Spanish for Homeschool: Lesson One

Welcome to Spanish for Homeschool: Lesson One! Bienvenido a la lección uno!

Activity 1

This is an activity that will help you teach your child the phrase: “I want.” Or, in Spanish: “Quiero.” The instructional video below will show you the gestures that you can then share with your child. These are the gestures that will accompany the song Quiero Comer. Begin by trying the gestures along with the instructional video. After you become familiar with the gestures, try the gestures with the song along with your child.

Song (Quiero Comer)

Step 1: Download the song to your computer or ipod. Then, try to listen to the song every once in a while when you get a chance. If you are interested in what the song sounds like go ahead and listen to it now.

*** These audio files are almost three times larger than most song files you may have downloaded in the past so they will take longer to download. Please be patient. This song is close to eight minutes. Hopefully you will find that it is worth the wait.

[S3AUDIO file=’M111/QuieroComer.mp3′]

[S3FILE file=’M111/QuieroComer.mp3.zip’ anchor=’Download Quiero Comer’]

The first few songs in our lesson focus on the action of wanting. I want (quiero).

Quiero is an important verb. A verb is simply an action word.

As human beings, for better or worse, we spend a great deal of our time ‘wanting.’ We feel desire. We have urges. We want to have or possess things. Young and old alike feel this. Think of young children before they can even talk—they are reaching out for this and that (and putting up quite a stink when they don’t get what they want).

Now, we don’t want to think of quiero as a word to memorize. We want to think of quiero as a feeling and action that we experience. Try this: hold your arms out in front of you, palms up, fingers slightly curled, and as you say “I want,” pull your hands toward you as if drawing that object of desire toward you. This is very different than simply saying a word, or reading a word. The whole action is incorporated into your understanding. That is the basis of Language Dance.

Feel “Quiero.” You see, it is important to feel that feeling of wanting as we hear and say the word. We want to feel the feeling of desire. And, we represent and feel this with our bodies by imagining we are drawing something toward us as we say the phrase. Now pull your hands toward you as if drawing that object of desire toward you and say Quiero. Quiero. You see, our brain is already wired to feel the feeling of wanting. By saying the phrase, imagining that we want something, and performing our gesture, we are wiring the phrase ‘quiero’ to our body’s physical wiring. You are not memorizing a phrase or word that is removed from your bodily experience. You are not wiring the image of a written word that exists outside of your body. You are wiring the phrase to your bodily action and desire. You will notice, when you do this bodily movement, even if only a couple of times, your retention of the phrase is much better than had you tried to memorize the phrase by writing it down. This is not to say that you shouldn’t write the phase down. We will do that as well. That can help too. But initially we want to hear and feel directly with our bodies and allow our brains to make the connections for us.

Step 2: Feel the verbs comer, dormir, jugar and bailar by watching the video clip and imitating the gestures.

I am going to begin by giving you five action words with gestures. The technical term for my word choice is collocation (co: together, and location: place). Collocation is the act of combining words that are naturally located together. ‘Quiero’ and ‘comer’ (‘I want’ and ‘to eat’) are words commonly placed together. So, rather than simply learning the word ‘comer,’ we learn the words in combination. These next phrases will seem obvious. But, as we move further into the lessons, we will often try to understand entire phrases rather than individual words. But more on that later.

Those are our initial action words and gestures.

Step 3: Now we can listen to the song and act out the phrases. Download the song Quiero Comer and put it in your song library so that you can listen to it in the future.

Song Quiero Comer

quiero comer

quiero dormir

quiero jugar

quiero bailar

Step 4: Listen to Quiero Comer once a day, performing the gestures along with the song until you feel, and understand, the phrases.

Activity 2

In this activity we will begin to hear thirty common everyday phrases. Our main purpose is to simply become familiar with the phrases. The repetition in the song will help you remember the phrases. Of course these phrases may already be familiar to you. If not, think of what the phrases mean as you listen. After a few repetitions, you will begin to hear the phrases more clearly and they will soon be familiar to you.

You can help your child understand these phrases by incorporating them into your everyday activities. Or incorporate some role playing into your activities.

