Sample lesson plan using technology
Title:Introducing students to socially conscious Hispanic music
Overview: Juanes is one of Latin America’s most famous singers. He is also involved in raising awareness about social problems, including the situation with homeless children in his home country of Colombia. Students will find out about Juanes and his work, especially the song La historia de Juan. Students will practice the preterite, especially in the third person singular, since that appears often in this particular song. Students will search the internet for other songs with interesting lyrics, and give their reactions.
Rationale: Many students are very much immersed in music these days. With the guidance of the teacher in the correct cultural framework, students will be able to connect the cultural pop world of music in Latin America with the social reality of some of the countries there. The review of the preterite will be done without putting explicit emphasis on grammar.
The particular song La historia de Juan was chosen because it is relatively slow with relatively basic vocabulary. There are already resources on the internet for using this song in Spanish classrooms.
Objectives: The students will:
1) learn about the role and participation of some singers and about the social problems in some of the countries in Latin America.
2) enhance their listening skills.
3) practice the preterite.
4) analyze the contents of a song and video
5) discuss the role of Latino singers when voicing social concerns in their countries.
6) explore the availability of Spanish songs on the internet.
Resources/Materials:
People en Español magazine
Compact disc: Un día normal by Juanes
Video at
Social organization at
Cloze activity for La historia de Juan. Enough copies for half the class in pairs; available at
Picture of Juanes superimposed on the lyrics of La historia de Juan (also available at the previous location)
PowerPoint presentation with video of Juanes
Level: Second year or higher
Duration: Two periods of 50 minutes, plus a home activity at the end
First day:Establishing the set: Show article about Juanes from People en Español magazine to promote his new album. Give information about Juanes and his accomplishments, such as being a twelve-time Latin Grammy winner. Show pictures of him.
The teacher with the help of the projector will continue the class with a PowerPoint presentation about Juanes and video footage of some of his performances.
The students as a whole group will listen to La historia de Juan once as a warm-up so that students will be familiar with the rhythm and tune of the song. Then they will be asked to write down isolated words from the song as they listen for the second time. As a group, they will help the teacher write a list of the words and try to guess was the theme and the name of the song.
Main activity: Divide the class in two groups. In each group divide the students into pairs. Each pair in the first group will get the picture of Juanes superimposed on the lyrics, cut into a puzzle. They will assemble the puzzle (in accordance with the lyrics, the picture only becomes clear after putting the lyrics in the right order). Each pair in the second group will get the cloze activity with the missing words. The first group will finish before the second, and then be available to help the second group. The day will end with the students listening to the song one more time, now with better knowledge of the lyrics.
Second day:Warm-up activity. Students will be given another copy of the lyrics. They will identify verbs in the third person preterite (simple past). There are many of them in this particular song, most regular (ending in ó) and a few irregular (quiso, fue). They will write down the corresponding infinitive and give the English meaning.
Main activity: Students will watch the video that accompanies the song. This video illustrates the song by showing scenes in the life of a poor child named Juan. Students will go to computers and find more information about homeless children in Colombia through the website:
This website has an English version and a Spanish version, and students will be required to use the Spanish version.
The class will then make a circle so they will be able to face each other and have discussion in Spanish. Possible questions include:
Are there many children living in the streets of Colombia?
Does the United States have similar problems?
Are there singers in the United States singing about social issues?
This is a challenging theme to bring to the classroom. The level of the students will determine the level of the conversation.
Home activity: Students will be asked to find another song in Spanish with interesting lyrics, either by Juanes or another artist. Their song may be found on YouTube or elsewhere on the internet. They need to e-mail me a link to the song and its lyrics, and their reactions to it, all in Spanish.
Assessment: In class participation will be assessed informally. The home activity will be graded E/S/U.
Types of interactions:
There is teacher-learner interaction as the teacher presents the lesson. Also while guiding the discussion about the content of the song and its message.
Learner-learner as the students get together to resolve the picture puzzle and the cloze activity in partners. They will also ask question to each other.
Learner-tool interaction as the students will use the internet to locate and watch the music video in YouTube. In the process, they will find out that YouTube is available in the Hispanic world. Also students will need to copy a link into an e-mail, and write with accents in an e-mail program.
Learner-content interaction occurs when the students watch the video to deepen understanding of the message in the song.
Gregorc Learning Styles
Concrete Sequential: These learners might feel comfortable with this activity. The teacher will give clear directions to do the activity. They will enjoy the tactile activity where they need to rebuild the picture to get the lyrics of the song.
Concrete Random: The CR will like very much the activities in this lesson. The CR learners will love the trial-and error approach of the part where they have to write the order of the lyrics in the song or put together the picture puzzle to get the song. They will also enjoy the competition involved in the process. The environment full of song and music will be a plus for the CR learner. Finally, searching for their own song in the home activity will appeal to CR learners.
Abstract Sequential: This type of learner will use their previous knowledge of the language to capture the words in the song. It will be a challenge for them to deal with the music in the song as it might become a distraction in their quest to get the words from the song. They will feel much more comfortable, once they have the entire lyrics. They will like the grammar part at the beginning of the second day.
Abstract Random: The AR learners will love this lesson. Almost all the elements will be appealing to them: The visual, the round-table discussion, and the emotional content of the lesson. They will like giving their reactions to the songs they found in the home activity.