First Days of School (Back) in the Spanish 1 Classroom

It's been 7 years since I taught Spanish 1, but I'm happy to report that I'm back in the Spanish 1 classroom and enjoying the newness of the language to the students and the way they are soaking it up.

Last year I asked my administrators if I could teach a few level 1 classes again to revisit the curriculum. They obliged me and for the fall semester I have three Spanish 1 classes and one Spanish 4 class. 

I searched for and found my old lesson plans on my computer, and I was obvious they needed some serious updating. I pulled a little something from here, an idea from there, and voila, the first four days went 10x smoother than I could have hoped for. It went so well, in fact, that even though I haven't been documenting much on my blog in the last year or so, I felt I had to share in case  the lessons may be useful to others. 

Following is a summary of my plans for 70 minute classes for Spanish 1.

DAY 1

1. First day intro, brief syllabus/expectations

2. Explained call back: Hola Hola Inca Kola (idea from Annabelle Williamson)

3. On construction paper, students wrote their name and something they want

4. Teacher questions in Spanish and students answers in English or si or no

    I questioned a few students about their cards, asking them what they want, showing it to the class, asking if they already have that item, which other students have that item, how many/much of the item they want, etc'

     In the first class, I started with a student that had drawn the money symbol. Just as in normal conversation, the student's answer led to another question, followed by another answer, which took us in another direction, and on and on it went. I only discussed the information on 3 students' cards because the questions and answers flowed so easily and the students were engaged. At least one student in the other classes also drew money so I asked similar questions in those classes too. 

     Keeping the conversation in Spanish involved framing my questions with cognates, writing key words in Spanish & English on the board, pointing and pausing at the question words, sketching, clarifying, comprehension checks, and all the other tricks we have to remain in the Target Language while still be comprehensible.

     The conversation allowed for many repetitions in context of the words: quiere(s), tiene(s), es, está PLUS interrogatives

5. WRITE & DISCUSS: I asked students questions about the conversations and wrote the information on the board. We read the sentences when finished (4 or 5 sentences) and then students copied it into their notebooks.

BRAIN BREAKS (2-3)

DAY 2

1. Chatted about Day 1, the first day of school, for 10. Once again, it was in the TL. I asked students what classes they have, recycling tiene (has), which class in their opinion will be the easiest or the most difficult, who the teachers were, etc.

2.  I asked students to READ the sentences we wrote yesterday and I wrote them on the board. We reviewed the information in the sentences but other information that we talked about yesterday but did not include in the written sentences, we READ the sentences in English, asked students "which word means X", 

3. Discussed a few other student cards (quiere)

4. WRITE & DISCUSS the new information

5. I used SpanishPlan's powerpoint story "El niño quiere un dragón" for PictureTalk. HERE is the free download on TPT. More recycling of the words quiere, tiene, está and introduced dice. We read each of the slides except the last one. I saved the surprise ending for tomorrow.

BRAIN BREAKS (2)

DAY 3

1. Warm-up:  

2. Re-read the powerpoint "El niño quiere un dragón"

3. Watched the short video and asked students to explain the surprise ending.

4. Read the last slide of the story "El niño quiere un dragon"

5. Discussed last two slides from SpanishPlans ppt - how much English was used?, what helped them to understand?, etc

6. OWI (One Word Image) explained HERE. 

7. WRITE & DISCUSS the OWI. Below are the students' masterpieces. 😊

BRAIN BREAKS (2)

DAY 4

1. Warm-up: I posted a OWI sketch on the board from another class for students to refer to along with 10-12 sentences about the character. They chose 5 Spanish sentences from the descriptions to translate to English. When completed, I read the sentences in Spanish, one by one, and asked for volunteers to tell me in English the translations of the sentences.

2. Reviewed the class' own OWI. If we didn't complete the information that we created yesterday, we did that in WRITE & DISCUSS format. For the class that completed the WRITE & DISCUSS yesterday, we created a story WHY Rico el calcetín was sad and then did a WRITE & DISCUSS.

