Sunday, August 10, 2014

August 2015 Speaking Assignment

¡Hola estudiantes! ¡Bienvenidos otra vez a nuestro blog de clase! Just like last time, our activities on the blog will be in the green box located below. Read the activity and follow its instructions.

Activity:

In the IB Summer Assignment packet, item #4 was the speaking assignments. For the July message, you were to have called my school voicemail at 517-755-4261 and left a message describing one of the pictures I provided, or have done an audio recording of yourself on your computer and e-mailed the file to me at charles.horner@lansingschools.net. For the August message that you are to leave for me, you are to simply read the following excerpt in Spanish. I am listening for your pronunciation and fluency in Spanish. This will give me a baseline that we can compare your progress to throughout the school year and will also tell me what things that the class as a whole does well or needs to focus on for improvement. It is appropriate to rehearse the reading selection a few times out loud before you leave the message for me. It is okay to make mistakes, this is a learning process and I am looking to see where you are at right now. I will give you written feedback the first week of school on what you do well and what you can improve upon. Hints: 1) you don’t need to understand every word, but knowing keywords and what the selection is about will help. 2) look out for familiar grammar concepts: agreement between nouns and adjectives (masculine/feminine, singular/plural), verbs, adverbs, etc. to understand how the sentences should sound – pronunciation, inflection (question vs. statement, etc.). 3) Practice reading aloud so it can be done in less than 2 minutes. You don’t want to be cut off by the voicemail and be sure to include your name! 4) Print off a copy of the reading selection if necessary. 5) Do not talk on Speakerphone. The quality of the voicemail is very poor and will not be graded. ¡Buena suerte!

Reading Selection:

5 consejos para un trabajo en equipo efectivo.

Trabajar en equipo puede potenciar exponencialmente los límites de productividad y eficiencia de cada individuo que colabora en un fin común. Es decir, suma la fuerza de trabajo de cada persona y multiplica su potencial al trabajar en conjunto. Cabe mencionar que no se trata de más horas de trabajo aportadas por más individuos hacia una actividad, sino de mayor calidad y eficiencia aportada por un conjunto de personas que no sólo aportan más unidades de tiempo al trabajo, sino que incrementan el tope del límite personal que cada integrante del equipo alcanza de manera individual.

A continuación, quiero compartir 5 consejos prácticos que te permitirán colaborar en equipo de manera más organizada y eficiente:


  1. Desarrolla un equipo compacto
  2. Identifica los roles en el grupo.
  3. Establece una visión común
  4. Establece un liderazgo efectivo
  5. Genera un Plan de contingencia

August 2015 Articles

¡Hola otra vez estudiantes! Welcome back to our class blog! Just like last time, our activities on the blog will be in the green box located below. Read the activity and follow its instructions.

Activity:

In the IB Summer Assignment packet, item #3 indicated that you were to go to the following links to find a newspaper or news site from a Spanish-speaking country to find articles in Spanish:



You should have found articles from June and July already and have printed them and posted answers the questions from the previous blog on news articles. For the month of August, you will again need to find two articles. Have a hard copy printed of each article. You need to have read them and understand them. Use the online dictionary is www.wordreference.com if you need help with the vocabulary, verb tenses, etc. Here are the questions to answer for EACH article for the month of August. The questions are the same as they were for June and July, but they are in Spanish. You will need to answer the questions in complete Spanish sentences. 1) ¿Qué es el nombre del artículo? 2) ¿En qué sitio web encontraste el artículo? 3) Escribe a máquina un resumen de tres oraciones en español de lo que trata el artículo. An easy way to do this is to summarize it in a sentence or two and then tell me your personal opinion or reaction. Sounds easy, but being succinct and including the most relevant information can be difficult. Do NOT copy and paste a sentence from the article and don’t use a translator! Finally, be sure to use “insert symbols” in Microsoft Word, or google “Spanish accent codes” to learn how to insert symbols on a Mac or using alt codes. Omitting accent marks, upside down question marks, etc. in Spanish is considered a spelling or grammatical error. Learn to use Spanish symbols! ¡Buena suerte! 

Tuesday, July 15, 2014

July 2015 Speaking Assignment

¡Hola estudiantes! Welcome back to our class blog! Just like last time, our activities on the blog will be in the green box located below. Read the activity and follow its instructions.

