Emphasizing the use of the Imperfect Tense to Describe People

What is the overarching goal for our students pertaining to the imperfect tense? For me, one is that when they want to describe someone (or something) they automatically begin describing using the imperfect tense rather than pausing and trying to visualize a chart that lists the reasons when to use the imperfect tense and when to use the preterit tense and then deciding (or guessing) which one they need.

One activity that helps students stay focused on communication and creating using the language, rather than on grammar, is called "Mi vecino extraño". In February, I used the below activity to show students how to describe other people.  I model the activity, ask lots of questions, and eventually give the students the task of describing their (imaginary) strange neighbor.

 Directions:

1. Focus words that students already knew before the lesson:
- Ella se llamaba...
- era
- llevaba
(also had exposure to tenía, and trabajaba)

2. New focus words were:
 - tenía # años
- vivía en
- mi vecino(a) era extraño(a);  

3. Ask students if they have neighbors; close neighbors?, their names, what they're like (complete this in the present). If there are students in your class that have moved and can describe the neighbors they USED TO HAVE, that is even better.

4. I began by telling students about my neighbor when I was a little girl. You can choose a photo from google images if it makes it easier to talk about your "neighbor". Ask students to guess where "my neighbor" worked, describe his physical features, how old he was etc.  Be sure to use new structures from #2 above. 

5. Show the sketch of "mi vecina extraña"; read the description. Ask more questions regarding the sketch.

6. For additional practice, show more Google images of people and ask students to tell you information about the person, using structures listed in #1 and #2 above.

7. Students works in groups of 2 to sketch their crazy neighbors on construction paper and to answer the following questions (in the TL):
- what was his/her name?
- where or in what did s/he live
- age
- what s/he did that was "odd"
- what clothing s/he always used to wear
Those are the questions that they had to answer. Some students wanted to add more information. 

8. I had students post their finished sketches and descriptions around the room. Before they post the sketches, give them a letter to write on their sketch and a number to write on their description.

Example for 28 students: 
First seven students get the following combinations of letters and numbers:
A7   B3   C1   D5   E4   F2   G6
After they write their letter and number, those first 7 students tape their sketches and descriptions at a designated place in the room. Remind them not to put their description right next to the sketch.  

 Continue the number and letter system for the rest of the students, using AA  BB etc. if you have a huge class.

9. Students number their paper 1-28 (or however many students are in the room) and then read the descriptions to find the matching sketch.

 I liked that the students were able to use their imaginations and that they received more repetitions of the words by reading their classmates' descriptions. Since this was completed in one class period, I didn't have time to collect their descriptions and suggest changes so there were some grammar errors, and, to date I'm not sure if I should divide the activity into 2 days or, if at this point, it's not an issue.   ??

Imperfect Tense - Photos Provide Wonderful Compelling Input

Are you looking for an easy way to get a lot of repetitions of high frequency verbs in the imperfect tense? 

Tell your students to bring a photo to class or to email a photo of themselves doing something when they were little.  Put the photos in a powerpoint or share the photos using a document camera. Start by asking ¿Cómo se llama él/ella? (What is his/her name?) and then ¿Qué hacía él/ella cuando era niño/a? (What did s/he did when s/he was a little boy/girl?) After the students answer, talk directly to the student who is in the photo to get exposure to the tú form. For the example of the little girl at the beach, ask:
- To what beach did you used to go?
- With whom did you used to go to the beach?
- For how many days did you used to stay at the beach?
- What things did you do at the beach?
and then mix it up and ask if she still goes to the beach or if she only did that when she was little.
You can easily find a handful of questions for each photo. You don't need to be concerned that the students will tire of the repetition. My students are so interested in seeing photos of their friends when they were younger that they appear not to notice the repetition or, if they do, they don't mind it. 

I use this activity each year with my Spanish 2 students. The photos provide the opportunity for highly personalized questions, complete with actively engaged students and, most definitely COMPELLING and comprehensible input. 

Note: If you have a student that doesn't have photos available of when they were younger, make sure you have a plan B for those students so they don't feel left out.  A nice twist that may be an option for Plan B, is for some students to bring in photos of their grandparents or great-grandparents.  Then you can talk about what the older generations used to do which may evolve into an interesting talk about the differences of growing up now compared to growing up several decades ago.

