Spanish II for the Workplace

Nearly all of the six week themes reflect and support the small learning communities at Casa Grande High School; Health Careers; Arts, Design and Media; Culinary Academics Travel Events Resources; Justice Environment Teaching; and Science Technology and Engineering as well as Regional Occupational Program courses.

Six week themes and related projects/activities;

Every activity has been designed to address as many of the foreign language standards as possible - reading, writing, speaking and listening. Each project/activity is designed to provide an opportunity to learn and practice as many skills related to careers as possible. This learning experience begins with the student interpreting the assignment goal and theme, a plan, the execution of the plan and a final project to be presented for evaluation. Planning, which includes pacing of a project, responsibilities of the various team members and organization are strongly emphasized. Projects are often done in pairs or teams. Students are graded on individual performance.

Vocations -

* poster of a job announcement

* SRJC presentation on professions/careers, educational paths/options as related to potential future income and lifestyle choices

Business -

* chocolate tasting

* calacas building (clay skeletons)

* fair trade commercial

* poster of business process - the bean to the bar (chocolate)

Media and arts -

* games to introduce a profession - primary responsibilities and relevant vocab

* debate about a commercial - is it honest or not?

Public service -

* DVD/pod cast “day in the life of”

Health -

* medical scenarios

* health care speaker

Hospitality -

* food catering to classmates with presentation

* design a brochure with various vacation packages - sell one to the teacher

* SRJC summer volunteer opportunities for students - how to get units/credit

Student work permits

Petaluma Youth Services will lead students from Spanish II for the Workplace through the required workshop for work permits in Petaluma.

Donations

A number of the projects are dependent on donations - in particular the chocolate and calacas projects. Student committees will be responsible for donation requests. Please see the list with other requests on the site

Oral and written exams

The oral and written exams in Spanish II for the workplace are extensions of the six week theme and its projects and activities. The prompts are also tied to the grammatical concepts the students have learned and practiced.

An example prompt for a written essay for the health unit-Recount the events in the medical skit you presented with your tablemates. What went well and what did not? How would you change it?

An example for an oral exam for the public services unit; Imagine you want to be a firefighter and I am interviewing you for the job - What have you done to prepare yourself to be a firefighter? I would expect a brief description of education needed to become a firefighter and some examples of volunteer/intern work a person could do to enhance their chances of successfully completing the interview and being offered a position. This information would have been part of a previous class activity/project.

grammar exams

All level II Spanish students take the same six week and a final grammar exam each semester.

Grammar concepts for Spanish II/Spanish II for the Workplace

First six week grading period

Review of Spanish I concepts

Second six week grading period

Irregular present tense and irregular preterit tense, the imperative “tu”, possessive adjectives

Third six week grading period

Prepositions, imperfect tense, imperative of “usted”, direct objects, reflexive verbs

Fourth six week grading period

Superlative adverbs, ordinal numbers, the present and imperfect perfect tenses, double object pronouns, unintentional events, expressions of time

Fifth six week grading period

Present, preterit and imperfect progressive tenses, preterit versus the imperfect tenses, “ser versus estar” review

Sixth six week grading period

“Por versus para”, relative pronouns, “saber versus conocer”, preparation for final exam -

Six week letters

I usually try to have the students write a letter at the end of each six week grading period to parents/guardians in English or the language of the house and one to me in Spanish. The purpose of the letter is for the students to reflect on what they actually have learned - the process they went through and activities that provided practice to learn in the past six weeks, congratulate themselves on work well done and comment and work to be improved. It is accountability too to you and me. The letter to me also provides a writing sample in Spanish. Please sign the letters your student brings home over the year - they are worth credit for their grades.