games
May 8, 2018
My class has an infection right now, and it’s called translation. It’s no secret I am not a huge fan of translation as the go-to method of checking comprehension, though I’ve moderated my stance on this over the years (especially for interpretive assessments), and lately I’m remembering why. I’ve based four out of the last […]
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January 19, 2015
It’s always exciting for me to announce a resource release! Today on the blog and on my Teachers Pay Teachers store I’m releasing a new FREE resource as I explore developing communicative games. My students enjoyed using a Battleship game format to practice accurate repetitions of forms of ser and estar, so I decided to […]
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August 15, 2014
Keeping games communicative
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Many teachers are back in school and last night’s year-starting #langchat topic was, by a large majority vote, review techniques that get students moving forward quickly after a long break. I was sick and wasn’t able to join in the conversation but I’m going to assume that someone mentioned games. I would have! Who wouldn’t want […]
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April 21, 2014
Let’s play
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Learning vs. play Where did kids get the idea that school was not fun? That learning was not fun? A couple of weeks ago I was interviewing another teacher’s student for a proficiency assessment and I asked about school. He said that he liked learning but didn’t like school. Isn’t that sad? Well, maybe it’s not. I […]
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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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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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February 10, 2011
Tonight’s #Langchat topic is using games to support instruction. I have no idea how to describe a game in 140 characters so I thought I’d post it here. This is a game good for low levels. It works great to reinforce describing people. It’s useful for students to have the verbs ‘have’ ‘wear’ and ‘is.’ […]
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August 31, 2010
The Pbs Kids website’s Maya & Miguel section not only has a nice selection of Spanish fun, but one of the features is an interactive comic creator, in which you select the background and then choose which words you want to use and which pictures match the words. Wait– it’s in Spanish, you choose the […]
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February 17, 2009
If you have a way to project a webpage somewhere in your room, you’ve got to check out es.barbie.com. We did this in Spanish 1 today to practice house vocabulary, but you could use it for so many things. We also did the makeover part of it to practice colors. It’s amazing how much they […]
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