BRINGING THE SPANISHKIDS TO LIFE!
Ways in which this resource could be used to teach about identity and diversity in Spain...
Firstly, it would be necessary that you, as teacher:
- Spend some time just exploring the website.
- Familiarise yourself with the nine characters and their diverse ethnic, social and cultural backgrounds.
When you have had a look around, you can introduce the characters to your pupils and, working in small groups (or individually, as appropriate), ask them to choose a character to 'bring to life' in the following ways:
- Art - Task 1:
Creating a full-size picture of a chosen character,
which can even be drawn as a caricature1.
Then, they must give the reasons for choosing that character.
The creation of characters in this way 'brings them to life'
in your school... Within the web, the characters from inside and
outside Spain, each with different experiences and characteristics,
are portrayed in various dress styles. It's necessary to defeat stereotypes
about youngsters' way of dressing because of their ethnicity, culture,
religion, or even social or economic status. In fact, nowadays, we would
rather speak about a 'Western homogenisation' -even Americanisation-,
not only in dressing.
Task 2:
Exploring cultural and artistic traditions etc. using the characters:
e.g. Burama's parents come from Gambia, in Africa; Josep is Catalan and he is not mean; Isabel is part Andalusian yet she is not lazy as in the usual stereotype; Lucia is a Roma and she wants to go to university; Mohamed is half Moroccan and half Spanish (Andalusian mother), but his facial features are Moroccan... Music/dancing, literature, painting, architecture, etc. could be considered.
Task 3:
Drawing a 'younger version' of their chosen character: e.g. what did Ivan / Burama/ Lucía / Josep / Maruxa / Mohamed / Urpi / Isabel or Edurne look like at 6, 7, 8... years old?
- History - Task:
Using the information given by the chosen character's relative,
who introduces him/herself on the site, to explore aspects of his/her
personal history, patterns of migration, etc.
E.g. Mohamed was born in Morocco, but he and his family migrated to Spain; Urpi, originally from Peru, may have also have a partly Spanish descent because of the America conquest; Burama and his family came to Spain from a country (Gambia) whose major religion is Islam and where English is an official language; Josep's grandfather is Galician; Lucía's roots come from the North of India...
- Geography - Task:
Tracing back the geographical roots of the character's family.
E.g. Mohamed, Ivan, Lucía, Urpi and Burama,
all have roots overseas. Others have roots in different parts of Spain.
All these birthplaces could be marked on a map.
- Language work - Task:
Employing the text and narratives on the website as pretexts or "starters"
to deal with themes related to language/s, such as its use, bad use and abuse; the spoken and written language (formal / cultured, informal / plain, common speech...); sign language; Braille language; machine / programming language; mobile language and 'modern language'; business language; journalese and TV / radio language; body language; languages spoken in Spain; minority and minimized languages; dialects and dialecticisms; jargon and argot; synonyms and antonyms; homonyms, homographs, homophones; Swahili and Esperanto; gibberish / nonsense; discourses, pleas, harangues, long-winded and fiery speeches; soliloquies (monologues) and syllogisms; loanwords and foreign words or phrases (Gallicisms, Anglicisms, Arabisms, Italianisms, Germanisms...); taboos and euphemisms; first (mother) and second (acquired) languages; most spoken languages in the world; classic languages and 'dead languages' (hardly used or in decline); bilingualism, diglossia, multilingualism; monolingual, polyglot (plurilingual); language and culture.
- Other subjects and ideas - Task 1:
Identifying items / artefacts from other countries.
For example, when we travel, sometimes we bring something back from this or that country, or from this or that area of our own country. It could be asked:
what is it?, what's it for?, have you seeing something similar?, etc.
Task 2:
Preparing a list with the name and a brief description of three typical meals from inside and three from outside Spain.
Another possibility, afterwards perhaps, could be to
try preparing (or buy) some of those meals and bring them to school...
Task 3:
Perhaps, after having worked through the website sufficiently, you could
organise any special activity related to interculturality
(conference, talk-discussion, video forum, etc.) taking the opportunity of a special day or celebration (Carnivals, Christmas, Easter, end of the academic year, Day of...). Among other, Intermón, Fundeso or Intercultura-net websites could be good sources of useful information and ideas.
Intermón: http://www.intermon.org;
Fundeso: http://www.fundeso.org;
Intercultura-net: http://www.cnice.mecd.es/interculturanet/recurint.htm
(These are just a few suggestions to get you started, helping you to use the website as a resource for teaching about diversity. You can refer to the visual images and text, as you need to, to introduce, structure, illustrate and expand your ideas. Indeed, you may adapt these and other suggestions presented along the Teachers' Stuff depending on the age and characteristics of your students).
1 It would be great if the students could scan
their character, so that they could print it and place in their folders or
books, or if it could be the background picture on their computer screen.
It would make them identify more with the site. |