Do you do "La Personal Especial" or Student Interviews with your second language students? I have been doing a variation of this idea for many years. Last school year, I added a new component to it with my Spanish 4 students. After the 'interview', students stand and each one must ask a question to the student interviewee before sitting again. Yesterday, I was curious to know how much the students listened to the actual interview and to the questions AFTER they had asked their own question. After everyone had asked a question, I instructed the students to write a story (made up) that included a minimum of 4 pieces of information that the student interviewee had given us during the interview or during the questions. I suggested that the story length be at least 5 sentences. From the stories they shared, it was obvious that the students were listening because in their stories they included a wide range of facts from the interview and from the follow-up Q&A session. I called on students to read their stories and then I, or students, said how many pieces of information the person had included. This also worked well as an informal assessment. As I listened to the stories, I was able to hear which structures the students were using correctly and which ones they needed additional input and exposure. Because the students created stories with the student information, I'm know that the students will remember more facts and details about the student interviewee yesterday than about their classmates in previous interviews. Advantages of this post student interview writing activity: 1 - no prep needed 2 - all students are engaged 3 - recycling the language; additional input on interview information 4 - the language is used in context 5 - opportunity for students to write creatively in TL 6 - compelling input 7 - the student interviewee heard many stories, about HER!
Last week during Christmas vacation, my family gathered at my sister's house to play "The Game of Things". After 1 round, I was already making plans to play it in Spanish class.
Find it at Target or Walmart
The rules of the game are: 1. A person reads a card from the game, such as "Things that you wish grew on trees", 2. Players write an answer to what they wish grew on trees, and put their answers in a basket. 3. I read the submitted answers (since I saw the handwriting, I didn't guess but I still put my answer in with the others.) 4. While the answers are read, have a student write the answers on the board 5. Person A chooses one of the answers (they can not choose the answer they wrote) and guesses who said it. 6. If Person A guessed correctly, s/he gets a point and the person s/he guessed cannot play in this round. Person A continues to guess until s/he is incorrect. 7. If Person A is incorrect, play moves to Person B and Person B tries to guess one of the answers. 8. Play continues until the person guessing has guessed all answers and is left only with his/her own. The person receives 2 points since nobody guessed what they wrote. A week after I played the game, I saw a teacher's Facebook post about the game. Click on this linkto find some sample questions on Quizlet that you can translate to your TL. Or, personalize it and write your own questions. I played this game on the first day back after Christmas vacation (trying to ease into a five day school week again), with my Spanish 5 students. We played with 9 people and it worked well. You can play with more people (I played it the second time during my vacation on New Year's Eve with 15 people and that was still fun, but definitely harder. It took us about 30 minutes to complete one round! Of course, there was a lot of conversation along with the guessing.) If you want to play this game with a larger class, you could: 1. divide the students into two or three groups. 2. 9 or 10 students write the answers; divide the rest of the class into teams of two and the teams work to guess who wrote the answer. The students that wrote the answers can sit in a line in front to make it clear which persons they can ask. 3. Divide the class into teams of 2 or 3. The students in each team write their answer on the same paper. Students work together as teams to guess which teams said which answers. This link is to the online rule. Adjust as needed for your classroom. This link is to a video of a man explaining the game. Ignore his comments that it is for adults only. My students really enjoyed this game. If you don't try it with your students, I still recommend that you try it with your friends. In fact, maybe I can convince my CI teacher friends to play this one of the evenings at IFLT. (What do you think Martina? Will you and others be "game" for this?)
"Word Sneak" is a language game that Jimmy Fallon plays with guests on his talk show. Jimmy and his guest each receive 5 index cards with random words written on them. The object of the game is to work, or sneak, the words into a conversation as casually and seamlessly as possible, in the order as given to you. Watch this fun example of Jimmy Fallon and Bryan Cranston playing "Word Sneak".
Words for "Word Sneak" game
I made a few changes to the game to make it work with my Spanish 4+ class.
