Background
I currently teach at The John Dickinson School in Wilmington, Delaware in the International Baccalaureate Middle Years Programme, which has been in existence for ten years. The middle school is located within the high school building in a wing of its own and was created as an extension to the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme for grades 11 and 12. The Diploma Programme was initiated at Dickinson five years prior to the inception of the Middle Years Programme (MYP). MYP was implemented to encourage more students to participate in the Diploma Programme. In its first year, MYP included grades six, seven, eight and has recently expanded to include grades nine and ten. A continuous sixth through twelfth grade International Baccalaureate Programme will be established at Dickinson in the near future. Our Middle Years Programme is made up of just over 300 students.
Students must apply to participate in MYP. To be eligible, students must be motivated to learn. I am currently the only Spanish teacher in MYP teaching Spanish 1A (Grade 6), Spanish 1B (Grade 7), and Spanish 2 (Grade 8), meeting with my classes for ninety minutes every other day.
Inquiry is one of the ten attributes included in the IB Learner Profile. To be considered inquirers, “We nurture our curiosity, developing skills for inquiry and research. We know how to learn independently, and with others. We learn with enthusiasm and sustain our love of learning throughout life.”2 In order to be successful inquirers, my students need opportunities to immerse themselves in meaningful experiences. As learners, we rarely experience with a single sense, our senses work together to give us a total picture of our experiences. My plan is to use multimodal learning which is teaching a concept that uses more than one mode or methodology. This type of learning employs materials for different learning styles; visual, auditory, reading, writing, and kinesthetic. Along with multimodal learning, it is my goal to further engage my students by incorporating into this unit some collaborative learning, a cultural project, creative expression, and technology integration to create a rich and engaging learning environment.
In order to support student engagement, in this unit I will include authentic Spanish language materials that reflect how the human body is portrayed in Spanish-speaking cultures. These materials include visual art, nonfiction articles, museum websites, infographics, and excerpts from literature and/or poetry. In addition, I will incorporate rich cultural realia, objects and materials from everyday life used as teaching aids, such as video interviews, artist profiles, and social media content. Realia offers my students a view into the lives, values, histories of Spanish-speaking communities. Art as realia in this unit is a living text through which target language learners not only learn the vocabulary of the human body but also interpret deeper messages about identity, beauty, health, and cultural values.
Authentic texts and realia are essential for helping students make connections between language and culture. These materials are created by and for native speakers and are rooted in cultural context, making them powerful tools for language acquisition and intercultural understanding. Visuals such as paintings or infographics offer built-in scaffolds that help students comprehend and retain new vocabulary. Realia engages the senses, sparks creativity, and motivates learners to make meaning in the target language. My purpose for integrating these elements into this unit is to foster student independence and inquiry while increasing both proficiency and global awareness. Authentic materials make learning more relevant, and when students find purpose in their language use, they grow in confidence, competence, and cultural insight.3
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