How do I entice thee to read, let me count the ways

 Whenever possible, I pack as much reading into my daily lessons as possible. This requires me to find different ways to present the readings, ways that entice the students to read a text and to understand what they are reading and not simply seeing the words on a document without attaching meaning.

Would you believe that students actually LIKE reading, in a second language, when you offer them different ways to read or different tasks that can only be completed successfully if they read the text? It's true, although you may drain your brain thinking of authentic, varied ways of doing this.

I use the Storybuilders from the Comprehensible Classroom in various ways with my students. I like adding the Storybuilders to my lessons because, first of all, the stories are interesting, unrealistically fun, and totally unpredictable. That alone creates interest for the students. Secondly, the students ARE READING!!!

Last school year I tried a new game with the students that was linked to the Storybuilder the Comprehensible Classroom from SOMOS 1 Unit 7, Canela y su abuela. The object is for students to read the story, following the story path that I have chosen, and then work together to answer questions about the story.

These are the steps:

1. Give your students access to the storybuilder. I link it to the class Schoology page so they can read it, but not make any changes to the google slide presentation.

2. Give students the Story Path that they need to follow. (If you're unfamiliar with Storybuilders, they are similar to choose your own adventure books. The students read the story and after a few slides they are presented with a choice. They continue to read and make choices to which direction the story goes until it comes to a logical, or illogical, end. Then the slide returns them to the beginning of the story and they create a new story by making different choices throughout the story.)

3. Put students in groups of 3 or 4 and have them read the story following the story path that you have designated.

4. After reading, students close their computer. Each student needs a mini-whiteboard, a marker, and an eraser.

5. Project the first question on the board that relates to the story and story path they just read. The students quietly discuss the answer in their groups and then EACH STUDENT has to write the answer on their mini-whiteboard. It is NOT a race, but rather you want the students to take the time to write their answer and check the answers of the other members of their group.

6. Students hold up their mini-whiteboards. Project the slide with the answer. The group earns 1 point if each member of their group answered the question correctly.

I mix up the questions so there are cierto/falso questions, short answer questions, translations, and fill in the blanks.

These are a few of the benefits of this activity:

Click on the link to see/access my google slide presentation for this Storybuilder. 

Please note: I have expressed written consent from Martina Bex at the Comprehensible Classroom to share this activity with information related to the story from the Storybuilder.

Scavenger Hunt - Get students up and moving!

May seemed like the perfect month to create an activity for my students that would require them to get up and moving in order to read and answer questions. I wrote a basic story, Marcos se quejó mucho and then created the scavenger hunt based on the story. 

The overarching purpose was to familiarize the students with the verb QUEJARSE before watching the Sr. Wooly video, La Dentista. The previous day I had used PQA (personalized questions and answers) based  on what students, teachers, and others complain about and then asked students if they complained about various things the previous day. That class conversation paved the way for this activity.

The story is about a boy that goes to school on Friday and complained about quizzes, a teacher not being in the room to get help, an overdue library fine, and other reasons. Each place that Marcos went in the story and complained are the locations that I posted questions that students had to answer. Some questions were directly related to the story and others could be answered without the story.

Below are the instructions I handed out to the students.

Scavenger hunt

Goal:

a. to answer the 8 questions correctly in order to...

b. ...get the words for the secret questions, and

c. to unscramble the words to make a question

It should take you 15 minutes or less to find the 8 questions throughout the school, answer the questions, and return to the room to get the last WORD for the question.

1. Read the story Marcos se quejó mucho. (The locations that Marcos goes to in the story is where you will find the questions!)

He complains about 8 different things in the school. In order to know where to find the 8 posted questions, read the story and go to the 8 different places mentioned in the story.

2. Answer the questions posted throughout the school. Write the words that are written in CAPITAL LETTERS after the correct answer to the question. (Remember: you need to answer the questions correctly in order to have the correct 8 words/phrases to unscramble and form a question!)

