communicative activities
January 27, 2013
This is part 2 in a series of songs and activities chosen to improve student accuracy and proficiency in talking about the present. Hace tiempo – Fonseca This song has wide student appeal. Regardless of taste, it’s one of my students’ all-time favorites. The video is great fun also. Proficiency goals: talk about ongoing and […]
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January 4, 2013
It’s no secret that I advocate using almost all authentic materials from the beginning. Using authentic materials with novices is both possible and critical. Here’s an example of an activity you could do with novice learners in a unit on entertainment or technology, with communicative goals like expressing likes or dislikes or talking about your […]
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September 26, 2012
Success with Stations
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We did it! Under much inspiration by @muchachitaMJ and @viajando_kj (with Megan’s presentation on stations the only general session I was able to attend at KWLA 2012), this week we did a stations day for the first time. Overall it was a great success, more so in Spanish 3 than in AP. Here’s what I learned. […]
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September 17, 2012
At the beginning of the year I was curious what problems or dilemmas people were facing this year. @lintperez commented her current challenge is “trying to get ready for standards-based grading and everything that comes with it!” What standard are you using for your lesson planning and assessment? Here are some “standards” I have used […]
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September 6, 2012
Fun activity #7: Conecta cuatro
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Last year I blogged about what a boring teacher I really am and how I was inspired by some conference workshops to make things more fun in the classroom. This is the seventh post on the activities that came out of those experiences: a twist on “connect four.” Students hate vocabulary. And if you’re talking […]
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October 10, 2011
Whoops! I completely forgot to post my Prezi from my second KWLA presentation! Here it is, Target Language: Expect More, Say Less. Target [Language]: Expect More, Say Less on Prezi
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September 19, 2011
Fun activity #6: A escribir
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Fun activity #6 is ¡A escribir!, an activity obviously designed to get students spontaneously writing. At first, when our activity chooser landed on “A escribir,” students were not thrilled. Writing? Don’t we do that all the time? And from my perspective, how do you keep a random, effective writing prompt on hand all the time? […]
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June 17, 2011
Activity #5: Gira la botella
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Fun activity #4 is ‘Gira la botella,’ or ‘spin the bottle.’ I forget what the original purpose of this game was (as described at the conference I went to, that is), but I tweaked it to be a game to practice idioms. I find that one of the hardest parts of vocabulary acquisition is getting […]
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April 26, 2011
Activity #4: Drama Inmóvil
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Fun activity #4 is “Drama Inmóvil,” idea courtesy of Paulino Brener. My students LOVE this. They beg for it- even the ones who will never talk in class. You must try it, and if you’re anywhere around a unit building on present progressive, you should do this every day for the first five minutes at […]
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April 13, 2011
Fun activity #3: ¡Arriésgate!
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Fun activity #3 is Jeopardy (¡Arriésgate!) courtesy of the great web 2.0 tool Jeopardy Labs (free and no account required!). I’ve known about this tool for a long time but never just sat down and used it. It’s easy to make and easy to use (except there’s not really a function for no one to […]
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April 2, 2011
Fun activity #2: A conversar
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I blogged a few days ago about coming back from CSC11 with some good ideas to make my class more fun (along with some suggestions via Diego Ojeda of #langchat “fame” 😉 and putting them together into a 10-minute class starter. photo by Rohit Rath The second one is “a conversar.” For this one, students […]
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March 29, 2011
Activity 1: Cuento poco a poco
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Telling a story by categories photo by flamingoo This idea came from a session at CSC on theater that was generally so awful that I left halfway through. Really, it was so bad it was painful. But, I came away with this activity that I thought I could make work in my classroom. In “Cuento […]
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