Activity:

In the IB Summer Assignment packet, item #4 was the speaking assignments. For the July message, you may call my school voicemail at 517-755-4261 and leave a message describing one of the pictures below, or you may do an audio recording of yourself on your computer and e-mail the file to me at charles.horner@lansingschools.net. Choose one of the pictures below. Spend a few minutes thinking about what you can say to describe what you see, what might be happening in the picture, where it might be, etc. Call my voicemail, state your name, and talk about the photo for about two minutes in Spanish. DO NOT write out exactly what you want to say and read it over the phone. DO NOT memorize what you want to say! You can describe the photo, but also BE SURE to talk about the TOPIC of the photo. The captions can help, but should not limit you.


Compañeros universitarios.

¡Me encanta!


Colegas de trabajo.

July 2015 Articles

¡Feliz verano estudiantes! Welcome back to our Spanish 4 IB blog! Our activities on the blog will be in the green box located below. Read the activity and follow its instructions. When you are ready to answer the questions required, scroll down to the bottom of the blog page and click on add comment. Type your answers in the box that pops up and at the end of your answers, include your name. You MUST have your name in the comments box or you will NOT receive credit for your work. This is just like putting your name on your paper! ALSO, you must click anonymous from the drop down boxes listed below the comments box, since the comments are submitted to me for review and not published. If you leave the box for Google ID checked, your answers will be lost in space for all eternity (until you redo it!). If you have ANY questions, please let me know! Tip: If you have any doubts or fears about losing your work, do as I do, and copy and paste your answers into a Word document, Notepad, e-mail to yourself, etc., so you have an electronic copy as backup. I will be posting to the class blog on a weekly basis from now on, so stay tuned and check back frequently!
Activity:

In the IB Summer Assignment packet, item #3 indicated that you were to go to the following links to find a newspaper or news site from a Spanish-speaking country to find articles in Spanish:



You are required to find two current events articles published in July 2014, just like you did for the month of June. Have a hard copy printed of each article. You need to have read them and understand them. A great online dictionary is www.wordreference.com if you need help with the vocabulary, verb tenses, etc. Here are the questions to answer for EACH article for the month of July. These questions are the same as the questions for your June articles, but be aware that the August questions will be different: 1) What is the name of the article? 2) What website did you find the article on? 3) Type a 3 sentence summary in English of what the article is about. An easy way to do this is to summarize it in a sentence or two and then tell me your personal opinion or reaction. Sounds easy, but being succinct and including the most relevant information can be difficult. Do NOT copy and paste a sentence from the article and don’t use a translator! ¡Buena suerte! 

Friday, June 20, 2014

June 2015 Articles

¡Feliz  verano estudiantes! Bienvenidos a nuestro blog de IB para Español 4! Our activities on the blog will be in the green box located below. Read the activity and follow its instructions. When you are ready to answer the questions required, scroll down to the bottom of the blog page and click on add comment. Type your answers in the box that pops up and at the end of your answers, include your name. You MUST have your name in the comments box or you will NOT receive credit for your work. This is just like putting your name on your paper! ALSO, you must click anonymous from the drop down boxes listed below the comments box, since the comments are submitted to me for review and not published. If you leave the box for Google ID checked, your answers will be lost in space for all eternity (until you redo it!).  If you have ANY questions, please let me know! Tip: If you have any doubts or fears about losing your work, do as I do, and copy and paste your answers into a Word document, Notepad, e-mail to yourself, etc., so you have an electronic copy as backup. I will be posting to the class blog on a bi-weekly basis from now on, so stay tuned and check back frequently!
Activity:

In the IB Summer Assignment packet, item #3 indicated that you were to go to the following links to find a newspaper or news site from a Spanish-speaking country to find articles in Spanish:



You are required to find two current events articles for June 2015. Have a hard copy printed of each article. You need to have read them and understand them. A great online dictionary is www.wordreference.com if you need help with the vocabulary, verb tenses, etc. Here are the questions to answer for EACH article for the month of June. July and August questions will be different: 1) What is the name of the article? 2) What website did you find the article on? 3) Type a 3 sentence summary in English of what the article is about. An easy way to do this is to summarize it in a sentence or two and then tell me your personal opinion or reaction. Sounds easy, but being succinct and including the most relevant information can be difficult. Do NOT copy and paste a sentence from the article and don’t use a translator! ¡Buena suerte!