Short Films & CI - El Vampiro y la Dentista

http://youtu.be/dN8VbHEC12s

On the fourth day of Spanish 2, I introduced the following set of focus words: olía mal, comía ajo, tenía miedo

For each new set of vocabulary, I had a skeleton story, and the students helped to fill in the details..  My skeleton story for the above words (day 4 of the new semester) there was a guy that ate garlic all the time & everywhere because he was afraid of vampires. Then we worked on how to solve the person's bad breath problem.  (click HERE for the students' story & my story) In one class, a boy said, "He went to the dentist".  That comment reminded me of a short film that I saw several months ago but had never used in class.   
     The following day I chose new vocabulary that was used in the video. (era = he was, quería ayudar = she wanted to help, and no sabía que = he didn't know that.  Instead of telling another story, I used the new vocabulary as I narrated the film, pausing throughout the video to ask students questions. 
     Below is the list of activities that I used in conjunction with the video:

1. The students watched THIS VIDEO (found on YouTube, "Vampire's Crown" by HM3DAnimation) and I asked many, many questions about it.

2.  The second day we watched the video the second time, but without sound, and I asked questions again.

3.  I used three embedded readings to ease the students into reading the full version.  (see Laurie Clarcq's site for an explanation of Embedded Readings)  
Click HERE to download a copy of the embedded readings.
Version A - I read version A in Spanish and after each sentence the students verbally translated the sentence to English. 
Version B - Students worked in groups of 2 or 3 to read the story. They had to stand (no sitting!) with their partner somewhere in the room to read.
Version C - Before I gave them the last version, I instructed them to move with their partner to make a large circle around the circumference of the room.  Then one person in each group had to move counterclockwise to the next group.  (This provided them an opportunity to work with someone they may have not otherwise chosen.)  They read the story in English with their new partner.  I was in the middle of the room so I could easily help anyone with a word they did not know.

Inserted new message from March 2017 - I share these materials without cost to my readers. When you download my work and it is labeled "CC" that means you are free to use them but you must keep my name on the documents. I googled the script today and found PDFs that teachers made of the script and NO credit was properly given. I even found a Prezi by a teacher that put my story on different slides, as well as the follow activities. So please, show your appreciation by leaving my name on the materials that I have created that you use in your classrooms and ESPECIALLY when you use my materials in a presentation.

 
4. Collage - I said a sentence from the story and the students said which number matched the sentence, or if it happened before (antes de) or after (después de) the photo.  (Download the collage HERE.).


5. Notebook activity (available through email only) w/ the Epson Smart Projector.  Students put the pictures in order.  After placing each one, the student or someone the student chose, had to say a sentence in Spanish that matched the picture. Students were permitted to look at their Embedded Readings if they didn't know what to say.

6.  I gave students in groups of 3 a copy of the Collage used in #4.  A member of the group pointed to one of the 9 photos and the other two students said a sentence in Spanish.

7. Antes de/Después de worksheet.  (to download)

 
8. Group writing activity.  (click on link for explanation - scroll to #3 at that post) 


9. Freeze frame activity - as per Carol Gaab's session at ACTFL.  (click on link for explanation of how I used this activity in the previous semester.)

10. CLOZE activity  (found HERE or use Laura Avila's version below)

11.  At the end of the week I will give the students a 5 minute timed writing in which they can choose to write about this video.

As a follow up, I may decide to show the Señor Wooley's "La Dentista" video.  There is a lot of vocabulary in that video that my students don't know yet and haven't been exposed to, but I think the music, animation, and story will grab their attention.  It will be a nice reward for sticking with me for all the above activities!  

Update: Elisabeth Hayles shares her FRENCH resources for this video:
Embedded Readings HERE
Quizlet activity HERE 

Update: For information and materials on an interactive reading of the story that I used to prepare for this video (in Fall 2015), check the blog post HERE. 

UPDATE: In August 2013, Laura Avila contacted me to say she had also made two readings (which can be used for level 3) based on the reading I created for my Spanish 2 students.  She has generously offered to share her work on my blog so others can benefit from her efforts.  THANK YOU Laura!!!
Below are the two readings. 

Engaging lesson plan for Imperfect Tense

Goals for today's lesson:
1 - Provide a lot of repetitions of various verbs in the imperfect tense 
2 - Provide input that will engage the student
3 - Don't specifically tell the students that my focus for the lesson is the imperfect tense 

I started the lesson with the picture of an elderly couple (find it HERE) projected on the board.  I mentioned a few comparisons using young and old and then moved right into the goal of building a story around the two people.  We first established the basic details such as their names, their age, and where they live now.  Then I asked my students about details of their life in the past using the following questions as a guide:   

- Where did they used to live when they were young?
- What were they like?
- Where did they work?  What was their job?
- To where did they always on vacation?
- With whom did they talk every day/week?
- What did they believe?
- What did they want?