3. After you have the 8 different words/phrases, return to Profe Hitz's class to get the 9th word.

4. With your partner/group, unscramble the question and hand it to Profe Hitz.

The two screenshots below are from the activity. The first one has a question NOT based directly on the story. The second screenshot is a question based directly on the story about Marcos.

Ideas to make this activity run smoothly:

1. Tell the students the expectations for their behavior in the hall. Email your colleagues and let them know your students will be in the halls and at what time they will be moving throughout the school.

2. Before class, I highlighted one of the 8 places on 8 different papers so students didn't all have the same starting point.

3. I put students in pairs or groups of 3.

4. I distributed the paper to group 1, which had "biblioteca" highlighted because it is the first location that Marcos visits. I told them to leave the classroom and go to the location highlighted on the paper and then continue with the story in that order.

I gave group 2 their paper, with "la clase de Inglés" highlighted and told them to start there.

For my class of 29, after I had given papers to the first 8 groups, I then gave group 9 a paper that started them at the library. It helped keep groups from all going to the same place to start. If I had extended the story to 2 or 3 more locations, that would have been even better!

5. I wrote the last word "PREFIERES" on the board after all groups had left my room. When they returned to my classroom, I directed them to look at the board and start unscrambling the words to make a question.

The story is pictured below. The directions and accompanying questions are  available HERE.  (Hopefully the link works for you!)

The 'Simple, Almost Zero Prep, Get Me to Christmas Break' Game

 

Time's a wasting - no time for blah blah blah to introduce the post! 

Here are the directions for a 1% Prep Game for those still working this week before Christmas break!

Teacher Prep:

1. Think of a category - I chose Christmas items.

2. Write a list of 5-10 words related to the list. 

Materials Needed: teacher's list of 5-10 words, mini-white boards, markers, erasers (or whatever you use instead of mini-white boards).

Object of the Game: To earn the most points by writing answers that will match the answers of many other people in the game.

Game:

1. Give each student a mini-white board, marker, and eraser.

2. Have students sit in a large circle (reason for this - so they can NOT easily see the answers of those around them).

3. The teacher says the first word on the list (mine was "árbol de Navidad"). 

4. Students write one word (One item/color/adjective, etc. It could be more than one word, i.e. bathing suit in Spanish is traje de baño - 3 words but it is one object).

5. Allow time for students to write an answer IN THE TARGET LANGUAGE. Countdown from 10-1 and everyone holds us their answer.

If seated in a circle, it is easy for all students to see everyone's answers when they reveal their answers.

6. Students earn one point for each time their word is written but only if at least one other person matches their word.

Example A: you write luces and 2 other people write luces, each person that wrote luces earns 3 points, because a total of 3 people wrote the answer.

Example B: you write decoraciones and nobody else writes that; you get ZERO points.

Suggestions/Considerations:

1) Students can only write words IN THE TARGET ANSWERS. If they don't know the word in the TL that they want to write, they have to think of another one. They can't ask the teacher or other students for help!

2) I told students that they could NOT use any of the words I used in each round in subsequent rounds. In my example, they could not use árbol or Navidad in their answers for the first round or any other rounds.

3) No use of proper nouns

4) Keep the game short or they will figure out a way to ruin it - most likely. Example, one student might blurt out, let's only answer in colors, or let's always write "regalos". If that happens, shut it down (meaning tell students the game can't and won't be played that way) and, if needed, end the game!

5) Include a few words in the game that don't have obvious answers.

Words I used: árbol de Navidad, Papá Noel, estrella, nieve, invierno, Rudolph, regalos, rojo, galletas, duende (Christmas tree, Santa Claus, star, snow, winter, Rudolph, gifts, red, cookies, elf).  

The Mayan Number System

 

Over the years I have found that most of my Spanish students, in all levels, benefit from class activities that involve numbers. Usually what works best, is when they are focused on something other than the numbers! How ironic, right?

