De la nao al aula
A Proficiency and Cultural Competency building program for Intermediate Spanish
Every year since 2019, my students and I have taken on the challenge of building their Spanish proficiency by reading the Spanish novel “Yo fui el primero: La increíble historia real de la primera vuelta al mundo”. It has been our fortune to collaborate all these years with Spanish author Natacha Sanz Caballero, who introduced me to the first edition of her novel the same year that the V Centenary of the First Circumnavigation of the Earth begun to take place (1519-1522).
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Building Proficiency
With four years of implementation, DE LA NAO AL AULA is more than a reading skills program for students at the intermediate Spanish level. DE LA NAO AL AULA is a complete proficiency building program that integrates continuous practice of the three modes of communication: interpretative, interpersonal, and presentational. Throughout one school semester, students read the novel at a comfortable pace, building on their Spanish comprehension skills activities ("Registros de lectura"). They also work in small group and large group classroom discussions (“Coloquios”) to build their presentational and interpersonal communication skills in Spanish.
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Building Cultural Proficiency
Literature is a powerful tool to help build cultural competency such as demonstrating empathy and the ability to view the world from different perspectives.
"Yo fui el primero" provides students with an on-going exercise of these skills because the novel is narrated from the perspectives of two young men who were part of the Armada of Moluccas.
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DE LA NAO AL AULA
is our yearly adventure!
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Let's set sail!
¡Zarpemos!