3. Nineteen years ago (😊) I made two maps of Mexico & Central America & the Caribbean and of South America on poster boards and made Velcro labels of the names of the countries & Puerto Rico and bodies of water. I put the poster of South America on the board and randomly distributed the labels to students. Any student that thought they knew where their country label belonged on the map went put their label on the map (only 1 or 2 per class did this). Then I gave them hints on the answers (examples: think of Argentina as LARGEntina, Uruguay begins with U just as the word "under", as "tucked under" does and Uruguay is tucked under one part of South American; Colombia starts with "C" just as "conectado" does and Colombia está conectado a América Central) and other fun helpful hints. 

     We continued with the map of Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean.

     Teaching the map information in the Target Language is easy. Just remember to slow your rate of speech, write words on the board they don't know (example: país=country; frontera=border; isla=island, norte, sur, oeste, este, isla) point to interrogatives and pause;  

     Recyled tiene, está, es, and a few others that have naturally crept into our discussions the last few days such as pero, con, también   

BRAIN BREAKS - 1 (moving around when labeling the countries provided a mini-brainbreak for students.

I deem this week in Spanish 1 a success! I am so proud of my students. They were engaged and I am delighted with the amount of growth I've seen in that short period of time.  

As I said, I'm sooooo proud of them. 👍🏼

via GIPHY

Things to keep in mind:

1. Staying in the target language is definitely doable if you are committed to slowing your speech, adjusting your language and vocabulary for the level of students, pointing and PAUSING - do not forget the pausing please; writing words in Spanish and English, short verbal clarifications/comprehension checks;  

2. Brain Breaks - If you ARE successful in staying in the target language, don't fool yourself into thinking the students can maintain that engagement and focus indefinitely. They N-E-E-D a brain break. It is worth it to pause for 1-3 minutes because they can refocus much better. 

3. If you forget to include brain breaks because YOU are so into your lesson, assign the job to a student to let you know when it is X-o'clock and I can guarantee you the student will not let you forget the brain break.  :)

4. WRITE & DISCUSS is POWERFUL; even more so, in my opinion, when the teacher writes the sentences first, with input from the students (allow them to answer in English but you write in the TL), and only after you finish writing (and reading it and "discussing" the text) should you allow the students to copy the text.

5. OWI (One Word Images) provide rich vocabulary for students and you will get  student buy-in and ownership of the character. ENJOY the process and laugh with the students and encourage and appreciate their creativity.

6. LOOK the students into their eyes. This is my 19th year of teaching and finally...I am able to consistently accomplish this. Making connections is 10x easier when you meet this goal.

7. "Haste makes waste". You can't rush language acquisition, but you can provide comprehensible, enriching language experiences for your students. Guard those precious moments of instructional time and use them to their fullest!

One Word Images & ChatterPIX PLUS App Smashing

I stumbled across an app earlier this year that when combined with One Word Images (OWI were originally created by Ben Slavic. Read about & watch a video of a OWI on Mike Peto's Blog) will provide various possibilities for World Language teachers. 

The app is called ChatterPix and it is available for IOS devices AND Android devices. Better yet, it is FREE! As soon as I saw the app I couldn't wait to add it to my presentation "Make Technology Count in the CI Classroom" for #iFLT19 in St. Petersburg, Florida, to share it with other world language teachers.

The ChatterPIX app allows you to upload a photo, draw a line for a mouth on a person or on any object that is in the photo, and then you record your voice and the "mouth" moves as you are recording.

When I was experimenting with the app and searching for photos on my camera roll, I came across a photo of a OWI that my Spanish class had created and the idea to use the app on the OWI was born.

On the right is a photo of the OWI my Spanish class created. To summarize, Mahe is an umbrella that is afraid of rain and has a friend that is a sponge. (If you're wondering how did we decide on a name such as Mahe; students couldn't agree on a name so I asked four students to tell me a letter of the alphabet and from those letters I created the name Mahe. 😂)

I uploaded the photo to ChatterPix and added the voice.