In Spanish 4 (students that have had a total of 300 hours in Spanish levels 1-3), I start the semester with a unit called Reconnecting to Spanish. Then the second unit is based on the novel Esperanza, by Fluency Matters, published in 2011. There are many excellent new novels that have been published since then, but the story of Esperanza is very engaging, based on a true story, and very comprehensible for the first book students read in the semester. Some students may have skipped a full school year of having languages, so this book shows them they can successfully read an interesting book in Spanish within weeks of returning to Spanish class!

Since I've been using this books for semesters each year since a while, probably since 2012, I have a long list of additional texts and activities to use. I also have the teacher's guide from Fluency Matters which has supplemental texts about the Mayans. Last spring was the first that I included the FREE lessons and activities in Fluency Matter's Prep4Success unit for Esperanza, materials designed to be used before starting the novel.

However, when I came across a YouTube video by Andrew Snider, of Read to Speak Spanish, I knew it would be a perfect fit.

The Benefits of the Activity:

(1) review numbers, 

(2) teach about the Mayan number system (cross-curricular!), and 

(3) have students listen to 10+ minutes of a comprehensible explanation in Spanish.

(4) high student engagement

(5) a perfect activity for a Friday AFTER reading a chapter of Esperanza 😊

Materials Needed:

The Mayan number system is based on sea shells (conches), round circles, and rectangles. You can use large paperclips for the seashells (see the picture on the google slides), bingo chips for the circles, and popsicle sticks for the rectangles. (I wanted pom poms for the circles but, alas, the Dollar Tree didn't have any.)

Directions:

These are the directions on the first Google Slide. 

The Video:  https://youtu.be/Ia5LnGJvAQQ

Andrew Snider is the creator of the Read to Speak Spanish website. He also has a YouTube channel, which is where I found this video on the Mayan number system. It's over ten minutes BUT I predict your students will be focused on the explanation and demonstration of the number system, that those 10 minutes will fly by! At one point when he went from describing how to form 1-19, to how 20 was formed, I had several students saying "what???". At that point, one of my students asked if she could help explain it and I said sure! Why doesn't the principal observe when students take ownership of the lesson and volunteer to help others? LOL 

BTW - If you need a comprehensible story for your students to watch on a day you will be out of school, I suggest using one of his stories on YouTube. He speaks clearly and slow enough for language learners to follow along, plus they're unpredictable and supported with drawings and images. It's a little gold mine of possibilities!

There will be some students that catch on to forming the numbers in a snap! I wanted photos of the students forming the numbers but they were so quick that each time I grabbed my phone they were already finished. The pictures I got were not the best. Oh well...

Below are a few images of the Google Slide presentation. If you are interested in using the presentation that I made, you can find it HERE. You'll need to make your own copy, and then you are free to make any changes to the presentation to best fit your classroom.

Practice slides - students verbally guess the numbers. First I showed a slide without the numbers written on them (only the symbols) and then clicked to the next slide after they guessed the number for ADDITIONAL INPUT on Spanish numbers. As you point out how much each symbol is worth, count aloud and/or have the students count together when adding up the numbers!

The orange slides are the ones that students used the manipulatives. Before the slide below, there is a slide that only has the number "90". To check their work, I clicked to the next slide and explained as necessary.

Have fun with the activity!  🙂

DECISIONES - A Strategic Game for the World Language Classroom

Here is an end of the school year, yes we made it through the crazy pandemic hybrid schedules game for you. It is a great way to review any type of text - a short story, legend, several chapters in a novel, news articles, - anything with enough text to be able to write 14 comprehension questions.

I test drove this new game with three classes and made changes after the first two classes to improve the game and rules. Now, it is ready for you.  

Students will like the game because they decide what they will do with the points they earn, but it is mixed with an element of uncertainty. You'll like it because the students want to answer correctly in order to have that control over their points. So here you go...

DECISIONES

Materials Needed: 

- Deck of Cards. I use Spanish cards, Baraja Española. They're authentic, the face cards have the number values written on them. If you use a regular deck, I suggest taking out the face cards so keep it simple.

