poster-size color drawings, we introduce the foods with plastic ones. I mention each item twice and have the student repeat it. We review colors, numbers and the phrases: Me gusta/No me gusta (I like/I don't like) and Dame por favor (Give me please) We do entertaining matching and coloring exercises and have lots of fun creating foods with play-doh. We also practice by "going" to McDonalds where we take turns ordering what we want to eat and drink. 

In the first video you will see Alex preparing a hamburger. He has a little bit of trouble but manages to follow the instructions well.

McDonaldVideo

In the second video, Alex points to the foods he has made with play-doh. He was very proud of all the pretty foods he made with a little help from me.

PlayDoh Video

If you'd like the exact same Food lesson I use to teach children, email me at lzayas@spanish-4-you.com

Spanish-4-You Kids Program in LA and OC: HangMan in Spanish class

Kids of all ages always have a fascination for spelling words. It is no surprise that they love to play hangman in Spanish. I used to play hangman on paper until I saw that toymakers had come up with a wonderful wooden hangman. I bought it at Lakeshore. It is very simple to use. The letters are face up and the hangman's body parts are facedown. The word spaces are put underneath. A letter is said in the Spanish pronunciation (like "ah" for a, "eh", for e etc) and if the word does not have the letter, the letter is put face down and a body part is revealed. The purpose of the game is to have the person figure out all the letters before all the body parts are revealed. If all the body parts are revealed before figuring out the word, the person will be "hanged". This is a great game to practice Spanish pronunciation and vocabulary.

 

Watch this short video of Nathalie, a very bright 8 year old having fun playing her favorite game.

Spanish Hangman Video

Spanish-4-You Kids Program in LA and OC: How to teach Spanish to gifted children

I have taught many intelligent children during my long career as a Spanish instructor. I have had kids who have amazed me by how quickly they learned new concepts. One of those kids is Trevor. He is a 7 year old from Ladera Ranch, CA who is home-schooled. I started teaching Trevor four weeks ago. I did not know too much about him aside from the fact that he had ADD with a big dose of hyperactivity. The first class was difficult because he was not paying attention, he was jumping up and down and was interrupting the class constantly with silly comments. I did the best I could by presenting the material and by having him repeat the words. During that first class, I "tried" to cover greetings and colors. Since he seemed a little uninterested, I decided to jump ahead and teach him the Pets lesson. In my mind, I was not really teaching, I was just presenting the stuffed animals I had with me. I went over the pronunciation of each animal: perro-gato-pez-pájaro-conejo-tortuga y ratón. At the end of class I did not have a good feeling. I felt he would have a hard time learning Spanish and I was not sure I could keep my promise of making him conversational in just a few months. When I came back the following week, I was prepared to really struggle to make him learn. I was shocked by what I experienced. Trevor knew everything perfectly, all the greetings, colors and pets. I would show him an animal and he would tell me the name and the color and even have the animal "say" a greeting in Spanish. I asked him to create words on the board with magnetic letters. I was going to help him but he told me he could do it by himself. To make the long story short, in just 10 minutes, Trevor wrote all the animals and he drew a little picture of each next to it. I realized that Trevor had a photographic memory. When I spoke to the parents about it, they told me that Trevor indeed is gifted. He is in second grade but his cognitive ability is that of a sixth grader. He taught himself to read at 3 years old and when the mom is driving, he is her "GPS". He remembers where everything is. Even the mom says it can be freaky at times. I am fascinated by the way his mind works. For instance, if I am teaching colors with play-doh, he makes a ball with the purple one and names it "Planet Morado". He even makes little satellites. Since I do not have that much experience teaching gifted children, I asked his mom for advice. She says it is OK to feed him a lot of information because his brain just soaks it all up. He can learn even if he is distracted but it is best to always make sure he is still and paying attention so that he can learn three times as fast. He needs to be constantly challenged with new and interesting things. Everytime we have class I bring an arsenal of things: stuffed animals, puzzles, play-doh, fun games etc. I use the TPR (Total Physical Response) method and he loves it because he doe not have to sit still for long periods of time. In just 4 weeks I have seen amazing progress and I can't wait to see what I can accomplish by the end of the year.

Here's a little video I took of him right after he had created the Pets words on the board. Trevor's pronunciation is perfect, except when he says Perro (double rr is very difficult)

Trevor's Video

Spanish-4-You Kids Program in LA and OC: How to teach Verbs

 

Teaching verbs might not be a fun subject in most Spanish classes but in ours it is a blast. First we present the 23 most important activities with colorful poster-size drawings. I do not separate the verbs by -AR, -ER and -IR endings because at this point we do not care about conjugations. They just need to say: Me gusta or No me gusta + the infinitive. We make sure the kids repeat the verbs many times in an animated way:  Ayu-dar   A-yu-dar   Ayudaaaar

Then, we tell them to stand up and to mimic the activity they see in the poster. Afterwards, we ask them if they like each activity. They need to say Me gusta or No me gusta + the activity when we show them each drawing. 

The following class, we review the activities and then we play Simon says. Super fun. Kids love it! Then we give them black and white drawings of the activities and they need to choose the one they like the most and the one they like the least. They color the activities, put them on poster boards and then write a short sentence saying that they like/dont like the particular activity. When they finish we display them and they read all the sentences aloud. I give them prizes at the end (the first video shows that)

The second video shows what we do after the kids have learned the verbs well. Usually, during the third session, we play a fun Bingo game. They always look forward to Bingo because t is super animated. The winner always gets a prize.

Video 1

Video 2