Some of the uses when combining ChatterPIX with OWIs are:

- teacher creates the recording for students to access for additional input
- teacher creates the recording with the OWI asking true/false or short answer questions for students to answer
- teacher creates the recording with a few changes to the details/story; students  find the differences between the recording and the original class story
- students create a recording as if they were the object; summarize information about the object
- students create a recording as if they were the object; add new information about the OWI (character)


In general, students can use ChatterPIX for presentational mode, especially for students that don't want to have their own photo on the end product. The finished products can be uploaded to your school's LMS (Learning Management System, such as Schoology, Canva, Edmodo, etc.)

- students draw a character from a novel the class is reading and record as if the students are the character; what are his/her thoughts on what is happening?; what does he/she hope does/doesn't happen?; how does s/he feel?
- choose a painting and have the painting tell what is represents (great for art "units")
- teacher uses photo and records a voice; students decide if what the person or object says is logical or illogical in reference to what is happening in the photo
- students create a comic strip and upload it to a powerpoint or googleslides; make characters talk with ChatterPIX

Below is an example that MadameMoran tweeted which uses ChatterPIX. (#greatmindsthinkalike) 😊

Presentational Mode (writing, speaking, visually representing) Next...to app smash with ⁦@Flipgrid⁩ #langchat ⁦@EmilyBoatright⁩ ⁦@ptyut1999⁩ ⁦@MadameDarlis⁩ ⁦@gadoeworldlang⁩ pic.twitter.com/j9g5VvKnHN

— Madame Moran (@AlisonM19365957) July 19, 2019

Next...

If you want to step into App Smashing, try combining a app or website that removes the background in photos of people (and objects if you're willing to pay extra or do extra detailed work), then add a new background for the people in the photo, and make either the people talk with ChatterPIX or pick an object in the photo to talk TO the people. (Thanks to Krista Kovalchick for permission to use the photo with her and me.)

Below is a screenshot of a slide from my Tech Presentation at #iflt19 on Appsmashing with ChatterPIX and the website Removebg.com followed by the steps I followed to create the above video.

1. Take a photo. Make sure there are not other people in the background!

2. Upload the photo to removebg.com and remove the background. Download the photo from the removebg.com website.

3. Choose another photo to which you want to add the person/people on the downloaded file from removebg.com. (My friend, Karen, sent the photo in this step when she was at Epcot and I was at in-service. Years ago I was at Epcot but not with Krista, the woman in the photo with me.)

4. Layer the edited photo from removebg.com to the new background.

5. Upload the new photo to ChatterPIX. Choose a person or an object to animate with a voice. Download the video with voice recording to your camera roll or computer for use in your world language classroom.

Removebg.com

This website takes all the work out of removing backgrounds. I used it with ChatterPIX but I'm sure you'll find uses for it for other activities in your World Language Classroom. Or, have fun using it and surprising your friends with the photos. After all, having fun with tech shouldn't be limited to our classrooms!!

Charlala.com - Great Features using the DrawRoom and creating DrawSets

In my previous blog post I wrote about using the DrawRoom of the website Charlala.com for:
- Weekend Chats
- Learning about Classmates
- Review a Novel
- Predictions
- Storytelling and TPRS Stories

Today, I received a message from Kara Jacobs of CE Resources (Check out her blog. It is a treasure trove of resources for Spanish teachers):

Then Kara sent me some screenshots of several DrawSets that she had created and said if teachers could share the DrawSets with each other, it would be an excellent resource for those reading the same novels with their students. AWESOME idea, Kara!! (The answer to her question is at the end of the blog post.)

I started experimenting with the DrawSets features with sentences from novels. I chose the Frida Kahlo novel written by Kristy Placido (find it at Fluency Matters) because I read that with my Sp4 students. These are the steps to create a DrawSet and how to use it with students:

1. On the home page of CHARLALA, on the left column click on DrawRoom. 

2. Click on Create New DrawSet.

3. Type your title. I haven't figured out how to edit the title of the DrawSet after the DrawSet has been created, so be mindful of the exact title you want for your DrawSet.

4. Add the terms (words) or phrases to your DrawSet. I chose 6 sentences from chapter 5 of Frida Kahlo when Frida and her dad are walking in the park, her dad has an epileptic attack, a boy sees Frida occupied with helping her dad and tries to steal her father's camera. 

