Students Get the Opportunity to See the Spanish Subjunctive Mood Applied to the Realities of Their World
After a thorough introduction to and MANY practice activities with the uses of the Spanish Subjunctive Mood in Noun Clauses, students then read a cultural unit on Central America and watch a video about the growth of tourism in post-revolution Nicaragua. After some in-depth discussion of what they observed and learned about this region of our western hemisphere, students are assigned to write at least 5 sentences integrating the Subjunctive Mood with what they recently learned. Here are a few actual examples:
Me alegro de que los nicaragüenses hayan logrado paz y seguridad en su patria.
I am glad that the Nicaraguan have achieved peace and security in their homeland.
El profesor quiere que preparemos las pupusas salvadoreñas para nuestra fiesta final.
The teacher wants us to prepare salvadorian pupusas for our final party.
Es interesante que el Canal de Panamá abriera hace en siglo.
It’s interesting that the Panama Canal opened a century ago.
Muchos hondureños temen que la violencia vaya a empeorar.
Many Hondurans fear that the violence is going to get worse.
Challenges or Obstacles:
- Students need to grasp the importance of using the Subjunctive Mood to express their true feelings about what people in other parts of the world are experiencing.
Benefits and Successes:
- Students expand their knowledge of and empathy for people who live in a dramatically different socio-economic culture than ours.
- They gain an understanding of the history of Central America and an appreciation of how much influences the reality of what’s going on there now in 2015.
Submitted by: Christopher Reid, The Indiana Academy for Science, Mathematics and Humanities