A few days ago I was invited to Hart Elementary in Austin to read to Pre-K and K classes. As always, it was a great experience and the kids took an active part in the reading.
This time, I chose Un globo café chocolate and I gave each kid a “bolita de estambre”, a pompon, to engage them. I wanted them to imagine that they also had a balloon, like Pedro, Margarita and the other kids in the story, and that the pompon was their balloon. I wanted them to imagine that they were standing in the “zócalo”, surrounded by balloons of all colors, balloon vendors, people eating ice cream, a fountain and a church, and I wanted them to imagine the experience of taking a stroll with their parents on a Sunday afternoon.
The kids got excited and laughed when I told them, “Look, there’s the fountain!” “… and over there the church,” “there are many trees, watch out or you may bump into them!” When we started to describe the balloon vendors in the illustrations, one of the kids commented that there is no equivalent in English for the Spanish word “globero” and that you must use two words: “balloon vendor.” This gave me the opportunity to talk about the many words that describe characters and traditions that are unique to the Latin culture such as “nevero”, the person that sells sorbets, “bolero”, the person that shines shoes, or “zócalo”, the main square found in most Latin-American towns. This got the kids thinking about different words in one language and the other, making the reading much more enriching.
In the end, the kids put away their pompon. It was now an imaginary balloon, ready to be used again later that day when the kids told their parents the story of the boy that wanted a chocolate brown balloon.
There are aspects of many cultures that can only be properly understood by mastering the language spoken in them. Enriching the vocabulary of our kids will help them to not only speak better, but to develop abstract reasoning skills and, therefore, to think better.
Such a pleasure to come across the books from Heritage Language. They are a delightful “Spanish-and-Culture” lesson for my kids. As a mother of four, raising bilingual kids, I value the importance of teaching them the common phrases, grammar and vocabulary through fun stories exploring our heritage. At first I thought the older ones (10 and 7) were the ones who would benefit the most by practicing their reading in both languages, but I’ve seen also the benefit on my toddlers by exposing them to the letter blends that are only available in Spanish, in order for them to learn to talk in both English and Spanish with no “funny” accents.
As a Spanish tutor for young children, I’ve found Heritage Language’s Books incredibly helpful and a real joy to teach with! Their beautifully crafted characters are an excellent medium to engage young kids to read and learn a new language. The kids I teach absolutely love Pedro and Margarita and are already picking up words in Spanish. It’s such a blessing to have such useful, informative, and flat-out-fun books to teach kids! It makes teaching so enjoyable and worthwhile.
Very interesting and fascinating article. I never really stopped to think about the weight that words themselves have on the way we think about certain things, like our culture. The simple fact that one has a word that the other one doesn’t says a lot about what people do, what their values are, what their customs are, or even just what people enjoy. And also the fact that a kid was the one who pointed out the missing word in the English language is a very good sign that these readings will get them thinking about language and therefore culture in a different way!
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this blog post. The author has a wonderful ability to engage children’s (and adult’s!) imagination through her writings. This makes the stories fun and enjoyable which is so essential to stimulate language learning. Like the children at Hart Elementary I found myself taking an imaginary stroll through the zócalo on a Sunday afternoon just by reading this post!
Hello!
It’s interesting because some people maintain that languages, in their origin, weren’t made up of words but an unbroken run of sounds. Some teachers even say we shouldn’t learn a language by ‘isolating’ its words.
However as you prove here in this article, words are something very important in languages.
A word, a simple word can say a lot.
Talking about the word ‘globero’, I couldn’t help doing some ‘research’ on the term ‘globero’ which you talk about. Because it turns out that I’ve never used this word to mean ‘ballons vendor’.
I think the word ‘globero’ has a different meaning depending on the country, on the Spanish-speaking country. And we use different words to mean ‘ballon vendor’.
I am from Spain and I have always used ‘vendedor de globos’ to mean ‘ballon vendor’ (so it’s even longer than in English!).
I have heard (not used, yet) the word ‘globero’ to mean something related to cycling (it sounds strange even for me, i must say).
And I think ‘globero’ means ‘lier’ in some Latin American countries.
But as you know for sure, there are some differences in the use of a language among the areas of a country. So I can’t be completely sure whether ‘globero’ is used to mean ‘ballon vendor’ in some areas of Spain (not in the most, for sure).
Anyway, ‘globero’ may be the most appropiate (or the easiest!) word to mean ‘vendedor de globos’ and I guess from what you say that it’s used in many Latin American countries.
Thank you for this charming article. I think you are not only enriching kids’ vocabulary, but also their imagination!
Greetings
You can certainly see your skills within the article you write.
The world hopes for even more passionate writers like
you who are not afraid to say how they believe. Always go after your
heart.