I love DICHOS! Dichos are sayings in Spanish - they can be funny, proverbial, or just plain good advice! Doing a weekly dicho is something I initiated with my 8th graders years ago. Every Monday, they come in and get a Dicho-of-the-Week. They copy the Spanish dicho down in their journals and have all week to work on it - turning the journal in on Friday. Step 1 is to copy the Spanish dicho I have given them. Step 2 is to write out the English translation somewhat verbatim. Step 3 is for the student to write out his/her own interpretation of the dicho - what it really means and perhaps in what situation it could be used. Step 4 is the hardest - students are asked to think of an English equivalent. We do this by adhering to our school's Honor Code - meaning the students are not allowed to Google any of the dichos. Instead, they are asked to talk about them with their parents or grandparents.
I have had good success in doing these over the years, but recently received the nicest compliment from a parent. She told me that each week their family looks forward to the dicho I've given them and that the student calls her grandmother to talk about it. This makes me smile inside! My little classroom activity is dinner table conversation!
Dichos are an excellent tool for learning more about any given language and culture. I also coordinate them weekly to go along with our topics in grammar. So, for example, if we are studying Reflexive verbs, then I pick a dicho with a reflexive. Here are some of my favorite examples:
Easy - "Perro que ladra, no muerde." "All bark, no bite."
Intermediate - "En boca cerrada, no entran moscas." "Lose lips sink ships."
Hard - "Salir de Guatemala y meterse en guatepeor." This one is a pun in Spanish, so it obviously won't translate verbatim, but there is a perfect English equivalent having nothing to do with the Spanish version - "Out of the kettle and into the fire!"
