You Tube Lessons...

Here is an assignment that my kids had a lot of fun with. The assignment was to find a video of something that showed culture in a specific region of Spain. The class was on Civilization and Culture of Spain, and each student was put in a group and assigned one of the regions of Spain. When they came to class, I had a laptop with a projector set up in the class. Each student then put in their video link and then after showing the video, explained how it related to the region they had been assigned. This of course was all done in the target language. Just an example from the group that had Catalonia as their region. I will say that having open ended assignments like this, though scary from the teacher's point of view have been incredibly rewarding! I often feel like I learn more from my students on these days than I ever teach them!

Technology ideas for your Foreign language classroom

Today's link is: Medinalia.com. This site has television and radio from around the world and is sortable by language or country. So how do you use something like this as a classroom assignment? Here is one I have done with great success.
1. Students watch 1/2 hour news loop from news station in target language. (Check out Medinalia or other online TV providers for news stations in your target language.)
2. Students choose something from the broadcast that interested them.
3. Students look up article on that subject in target language newspapers.
4. Students come to class and give 1-2 minute presentation on what they saw, what the news article said, and if the two sources of information varied in content or bias.

Assignment can be adjusted for multiple levels of students.