Spanish-Speaking Culture Sheets: More than a Simple Worksheet

Recently a co-worker told me she was teaching the Spanish-speaking countries and capitals and my next question was, “Why?” Not that there is anything wrong with teaching those, but if the end goal is just so students can recite the countries and capitals of Hispanic countries, we’ve done a disservice. These Spanish-speaking country culture sheets dive deeper into Hispanic countries and culture. At first glance, it may look like a fill-it-in, review-it, file-it worksheet but if you know me, you know I want to get the most mileage out of every resource I make. Let me show you why these are so much more than a simple worksheet.

As an Introduction

Some of these I specifically designed as an introduction to people or concepts I’ll be teaching this year. Colombia features the musical group Bomba Estéreo. I’ll use this sheet with my physical/personality description unit and the song “Soy yo“. (Click here to learn more about how I use “Soy yo”) I’m also planning to include their song, “Internacionales” this year during Hispanic Heritage month.

For upper-levels, I’ll be teaching about La Guerra Sucia in Argentina and hope to teach the novel from Fluency Matters so that sheet mentions Las Abuela de Plaza de Mayo.

Kara Jacobs (Twitter @karacjacobs) recently shared this awesome video from Juan Luis Guerra that shows off the Dominican Republic. Guess who is on the DR sheet and guess which video I’ll be using with Spanish 1 to review colors, simple -ar verbs (bailar, cantar, montar, caminar, tocar, etc)? Yep! The DR sheet will serve as an intro to who Juan Luis Guerra is.

As a Starting Point for Something Bigger

You could give each student a different country and have them use this sheet as an outline to create a presentation about the country that they present live in class, create a Prezi, Flipgrid, or Screencast-o-Matic video.

Another option is to have students pick one of the places of interest and plan a trip to that country. What will they wear? How will they get there? What phrases will they need to know and what will they do once there?

I love food. Students could actually make one of the food items (assuming the ingredients are available where you live!) and make a video or food blog post about it.

When Should I Use These?

In my opinion, there is way too much information on these Hispanic culture sheets to cram in to one month AND to do it justice. I plan to space them out over the course of an entire school year and introduce 1 or 2 countries each month. How will you use these sheets in your classes?

Grab your copy of the Hispanic culture sheets here!

Teaching the Preterite? Download a free one page (front & back) Preterite Quick Reference Sheet! It covers all the major grammar of the preterite tense in one handy, easy-to-use sheet.

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