My students are getting better at "playing the game" and with a little help from me, we ended up with an interesting profile for these two people.  Throughout the profile building exercise, I continued to review the previous information to increase the number of repetitions.  Goal #1 ✔

After we had talked about "Dan" and "Beyonce" for awhile, I told the students to stand up and their ticket to sit down was to repeat one of the established facts about the couple.  If they couldn't remember any, they had to give a new fact about their past.  At first students took turns repeating the facts, but as the number of facts available yet to repeat dwindled, students started raising their hands to give new interesting facts; even several that were already seated wanted me to call on them because they had a good fact to add!  #Goal 2: ✔

Photo by Martin Smith, Flickr

For the last activity of the class, I counted off the students and put them in groups of 3. Then I projected another photo on the board, (right) and they had 10 minutes to write a profile on the two new people.  I instructed them not to write their names on their papers because I wanted to award points to the group with the best background information and I wanted to decide without being influenced by seeing their names. I chose the background information that explained how the couple was connected to the characters in The Hunger Games.  (I may have been slightly biased toward that since last night I just finished reading the second book in the series in Spanish.)

The next time I meet with the class, I'll ask some Verdadero/Falso or short answer questions to review the material yet one more time.  That will be on Monday, so if I have time Sunday evening (not tomorrow or Saturday due to ACTFL12), I may type a list of background information and the students will have to read it and find the sentences that describe "Dan" and "Beyonce".

As for Goal 3, well, I confess I mentioned that I put a graphic organizer on their Edmodo group a month ago and it was still there if anyone wanted notes.  (For what it's worth, I predict very few, if any, will bother to view the graphic organizer that I provided.) 

FYI - here is the profile for the first couple pictured above:

- Dan, is 82 yrs. old, from India, played cricket when young; 
- Beyonce, is 80 yrs old, from Alaska, played football when young;
- they're retired and now live in San Diego; they used to live in Portland, Maine;
- they're friends of the pope; actually Dan is his cousin
- they used to go to Vatican City every year for vacations
- they worked as spies for Canada
- they were athletic, hard-working, and funny
- Dan had 2 legs, but lost one in an accident in Serbia; now has one leg
- they had 2 sons 

Storybird to teach the Imperfect

UPDATE (again): If you have asked for access to this book in the last year and you wrote your email in your comment, you should have received a PDF of the story in an email tonight, February 3, 2020.

The Storybird website USED TO BE FREE for teachers to use. They know charge a monthly fee or if a teacher wants a copy of the story s/he wrote, s/he has to pay a one-time download fee to be able to share the story with others. I paid to download the story. If you would like a copy of the PDF, leave a comment below, or BETTER YET, send me an email at: cynthia underscore hitz at yahoo dot com 
and I will send the PDF to you.

If you commented below and said you want access to it, but you didn’t leave an email, there is no way I can send it to you.

Update 7/22/19: I don't know what is going on with this site, but I had to UPDATE the link again. Try THIS LINK to view the story. 

UPDATE 4/24/19: Storybird is changing some of its settings. As of today THIS LINK works.

There is a public community library 10 minutes from my house with a huge Spanish section.  I have found many books there to use in class, but one problem that I encounter when looking for books for my lower level Spanish classes is that there are not many that limit the vocabulary.  

Over a year ago I was looking for a book that used the verb GUSTAR so my students could see GUSTAR used in context, with illustrations.  I looked through their huge collection, but came up empty.  I went to the Storybird site and created my own story that used gustar.

For the first time in many years, I am teaching a Spanish 2 class this semester. I started my Spanish 2 students with the present tense because I thought I needed to get them all to the same "place" with their abilities.  After a week or two, I gave up on that idea and decided to jump in and start telling stories using past tenses.  I did as the experts say - I chose 3 structures (quería, fue, no lo encontró) and started asking a story.  We've had 2 more stories with the past tense since then so the students are getting used to hearing the new endings on the verbs.  This week, I'd like to read a story to them that has illustrations and uses a lot of imperfect tense, but has limited vocabulary.  Instead of making the trip to the library, I turned to Storybird again and wrote "El mejor regalo para Pablo". 
(The storybird site does not allow teachers to make stories public if they are not in English.  Therefore, links to stories that are public in another languages are sometimes deleted. Try THIS LINK to view "El mejor regalo para Pablo".  If that still does not work, send me an e-mail or leave a comment with your e-mail address and I can send it to you.)

UPDATE 9-30-12:  I made a PowerPoint quiz based on this Storybird book. 
HERE is the 15-pt quiz I gave me students.

If you have a few spare minutes, please do me the favor of reading the story and leaving your suggestions or ideas in ways to improve it.  I'm not happy with the title, but I haven't had any inspirations yet on how to change it. And, by all means, if there is a grammar error that I overlooked, I ask that you point that out to me so there are no errors when I read it to my students later this week.

Thanks for your help!