Friday Ideas, Monday Edition

Here's my lesson plan for tomorrow - just what we're doing on a normal Tuesday afternoon.

1. Warm-up: When the students first come into the room, we're going to listen to a song in which some of their new vocabulary (mostly verbs ending in -ar) is repeated often. The students will have a copy of the song's lyrics, and will fill-in the missing words. Hopefully this will help them start to internalize the new vocabulary by seeing it in context - and repeated frequently.

2. Review: We'll then review their new -ar verb vocabulary briefly. This will be done simply by me pantomiming an action, and the students calling-out the correct verb. This will give me a chance to correct pronunciation and conjugation errors.

3. Student Interviews: I have a list of seven questions that the students will ask and answer with a partner. The questions are designed to help them practice using the -ar verbs correctly, and to review the question words. Students should speak all in Spanish, and I'll walk around the room to make corrections and keep them on-task.

4. Speaking and writing practice: After reviewing the above questions with the class to model correct answers and to correct common mistakes, I'll have the students put their new verbs to use in a lengthier task. Students will work in pairs to write a schedule for a group of tourists who are planning to spend the day in Atlanta. They'll be instructed to use their new verbs, and to spell the numbers when writing out the times. I've given them the first line of what I might write as an example: A las ocho de la mañana, desayunamos en un restaurante muy famoso, The Flying Biscuit. A las nueve y media... Students will work for about ten minutes with a partner, and then present their schedules to the group. Again, I'll walk around the room while students work to ensure that they are using Spanish to speak to each other.



Review of new material: The students were supposed to review numbers over 30 before class, so the practice above will help them refresh their memories as they use numbers 1-30 to tell times. I'll put some numbers on the board (1983, for example) and have them write the numbers in Spanish (mil novecientos ochenta y tres). We'll review the answers, and also do a lot of counting - I'll model pronunciation and have them repeat as well as having them count out-loud in an around-the-room exercise, count backwards, etc.

Reading: I've pulled some statics about Spain from a site on the internet. Students will read the information aloud, including the numbers greater than 30. I like to have them switch readers rapidly so that all must follow along, as modeled in this video. When we're read the information together, I'll ask them some comprehension questions in Spanish, and have them answer.

Listening: If we have time, our textbook comes with a short video about Spain that I'll play for the students. Students will then read aloud and answer some true-false questions about the video, correcting the statements that are false.

So, that's what I'll be doing on Tuesday. What will you be doing? Could you adapt any of the activities above to use with your students? How?