1. I showed a few minutes of "Word Sneak" on YouTube so students fully understood the game. 2. For a practice run, I wrote 10 random words in Spanish on index cards and two students volunteered to play the game. (Some of the random words were: me dolía, las estrellas, vaca, sangre, etc.). One of the students started the conversation, used the first word in telling about what happened with her pet, to which the second student responded, "sneaking" her first word into the conversation. For something extra, after they finished I asked the other students if they could guess what words were on the cards. 3. Then I gave each student TWO index cards. The 16 words I had written on the cards were words that I pulled from the first chapter of La Calaca Alegre, a novel written by Carrie Toth. Since I have a small group of Spanish 4+ students this semester, 8 people played the game, instead of 2. It was FUN! If I hadn't know beforehand what was written on the card, I would have had a hard time figuring out which words were intentionally "sneaked" into the conversation.
After playing the game, we read Chapter 1 of La Calaca Alegre. The students already knew most of the words, but the game served as a refresher/review of the words in which students could hear and use the words in context.
For bigger classes, you could have several groups playing at the same time. If you have enough words, after the groups are finished they could pass their index cards to the next group and play with the new set of cards.
I recommend this for a level 3 or higher class. It doesn't take long and it's a fun way to involve the students in peer conversation.
My upper level classes regularly have conversations in the target language about various topics. The most challenging part for me is how to encourage everyone participate in the TL discussion on a fairly equal basis. The majority of the students participate without hesitation even when they see that I am not tracking their participation. Two weeks ago, I read Amy Lenord's post on Conversation Circles (find it here). I implemented some of her techniques last Monday, April 15, and again during today's Conversation Circle. These inlucde: 1. I wrote the names of the students on
index cards and put the names on the chairs. Their new "assigned" seats were waiting for them when they entered the classroom. 2. Students had to write at least 2
questions before starting. 3. I wrote the rules on the board in Spanish (see Amy's blog), and
also told them I would try my best NOT to be part of the conversation. 4. I keep record of how many times students contributed to the
Our first topic was death because we were ready dto start
a unit that has Unamuno's poem "El niño enfermo", Gabriel Garcia
Marquez's "La viuda de Montiel", a discussion on cementeries with solar panels, and other related readings). After 40
minutes of the conversation circle, I had to end the discussion even though they were still going
strong. They were invested in the conversation, enjoying learning more
about each other, and had prepared excellent questions. (i.e. Would you
rather live forever or die? Why would you or wouldn't you want to live
to be 100? Did you ever have a pet that died? What are memories you have
of a loved one that passed away? etc)
On the tally sheet I marked: ? = asked a question l = contributed to the conversation x = spoke in English (there was only one "x")
At the end of the activity, I addressed a few of the errors I had heard by writing part of the sentence on the board and the students made the corrections. Today's topic was "lo sobrenatural" which will lead us into our next area of focus which is magic realism. Students discussed their opinions on ghosts, ghostly encounters, haunted houses, unexplained events, movies with ghosts, and on and on. It reminds me when teenagers get together to hang out and the conversation naturally flows, but of course in class it is focused on a particular subject and, it is in Spanish.
Benefits of the Conversation Circle: 1 - The students are quick to express their opinions about subjects that are interesting to them; dead spots in the conversation are almost non-existent. 2 - Since I'm not leading the conversation, (I actually sit outside of their circle), I am able to listen more intently to what each of them says; I'm not preparing to ask the next question. I am able to pick out common errors and adjust future lessons accordingly. 3 - The conversations are VERY interesting. The students (and I) are learning things about each other that I know we wouldn't have the opportunity to do so without our conversation time. 4 - It's student-centered; the students don't depend on me to lead the conversation. It's interesting to see how students participate in the conversation and monitor when it is time to ask a new question. 5 - The students write a wider variety of questions than what I would write. (The old "two heads are better than one" idea.) 6 - It's true communication - not contrived. They share their opinion or experiences and others respond to them, often requiring the first student to defend or expand on what they originally said. 7 - It's fun. It's relaxing. We're teaching a 2nd language to the students so they can communicate in the language and that is exactly what they're doing in this activity. Drawbacks: The most difficult part of this activity is for me NOT to join the conversation. It requires quite a bit of restraint on my part! I admit that there are times when I can't help myself and I cheat and make a small contribution to the conversation.
