As Music March Madness will come up quickly, I thought I’d share out a new music resource for one of Ela Taubert’s songs, Si eras tú. If you need a ready to go lesson plan for a novice level which includes mini-stories (tiene miedo, no puede), picturetalk, and a song, read on:

I think the song, Si eras tú, hits a lot of the right notes (oh yes, pun intended) for a novice level Spanish class and above. If you are unfamiliar with Ela Taubert, she’s the recent recipient of Best New Artist at the Latin Grammy’s (2024) and has loads of pop hits that are perfect for the Spanish classroom. Her music will likely strike a chord with our teen pop listeners (okay, I’ll stop the puns). This isn’t her most famous song though, so check out her other singles for more choices that may fit your classroom better (and see the end of this post for another free resource!)

I try to incorporate at least one song into every unit I do and mostly choose them based off of two criteria: 1) does the song hit the target structures I want (not necessarily the theme, most often it doesn’t, to be honest)? and 2) will kids be drawn to this? It’s important to me that I can get the buy-in from students. I won’t please everyone and I certainly like to expose students to genres that may be new to them, but I want to make sure lots of my songs can be home runs for students.

My current school has a whole unit on music and, although there are four songs we all must cover, there is some flexibility to incorporate other songs. I’m throwing Si eras tú into my classroom mix because it hits on some recycled terms to do some retrieval practice and it’s a great soft intro into era(s) for the past tense. And I love that she is current!

So, here is what I am planning to do… (Feel free to grab the lyric map below)

1. Front load vocabulary with mini stories. My students are novice mid-novice high in Spanish 2. We change students at the semester so most of them have not had a TPRS teacher. So, I’ll do three mini stories TPRS style to front load vocabulary with a focus on tiene miedo, no puede. My students do not know tiene miedo, so it will be a new structure. They are familiar with no puede, but most have not acquired it. (Note: I first learned about mini stories in the Big CI Book by Ben Slavic).
   • I’ll keep them to three sentences max.
   • I’ll do an example first:
     • “Hay un elefante _____ *color* que le gusta ______ *verb*” (I am supposed to assess adjective noun agreement. I know this does nothing for their acquisition, but it’s required of me).
     • “Tiene miedo de _____*thing*.”
     • “El elefante no puede _____ *verb*”
     • Then, I’ll take a volunteer to be the subject of our next mini story. We’ll co-create the story together.
     • We’ll do a horizontal conjugation on the board (él/ella to yo//third to first person) of the last story.
     • Then, I’ll ask them to make their own story in the yo form, using the same structures.
     • My plan is to have them draw out all three of these mini stories, but I’ll have to whip up that template.
2. I’ll do a brief intro to who Ela Taubert is with a PictureTalk. We’ll make guesses at what type of music she sings, where she’s from, how old she is, what’s the purpose of this image, etc. If I’m on my game, I’ll ask if she is afraid to sing in front of people, if she can sing well, if she can play an instrument, etc to get more reps of the target structures.

3. We’ll listen to the song with the lyric map idea a la Andrew Bentley (via Señora Chase). Get it FREE here. With the linked resource, you can choose either the map I will use with some blanks for students to write in meanings OR the completed map with translations. Choice is yours!

• Students start by following the chorus lyric order with their finger.
• Students then connect the chorus with a pencil.
• Fast finishers can fill in the blanks with the meanings in English.

4. We’ll watch the music video, allowing kids who need another round to finish their map may do so.

5. We’ll talk about our reactions to the song. This is a required skill for them to be successful on the interpersonal exams provided by my department. I’ll probably use the resource found in Bertha Delgadillo’s Tweet Activity (which is highly recommended, pick one up!) for some guided output.

Note: my school is on a block schedule–this will likely take us the whole block, maybe a block and a half. The next class, we’ll take a look at her biography, as students need to be able to read in the past tense for the interpretative exams.

Have you used any music by Ela Taubert? Will she appear in your Music March Madness this year? If she will, but you have ¿Cómo Pasó? in there, I got a free lyric map for that too right here!

I hope you find this resource useful! Please comment any feedback if you end up using it!