After months (years?) of looking over Mike Peto’s incredible resources for El Internado, I’ve decided to give it a try.  So far, after about 15 minutes of viewing the actual program, the students are hooked, and I’m loving the opportunities it provides for natural language use and discussion.  The second part of episode 1 includes examples of three very useful phrases in Spanish:

• se da cuenta – s/he realizes
• se burla de – s/he makes fun of
• le muestra – s/he shows him/her

Below is a story I created to be asked in class that provides repetitions of the phrases.  This story does not follow the storyline of El Internado, but it provides extra input on these phrases and some others that are important for comprehension and discussion of episode 1.

El secreto del director

If you don’t teach Spanish or are not using El Internado, the story may still be valuable.  In short, it tells of a school with a very strict director and strictly enforced rules.  Students make fun of the director but never in his presence.  Nobody knows about the director’s very secret life as a ballet dancer in the evenings.  A student stumbles upon a photo online and realizes that it is of the director.  He shows it to a friend who shows it to a friend and so on until someone shows the photo to a teacher from the school who shows it to a class.  The students make fun of the director.  He realizes they have seen his photo, and he runs to his office to hide and cry.  However, he then realizes that a true dancer is proud.  He puts on his skirt, goes to the class and dances in front of the students.  The students realize that ballet is beautiful and the story ends with a touching group hug.