August 27, 2009

To Students and Parents/Guardians:

     To help students check that they are up to date, I am including here a brief summary of handouts and content work.

Week of August 24-28, 2009
     Handouts:  Student information form for teacher, Course Syllabus, my Class Rules.  If you have not turned in the syllabus and rules, signed by yourself and your parent/guardian, please do so by Tuesday, August 30, 2009.

      Course content presented and practiced [in Spanish] is all in the Preliminary Chapter:
1) Presentations, greetings and leave-taking:  ¡Hola! ¿Cómo te llamas?,  ¡Hola! ¿Cómo estás?, tú vs. usted.2) Various classroom instructions:  Atención, por favor.
3) Numbers 0-60:  Los números
4) Telling time: ¿Qué hora es?
5) Days of the week and months of the year: El calendario y la fecha (p. 14: please remember we will not study the material page by page but will go back and forth in the chapter and within the book) 
6) The names of the countries or territories where Spanish is the first or second language of the population (know in English, will study again in Spanish).

       Homework:  1) ALWAYS: do new structures flash cards (vocabulary, verbs) or vocabulary lists in your notebook (they must be in 2 distinct columns so that one column can be completely covered by an opaque piece of paper.  
                              2)  QUIZ on Tuesday: Review all the material studied during the first week. You should be able to: complete a dialogue, fill-in missing parts of a dialogue, recognize numbers, write down the hour in numbers after hearing it said in Spanish, identify the days of the week and months of the year and write them out, know at least 15 of the 22 countries-territories where Spanish is the first or second language.

     Reminders:  1) Class notebook check this week (August 31-September 4).  2) Buy remaining materials: small composition notebook for journals, folder for handouts, 3 different color highlighters, pencil sharpener if using pencils, pens for most classwork, quizzes and tests; Spanish-English, English-Spanish pocket dictionary.

¡Éxito! 

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September 11, 2009

I. Weeks of August 31 - September 11, 2009.

A.  Subjects studied: We covered the preliminary chapter and introduced the verb "ser" (one of the verbs translating "to be") as well as a few regular verbs presented in chapter 1A.  Preliminary chapter material includes the course content specified above in the Aug. 24-28 week, plus the following: 
1) Gender in all nouns, adjectives, and articles in Spanish to be learned with noun word.
2) Practice of lexical gender: some words for parts of the body, some words for classroom objects.
3) Weather, seasons, continental season inversion.

B.  Assessments: 1) Classwork: Students were assessed using classwork submitted on Sept. 4 and 8.  2) Tests: On September 11, students had a test (85 points) on all the material presented in class since the beginning of term.  This includes the Preliminary Chapter in the textbook as well as any additional information presented and studied in class, excluding, however, Chapter 1A material.  Period 3 students will need to complete their Test as will be directed in class.

C. Change in syllabus: corrections to the syllabus will be pointed out in class. Main points:  1) grading system based on points rather than weighted, 2) the Classwork Notebook must be a one and a half to two inch 3-ring binder dedicated to Spanish exclusively.  The single-subject journal notebook will still be required. Folders will not be accepted instead of a 3-ring binder.

D. Reminders concerning necessary materials:  Materials were specified in the syllabus. Students MUST purchase and show the following materials by Friday, September 18, 2009:  1) Spanish-English/ English-Spanish pocket dictionary, 2) set of at least 3 highlighters, 3) paper for the binder, 4) a set of dividers, 5) small pencil sharpener with shavings receptacle, a single-subject notebook to be labeled as a Journal Notebook.  Students will receive a grade labeled Materials on Sept. 18.

II. Coming week of September 14-September 18, 2009.

A.  September 14, 2009
     1.  Period 3/6 students must complete testing in a way fair to those who completed the test within their class periods.
     2.  OPEN HOUSE:  I would very much like to meet with parents or guardians in Portable 6 from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m on the evening of Monday, September 14, 2009.

B.  September 14-18 content.