If you need some ideas for types of questions for the students each other, click HERE for a handy resource to go along with this type of activity.
photo found at: http://www.trendhunter.com/trends/cemetery-power-stations-dead-join-fight-against-global-warming
Leave it to my extended family, that loves to play games, to give me an idea for a game to use with my Spanish classes. After eating our Thanksgiving Day feast, my niece stood up and announced that she had a game for us to play before we left the table. Before we had arrived at her house, she had taped a question underneath everyone's chair. She chose someone to select a person and read the question to that person. That person answered the question by choosing someone in the room that they thought best fit the answer to the question. When the question was answered, the person that answered the question then read his/her question, and so forth. It was a fun game and engaging because it was interesting to see how others answered. This game/activity can easily be adapted in the MFL classroom. I listed the questions below, but you could easily change them or add questions that suit your students. In the lower levels, I suggest using only vocabulary that students already know or vocabulary that can be made comprehensible with little effort. The goal is not necessarily to introduce new vocabulary, but to provide more input, keep the students engaged, and offer an opportunity for students to respond in the TL. Below are the questions that my niece had prepared. (again - translate them into the language you teach and edit them as necessary to make them comprehensible and interesting to your students). - What sport would the person beside you most likely win gold at the Olympics? - If the person beside you wrote a book, what would it be about? - If the person beside you was a cartoon, who would they be? - Who in this room tells the best jokes? - If the person beside you starred in a movie, what would it be? - Who in this room has the best smile? - Where do you want to be in 5 years? - What is your favorite (holiday/summer/school) memory? - Who in this room would most likely appear on the Nightly News? Why? - Who in this room is the most technologically savvy? - Who in this room is the best cook? - If you could go to any concert for free, who would you go see? Why? - Who in this room would most likely appear on Survivor? Would they win? - Who in this room would most likely run for public office? What office? - Who in this room has the worst spelling? - Who in this room is most likely to pick up a hitchhiker? - Who in this room is the best dancer? - Who in this room would most likely win The Amazing Race? And who would be their partner? - Who in this room is most attached to their pet? - Who in this room is most likely to go see The Hobbit? - Who in this room would win The Hunger Games? - What animal does the person to your left resemble?
Marisol listens to Víctor & Miguel describe the video.
It's Friday and definitely time for another one of the students' and my favorite activities - describing videos.
I found this ad for a sport utility several months ago, called. Below are the steps for the activity, with the goal of having the students communicate in L2.
1. Before class, I watched the movie and made a list of the events from the story that students would later need to match.
2. Students form groups of 4.
3. One person from each group leaves the classroom. (My room is down a short hallway so it doesn't cause any problems with the students in the hall.)
4. I show the video to the students 2 times.
5. The students return from the hall and sit with their group. The students that saw the movie must describe the events in the video to their member that was in the hall in SPANISH ONLY. The students that were in the hall are allowed to talk in English and ask questions in English, but those that watched the movie must speak only in Spanish. (I allow the students that were in the hall to speak English to take some of the pressure off of them.)
6. After the groups have described the video in Spanish, I send the students back to the hall with a sheet of paper and they write the events in the video either in Spanish (L2) or English (L1).
7. I collected their papers and groups earned 1 point for each fact they have that matched mine. The winning group received one extra credit point.
My list of events that students need to match to earn points:
- man and woman in bed
- it's morning
- she takes shower
- there is a hair dryer on the shower floor
- she gets an electric shock
- man looks out the window at vehicle
- window falls on man's neck/head
- man and woman see/pass each other in the hall
- bowling ball falls on woman's head
- torch burns man's hair
- man puts his head in a fishbowl
- man trips over wire at top of steps and falls down stairs
- woman flosses her teeth
- woman steps over man at bottom of steps
- man and woman fight/push each other outside of house
- man has keys
- woman goes into house
- woman smells gas in kitchen
- a pan is in the microwave
- man drives the vehicle
- house explodes
- woman is on top of vehicle .
The next time I do this activity, I'll follow it with an activity that includes the words the students didn't know when they were explaining the activity.