5. Click on Start DrawRoom. I opened the DrawSet for "students" (in quotations because I was experimenting at home with several devices, but I will refer to the devices as students. In two days I am going to use this feature with students at school but until then I'll use the examples and screenshots from my devices I used at home). 

6. Choose "Game", adjust settings for time, music, choose which set you want to use on the drop down menu (only after you have created DrawSets), then click on START.

7. The screen will display the following message (website and code to enter) and students enter the DrawRoom using the code.

8.   After students have entered the DrawRoom, click on START.

9. The students screen will display one of the terms or one of the phrases that the teacher created in the DrawRoom. (see screenshot below). The student needs to draw the term or phrase and then click on FINISH to send it to the teacher and enter it in the sketches that will be shown in the game. Some students will receive the same term/phrase which is not a problem.

Student screen with Drawing Prompt

Student screen - click on FINISH to submit drawing

10. The teacher can end the ability for students to draw at any time. If your students are taking a long time to draw, you decide how much time you give them to draw.

11. The teacher then starts the game. The teacher's screen will display one of the sketches and the students' screens will display several choices and the students match the term/phrase to the sketch. 

Teacher's screen

Student screen

12. Students receive points for correctly matching the term/phrase to the sketch.

13. When you end the game, you have the opportunity to download as many of the student sketches as you want. How COOL is that? After downloading the sketches, you can use them as a review the following class.

To answer Kara's questions, I emailed Chris, the creator of Charlala, and he said the ability to share DrawSets with other teachers is something they will add in the future.

How is it possible that this website keeps getting better and better? 

THANK YOU, Chris!

Student Engagement & Charlala.com in the WL Classroom

Don't you love it when someone creates a new tool that, as soon as you learn about it, your mind starts thinking of numerous ways you can use it in class? That's what happened when I first saw a tweet about the website Charlala.com. 

I predict that after learning about Charlala.com you are going to wish you had more days of school with your students. Yes - Really! 

Charlala.com is a website created by Chris Hammer, a world language curriculum specialist and a grade 2-8 Spanish teacher. Charlala.com has several features but the one I'll focus on in this post is the DrawRoom with Game Mode and Conversation Mode. (Other features of the site allow the teacher to create a video in which the teacher records himself asking a question and then sets a time limit for how long the student has to answer the recorded questions, somewhat similar to what CLEAR by Michigan State University used to have.)

I used the DrawingRoom in Charlala.com with my students for the first time today and it was a big hit. These are the various ways I used this site:

1. WEEKEND CHAT

Collage of downloaded images from Charlala.com of Weekend chat

The first day of the school week, I start class with a Weekend Chat. There are probably 101 ways to do this, but with Charlala.com there are now 102 ways. 

I told students that we were going to chat about the weekend, but we were going to use the iPads to draw. That alone prompted some cheers. I projected my screen with the web address and the # for students to enter the DrawRoom. Then I gave students the prompt (in the TL of course), "What did you do this weekend that was your favorite activity?" Students sketched their answers, then I projected them and we talked about each of them, asking more questions and giving students additional input on each of the activities we highlighted.  

In a different class, I asked students what was their favorite activity and their least favorite activity. They drew both of them on the same sketch. Below is a screenshot of some of the responses and how that appears on the teacher screen. 

Teacher view as sketches are submitted by students.

2. LEARNING ABOUT CLASSMATES

Bucket List before student turns 30

There were 11 students in one of my classes, so I asked them to draw what they hope to do before they are 30 years old. (I explained the prompt in Spanish, the target language.) But this time I did not want them to see the names of their classmates above the sketches, (see above for an example), so I did not project my screen. As students submitted their sketches, I downloaded each one (it's a SNAP to download the submitted sketches) and I transferred them directly on a powerpoint.

After all the sketches were submitted, I told the students to number a paper 1-11. I showed all of the sketches to the students so they could preview them. Then I started with the first sketch and directed students to write the name of the person and what that person wants to do before they are 30. Example: Peter quiere ser el presidente de los EE.UU. (Peter wants to be the President of the United States.)

