The Secret to A Great Food or Cooking Unit
I love teaching about food in Spanish but I love teaching about cooking even more! My students often tell me the cooking unit is one of their favorites. Why? Well, most everyone enjoys food. I usually have several students who enjoy cooking. But the real secret? Doña Ángela.
The Authentic Resource You NEED In Your Life
Meet Doña Ángela, the sweetest lady ever from Michoacán México.
In 2019, her family started posting videos of her cooking on YouTube and they are a treasure!
- She speaks relatively slowly in several of the videos (you can also slow down the videos)
- The visual input matches what she is narrating
- There is a lot of “dead air” or quiet time when she’s not speaking which gives students time to process the words with the visual.
- If you use several of her videos, she is very repetitive in the verbs and vocab (olla, voy a poner…, dejar, moler, etc) she uses.
- She makes dishes my students have heard of (enchiladas, gorditas, huevos rancheros, etc) but have never seen the authentic versions of.
I’m Not The Only One Who Loves Her!
Doña Ángela is legitimately YouTube famous which means there are several articles written about her like this one in English or this one where you learn she was listed as one of the 100 most influential female leaders of Mexico and hit 3 million subscribers (she currently has 3.5 million as I write this).
Unlike many YouTube videos, most of the comments on hers are heart-warningly positive and offer yet another opportunity for authentic resources (I screenshot and share them because you never know what will pop up in the comments!)
How I Use Her Videos
- I open the unit with infographics about metates and molcajetes so students are familiar with the tools.
- I show one of her videos and have students listen for words they know (my students have already had a food unit so they know some food words). They can usually pick out words like “poner” and “voy”.
- As we progress in the unit, I have students narrate with a partner or write the steps she is doing
- Students write recipes using commands and direct object pronouns (more on commands with pronouns here)
- The class compares and contrasts her cooking skills with our own (knife skills, frying in hot oil scares most of my students and me!)
- We give our opinion if the food looks good and if we’d like to try it
- I also show other cooking videos from Mexico in kitchens similar to ours so my students don’t think that everyone in Mexico cooks in this setting.
Go Check Out Doña Ángela!
How will you use these amazing videos? Let me know below!