First, though, just relax and enjoy the song.

Song (Mariachi)

Step 1: Listen to the song.

(Just click on the play button. It might take a minute to load depending on how fast your internet connection is. You may have to be patient.)

[S3AUDIO file=’M111/MariachFinal.mp3′]

[S3FILE file=’M111/MariachFinal.mp3.zip’ anchor=’Download Mariachi’]

Mariachi

Hola mis amigos  ¿Cómo están?

Muy bien.  Muy bien. Muy bien. Muy bien.

__________________

¿Cómo está señor?  Regular.

Claro que si. Claro que si.  Claro que si.  Claro que si.

__________________

¿Cómo está señora?  No muy bien.

Hasta luego.  Hasta luego . Hasta luego . Hasta luego.

____________________

Chico, ¿Qué pasa?  Nada, lo mismo.

Nada amigo,  todo bien. Nada amigo , todo bien.

_______________________________

Buenos dias señorita  ¿Qué pasa chica?

Nada amiga,  todo bien.  Nada amiga,  todo bien.

_____________________

Gracias señora. No hay de que.

Hasta la vista.  Hasta la vista. Hasta la vista.  Hasta la vista.

_____________________________

Buenas noches mi amor.  ¿Cómo estás?

Hasta pronto.  Hasta pronto . Hasta pronto.  Hasta pronto.

______________________

Gracias señor.  De nada.

Adiós.  Adiós. Adiós.  Adiós.

Step 2: Read through the phrases with the English translations.

Step 3: Listen to the song while reading the phrases. Here are the phrases with the English translations:

hola	hi
mis amigos	my friends
hola mis amigos	hi friends
¿cómo están?	how are you?
muy bien	very well
señor	sir, or mister
¿cómo está señor?	how are you sir?
regular	so so
no muy bien	not very well
señorita	miss
hasta luego	until later
claro que sí	of course
chico	boy, young man
¿qué pasa?	what’s up, what’s happening
nada	nothing
lo mismo	same ol’
gracias	thank you
señora	mrs. , madam
no hay de que	don’t mention it, you’re welcome
de nada	it’s nothing, you’re welcome
¿que pasa chica?	what’s up girl?
nada amiga	nothing friend
todo bien	all is well
buenos días (sometimes buen dia is used)	good morning, good day
adiós	good bye
hasta la vista	(literally until the view), until we meet (or see each other) again.
buenas noches	good night
me amor	my love
hasta pronto	(literally until soon), see you soon

Step 4: It might help if you print out the words to the song and keep them handy so you can reference them during your practice time.

Step 5: If you have difficulty hearing the phrases, download the song to your computer and have the song available to listen to once a day until you hear the phrases and they are understandable.

Activity 3

Cognates are words that are very similar in both Spanish and English. In this activity I will introduce you to twenty cognates. Of course one of the great things about becoming familiar with cognates is that you will find your vocabulary will increase rapidly.

Step 1. Read through the following list of cognates.

bicycle	bicicleta
gas	gas
gasoline	gasolina
terrible	terrible
student	estudiante
satisfaction	satisfacción
dictionary	diccionario
balcony	balcon
false	falso
hospital	hospital
family	familia
elegant	elegante
error	error
fabulous	fabuloso
bank	banco
vacation	vacación
Pacific	pacifico
pharmacy	farmacia
artist	artista
chimpanzee	chimpancé

Step 2. Listen to the accompanying audio so that you can hear the way the new words sound. (Each new word is repeated four times to help you hear the way the word is pronounced).

[S3AUDIO file=’M111/Cognates20Repeat4(ES).mp3′]

Step 3. Download the audio to your library so that you can listen to the audio at your own convenience.

[S3FILE file=’M111/Cognates20Repeat4(ES).mp3.zip’ anchor=’Download Cognates 1 – 20′]

I hope you and your child enjoyed the songs and had fun acting and dancing.

In our next lesson we will learn a few jokes (bromas) and add one more song to our repertoire.

Until then, have a great day!

Spanish for Homeschool: Lesson One

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