- Mini-White Boards, Markers, Erasers, or something for students to write their team's answers

- 14 Decisiones Cards (5 Regalen, 5 Quédense, 3 Dupliquen, and 1 Regalen los puntos negativos)

- 14 Questions for the game based on a text you have read with your students

Goal of the Game: Earn more points than the other teams

Instructions/Rules:

1. Put the students into three groups. If you have large classes, you can have 4 or 5 teams, but it will take longer to complete the game.  

2. Students need to sit with their teams to be able to discuss the answers to the questions. Give each group a set of the DECISIONES cards - 14 cards per set. Each team also should have 1 mini-white board, a marker, and eraser

*I copied each set in a different color to make it easier to keep track of the cards each team has used.

3. Read the first question. Team members will quietly discuss the answer and one team member will write the answer on the mini-white board. This is NOT a race. Allow sufficient time for students to discuss and write their answer.

4. Tell teams to hold up their answers. Teams that answer correctly will have the chance to earn points or to gift points. Teams that answer correctly will lose a DECISIONES card.

When Teams Answer Correctly:

5. If several or all teams answer correctly, start with the first team and pull a card from the top of the deck. Students look at the number on the card and decide which of the following actions they want to do:

- Quédense con los puntos - Keep the points, add it to their score

- Regalen los puntos - Gift the points to another team (They cannot gift it to their own team)

- Dupliquen los puntos - Duplicate the point value of the card, add it to their score

- Regalen los puntos negativos - The point value of the card is negative, gift it to another team to take aways points from that team's score

6. Keep track of each team's score and write it on the board on project the score so throughout the entire game, students can see the running scores for their team and other teams.

7. After the first team has decided what to do with the points, turn over a card for the net team that answered correctly. They decide what to do with their points. Continue until you have pulled a card for all teams that answered correctly .

If a Team Answers Incorrectly:

8. If a team answers incorrectly, they will lose cards. The first card they need to surrender to the teacher is the Quédense con los puntos card. If they answer incorrectly the second time, take away another Quédense card from the team. Continue taking away the Quédense cards until they do not have any more of those, then take away the Regalen los puntos negativos card, and then the Dupliquen cards.

The End of the Game:

9. The game ends AFTER students answer ALL of the 14 questions, and have no DECISIONES cards remaining.

A basic version of the DECISIONES cards are available HERE for download. It will ask you to make a copy.

Suggestions/Insights:

- The game works best when there are more than two teams playing. The reason for this is that when three teams play, and if one team starts to pull ahead, the other teams will most likely gift their points to the team with the lower points. This naturally helps to keep the scores close and teams won't give up and stop trying to win.

- Make the majority of the questions that students will know the answers. The best part of the game is students strategizing what to do with the points they are presented with. Throw in a few harder level questions to keep everyone on their toes and to encourage collaboration with their teammates.

- Students will quickly learn that they want to duplicate the cards with high numbers and gift the cards with the low numbers.

- If a team has used all of their cards and only have the Regalen los puntos cards remaining, you may want to add a rule that if they answer incorrectly, they lose X number of points. The reason I say that is because today one team had only Regalen los puntos cards remaining and I heard one of them say, "If we answer incorrectly, we don't have to give any points to other teams". Of course students will figure out every angle to their advantage. But, I'm telling YOU ABOUT IT, so you can add that extra rule to prevent that from happening. 

- When pulling a card off the top of the deck for the teams that answered correctly, I always started with the same team and went in the same order. It made it easy to follow the same order and NONE of the teams complained about it.

- Another plus to this game, you have to read a text with your students first! We all know the power of reading when helping your students to acquire another language!

Jamboard in the WL Classroom

 

I was late to the Jamboard party but thanks to my colleague, Krista K., for talking about how she uses Jamboard with her French students and for giving me a brief overview of how to use Jamboard.

Fast forward a few short months, and now I am working on a grad class project related to using Jamboard in the WL classroom. After spending a lot of time creating Jams to share for the training that I'm creating, the thought occurred to me to share the Jams on this blog for others to use and/or edit for their own classrooms. The examples may give you inspiration to join the Jamboard band wagon and even to create activities that aren't mentioned here.