Note: To be clear, the collage of the 4 sketches on the left, I added the colored background when I put the sketches on the Powerpoint slide. If students want a solid color background, they have to add that in their drawing. 

After students wrote a short sentence for each sketch, we went back to #1 slide and I asked students who they had guessed for #1. If it was wrong I asked the incorrectly guessed student what s/he had as an answer. Each time the students were hearing reps of the sentence. This would be great at any level!

If the students are not able to write the sentences, the teacher can project his computer screen and then describe a sketch and students guess which sketch is being described. If you don't want students names on it, you can download the sketches and put 4 or so on a powerpoint slide.



3. REVIEW A NOVEL (or Other Text)
My Spanish 4+ students are reading 48 Horas by Carrie Toth. Before the 3-day weekend the students took their writing and speaking part of the final with the seniors, which means when we returned from Memorial Day Weekend, we hadn't read the novel for several days. To review the novel, I opened the DrawRoom for the students and told them to sketch something that happened in  chapter 1-10. 

After students submitted their sketches, I clicked on the sketches and asked students what they thought the sketch depicted. It was a novel way to review the novel! Several of the sketches are shown below. 

By the way, if you don't have the novel, 48 Horas, I strongly recommend it!

4. PREDICTIONS
When reading a novel, students can draw their predictions of what will happen next. The sketches give the students the ability to share their opinions without the language barrier and also provides the opportunity for the teacher to talk about the predictions in the target language.

You can use Charlala.com in place of activities when you used to have the students draw on paper. I'm not suggesting that you completely eliminate drawing on paper, students of all ages enjoy that from time to time, but if your administration is expecting to see use of technology when they observe your class, the Charlala.com website makes it possible. The best part is that you can easily share the sketches with the whole class AND you can download the sketches to use on other documents and to review at a later date.

5. STORYTELLING and TPRS STORIES
I attended an hour webinar hosted by Chris Hammer this evening in which he demonstrated how Charlala.com can be used when telling a story to the class. During the demonstration, Chris chose several sketches as the "masterpieces". If you continue to choose a masterpiece for each section of the story, after the story is completed you can download a pdf of the sketches and use that document to review the story the following day, for the students to use the sketches as a retell, or possibly to complete a Write and Discuss with the sketches on a document of the students to write on.

The screenshot below shows the masterpieces on the right upper corner. 

After closing the DrawRoom, you will have the option to download the pdf.

Ohhh, the possibilities! It's easy to see that this new tool (which I think Chris first introduced it in August 2018) will be useful in the ways I outlined above and many other ways.  

This spring, when the administrators were working on the teaching schedules for the 2019-2020 school year, I requested to have some Spanish 1 classes to work on the curriculum. (You can't imagine how difficult it was for me to give up my level 2 students for one year, but I felt it was in the best interest of the program, regardless of how much I would miss teaching that level!) Anyway, I am looking forward to using this website with my Spanish 1 classes in the fall, as well as my upper level classes. 

The site is currently in Beta. I suggest you spend some time this summer checking it out and exploring the possibilities. Chris Hammer, the creator of the site, welcomes feedback from teachers and is quick to respond to those suggestions. He is constantly improving and updating the site. In this evening's webinar, he mentioned several updates that they will work on over the summer and I'm sure that it will be even more AMAZING when the new school year rolls around.

If you have some great ideas on how you will use this in your classroom, I would LOVE to hear about them. 

Student Recommended Spanish Books for SSR

I don't know if the warm spring weather has transformed my students into  verbally appreciative readers or if there's some type of reading vortex swirling through Palmyra, PA, but something strange this way comes. Something is nudging my students to be extra complimentary about their SSR books. Whatever it may be, I'm loving it. 

Students, on their OWN, are commenting to me how much they like the books they are reading independently during SSR (Sustained Silent Reading).  In three days' time, I had several students tell me about their book or recommend to another student to read the book they're reading.

