Description of the topic taught

The Family unit was met with much excitement from the students. The unit covered
many different subtopics covering terms for family relationships, descriptive adjectives,
possessive adjectives, present tense of common regular er and ir verbs, the present tense of
tener and venir, and geographical and cultural information about Ecuador. Throughout the unit,
students were required to learn and practice the terms for family relationships while focusing on
high-frequency descriptive adjectives, forms, agreement, and position of adjectives ending in
o/-a,-e, or a consonant.
Relevance of the Topic
This unit covered two Novice-Low World Languages standards. The first standard we
addressed was Communication in Languages Other than English Standard 1.3. Students met this
standard through several lessons that presented very familiar topics (written and oral) using
isolated words and high-frequency phrases (presentational mode). Language learners started with
words to make meaning and then, through various assessments, they acquired and retained the
information. By learning about terms for family relationships, students were able to see the
specific adjectives and verb conjugations that must be used in order to describe family members.
The second standard we addressed was Knowledge and Understanding of Other Cultures
Standard 2.1. Students met this standard through several lessons that identified common
practices within the target cultures studied. Language learners started with identifying common
practices within their own culture and then compared them to practices of the target culture
studied. By learning about practices within the target culture, students were able to acquire
knowledge and understanding of other cultures. Additionally, students were able to identify
common products within the target culture studied.

Significance of the Topic

Study of the Family presents an important relevance to the students appreciation of the
significance of family and friends. Through learning about the Family, students are able to
identify and talk about their family and friends, describe people and things, and express
ownership. By studying the Family, students learned about relationships by observing various
family trees such as Spains Royal Family. They came to understand the grammatical
construction behind a description; that in Spanish, descriptive adjectives are used with the verb
ser to point out characteristics such as nationality, size, color, shape, personality, and appearance.
Students were also able to read about average Hispanic household sizes and learned why learning
terms related to family and friends is so important.
Students also learned about the present tense of common regular er and ir verbs, such
as tener and vivir. Since we see different verb tenses, this unit allowed the students to
understand specific changes with the er and ir verbs, why we see a different conjugation for
each pronoun. Present tense of common regular er and ir verbs was a very relevant subject
within the students study and understanding of the Family. The topic of relationships was of
particular interest to the class as we described distinct relationships. By acquiring the particular
vocabulary and understanding the grammatical structure needed to describe relationships and
people, students came to understand verb agreement and essential grammatical structure when
describing nouns.
Relevance in the Curricular Series
The Family unit followed all of the units pertaining to relationships. Prior to the Family
unit, students studied about greetings and leave-takings, identifying themselves and others,

expressions of courtesy, pronunciation of the Spanish alphabet, culture of Spanish speaking

countries, nouns and articles, numbers 0-30, present tense of ser, and telling time. Students
gained a significant understanding of the grammatical structures of functional phrases in Spanish
before exploring the Family. Since grammatical structures of functional phrases in Spanish differ
from those in English, students need to have a firm understanding of the characteristics of
functional phrases in Spanish. For example, when describing a noun in English, the forms of
descriptive adjectives do not change to reflect the gender (masculine/feminine) and number
(singular/plural) of the noun or pronoun they describe. In Spanish however, the forms of
descriptive adjectives agree in gender and/or number with the nouns or pronouns they describe.
It was important for students to understand the difference of forms and agreement of adjectives
between English and Spanish. Students also gained an understanding of how vital forms,
agreement, and position of adjectives are and how they differ from those in English. They
learned for example, that although adjectives are words that describe people, places, and things,
descriptive adjectives are used with the verb ser in Spanish. Moreover, the verb ser is used to
point out characteristics such as nationality, seize, color, shape, personality, and appearance.
Students learned about this during the Family unit and they learned how forms and agreement of
adjectives can affect functional phrases. After learning about this students were able to compare
and contrast grammatical structures of functional phrases in English and Spanish.