If you have never used Jamboard before, there is a really basic video, made in October 2020 so it has most of the Jamboard updates. (Skip videos older than spring 2020 because there have been updates that they won't mention.) Click HERE to watch the video by Teacher's Tech.

My Jams (what each of the files are called on Jamboard) are sorted into 4 categories, although several overlap, as you will see below. When you click on the HERE that will take you to the Jams, it will ask you to make a copy. Then you can make whatever changes you desire! Best of all, THEY ARE FREE!!!

1) Interactive Games on Jamboard - access the copy HERE

2) Novel Activities and other Texts (several from Fiesta Fatal - added with written consent by the author, Mira Canion). access the copy HERE.

3) Check IN & EXIT Tickets - access the copy HERE

4) Collaboration & Reaction Sentences - access the copy HERE

I will be adding to the Jams throughout this semester, so if you download a copy early in 2021, you can check later to see the new activities that are included. There are several ideas I want to add, but I need to complete some other tasks awaiting me at the moment. :-) 

On a final note, making activities to upload as backgrounds on Jamboard is easy, especially for those that are accustomed to creating activities on Google Slides.  Or, if you have a Canvas account, search for online whiteboards and you'll find at least 50 templates to get your started. I imagine there are many Jamboard templates on sites for sale, but creating activities are EASY PEASY to make and it really doesn't take much time. Plus, then you can share them with others! Many people share their templates FREE so use those and then, when you are inspired and ideas come flooding into mind, make your OWN and share yours! 

Digitally Ordering Events

 Ordering events is a good way to have students REREAD a text. Before the pandemic, I used to print copies of text and my students ordered the events using the paper copies. For teaching during the pandemic, I digitized the activity on a Google Presentation and assigned it through Schoology.

The first ordering activity I made this fall on Google Slides was for Mira Canion's El escape Cubano. I learned a few ways to improve upon it which are reflected on the ordering activity for Mira Canion's Tumba novel.

1. Limit each slide to 4 events. More than increases the chances of students not getting the order correct.

2. Use at least two different colors for the text boxes. If you make this activity a graded assignment, it makes it much easier for you to know if the order is correct with a quick glance at each slide. (But don't have the same pattern on each slide or the students will catch onto that quickly.)

If you're interested in having a copy of the ordering activity on google slides for the first five chapters of Tumba, you can find them HERE. 

FYI: I checked with Mira Canion to get her written consent to post this. (It's a must to check with an author before posting materials you created related to the author's book!)

An Easy Strategy to Help Online Students Stay Focused/Engaged

Here is a simple strategy that online teachers can employ to help students that are learning synchronously from home to stay engaged. 

At my school, we are teaching to students physically in the classroom and at the same time we are teaching to students synchronously joining the class from their homes. I tried this technique last week and it definitely made a difference in how quickly students at home unmuted their mics and responded.

I share my computer screen with students in class and at home, and when I use a document camera, I share that screen with both sets of students at the same time.

Instead of calling the student's name that I want to answer a question, I say, "#2 is for the student whose name I wrote". I say this whether the name I wrote is someone at home or at school in my classroom. Students in class need to stay engaged by following along with what I am projecting on the board and students at home must also be looking at the computer screen (not simply waiting for their name to be called before looking to see what question we are one).

Pictured below is a warm-up for Spanish 2. Students in school have a 1/2 sheet of paper that they write on; students at home should be completing it as a Schoology assignment. I used the document camera as we went over the answers and I wrote the names on my copy of the warm-up. When we are reading or working on something from google drive or a word document, I type the student's name directly on the document.

There are students that say what they are doing at home instead of giving the class their full attention. I have had students tells me they have a friend over at their house, they're baking cookies, they have the screen minimized and are playing an online game, plus other things that we won't get into. Writing the names on the document to "call" on students, worked this week. We'll see how long it is beneficial.

If all your online students are 100% engaged during your synchronous class (my classes are 72 minutes), then that leads me to one of two conclusions: (1) You are simply amazing and should write a book! or (2) they are not 100% engaged but you don't realize it...yet.

