Señora Jota Jota

Teaching content and culture through proficiency-driven instruction

I love music! And I love to use music in class. It is not uncommon for another teacher to walk by my room and quietly shut my door because we are jamming out to a song that I found and just HAD to share in class!

If you haven’t seen this video yet by Kalimba – you will want to use it in class!

El Mundo de Birch blogged about her lesson here. Hurry! It’s free right now. And it’s such a great lesson that it probably won’t be free for long. Every time I hear it I start dancing around and it makes me that much more excited to start school in a few days!

Last year in Spanish 3 our very favorite song was Robarte un beso by Carlos Vives and Sebastián Yatra. I used Kara Kane Jacobs and Arianne Dowd’s lesson. You can find it here and here. This coming year’s level 3´s heard so much about it that they are already chomping at the bit to get to this lesson!

I used Yo voy gana’o in Spanish 2 and it was such a HUGE hit that my level 3’s asked me to teach it to them at the end of the year. I used and added to Kristy Placido’s lesson which you can find here. You can see how I used it in class here.

I have taught the Bachata in class using Joey Montana’s Hola.
Last year in level 3, I also used the song No Hay Nadie Más by Sebastián Yatra for chapter 6 of the novel Vida y Muerte en la Mara Salvatrucha. I used El Mundo de Birch’s lesson.
And we can’t forget March Music Madness. My students really connected with música latina through this month-long video activity. You can read about how I used March Music Madness here.
There are endless ways to use music! Set the mood, learn new vocab/structures, learn about culture, simply to appreciate, to tell a story, connect to content, and so much more. What are ways that you’ve used music in class?