Standard 5: Application of content

The teacher understands how to connect concepts and use differing perspectives to
engage learners in critical thinking, creativity and collaborative problem solving related to
authentic local and global issues.
Artifact 1 lesson plan
Class: FL 665 Sociocultural and Sociolinguistic Perspectives in Language
National Standards for Foreign Language Learning: 1.2, 3.1, 3.2, 4.1, 4.2
The lesson plan that I created for an assignment for my FL 665 class serves as my first
artifact for Standard 5. I believe that this lesson plan demonstrates my understanding of
Standard 5 because it integrates lessons from other disciplines and it also gives a sociolinguistic
approach to teaching that gets the students to contemplate a topic that they would not necessarily
think about without the teachers guidance.
To begin the lesson, I will show the class a map of Colombia with its regions divided
according to the dialect spoken in each region. The purpose of the map is to show the students
that Colombia has eleven different dialects. I chose Colombia as the country of study for this
lesson because it is the country studied in the culture section in Chapter 9- La salud of Dicho y
Hecho. Once I have reviewed the map of Colombia, I then will pass out the script of a paragraph
that they will hear in a video, Acentos de Colombia. In the video, the paragraph will be read nine
times in nine different Colombian dialects. The video is three minutes and twenty-four seconds
long.
By watching this video and hearing the different dialects spoken all over Colombia, the
students will realize and even think about the different dialects spoken in the USA. Just as you
can often tell where a person is from in the USA by their accent, the same is true about the
accents that people have in Colombia. You can tell if someone is from Bogot, Medellin or
Cartagena just by the dialect that they speak. In Language the Social Mirror, Chaika (2008)
talks about phonological variations of the English language across the USA. I think it is safe to
say that the video, Acentos de Colombia shows many phonological differences of Colombian
Spanish.
As an instructor of Spanish, I think it is important to dispel any stereotypes that my
students may have about Latinos or Spanish people. Not all Latinos that are here in the USA are
from Mexico and their Spanish is not exactly the same. Mexicans speak much faster for example
than Colombians and natives from each country use different lexical terms. Therefore I believe
this lesson plan will serve as much more than a lesson about dialects within one country. I think
it would be a good conversation starter about Latinos in the USA and what their different dialects
say about them sociolinguistically.
Castillo, C. (2010, April 18). Spanish: Colombian dialects (literally) [Blog post]. Retrieved from
http://lteacherstoolbox.blogspot.com.
Chaika, E. (2008). Language: The social mirror. Boston, MA: HEINLE Cengage Learning.

Dawson, L., Potowoski, K., & Sobral, S. (2012). Dicho y Hecho. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley &
Sons, Inc.