Story Scripts & Preloading Vocabulary

 

I'm a few days away from starting the novel "El escape cubano" written by Mira Canion. In my classroom, it's all about front loading the vocabulary before opening the pages of a novel so students sail through the reading with ease, making the reading more enjoyable.

For several years I've been using the story "La novia se queda en el ascensor". This year, with the need to revamp the formats of my story scripts in order to make the material available to those four different groups that meet at the SAME TIME each day: (1) those that are in my class on A/B days, (2) those learning at home on A/B days, (3) the 100% synchronous students, and (4) for those students in the classroom every day. 

Here is an outline of how I presented the story and provided extension activities for the story "La novia se queda en el ascensor".

1. Using a document camera so students at home can see and projecting onto my board for students at school to see, students and I filled in the vocabulary sheet below. Students already KNOW most of the words. The new words are the ones I highlighted in yellow. This shows the students that they already know most of the word, plus they are introduced to the new ones in the upcoming story.

2. I told the story using illustrations on Google Slides for visual support for both students in class and at home.

3. After telling the story, we read the story script. (page one shown below)

4. Then I asked 10 True/False questions. They listened to the questions and to go over the questions I projected the questions on the board.

5. I projected six slides, (one is shown below), in which students read the sentences and had to say if the sentence described picture A, B, or X - neither A nor B.

6. I uploaded the student copy of the story. It included title page (where students wrote their names so in my google drive it was clear on page one who completed the work); slide 2 had the directions; slides 3-5 had the story (but it was a jpg image of the story so they couldn't copy and paste the sentences); and slides 6-24, BUT...the illustrations were not in the correct order. The students had to order the slides by reading the story, and then they had to type one sentence (only one per slide) from the story for each slide.

7. Somewhere in there, we had read the story script again.

8. We played FLIP THE SCRIPT explained HERE.

Those activities flowed well together and were a nice balance of listening comprehension, reading comprehension, and writing.

Next, I'm working on making a digital file for the riddle I usually use before reading "El escape cubano". I'll share that on a future post.

If you are interested in the google slide presentation you can email me at cynthiaunderscorehitzatyahoodotcom    OR leave a comment below with your email.

Flip the Script - A New Game for the WL Classroom

 

It's a good day when you create a new game and it goes over well with each class that you play it. I created and played FLIP THE SCRIPT with three of my Spanish 2 classes today and since it worked so well I wanted to share it with others.

I'm preparing my students to read "El escape cubano" by Mira Canion, which will be their first novel that they read this year. Before we read this novel, I usually tell a story that I wrote about a bride and groom that encounter a problem when they go to their wedding reception. The goal is to provide a "boatload" of comprehensible input for the words se escapa and se queda, which are words found in the first few chapters.  

FLIP THE SCRIPT explanation

1. You need a story script in which the students are familiar.

The story I used is titled: La novia se queda en el ascensor. I've read the story with my students and they participated in other writing and listening tasks using the same story script before playing FLIP THE SCRIPT.

2. Choose words/phrases in the text for students to translate from English to the TL and change those words to another color.  Assign point values to the words/phrases with higher point values for the more challenging words/phrases. 

Notice in the photo below, that some words are worth 1 point. The one point words are those that are used elsewhere in the text; the two points are ones that are not used in the text but I felt confident most teams would know them. There are some 3-point, 4-point, even a 6-point words.

3. Depending on your class size, tell students to form groups of 2-4. Three works best; 4 is probably too many because it makes it too easy for one of the group members to not participate.

4. Groups take turns. The first group chooses any word/phrases in parenthesis. They discuss the answer in their group, then one of the members writes the answer on a mini-whiteboard. If they are correct, they earn the points listed for that word/phrase. If they are wrong, their turn is over and the next group chooses a word to translate.

It is NOT a race. The teams take turns and that same rotation continues until all the words have been translated to Spanish.

The letters on the side are there so students identify the paragraph with the letter and then say which word they in English they translated to Spanish before showing me their whiteboard.

