In my first year of Spanish at AHS, we have reviewed many concepts, specifically focusing on storytelling in present tense format. At the beginning of this year, I had very little experience in Spanish classes, aside from a few years of basic Spanish in elementary school. Throughout the year, I have been able to build my Spanish grammar and learn how to better understand the language. I have also learned about different cultures, specifically focusing on communities in certain regions of Spain. Something that I am most proud of from this year is my final "Original Story" (Mi Cuento Original). I am proud of the final product that I created because I feel that it is a great example of beautiful work, and is a great way of demonstrating my learning from Spanish 1. I did not even realize how much content I had gained from this class until I wrote this detailed story. An area that I would like to continue to focus on and grow in is verb conjugations. I would also like to explore past-tense and future-tense grammar. I am planning to exhaust all possible Spanish courses at AHS during my time in high school.
Assessment 1 - Spanish 1
Our first assessment reviewed introductions and greetings, numbers, and time. I received a grade of 20.5/20. I am proud of this grade because it shows that I have a thorough understanding of the content that we have learned thus far in the semester.
Video Project
In our video projects, we described our families and friends using the verbs "ser" (to be) and "tener" (to have).
Something I am proud of from this project was my ability to come up with a variety of different descriptions for each person (or animal), both physically and relative to personality traits. I am also proud of my voice over. One challenge that I faced was learning how to use the website. This was difficult for my because I am not super tech-savvy. Another challenge was coming up with unique descriptions for everyone. The area that I felt the most growth in is in the area of physical descriptions and pronunciation.
My Writing Process
Once a month (approximately), we wrote for about ten minutes (timed) using the vocabulary we had been learning in class. Each time, our goal was to grow our word count. Word count does NOT include proper nouns.
Something that I am proud of from this year-long process was the amount of growth that I was able to see in my word count and grammar. In some of my free-writes, I had fewer words, but focused a lot on grammar. This allowed me to practice my grammar skills such as verb conjugations. I found that one of the biggest challenges for me was coming up with a storyline. This was challenging because it was slightly time consuming and used a wider variety of words often. The area that I felt the most growth in was grammar and translation because I am now able to think of a simple story in English, then translate it to Spanish, which I could not do at the beginning of the year.
Final Story Book - Final Exhibition
In this end-of-year project, we wrote and illustrated an original story using the vocabulary we learned throughout the year.
Overall, I am proud of all aspects of this book. Something that I am the most proud of is the variety of vocabulary that I was able to creatively integrate into my story. I am also proud of how long I was able to make the story (422 words). The most challenging part for me was making the hard copy look nice. This was difficult because there was not a lot of room for mistakes. My biggest area was growth overall was my vocabulary. I was able to incorporate a variety of words and phrases learned throughout the year, along with learning some new unique vocabulary for my story.