Design Project - Introduction

The purpose of this lesson is to introduce food, drink, and restaurant vocabulary to students in Spanish. To enhance this lesson I plan to incorporate cultural and traditional information about food and restaurant etiquette that is popular in Costa Rica. This learning experience will include many different activities such as online flashcards to practice vocabulary, conversation, videos, writing, and a field trip to a restaurant so that students can order in Spanish.

The goal of this lesson is for students to become more familiar with this vocabulary but also learn about the cultural aspect of Costa Rica. This knowledge is relevant to student's lives in many ways. For example, if student are ever in a Spanish speaking country they will have an understanding of basic conversation for a restaurant. Introducing new vocabulary helps to build upon already known vocabulary so that students can have deeper conversations.

The broad domain of knowledge is food and drink vocabulary. The learning experience within this domain is to introduce more cultural aspects of food and drink in Spanish speaking countries.  I plan to introduce Costa Rican culture and then ask the students to form groups. Each group will be assigned a Spanish speaking country and then will be asked to research food and drink traditions in that country. That way students are not just learning the vocabulary for a test.

I plan to incorporate some unique aspects for this lesson.  I plan to take students to a restaurant so that they practice their newly learned vocabulary by ordering their meals in Spanish. Before going to the restaurant, I want students to work with partners and practice ordering meals at a restaurant. To incorporate more vocabulary I plan to have each student make a "Recipe Video" in Spanish. Each student will choose a simple recipe of their choice and list each ingredient needed with simple cooking instructions. I have an example video for the students to watch for this activity. I would also like students to research some of their favorite foods or foods we have not talked about in class and add those to the "quizlet" web 2.0 app so that they are available to each student.

The "Big Question" that my learning experience is centered around is awareness of other cultures and traditions. I want my students to be aware that there are many, many different cultures and traditions in the world that are very different from ours. I also want to encourage them to experience these cultures first hand if they ever have the opportunity to do so.