Advantages of FLIP THE SCRIPT:

- Students discussed the answers

- For many sentences the students had to read the full sentence to know WHO is doing the action

- Students stayed focused whether working on the word they chose or glancing at what other groups wrote

- There is strategy involved; there were some groups that were leading with points that chose a 1 point word of which they were sure instead of choosing one they were not sure of.

- No pressure - teams can earn points each time when choosing the easier words - slow and steady wins the race (as what happened in one of my classes today).

Disadvantage of FLIP THE SCRIPT:

- The students in school played the game while students at home did another assignment. I'm not sure how to include the students at home without them having the advantage of looking up the words. 

 

¿QUÉ TE GUSTA? Lesson Idea for levels 1 & 2

Today I'm sharing a lesson that will engage students and provide you, the teacher, with a load of possibilities to comprehensible input related to the students' responses. My example is today's lesson with repetitions of the verb GUSTAR, but you can switch out the vocabulary and keep the same type of format for any structures. 

As background, at my school students with last names beginning with A-K on come to school on "A" days and the rest of the students login from home and watch/participate in the lesson synchronously.  The next day students L-Z are at school while the A-K students learn online synchronously. There are a handful of students that are 100% synchronous. What that means, is that everyday I am working simultaneously with students in person and students online. I created this activity so students could participate regardless of their physical location. (For another activity for hybrid classes or for regular classes too, see THIS POST.)

Create the Google Slide Presentation. The title slide is shown above. On the second slide, I created a separate text box with each of the students' names. (I changed the names for this blogpost.) You could have your students do this, but I decided to provide this for the students so the font, size, and color were uniform. 

Don't forget to add your name too!

Then I made several slides that asked students if they liked something and gave them two options (yes, I like.... or no I don't like....). To prevent students from accidentally (or purposefully) clicking on the text boxes and photos on each slide, I saved the slide as a PNG and then uploaded the PNG as a background. 

You can go over the slides before you instruct the students how to respond, but I added some translations to the slides so I wouldn't have to do that.

Share the Google Slide Presentation. I shared the document with the students by placing it on Schoology, our LMS. I shared it so they did NOT have to make a copy because I want all of the students answering on one presentation.

Demonstrate how to add your name to the slides. I demonstrated how to click on my name, press COMMAND + C to copy my name, and then move to another slide to paste their name with COMMAND + V (on a MAC). To add my name to other slides, I continued to press COMMAND + V. 

Then I told the students to do the same and to add their names to the appropriate spot on each slide. Yes, it DID get tricky at times for students to add their names and then move it to the correct side, but everyone managed. For the second class that I had for the day, I told students to go to another slide that wasn't as busy with other students. 

Discussion of the students' answers. After the students at school and at home had added their names to the slides, I asked personalized questions in Spanish about their answers, i.e. What flavor of ice cream do you like? Do you like to swim in the ocean or in a swimming pool? You said you like the city better than the country, what are two cities that you like?

Write and discuss. I asked a student to name one of the students in the class and then we wrote several sentences about that student, and then additional sentences to describe how many students liked or didn't like something on the slides. I split my computer screen with the slide presentation on one side and the paper on which I was writing with the help of the document camera on the other side.

Another use for the Google Slide Presentation. Take screenshots of four slides after the names are added. Put those on one slide and then ask true/false questions about the information as a closing activity. 

The good and the bad: (similar to what Keith Toda does on his blog, Todally Comprehensible, that I really like. He names it "observations".)

- The activity provided both reading input (when they read to answer the questions) and listening input

- With only a few slides, there is a lot of information to work with.

- Students were engaged not only when adding their names to the slides, but also when anticipating that I may ask them about their response.

- It can be tricky when students move their name to one column or the other. Some students may be tempted to delete other's answers or move them.

- After one class's google slide presentation is finished, it was easy to copy the entire presentation and change only the names on slide 2. 

- If group work is possible in your setting, you can assign one slide to a group and working with their group members, they can write additional sentences.

- The students' answers on the slides can be used the following day with short answer questions.

If you want a copy which you can edit, click HERE.