Starting a SSR program in a second language requires you to be diligent and consistent in your expectations, but it will be worthy your time. Eventually, the students will learn to enjoy and appreciate that reading time; at least I've found that to be the case for the majority of the students! 

The books that my students raved about last week were:  
` 1. El Escape by A.C. Quintero
The 11th grade male student said: "This book is really good."   I have observed this student many times during SSR in the last 3 months in which he was staring at the floor instead of reading, 'reading' on the same page for the majority of the 10 minutes; and sleeping. Since he started to read El Escape, his reading behaviors have changed and he spends the full 10 minutes reading. 

I told the author, A.C. Quintero, and she said she wrote the book especially for boys that don't want to read romance books.

2. La Calaca Alegre by Carrie Toth
A student wanted a recommendation for a new book so I suggested La Calaca Alegre by Carrie Toth. Three days later, another student needed a new book.  The student reading La Calaca Alegre told him to read La Calaca Alegre because she liked it and thought he would like it too. 

3. Brandon Brown Dice la Verdad by Carol Gaab
Before starting SSR today, a female student said, "Señora, I want to tell whoever wrote this Brandon Brown book that they wrote a literal masterpiece." (She was holding Brandon Brown Dice la Verdad) Yes, that is exactly what she said. I asked if I could videotape her saying that and she agreed. In the video she not only says Brandon Brown Dice la Verdad is a great book but "all of the Brandon Brown books are literal masterpieces". I texted that video to Carol Gaab. I think she is Carol's newest favorite student. 😂 

4. Rebeldes de Tejas by Mira Canion
A student completed his Book Talk assignment on Rebeldes de Tejas. He said he likes historical fiction and Rebeldes de Tejas was his favorite book this semester. I also sent a video of him saying that to Mira.

5. El Armario by A. C. Quintero
El Armario is the second book in a trilogy. The student did her Book Talk on this book and said it was her favorite book. The following day she asked me for the sequel to El Armario, which is Las Sombras. 
(The first book in the trilogy is Las Apariencias Engañen but other students were reading my two copies at the time, so she skipped the first book and read the second book. She said it was a little confusing at the beginning since she didn't read book #1, but it was so compelling and interesting so she continued reading.) 

You can find the above readers at the author's websites, or Amazon, or Fluency Matters. 

If you do not have a SSR program in place, I strongly recommend that you consider it. Finding funds for a class library can be a challenging task, but many teachers have been creative and persistent in searching for funds and reading materials and they now provide this opportunity for their students.  

Absent Students: Catching Up on Missed Chapters

An absent student = a student that can easily fall behind in class. You can post what students missed on an online platform so they can stay up-to-date even after an absence. 

But, let's face it, the majority of students don't check what they missed when they were absent. Instead of checking for missed work online they come to class asking,  "What did I miss yesterday?" or even better, "Did we do anything yesterday when I was absent?" 

However, I actually love when a student returns from school after an absence because this gives us the perfect opportunity to review. I really enjoy it if they missed a class story or a chapter/chapters that we read in our class novel. I hand over this task to the community of learners in the classroom (the students). It is their responsibility to help "catch up" the student on what s/he missed when absent.

Today I did a slight variation of what I usually do for students that missed class when we are reading a class novel.  I use the name "Tess" below to make the explanation clear.

1. Put all names of students in a basket/bowl.

2. Draw 5 names. Tell the students whose name was pulled that they have to ask Tess a question about the new information/material that they learned when Tess was absent.

3. The 5 students take turns asking Tess questions. If Tess guesses the answer correctly, the student has to ask her another question. If Tess does not know the answer, the teacher pulls another name from the basket and that student has to explain the answer to Tess.

This review works well because:

- It provides additional comprehensible input for students.

- Students quickly learned that if they asked a super easy question, Tess would guess the answer and they would have to think of another question. Their questions became more involved and "meaty".

- Students not asking the questions paid attention because they knew it was possible their name would be pulled to answer the question if Tess did not know the answer. 

For novice learners, I ask the questions instead of the students.