I hope your students enjoy it as much as my students did. Let me know if you have other ideas how to use this to encourage even more communication in the target language.
For my second day back with my Spanish 4 classes, I was ready to share a story about a boy whose father buys him a magic carpet. I introduced the new vocabulary, asked some questions to practice the vocabulary, and then began to set up the beginning of the story. It was then that I noticed a student in the front row (the desks are arranged in a U formation so there are many students in the "front" row), slyly reaching into his bookbag on the floor. Inside the pocket of the bookbag I saw a shiny wrapper - you guessed it, chocolate wrapped in yellow foil, most likely from Easter.
Suddenly, my story wasn't so important any longer. What had my attention, and in short time, the attention of many of the other students, was... What was José reaching for in his bookbag? I continued asking questions as I walked towards José, both of us smiling knowing he was caught red-handed, and sat down in the student desk next to him, all the time continuing my questions, now directed to José, about the first few sentences of the story. As I asked the questions to José, I continued to look at him and then at the bookbag, then back at him. It was a little unrehearsed game and I was enjoying it, José was enjoying it, and the other students were enjoying it. By the time I stood up and moved away from José, everyone in the class knew that José would not be reaching into his bag again to snack on candy.
But, the best part was when I added a new sentence to the story, only to glance at José to see him licking his fingers. I couldn't help but zero in on José again and ask him what he was doing. He explained, in Spanish of course, that there was "chocolate en mis pies". ¿en tus pies? What a great time to review parts of the body, fingers and toes, and all the while with the attention of the whole class. It was at that point that I realized that this was "flow" that some TPRS teachers mention. The students in the class, including José, were so focused on what was happening with José and his bookbag and the chocolate, that the emphasis was not on Spanish, but Spanish was being used to follow and narrate the events. Personally, I didn't care that the whole chocolate episode took 4, 6, or 8 minutes out of my planned story, it was communication in the target language and they were focused in on the action.
Turns out, José said (in Spanish again, of course) that he was going to give me the candy when I was seated next to him, but I stood up too soon. Naturally, I sat next to him again, he gave me the candy, and I placed it on my desk for later.
Let me assure you that I know, without a doubt, that José wasn't embarrassed nor did he feel put on the spot, at any point during this interaction. He is a great student with a super, super, SUPER personality and I knew this little "game" was just as fun for him as it was for anyone in the room. He helped create the "flow" and nobody else, at that particular point, could have drawn the rest of the students' attention into the conversation like José did. Was it an interruption - certainly. But it was time well-spent. There's time tomorrow to continue the story. THANKS JOSÉ for helping with the lesson.
Just one of those days I have to ask myself, "and they pay me for this?"
Yesterday was technically my first day back to teach my Spanish 5 class after they were taught for three weeks by my student teacher. But yesterday was all about making Cascarones, one tidbit of culture that the students always enjoy that I can't bring myself to take out of the curriculum, so really, today was my first day to teach again.
I was definitely ready to teach using one of my favorite methods - a discussion that leads into a video. The students were so ready to have a group discussion that we ran short on time and could have used at least another 30 minutes.
Our discussion was on small, fender-bender type car accidents. Here is an outline of the steps in the lesson. Unfortunately, we did not get through all of them and today. Since it was the last day before Easter break, I probably won't go back to this next Tuesday, our first day back. Next time I'll have to plan this as a 2-day activity because I hate, hate, hate, to cut discussions short.
1.Start the discussion about accidents, women and men drivers, etc. with questions in the target language (below is the English version for those that don't teach Spanish). 2. Students describe photos at this website to their classmates. (directions how I did this are on download). 3. Put students in groups of 3 & they discuss the pictures on my Notebook activity (see download) and decide what they think is the correct order of events. 4. Students share their predicted order with class. (see download for link to use with interactive boards or interactive projectors). Two weeks ago I was the happy recipient of a new interactive projector so that makes this activity possible.) OR...There are many activities, verbal or written, that you can include at this stage, depending on your time and how comfortable and willing your students are with verbal activities. Maybe your students could write the dialogue in the video. 5. Watch the video. (Yes, unfortunately there is dialogue in English.) 6.Discuss, retell, write...your choice.
