If someone asked me what motivated my students the most -to continue learning on their own, to more vocabulary, to greater accuracy- my answer would certainly be music. Just this week one of my Spanish 3 students who is struggling the most with any level of verb accuracy identified forms of conseguir and what they mean because “they say conseguí” in “Mientes.”
Thus, you’ll see several choices related to music on my list of fluency activity options. Here are a couple more:
Similar to LyricsTraining, http://www.ver-taal.com/canciones.htm gives you the lyrics to a song with certain words blanked. Students can fill in what they hear and check their answers. The site also has a section with reportajes and anuncios – what communicative activities can you think of that students could do with those? There is a cloze-type section similar to the lyrics page except it features movie trailers; I ask my students to avoid this part because of the level of adult content in the majority of films coming out of Spain and Latin America (and their trailers).
Another idea, this one from @SraSpanglish. One of my students practically lives on Spotify but I haven’t taken the time to figure it out yet (I use Pandora One). This is on my list of things to check out! Her idea was for students to use the Top Lists feature, set to Spain, to find new tracks to make and listen to a playlist. Sounds like a winner to me!
Have you added anything to the list of choices for weekly fluency activity homework? A lot of teachers are using this idea now – share yours with us!
Foto: Karin Ibarra Saavedra
I love the ver-taal site! What an amazing discovery! My advanced students need the most improvement with speaking and listening, like most Spanish students. Fortunately they love to talk during class so I don’t worry as much about their speaking. But this is a great way for them to take listening home. Starting Monday – new HW where they chose one fluency activities and then choose one listening activity: this, listen to music, watch TV, or listen to a podcast.
Sounds great! I love to hear what you’re up to; we miss you!
You may have seen this already, but I though that I would share ;o)
I really need my students to read more, so I thought about using http://infografiasencastellano.com/ : having the students choose 1 or 2 infographias & write 5 comprehension questions about the infograph – in Spanish: maybe have them post it to our class dropbox????…. I’m still thinking about it, but I may add it to your long list of “fluency activities” that my students always complete during the 3rd & 4th quarters of the year.
We love infografiasencastellano.com! Infographics are such a great authentic resource even for novices, and they always seem to have more than what I need for a unit theme. I hadn’t thought about adding it to the fluency activities, thanks! Just the other day in AP we were having a discussion based on their infographic on things you shouldn’t do on a social network to wrap up our unit on how technology has changed relationships.
I adapted a bunch of the ideas from your original list, and added many more. Tomorrow is the first day that the students will submit their assignments, as we began new classes in January. I’m kind of excited though–they were jazzed about some of the options, and have brought new ideas already. We listened to a song by Fonseca last week, and today some of the kids told me that he’s coming in concert in April, and they want to know if going “counts”. (Absolutely!) Another student is planning to go to Costa Rica for a soccer trip this spring, and wanted to know if she could do something there that would qualify. (YES!) Another group was already working out which restaurant to try out together…
I did divide the list up by skill/category: listening, reading, and culture/experience. I also added the requirement that they must do 2 listening and 2 reading activities over the course of the quarter, but that the other weeks they may choose what they wish to explore.
I’m hoping that tomorrow’s submissions are awesome! I’m glad to share other ideas if you are interested.
That sounds amazing – yes, students can come up with some of the best ideas! Fonseca is coming in concert where???
I’d love to hear more and see your list especially with the divisions by skill; that sounds great. Especially if you teach lower levels – I’d like to pass your ideas on to my colleagues.
I just recently found your blog and I love it! Thank you for sharing all your resources! I love the fluency homework list and modified it for my class. Thank you!
Me gustaría compartir las unidades en las que he estado trabajando con mis clases de Español IV. No soy una profesora de AP pero estoy preparando a mis estudiantes para esta clase el próximo año. Mi wiki también tiene algunos recursos que a lo mejor y ojalá les puedan servir a usted y a sus lectores :).
https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1XfKMWd1kh_C7bN9Wra6FlzhkXaYu7fVW0hNNKeQhjJQ
http://kennallyspanish.wikispaces.com/Espa%C3%B1ol+IV+%28Honores%29
Muchas gracias, nos faltan buenas ideas y recursos para los niveles avanzados en la internet, ¿verdad?
¡Ya lo creo! ¡Pero creo que vamos por buen camino!