En Fajita the Night (Spanish I and II food unit)

In Fajita the Night (Spanish I and II Food Unit)

Unit Overview
This unit will teach students the names of meals, foods eaten by various cultures, and certain ingredients that make up each dish. The unit engages students by having them discuss their favorite foods and their eating habits before making their learning relevant when they go to a Mexican restaurant and order in Spanish.




Unit Content
In this unit, students will learn the names of meals, to include breakfast, lunch, tapas, and dinner. We will discuss the cultural association with tapas and Spain. They will learn the names of their favorite foods and various foods from Hispanic culture. They will know the components of various foods, to include names of fruits and vegetables, kinds of meats, etc. They will also learn the parts of a table setting and how to order food at a restaurant.

From ACOS:
6. Identify tangible and intangible products of a target culture, including symbols and expressive art forms.
Examples: tangible—food, clothing, paintings, flags;
intangible—national anthems, religion

Teaching Context for Unit
This unit will be taught in a culturally diverse classroom to juniors and seniors. There will be varying degrees of motivation, academic support at home, and demographics. Many of them will be below grade level in reading, so we will do a lot of work with spoken Spanish and pictorial representation of content. I think it will be interesting to see if the students with lower proficiency in reading their L1 will be able to learn well in L2 when it is presented in a different way than their L1 was.

Unit Concept
Nearly everyone these days has at least tried Mexican food and many people eat it quite frequently. I will show students that they can expand their boundaries by being able to order in Spanish to both ensure that their orders are correct and to realize that they do have people in their lives with whom they can converse in Spanish. They will be engaged because the end of the unit will be a field trip to a Mexican restaurant for lunch. They will also draw from their own experiences to discuss the foods that they like, which is at a very high level on Bloom's.

Unit and Lesson Plans

Connect (Quadrant 1R)
Students will write about interesting/preferred foods. They will have time to write about the foods and we will review them together.

Attend (Quadrant 1L)
Students will compare and discuss their writings in small groups. They will talk about what they like about the food and the environment in which it was served.

Imagine (Quadrant 2R)
Students will be given a stack of cards with vocabulary words (in Spanish) from which to choose. They will draw a picture of the food on the board for other class members to guess. To accommodate varied learning styles, they will also be able to describe the food in Spanish without using its name.

Inform and Practice (Quadrants 2L and 3L)
Each day in this table is listed with the 2 Left activity and the 3 Left activity. At times, 2 Left activities are geared toward the 2 Right as well. When they are, they are indicated as such in parentheses. When teaching second language, it is important that direct translation be avoided as much as possible, so I will mostly teach with pictures and realia.

Extend (Quadrant 3R)
In small groups, students will be allowed to choose the assignment they want to complete. They will be able to choose one of the following1) Create a page to go in a cookbook with a picture of the food they have chosen. The food they choose must be one that is indigenous to a Spanish-speaking country. 2) Choose a food and describe why it is part of the indigenous cuisine (i.e. Paella comes from the Mediterranean coast because seafood is easily accessible in that region) 3) Create a tri-board or youtube video instructing classmates how to make a dish from a Spanish-speaking country. 4) Create their own project with teacher’s approval.

Refine (Quadrant 4L)
Students will spend 2 days in class in groups working on their projects.

Perform (Quadrant 4R)
Students who decide on options 1 and 2 (the cookbook page or the research project) will be allowed to turn in their completed work or present it to the class. The students who choose option 3, tri-board will put their completed work up in the classroom and other students will have the opportunity to look at it in small groups. Students who choose option 3, youtube video will present to the class. Students who choose option 4 may be required to present at the teacher’s discretion. We will then go to lunch at a Mexican restaurant and all students will be required to order their food in Spanish (not using only the number on the menu). They will speak only Spanish during the lunch. When we return, they will reflect on the lunch.