The full lesson can be found below: If you have any ideas for other activities on this theme or with this video, please feel free to share them with me!
My Spanish 5 students have been working on a short story by Miguel Unamuno, Spanish modismos, and a global collaborative project. After a week of those types of activities, I knew it was time to include another opportunity to learn through the use of videos.
I've had the following commercials clips on file waiting for the right moment and that was on Thursday. First, the video clips...
Here are several ideas of how to encourage conversation... the main reason I use videos.
In my opinion, the best way to work with these 3 short clips is to hit pause right before the twist is revealed, then...
- Describe the setting
- Identify objects
- Teacher asks sts true/false or short answer questions
- Decide as a class additional bits of information that have led up to the event or develop the characters:
What is the person's occupation?
What is the romantic dinner celebrating? What dinner is he preparing?
Where does he/she live?
Why is the man in the hospital? Was he in an accident? Did he have a surgery?
Is the man walking the dog single or married?
Does he have children? Why didn't the children walk the dog?
How old is the girl at the park?
- and, the obvious, ask the sts to guess what will happen next. By now, my students know that if I'm showing them a video it's most likely because there is a surprise ending. I tell them to be creative in their answers, and I repeated "sean creativos" enough times on Thursday that the students guessed some of the endings.
I'm sure there are some other activities that my students and I could do with these advertisements, so please feel free to share your thoughts with me if you have been inspired.
This video actually has five different clips. I used the website: http://www.embedplus.com/ to crop the video to contain only 3 segments.
I don't like when students are absent from class, but if we have a class discussion about a short film on a day when a student is absent, I have a sure-fire way to add more repetitions with the day's vocabulary the next day. When the student returns, I put the class in charge of explaining the video, using Spanish only, to the absent student. The absent student is the only one that is permitted to speak in English. I stress to the class that if the absent student doesn't understand, it's not the student's problem, but rather it is the problem of the entire class. The responsibility lies on their shoulders to make sure they are understood.
Yesterday, as an introduction to our unit on Love and Relationships, I showed the short film, "Blind Date".
First I had the students work in groups and they tried to match my answers to questions such as: - What is something you can drink? - What is something you put on? - What is an action you do when preparing food? We discussed their answers, did some light PQA, and moved onto the video. I stopped the video at 2:30 for students to retell the story thus far, using the vocabulary that they just learned in the previous action. I also asked them to predict what happened next. We then watched the remaining part of the video and practiced re-tells in a large group and then in small groups.
The retell was "on" the next day when two students returned to class. This group is getting quicker at the retells.
What would you do with this video? I'm looking for any creative ideas you may have.
I found this video on another teacher's blog, but I can't remember which one. I'll do my best to find it so I can give him/her the credit.
Last month I was reading a blog in which someone made reference to a handout that was posted on Bryce Hedstrom's blog regarding a workshop that Bryce did on how to include jokes into your TPRS material (The handout is called: STORIES WORTH RE-TELLING: How to Teach with Jokes). I have a unit in Spanish 4 on comedy in which I tell jokes to the students, but for some reason I didn't even think of using jokes with my level 1 students. That opened up a whole new arena of possibilities.
Two weeks ago while searching for material to use for my Spanish 4 class, I came across a TV commercial that was perfect for my Spanish 1 students. Since yesterday was a Friday, I thought it was the great time to change things up with a joke. First, I listed 3 new structures on the board. They were: - habla en voz baja (o alta) - biblioteca - es maleducado (which I ended up not even using in the joke because no one is rude in the joke)
After we had practice the new structures, I straight up told the students that I was going to tell them a joke. The actual joke doesn't take much time. I could have added things to the story to include more vocabulary (i.e. she was blond, wearing a blue dress, etc), but I wanted to keep it short because we had other materials to review from the previous day.
The joke: (Click on the image above to link to the video of the commercial.)
Una mujer va a la biblioteca.
Entra la biblioteca y camina a la bibliotecaria (o a la persona que trabaja en la biblioteca).
