Standard 7: Planning for Instruction:

The teacher plans instruction that supports every student in meeting rigorous learning
goals by drawing upon knowledge of content areas, curriculum, cross discipline skills and
pedagogy, as well as knowledge of learners and the community content.
Artifact 2 Lola Lago Power Point and Questionnaire
Class: SPA 201
National Standards for Foreign Language Learning: 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 2.1, 2.2, 3.1, 3.2
As part of the curriculum for Spanish 201, the students have to read a beginner level short
story based on a detective by the name of Lola Lago. As evidence that I know how to plan for
instruction, I have chosen to include a power point and a questionnaire that I created based on a
book entitled Lola Lago: Una nota falsa. I use both of these tools to check for comprehension
and to aid my students in reading this story. I use technology through the power point to give
them a visual cue to aid in comprehension and I also have them do the questionnaire in class so
that as they are working on it, I can walk around and help each group with any questions they
may have.
When I present the power point, it is on the assumption that the students have already
read the chapters that I have assigned and there are different ways that we go about getting
through the slides. Sometimes they can earn extra credit points by participating in answering the
questions. Other times we play hot potato whereby the students have to pass a marker
around while I read the question on the slide out loud in Spanish and the student who has the
marker in his or her hand when I finish reading it has to answer the question. Another strategy I
use is that I read the first slide out loud and throw a hacky sack to one of the students who then
must try to answer the question. Then when we have completed that slide, that student gets to
choose who he or she wants to answer the question on the next slide by throwing the hacky sack
to the student of his or her choice. Every time I have used any one of these strategies, the
students have loved it and their comprehension of the short story is augmented.
I like to use the power point with the visual cues, the games and promises of extra credit
or candy as a motivational tool. It has been my experience that when we play games like this,
the students get more excited about understanding the story and being able to participate due the
knowledge they have acquired. According to Gardener and Smythe (1975) a student's
motivation to acquire a second language can be as important a determinant of success in
acquiring a second language as is his language aptitude (Gardener and Smythe, 1975, p. 11).
When I plan the lessons that I use in my classroom, I keep in mind different ways that I can keep
my students interested and motivated. Gardener and Smythe (1975) also state that teachers can
do little to modify students' intelligence or language aptitude...
They can, however, attempt to
improve students' motivation, and modify their attitudes (Gardener and Smythe, 1975, p. 249).

Gardner, R. C., & Smythe, P. C. (1975). Second Language Acquisition: A Social

Psychological Approach. Research Bulletin No. 332
Miquel, L. & Sans, N. (2002). Lola Lago: Una nota falsa. New Jersey: Prentice Hall.