So I have taken the plunge into Teachers Pay Teachers. I have so much more appreciation for those teachers that I have bought materials from on TPT. It is so detailed, stressful and scary to put your stuff out there.

I was reading a blog post on Musicuentos about the song El Perdón by Nicky Jam (featuring Enrique Iglesias), and I got so excited to introduce this song to my 8th graders. As I started planning, my mind got rolling with ideas. My students have seen present progressive, but I wanted a way to put it into context for them that would be fun and engaging.

I started by just focusing on the chorus. We looked at the important vocabulary. I used a Word Cloud (made from www.wordclouds.com) We listened and searched for the words. I also used a cloze passage as a listening activity. I started to notice as we continued my students were changing the lyrics to the chorus to make other words with -ando and -iendo. They would sing them in rhythm to the song “Estoy hablando a mi amigo…”  So one day I gave students time to come up with our own lyrics. It was so much fun to hear their versions.

Then I started looking at Nicky Jam as an artist. Did you know he was discovered while rapping on his break at his job in a supermarket by the wife of an executive director of a record label?? What a cool story! So I wrote up a pretend story about a boy who is always singing and rapping at work (using present progressive). Then I had students read about Nicky Jam’s real life experience.

We had a BLAST with this song so I thought I would share. I even played the English version for them at he end. They didn’t like it, and asked me to turn the Spanish one back on. They sing it in the halls and ask for it even now as we have moved on. I hope you can have just as much fun with your class.

The first shorter version of activities is a 3 day activity packet with lesson plans. You can preview and download it for FREE here.

The other packet is a 6-day activity packet with lesson plans. It has the story inspired by Nicky Jam’s real life experience of getting discovered in the supermarket and the reading about Nicky Jam.

When do I teach this unit ?

 I use Martina Bex’s curriculum I teach this song after Storytelling Unit 08: La comida latina and use it to teach the present progressive tense. I also recommend Martina Bex’s notes and activities for the present progressive tense.

How do I address “tomando” which in the song means “drinking” (implied alcohol)?

In my class we have already learned “toma” which they know to mean “he/she takes” OR “he/she drinks” I go over “tomando” before looking at the lyrics, and I do not mention alcohol. I let them choose which meaning to draw in their dictionary, and we discuss either or both. Later when we go over the lyrics, I tell them what it means in the context of the song. Then, we talk about good and bad decisions for when you are upset. We come up with better ideas. (exercising, talking to a friend, listening to music etc.)  When it comes to“Como un loco tomando” while singing, we switch out the “oh” at the end of the phrase for a more responsible drink like Coca-Cola, leche, jugo or Fanta. It becomes fun to add in a different drink each time we sing.