By Mr. Charlie Sellers, Modern Languages Faculty

A Community of Language Learners

“¡Manos con manos, dedos con dedos, puños, palmas, pulgares, dedos índices, dedos meñiques… descanso!”  I orchestrate these commands while the class stands in a circle giving each other high fives and joining fingers, fists, palms, thumbs, index fingers, then they wait for the next direction.  “Espaldas con espaldas.”  Everyone goes back to back. “¡Cinco, cinco, diez, diez, codos, codos, pies, pies!”  The students face their conversation partners, and again give high fives, tens, and knock elbow, elbow, foot, foot.  They wait for the prompt to respond to an attention-grabbing hook about a brief, animated short film about Día de los muertos.  On my cue in groups of two, the students start listing elements that we have studied from Día de los muertos that they saw in the video, which is a novice skill (ACTFL).  “¡Díez al revés!”  The kids give backwards high fives to their classmates who are standing behind them in the circle, turn to face each other, and, again, responding to another prompt, and they start narrating using the past tenses to recount what happened in the video, addressing Intermediate-High Level discourse (ACTFL).