This post contains the new 2017 Navidad Commercial Madness with supplementary activities for the commercials
The 2016 Navidad Commercial Madness was a great success and I am happy to announce 
that the new 2017 Navidad Commercial Madness bracket and supplementary activities are ready! My students have been asking me about this for the past month! This post contains the new bracket and I have also made some activities to go along with the commercials.
Here is the 2017 Navidad Commercial Bracket
Here is the 2017 Navidad Commericial Madness supplementary activities doc
Here is a PDF version of the supplementary activities
Here is the Google drive of the commercials
Youtube playlist of commercials
Here is the plan for each class: Show the two commercials in one class and the students vote for their favorite one.
- Read the transcript and do the supplementary activity for each commercial. It is the teacher choice of how much in depth you want to go. I plan to keep digging deeper with the commercials that win. Students will understand the commercials better with the activities and that will make for a better vote.
- After doing the activity, feel free to watch the commercial again.
- Vote for the best one!
(The bracket has 16 commercials and 15 match-ups so if you do one match-up per class, it will take 15 classes. I don’t have that many classes between now and Christmas vacation so a couple times we will do two match-ups in one class.)
I am not a native Spanish speaker so there might be a few minor errors. However, I am very excited about this Navidad madness especially with the supplementary activities. If you do it, let me know who wins!
Williamson CI & TPRS 
This is wonderful! My Spanish 2 kids were already asking about the Christmas bracket. They loved it last year. I think the activities are a great idea. So grateful for your generosity!
This is my favorite thing of the year! Such a great way to have fun and show some less typically taught elements of culture. It is SO incredibly generous of you to share these! Last year was a hit with my kids and I can’t wait for them to see this year’s lineup!!
Thank you so much! We’ll be binge reading Piratas in Level One and Don Quijote in Level Three-this will remind of us the holidays and give us a break from reading!!
Thanks so much! We’ll be binge reading Piratas in Level One and Don Quijote in Level Three. This will keep us in the holiday spirit and offer a fun brain break from reading.
These are so fun! I can’t wait to try this with my students! Thanks so much for sharing! Where do I find the transcripts?
was wondering the same thing about the transcripts! and to echo everyone else, thank you soooo much for providing these amazing resources!
Wow! How impressive this looks! You are extremely generous to share with all of us what must have been a great deal of work. ¡Muchísmas gracias!
Hola! I’m excited to try it this year but where are the transcripts? I’ve been wanting to do this for awhile, I’m very excited… Any advice for a 1st time? Gracias!
I had to write my own transcripts. They are in the supplementary activities doc link. Some of the transcripts are not complete because that is the activity for the students to do.
It is your choice of how in depth you want to go with each commercial. Last year, I just showed the commercials, read the transcripts, and voted. You could do a MovieTalk with the commercial or ask questions about the commercial after watching it. I do not quiz my students on these commercials but I do expect them to understand them, especially the ones that win.
[…] Use authentic holiday commercials in Spanish and do a voting tournament to choose the class favorite. You can find a ton of great resources to do this here. […]
Thank you for your creative ideas and your generosity! I look forward to using this in class!
Thank you for sharing such a great resource. As a new teacher, I have only admired madness brackets from afar, knowing I wasn’t up to doing them yet. Also- since I’m in a parochial school, most of the popular songs for music brackets aren’t appropriate for our climate, so I’m super pleased to use this. I know the kids will have fun with it! Thanks again!
I am a little bit amazed about what an angel from heaven you are. This is SUCH a great activity. It was so much work and you’re just giving it to us! All done, perfect, organized, and graphically beautiful. I’m so grateful to you in this season of gratitude!
Dear Work Hubby,
I think you’re incredible…..
Truly…..
GRACIAS!!!
Love,
Your work wifey
[…] together to earn their tickets. They can win a class ticket if they predict the winner of the Navidad Commercial Madness. They can earn another ticket if the whole class can stay in the target language for a given […]
Are you serious? You are my greatest Christmas gift right now. How talented and generous you are!!! Not only to create this but to share it with all of us!! So thankful!!!
When do you start this with your classes?
We starting it yesterday!
It is so generous of you to share this. When teachers share their work like this, they are not only giving other teachers the opportunity to get their heads above water, but also modeling new approaches to try out in their classrooms. Can’t wait to share this with my department. Mil gracias.
This is a great activity! Forgive me for probably asking an obvious question, but does each student vote individually? Is it a contest to see which commercial wins? I’m just not sure of the actual process of voting for the commercial. Thank you!!!
After we watch the two commercials, each student votes for their favorite. I ask the class something like this: “levanta la mano si prefieres commercial numbero uno…” The one with the most votes moves on to the next round. It doesn’t have to be a contest to see which one wins but after watching all of them you can ask a class which one they think will win it all.
Thank you so much! My students will love this! You are incredibly generous to share this!
Truly amazing and thank you so much for sharing! I do have a question though. I have consulted with a few native speakers and none of us can come up with and equivalent to our “bracket”. What do you think? One suggestion was llave.
I haven’t found a good translation either. I am just been saying ‘bracket’ with a little Spanish accent! Llave might work…
I think you really ARE an angel! This is AWESOME! So well done and so kind of you to share this. Can’t wait to start next week. *** I noticed that a few others mentioned looking for the transcripts. Am I not looking in the right spot? …. With or without, these resources are wonderful. Thank you.
The supplementary activities doc has a few “transcripts” in it but for some commercials it is in the form of a cloze activity. There is not a transcript for each commercial.
Can anyone help with the question marks. I cannot understand 2 of the kids in the lie detector commercial (Unicenter Papá Muel) video #6.
