Instructional Activity #1

TEACHER: Ryan Culpepper

SUBJECT: Spanish 3 (Novice-High to Intermediate-Low)
GRADE: 10-12
UNIT: Whats in a relationship/friendship?
DURATION OF LESSON: 50 minutes
TEXTBOOK: Expresate Level III

Pre-activity
REVIEW: Greetings, small-talk conversation starters, sharing basic personal information
in the day(s) leading up to the activity.
Teacher Instructions: Allow students time to greet and talk for a minute or two. As
theyre talking, take note of common occurrences to report back to students. If possible,
video tape the students to show to them at a later time.

Student Instructions: Find a classmate that you dont know or dont know very well.
Pretend like youre meeting for the first time. Introduce yourselves to one another and
make small talk for 1 minute. Then, answer the following questions about your
conversation.
1) What was the first thing you did (not said) when meeting one another?
2) Would what you had done been different if the person would have been of the
other gender? What would have been different?
**Discuss answers as a class.

Purpose:
This lesson serves as an introductory activity to meeting new people and assessing
possible friendships and/or romantic relationships. Since touching varies widely between
the U.S. culture and many latin cultures, its important for students to be able to convey
and interpret the correct message through touching about members of the target culture.

Activity:
Objective: To demonstrate the differences between the touching habits during the
beginning of a conversation in Latin America and the U.S.

Standards: National: 1.1, 2.1; Texas: 2.A
Materials: envelopes, strips of paper with different greeting scenarios, reflection pages,
Assessment: Teacher questioning/Review of reflection pages

Teacher Instructions: Have students form two equally numbered circles. Have an inner
circle and an outer circle. Give each student in the inner circle an envelope with specific
instructions on how they should act in each scenario. At each stop around the circle, read
the scenario aloud for students. When they have finished, students in the outer circle
should note on their reflections page how they felt with such a scenario. Have students in
the outer circle rotate after students finish with each scenario. Make sure that students in
the inner circle follow the instructions. If you feel students may not do well with cheek
kissing, it may be a good idea to only demonstrate this via a video or with another teacher
(if available). Similarly, giving students the option before the activity to not partake if
they feel uncomfortable and/or making parents aware of the activity ahead of time could
prove to be beneficial.

Student Instructions: Listen carefully to the instructions of your teacher. Only change
partners when he/she says to do so. If youre in the inner circle, be sure to read your slip
of paper for each scenario before beginning. If youre in the outer circle, take note about
how you feel when the person attempts to greet you in the way theyre instructed to.

Scenario 1: You and your friend (both males) have not seen each other in several weeks.
Greet one another with a long overdue hello.
*Instructions to Inner-circle student: Attempt to give your friend a hug and a strong
handshake. Grab their shoulder while shaking their hand. Discuss what is new.

Scenario 2: You a friend of a friend for the first time. Introduce yourself and make
small-talk.
*Instructions to Inner-circle Student: Mimic kissing the other person on the cheek by
bringing your face close (not too close) to the others and making the smooch sound. Do
that for both sides of their face.

**Students go back to seats to complete reflection page and to make
comparisons/contrasts between the differences in how the outer circle and inner circle
attempted greeting in the different scenarios.

Follow-up Activity
Show videos of people performing these greetings in the target culture so that students
can see how these greetings look. Then, question students on how these greetings would
be interpreted to a member of that community. Further question them about what these
greetings portray to the other about their beliefs about the relationship between the other
individual.

Link to Readings
This activity is linked to helping students see how body language plays a crucial role in
the way we interpret messages, as is seen in chapter 4 in Moran. The activity, standing
alone, addresses the knowing-how part of the knowings framework. Though, if coupled
with the pre-activity and post-activity suggestions, it would address all four knowings.