Introduction

This lesson was developed as part of the University of Chicago's Web Institute for Teachers program, whose purpose is to train teachers to integrate technology into the classroom.

In general, the lesson focuses on preparing the student with the foundation in Spanish vocabulary, eating customs and geography in order to be able to order food in a Spanish restaurant.                                    

Specifically, the lesson is designed with several goals in mind:
1. To practice and learn food terminology in Spanish.
2. To compare/contrast the cuisines of Spain and Mexico so that students learn that the cuisine of Spanish-speaking countries is much more varied than foods that Americans typically associate with "hispanics", like tacos and enchiladas (of course, Mexican cuisine is much more rich than that, but the average student is unaware).
3. To learn about eating customs in Spanish-speaking countries.
4. To learn about Spanish geography by focusing on gastronomic regions in Spain.
5. To translate a menu from an actual Spanish restaurant, including currency conversion.
6. To learn phrases in Spanish that lend themselves to use in a restaurant setting.
7.  To create a skit in Spanish in which the above elements are incorporated as a culminating project.

Learners

This lesson is designed for high school-level Spanish 2 students and involves cultural and geographic knowledge (presented in English), food vocabulary acquisition (English/Spanish), and written and oral expression in Spanish.  It fits in well as a supplementary lesson to a food unit. 

Students are assumed to have basic computer skills and to have an intermediate level of expression in Spanish in order to complete the culminating restaurant skit.

Curriculum Standards

Foreign Language Standards addressed by this webquest include:

* Comprehend illustrated websites.
* Comprehend written classroom directions, read simple passages, infer meaning of cognates and recognize loan words.
* Present an original production (e.g., skits) using known vocabulary and grammatical structures.
* Use common forms of courtesy, greetings and leave-takings appropriate to the time of day and relationship (adult, peer, parent).
* Demonstrate selected customs, manners and traditions in societies associated with the target language.
* Use maps, charts and other geographic representations to describe and discuss the countries where the target language is spoken.
* Recognize the currency of the country where the target language is spoken and compare values with United States currency.  

Thinking and communication skills encouraged by the webquest include, but are not limited to: creative production, categorization, comparison, and teamwork.

Process

[You can paste in the process description given to students on the student page and then interleave the additional details that a teacher might need.]

The lesson is organized in steps, which give the student the necessary cultural and linguistic background in order to be able to produce the skit. It is estimated that this webquest will take about 2 to 3 weeks to complete. The sections on comparing/contrasting Spanish/Mexican cuisine, eating customs and gastronomic regions of Spain can each be covered in about 1 class period. The sections on food and restaurant-centered vocabulary and phrases should take a total of about 2-3 class periods.  The  section on translating Spanish restaurant menus  should take about 2 class periods and creating and performing the restaurant skit should take about 3 classroom periods.

Students should be divided into groups for the menu translation and skit production. I recommend groups of 4 and suggest that the teacher pair up the 1 strong student with 1 weak student in each group and then allow those 2 to complete their groups with other classmates of their own choosing.  The advantage of this is to provide a certain balance to the "quality" of each group's composition, while at the same time allowing flexibility for the groups to select other classmates with whom they work well.

Resources Needed

In order to implement this lesson, students will need to  have internet access and access to printers. Color printers would certainly provide a more attractive menu translation than black and white ones, but are obviously not necessary.  Spanish dictionaries would be helpful for the menu translation and skit production, but the online ones may be sufficient.

[If the lesson makes extensive use of specific websites, it would be appropriate to list, describe and link them here. It would also be helpful to link the names of books suggested to Amazon or other online sources.]

One teacher can implement this webquest by his/her self, but, of course, if you decide to enrich your webquest with an optional field trip to a Spanish restaurant, you will need to enlist the help of parents as chaperones.

Evaluation

I recommend the following grade weighting for the different student products related to this project:

Student  Product                       % of  Project  Grade
Crossword Puzzle                                    5
Word Search                                           5
Venn Diagram                                         5
Worksheet on Eating Customs                   5
Worksheet on Gastronomic Regions            5
Food Dictionary                                      15
Menu Translation                                    20
Skit Production                                       40

Total                                                    100

The first 5 elements listed above can be evaluated using a completion scale of:
1=poor    2=below average     3=fair    4=good
5=excellent

The other student products (Food Dictionary, Menu Translation, Skit Production) may be evaluated using the attached rubrics.

[You may want to just copy and paste the evaluation section of the student page into this space and add any clarifications needed for another teacher to make use of this lesson.]

Conclusion 

This webquest provides students with the cultural understanding and skills necessary to be able to order food in Spanish at a Spanish restaurant.  Buen provecho!

Credits & References

[List here the sources of any images, music or text that you're using. Provide links back to the original source.]

I would like to thank my WIT mentors, Jay Mulberry, Joy Reeves and techie wizard Alex Wilson for their wisdom, guidance and patience in helping me acquire the technical knowledge to develop this webquest.

[List any books and other analog media that you used as information sources as well.]