“Yo medo a dos metros.”
“Lo que más me gusta es el brócoli.”
“No. Yo no miento.”
“¿Qué te cuento el Papá Noel?”
“Tiene una barba blanca.”
“¡Un gorro largo!”
“Más rápido con el povillo que ???? los renos.
“Sí, pues, si te portas mal, el no te da regalo.”
“????”
“Mi amigo Martín viajó en avión y después vio en la ventana Papa Muel.”
“Fui a la casa de Papá Noel. Lo vi y tengo una foto. ”
“¡Es máSico! (mágico)
Thank you so much for this! Me encanta!!! One question… Do you add up votes all day and then have 1 favorite from all classes together, or do you do one sheet per class? And do you print out bracket and post?
Mil gracias!
For this, I am doing one sheet per class. I print out the bracket and give them a copy. However, you can certainly add up all the votes and have 1 favorite and make a bracket bulletin board or make a big one on the white board. Both possibilities are good!
¡Mil gracias por este recurso excelente!
Thank you so much for sharing these resources! I’ve been rocking through them in my Spanish II classes leading up to the break, and they have brought so much joy to my students.
Can’t thank you enough – so excited to do this!
¡Gracias, Dustin! I’m using it with your resources in Spanish 3, but was also able to use it as an all-in-one-class activity today in Spanish 1 as I was giving students their course recommendations one by one. They narrowed the bracket down individually, filled out a comprehension sheet about their favorite, then drew a scene and captioned it.
I used your materials last year and they were a big hit. Having such engaging lesson plans done and ready for me to use at this point in the year is the best Christmas gift ever! Thank you so much for sharing your work.
¡Gracias! ¡Gracias! ¡Gracias! ¡Gracias! ¡Gracias! ¡Gracias! ¡Gracias! ¡Gracias! ¡Gracias! ¡Gracias! ¡Gracias! ¡Gracias! ¡Gracias! ¡Gracias! ¡Gracias! ¡Gracias! ¡Gracias! ¡Gracias! ¡Gracias! ¡Gracias! ¡Gracias! ¡Gracias!
Nos encantan estas actividades! ¡Eres mi favorito, muchísimas gracias ❤ ❤ ❤ Feliz Navidad!!!!
Well, my kids loved this!!! We had our final vote today and the winner was IBERIA!! 🙂 It got a little heated in the last rounds as they all really loved both REPSOL ads and the Unicentro one with “Papa Muel” 🙂 But in the end, the votes were tallied and Iberia won it all!!
Thank you SO much for sharing these materials with us. We love this new Navidad Madness tradition!! 🙂
As a first year teacher, I cannot begin to express how happy I was to have found this! It is such a wonderful idea packed full of authentic and “real-life” Spanish! This is the perfect activity to get us through the last couple of days before break. Even though they were pretty squirrely earlier in the lesson, as soon as we got started they settled in and passionately argued for their favorites!
Great Job with these. Did these the last two days of 3 classes with Spanish 4. The activities were nice to have and quite comprehensible for the level. Iberia y reposol ganaron. This activity also inspired me to have my AP students find anuncios across Spanish-speaking countries and create activities for the class. The best there was a cut from Anuncio Lotería de Navidad 2017 daniel/le. Thanks a million for this “tabla de posiciones de las eliminatorias” o “tabla de clasificaciones”.
4 classes did this in 2017. Thank you very much.
In 2 classes both Reposl Navidad commercials made it to the finals. The 2015 one won.
In another class, the finals were Suchard and Repsol 2016. Repsol won.
In the last clsss, Iberia and Repsol 2016 made the finals. Repsol won by one.
[…] students have been looking forward to March since we finished the December commercial madness from Dustin Williamson. Also, for many of my Spanish IV students, this is their 4th time with a “madness” […]
Thank you for making this activity available. My students enjoyed this activity last year and recently they have been asking if we are doing the Christmas commercials again this year. I said I’d have to ask. They are already thinking about Christmas!
Yes, I will be doing this again and making a new one. I hope to have it ready just after Thanksgiving time.
[…] you did not do last year’s bracket, here it is. There were some really good commercials last year too. The post also has a basic outline of […]
Thank you so much for making this available in French. My students are going to love this.
Anyone have a list of all of the locations shown in the Falabella commercial? Easter Island, Machu Picchu, El Moro, and….?
I absolutely love these activities, and am so grateful that they are available in French! My students have been LOVING them, and I am loving how much French I am able to use with them since they are so engaged!
A thought for next year- (if you make an updated version, and I hope you do!) It would be great if the French commercials had a little more diversity in them. I teach in an urban area, and I like my materials to be reflective of my student population. There are so many places that speak French, it would be so wonderful if my urban students could see people that looked like them speaking French.
Thank you again! (:
I do my best to find compelling commercials. I didn’t have much time to create the French version but I think it turned out pretty good. You are free to use the materials as you please and also free to adapt/edit them as needed.
Oh yes, of course, I usually end up adjusting things to my classroom, but I just thought I would share my observation. One of my other roles at school is an equity coach, and we encourage teachers to look at their lessons/ curriculum as much as possible to make sure that it is representative of the student population. As everything is, it is a work in progress! If you are interested, there is a really great series of videos by PBS about implicit bias and how our subconscious works against what we might consciously chose to do. This is the one from the series that I think is particularly relevant:
https://www.pbs.org/video/pov-implicit-bias-check-our-bias-wreck-our-bias/
As I said before, I really appreciate the resources, my students are enjoying them.
Have a great holiday and new year!