The Hot Tamale Blog

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Languages of the World

There are 7,000 languages spoken in the world.

While we are learning about Latin America today many of you had excellent questions about languages of the world. Below are some Hot Tamale Activities to explore you curiosity.

What does it mean to be a Romance language?

Read and summarize in your own words these two links. Feel free to do your own research.

Why is Latin a "dead language"?

Google it and see what you find. Summarize the information and link your sources

Here is a story of a language only spoken by two people in Mexico, but they don't get along so they don't speak to each other!

Read the article and summarize in your own words. What would you do if you were them?
If you were the last person to speak a language, what would you do? Would you try to record yourself speaking it? Try to teach it to others?
This page has images of places that have languages that are becoming extinct. Create your own map of these places.

National Geographic has a whole website dedicated to languages that are becoming extinct.

Select a region and click on the Hotspot. Then click "more about this Hotspot" and read the information. Summarize the information in an email.

Sunday, January 13, 2013

Your travel list/map

View My Travel Map in a larger map Above is a map of some places I've been and some places I want to go.

Where have you been? Where do you want to go?

Hot Tamale Activities (email bordner@cityhigh.org)

Email me a list of where you've been (and what you did there) and where you want to go (and why you want to go there). You can also create a blog post describing this and adding photos of you!
Create your own map like this. Watch this video to get started and this video to add details.
What is the worst place you've ever been? Why was it so bad? What is the best place you've ever been? What made it great?

The places you select do not have to be Spanish speaking countries. You may (and should) also talk about any travel around the United States.

Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Geography and History

As we are learning about geography this week I am reminded of two videos/images.

This is a video of the borders of European countries over the last 1000 years. (This can be viewed without music)

This is a gif image of the amount of land that Native Americans lived in over the last 250 years.

Hot Tamale Activities (email bordner@cityhigh.org)

How do these images connect to what we are doing in this class? How do these images connect to what you are learning in other classes? How do these images connect to what you have learned before?
What events led to the borders changing? (To find this answer you should research on Google/Wikipedia)
Find other images of maps from around the world and at different times and send me the link.

Friday, December 14, 2012

Why learn a world language? Videos made by students

Students, I could tell you all the benefits of learning a world language. I could go ON and ON about the opportunities you get when you able to respectfully and appropriately communicate in another language. I could babble for hours about my own journey of language learning. Like that job I had in Switzerland calling people and asking for their current contact information in Spanish and French, or the job in Mexico where I helped research the possibility of a National Football League team on the border of Mexico. We all know that you would probably not be impressed.

These videos of students describing how learning a world language are impressive. They are way better. Watch them.

Hot Tamale Activities (email me at bordner@cityhigh.org)

rank the top 5 videos and explain why you like them
choose 3 videos and give suggestions on how you would improve them
plan your own video! What would you show? What would you say?

Your hair dryer/phone charger won't work in many other countries

Ladies and gentlemen - I am doing you a HUGE favor by telling you this now as opposed to you finding out the hard way.

OUTLETS ARE DIFFERENT IN OTHER PLACES

This means you have to buy/borrow a dohickie (aka adapter) to plug in between your phone charger and the international outlet. And ladies, I cannot tell you how many times I have ruined a perfectly good hair dryer or hair iron because the wattage is also different in other countries. (Pro tip - get comfortable going natural with your hair or waste money on a appliance once you get to the country you're going to.)

Hot Tamale Activities (email your response to bordner@cityhigh.org)

identify the country for the flags - extra bonus include the watt power
send me links to different adapters that you can buy online and tell me which one I should get and why

How to Laugh online in Different Languages

There's a lot of ways to laugh online in English

LOL

hahaha

teehee

:D

But how to translate that to another language? Read this article to find out how to laugh online in 12 different languages.

Hot Tamale Activities (email me at bordner@cityhigh.org)

find images like this (or create your own) using different language laughs
create a Google Map with laughs from around the world (check out how to do this in these 2 videos here and here. Different project, same tool)
figure out and explain to me how to type those Chinese marks (I have no idea!)
explain which one of those is the most interesting to you? Why?

Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Photos from Traveling around Mexico City

Students in 10th grade have been researching and planning a trip to Mexico City. On Wednesday, they will be looking up places to go/things to see in and around Mexico City. Below are some links to slideshows of when I visited Mexico City.