La mujer habla en voz alta y le dice a la bibliotecaria, “Yo quiero una hamburguesa, papas fritas, y Coca Cola.”
La bibliotecaria mira a la mujer. ¡Qué extraño! La mujer está a la biblioteca y ella quiere comida.
La bibliotecaria le responde, “Esta es una biblioteca.”
La mujer mira a la bibliotecaria, y luego mira a las otras personas en la biblioteca y los libros en los estantes.
Luego, la mujer repite, pero esta vez le habla en voz baja a la bibliotecaria, ““Yo quiero una hamburguesa, papas fritas, y Coca Cola.”
This post was originally on another blog that I had started this fall (called Communicating in the TL) because these activities aren't specifically the TPRS method. However, it could easily be changed into that format. In an effort to consolidate the two blogs (the other blog was definitely neglected), I changed the description under the title of this blog to include activities such as the one listed here.
Last week (the 1st week in October) I completed the following activities with my students in Spanish 4. I make a special effort to dedicate Fridays to activities that are connected to short video clips. Sometimes the students watch the video and explain it to others that haven't seen it. Other times I show the video clips to students at the same time and pause it for discussion throughout the video. The activity below is on the topic "Los Ancianos" the elderly. I did these activities with two of my Spanish 4 level classes. One class was able to finish the three videos and discussion within the 70 minute class period. The other class did not have time to watch the 3rd video because their class discussion was lively and all participated.
When I have pre-selected topics for class activities, I keep a notepad handy to jot down vocabulary words. Whenever a student does not know how to say a word that is related to the topic and if none or most of the other students do not know the word, I tell them the word and add it to the list. The next day I give them the list of Spanish words to use as we refer back to the previous day’s topic. Sometimes I make a short story using the vocabulary words, but the words are listed in a word bank and the students choose the write word for each blank.
1.Ask students who is the oldest person they know. How old are they? Describe the person. If it is a relative, how often do they visit them?
2.Discuss common stereotypes of elderly people. What are the differences in cultures on how the elderly are treated and cared for?
3.Play video. Pause the video before Rose drips any soup on her blouse. I ask students to describe the scene (the dining room, description of Rose, why they think they aren’t others dining, her age, her family, where she used to live/past occupation, etc) as if they were explaining to their friend the next day what they saw when they entered the dining room.
4.Restart video and play to end. Discuss the worker’s reaction to the spilled soup, Rose’s reaction, the desire to hold onto one’s independence, etc.
5.If not mentioned in previous discussion, ask students what activities they think retired people like to do, such as hobbies, outdoor activities, part-time jobs, travel, etc.
6.Play video. Pause the video after a few seconds so students can describe the setting again (Where are the two men? Does their clothing give an indication as to what part of the world they may be? How do they know each other? Etc.
7.Restart video, pause after the teeth fall in the water. What will the man that sneezed do?
Continue to pause after short clips so students can guess what happens next.
8.Play video. Stop to describe and discuss: the setting; the relationship of the two people on the bench; location; what day of the week or time of the day it could be; occupation of the man on the right; etc.
9.Restart video. Pause after the younger man yells at the older man and the older man walks away. What is the problem? How would you react if you were the man on the right? What does his repetition of the question remind you of?
10.Restart video. Pause after older man returns with a book. Why does he have a book?
11.Restart and watch to the end. Discuss: What is the video saying to them? Compare relationship of a young parent caring for their child to an older child caring for their elderly parent.
The following class, distribute the list of words that students did not know when discussing the video. Retell what happened in the video, and students may use the paper while retelling.
Choose one of the videos and write a different ending or continue the story.
Write about a past experience or encounter that you had with an elderly person – either a relative, an acquaintance, an event that you witnessed at a store (ex: an elderly person that needs help reaching for something at the grocery store; an elderly person using public transportation during peak hours, etc.)
This activity could serve as an introduction to a unit on the elderly.
Do you do "La Personal Especial" or Student Interviews with your second language students? I have been doing a variation of this idea for many years. Last school year, I added a new component to it with my Spanish 4 students. After the 'interview', students stand and each one must ask a question to the student interviewee before sitting again. 
