Musical Comparisons
Students are first introduced to three types of target culture music (e.g. El reggaetón, El son cubano, salsa). Then, students listen to three different songs and identify them based on musical instruments used, lyrics, and rhythms. Possible songs: a) Buena Vista Social Club-Chan Chan (Cuba) [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnFfKbxIHD0], b) Gilberto Santa Rosa-Dejate querer (Puerto Rico) [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCj5jdNIn1A], c) El conejito por Joan y O’neil (Puerto Rico) [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOHpcoI_3pA]
Sample Activity 1
Sample Activity 2
Subtitle Sleuth
More advanced students may notice that translators and those who produce the subtitles of films and television shows must sometimes deviate from the original language choices in order to help the audience better understand an idea outside its cultural frame of reference. By providing a graphic organizer we can help students notice these types of discrepancy and activate their knowledge of the TL culture to explain why those discrepancies occur.
Sample Activity
Celebrity Chefs
Celebrity chef television programs are popular around the world. Sharing such shows may connect to students’ prior knowledge of famous chefs or cooking shows and provides an opportunity to see cultural differences and similarities. In the activity example, chefs from various regions of Spain compete while sharing dishes from their respective regions.
Sample site: http://tinyurl.com/saboresesp
Sample Activity