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Inside The Classroom:
Come “Salsa” with Cristina Carrión Murphy

Cristina Carrión Murphy helps Nicholas Cabot in preparing the fresh lime juice for Mango Tango’s signature salsa, while Zoe Bornhorst chops peppers.

What’s the best way to learn Spanish? If you’re Cristina Carrión Murphy’s 6th grade Spanish class, the answer is simple: start a restaurant.

“This is a jalapeño pepper— Esto es un jalapeño,” Carrión Murphy says. “Muy caliente, if someone gets this in their eyes, it’s going to be very hot!

“Señorita, you are in charge of the jalapeño peppers— Señora, eres responsable de los jalapeños...Look, onions— ¡Mira cebollas!...and Señor, you are in charge of my mangos,” orders chef Cristina to her students.

Such is the scene in the Brick Building community room, transformed on this October afternoon into the kitchen of “Mango Tango”, Grade 6D’s mock restaurant which boasts the motto, “come salsa with us.”

“I had promised the kids that we would cook some Spanish food, so we came up with the restaurant idea as a way to incorporate some learning into it,” says Carrión Murphy. “It really took off from there and has been a fun way to learn Spanish.”

The result has been an informative and delicious foray into the language. Students have had to translate ingredient lists, learn new vocabulary in order to create Mango Tango’s menu, and learn about the countries in which such a restaurant could thrive.

This multi-faceted approach to learning is exactly the type of classroom atmosphere Carrión Murphy strives for, “we don’t just learn vocabulary, we learn about culture, cross-lingual communications, and important issues going on in Spanish speaking countries.”

For example, in creating their restaurant, students researched different Spanish speaking countries before settling on Puerto Rico as the place they would like to open Mango Tango. They then set about learning as much as they could about the country in order to make their restaurant fit the culture. Menu stylings, local dishes, and even things as simple as learning how to list the street address correctly have been part of the process.

“Projects like this are great,” says Carrión Murphy. “Kids this age are not ready yet for a full-on Spanish immersion class so sprinkling in the vocabulary and spoken language through interactive exercises is an excellent way to learn.”

Another exercise Carrión Murphy uses that students love is an interactive, virtual-reality program called Mi Vida Loca. Using her classroom’s smart board (a giant touch-sensitive computer screen cum chalkboard) Carrión Murphy can lead her students through any number of interactive experiences in Madrid.

“The program places students in the role of virtual tourists,” Carrión Murphy says. “They ride in cabs and go to cafés where they have to give directions, pay fares, order meals, and learn about the Spanish culture in the process.”

Judging from the animated reactions, BB&N 6th graders would use the program all day if allowed to, but this engaging method of learning doesn’t take the place of all traditional school work. Quizzes, tests, and vocabulary lessons are still important staples of the curriculum. The combined effect of the two methods is that students become comfortable with the idea of a foreign language, which then makes it less daunting to learn.

Back in the kitchen of Mango Tango, things are heating up as the jalapeño peppers and onions have been chopped and are ready for mixing. Three dishes are being prepared today, a mango pineapple salsa, guacamole, and a more traditional tomato/onion/pepper salsa—the best of the three will become the restaurant’s signature menu item.

As with teaching, improvisation is sometimes part of the cooking process—the recipe does not call for mango in the guacamole but somehow some has found its way in there.

“That’s okay, maybe we’ve invented a delicious new dish! It could be our signature guacamole,” says Carrión Murphy as the dishes near completion. “What time do you guys have recess?” she asks with an eye on the clock.

“It doesn’t matter” pipes in Mikayla Greeley, “I would miss recess for this.” That’s high praise indeed from a 12-year-old.

Once the food is done, there are a few ideas being thrown around, “We should sell it to the faculty, and give the money to charity,” says Ted Forst. But as hungry hands dive in to taste the spoils, it becomes apparent there may not be much left to sell.

“In 5th grade, students are a little anxious about having to speak an unfamiliar language in a classroom, but in 6th grade, they are past that nervousness, so I can bring more Spanish into the daily routine,” Carrión Murphy says. “They have to tune their ears to the language, which is starting to really happen in projects like this.”

However in some cases, tuning taste buds works just as well.