*Teachers: you need to know your classes and your students. Obviously, do not do this activity if the student that was absent will feel awkward because he doesn't know the answers. Remember, it is the teacher's job to make sure the student knows that he isn't expected to know the answer; that the real purpose is to involve the students in the review, to think of the new information from the previous day and present that information to the student that missed class.

Countdown: A Listening Activity for the WL Classroom

Countdown is a listening activity/game in which students listen to 5 clues about the name of a person, or a word. The goal is to guess the word that is described by listening to the fewest amount of clues.

Countdown is an activity for students to sharpen their listening skills in L2 and to use some higher order thinking, as well as a bit of strategic play added in the mix.

My example below is how we played Countdown with names of women in my Spanish 4+ class. We played this at the beginning of our Mujeres Unit, but Countdown can be played with any category of words, or even words not in any specific category.

Preparation for the game

1. Students had to think of a woman that has had a positive impact in society and to NOT share the name with their classmates.  

2. Students had to write 5 sentences about the person, without mentioning her name in any of the sentences. The first sentence should be very vague; one that after listening to it their classmates may have an idea, but not be absolutely sure if they have the correct person.

The second clue should give a little more information about the person.
The third clue should allow the listeners to narrow down whom it might be.
and so forth for the fourth and fifth clue. By the fifth clue, EVERYONE should know the person that is being described.

(If you play this with a beginning level class, I suggest that the teacher write the clues.)

I gave #1 and #2 as a homework assignment because I did not want to take class time for the research and writing part of the activity.

3. Each student needs a marker board, a marker, and eraser. (You can use paper instead if you do not have mini-marker boards.) Students should sit in a large circle, facing inward, allowing for as much space as possible between each student to deter them from seeing what their neighbor has written.

Playing the game & scoring

Students will take turns reading their clues OR the teacher can collect the clues and read it to the students (which allows the teacher to make any needed corrections in the sentences on the spot, while reading).

1. Clue A (first clue), worth 5 points: Read Clue A in the TL. If a student thinks she knows the correct answer, she will write it on her marker board, hiding her answer so others cannot see what she wrote. She also writes #5 on the marker board because her written answer, if correct, is worth 5 points. (If students write the point value when they write their answer, it will be easy to tally the points at the end of the round.) 

She then puts the mini-marker board on the floor in front of her, face down. This makes it easy for the teacher and the students to see which students have written their response.

After a student, writes the name and places the board on the floor in front of her, she can NOT change her answer. If she writes the answer after listening to only one clue (Clue A) and when she hears the next clue (Clue B) she realizes that she has the wrong answer, she may NOT pick up the board and change her answer. This is where the strategic element comes into play.

2. Clue B (2nd clue), worth 4 points: Students listen to Clue B which gives a little more information about the woman. If a student knows the answer, she writes it on the marker board, along with #4 because it is worth 4 points if it is correct, and places the board face down in front of her chair.

This continues with Clue C (the 3rd clue - worth 3 points), Clue D (the 4th clue - worth 2 points), and Clue E (the 5th clue - worth 1 point).

3. After all clues have been read, the students will hold up their marker board and the teacher, or the student reading the clue, will share the correct answer. Students will keep track of their own points on their marker boards.

Example:  Below are the clues that I use as a model for the students. It is written in English below for the purpose of sharing it on my blog which is read by those who teach languages, not necessarily all Spanish teachers, but I read the clues in Spanish to my students. 

Clue A: Her father was a school teacher.
Clue B: She worked for the equality of education for girls from a young age.
Clue C: She published her autobiography when she was 16 years old.
Clue D: She is the youngest person to have received the Nobel Peace Prize.
Clue E: She is from Pakistan and was shot by the Taliban.

I have played this for several semesters. Some of the names that appear often are:
Rosa Parks
Ophra Winfrey
Frida Kahlo
Amelia Earhart
Helen Keller
Harriet Tubman
Hilary Clinton
Sally Ride
Serena Williams


You could play this game with cognates, foods, animals, occupations, or words not in any specific category. Playing with names of people was easy because the students didn't need to know the words in Spanish.  

Please let me know if there is anything unclear in the instructions that you would like me to clarify.