Gran Hotel Monday's - My personal contribution to improving school attendance on Monday'sI know I am late in jumping on the Gran Hotel bandwagon. There have been teachers using it for years in their classrooms. I only started in my AP classes last year, post AP exam. This year I decided to give Gran Hotel a bigger role in my AP classes. Note the top of our class t-shirt (designed and ordered by my students) pictured above. Today is Monday, but we are off from school for President's Day. So, I figured today was the perfect day to share. Monday's are not the most popular day of the week. My 6 year old owns a shirt that says, "OK Monday, Let's Get This Over With". I am not overly energetic on Monday. My students have a difficult time with Monday's, too. I didn't choose Monday without a lot of thought to be Gran Hotel day. It was a purposeful decision. First, let me say a few things for those who are shocked that I would take time out of AP to show a television show. The AP Spanish Language & Culture exam is nothing like the exam I sat for in the mid 1990s. (I realize I just dated myself a bit). There is no grammar section. It is unlike most other AP exams in that there isn't specific content to study. It is about language proficiency. There are six, very broad themes - Public and Personal Identities, Families and Communities, Global Challenges, Science and Technology, Contemporary Life and Beauty and Esthetics (these themes are the same for the current AP Language & Culture exams offered by College Board for other languages). When I first started teaching the AP course at my school during the 2013-2014 school year, I dedicated a day a week (Friday) to grammar review with the grammar book I was given by the previous teacher. By my third year of teaching the course, I moved grammar to Monday's and dedicated Friday's to Book Club (read more about that on my blog here, here and here.) We do interpretive listening practice, and free response tasks in the format of the AP exam Tuesday's, Wednesday's and Thursday's that relate to the AP themes, as well as projects, discussion of current events and watch related films. But, Monday's are regularly scheduled for Gran Hotel. What does Gran Hotel Monday look like? It often starts with kids cheering "Gran Hotel, Gran Hotel" in the hallway on their way to class. I own the entire show on DVD, but it is also back on Netflix. I have my DVD set to start where we last left off. Sometimes we start right away, leaving us time at the end of class for reactions, retelling the story (can you say authentic, meaningful conversation with past tenses?) and often some tweeting. Check out some of our funny posts on Twitter - #GranHotel #APSpanchat and feel free to add to the conversation. Sometimes I screenshot from the segment we are watching ahead of time and put those on a Google Slide deck and we have a brief discussion on predictions (a great way to review the future and conditional tenses, as well as hypotheticals). We usually watch without subtitles, in segments of 25-30 minutes two or three Monday's a month. If you are watching without subtitles, you might want to check out the student guides available on Teachers Pay Teachers created by Mike Peto and Kara Jacobs (check out Kara's blog - it is a wealth of ideas and resources). Another great thing about Gran Hotel is that it can be fairly easily related to the AP themes. Discussing the family dynamic of a wealthy aristocratic family in early 20th century Spain clearly can be tied into the theme of Families and Communities. The role of women at the time goes well with the Public and Personal Identities theme and leads to great discussions and comparisons. That is a great way to work with vocabulary that will come in handy for the cultural comparison task on the AP exam. And, of course, the theme of Beauty and Esthetics can be tied into discussions of fashion and gender roles. The writing of the show itself is also related to this theme. Really, the connections you make are only limited by your creativity. While I believe in limiting direct grammar instruction at the earlier levels, occasionally the AP classes ask for a day of grammar review, so maybe once a month, we do that on the "off Monday". But, I truly see an improvement in fluency and use of advanced grammar structures from the increase in Gran Hotel Monday's and the decrease of 'repaso de gramática' Monday's. I have students who don't want to be absent on Monday. I like to think I am helping overall school attendance on Monday's. My students are engaged with a compelling show, listening to authentic Spanish. And, if you don't teach AP, I recommend you watch the show yourself. I see it as time spent improving my own language skills. The attractive cast doesn't hurt, either. Do you watch Gran Hotel in class? Or just love the show? Share in the comments. Warning - using Gran Hotel in class WILL lead to increased student engagement, better class attendance and language acquisition. I apologize in advance for any cheering students in the hallways of your school!
14 Comments
Mary
5/18/2018 06:55:29 am
Profe, I do use Gran Hotel in my Spanish 3 and 4 classes. We only watch about an 8 minute segment on most Fridays. Then we do all sorts of activities with that segment. My students love it AND I, too, have seen a huge improvement in speaking and writing skills. But I'm wondering, does Mike Peto still use it? I know longer see his materials on TPT.
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5/18/2018 07:12:52 am
Hi Mary!
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Florencia Henshaw
8/9/2018 07:03:47 am
It looks like some materials are back on:
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8/14/2018 08:38:30 am
Hi!
Angela Concha
8/7/2018 01:32:09 pm
I have been toying around with the idea of using a telenovela in my AP class, and I recently started watching El Gran Hotel on my own- I love it! Currently, I use El Internado in my level 4 Honors class and it definitely has led to so much more engagement and authentic language use. I’m so happy to see that other AP teachers are continuing this trend in the upper levels! Thanks so much for your encouragement and ideas!
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8/14/2018 08:42:32 am
I agree 100%. The shows are so compelling! A great source for authentic input and students are engaged. If we make it comprehensible, they buy in. And love coming to class. Many of my students watch ahead on their own (my only rule is no spoilers to their classmates) or find their own Spanish language shows to watch.
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SeƱor G.
8/18/2018 08:35:50 am
Hola:
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8/18/2018 12:06:03 pm
¡Hola!
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Myriam
10/9/2018 11:16:34 am
Do you happen to have the files of the resources you mentioned above? The links are no longer working and I would like to use something other than the three papers available with edunovela. Thanks :)
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10/9/2018 11:36:26 am
Hi!
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Marcy
10/22/2018 04:42:40 am
Do you have a permission slip to get signed you send out? Also, do you have a skip scene guide?
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Karen
2/7/2019 08:02:53 pm
Good question, Marcy! I was wondering the same thing. Just finished watching the Netflix episode 5 on my own and said out loud "ooo!!! not appropriate!!!" like I was a teenager in class, lol. Javier and Eugenia were having a "good time."
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2/8/2019 05:56:52 am
I do skip several scenes in various episodes. I always pre-watch and skip parts that I don't think are appropriate for school. When I have time, I will try to make an official list. It is probably a good idea to pre-watch and choose what is appropriate for your school, though. I find I skip more than other people suggest in certain films/shows. And, other times, I have shown things that some people skip. Each situation is different.
Jana Fairbanks
9/21/2021 07:22:10 am
I got this info from the IMDB Parent Guide. I hope it helps! https://docs.google.com/document/d/1f7SqXXmSsQNB-xnOAZCo68bPQWwCrbcY4nJ-Ocs4QWs/edit?usp=sharing Leave a Reply. |
AuthorHigh school Spanish teacher in NJ. Proficiency-oriented teacher. Always looking to try new things in my classes. Foreign Language Educators of New Jersey 2019 Teacher of the Year. Archives
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