Pedro Pistolas / Shootout game

This is a game which students usually quite enjoy which is good for reviewing vocabulary. While it may not be wonderfully communicative, it gives them and opportunity to find out exactly what they need to study more.

Basic setup: One student is selected to be Pedro Pistolas, the champion and is placed at the front of a line. The next student is the first challenger. The line rotates as students proceed through the vocabulary.

A term from their vocabulary is prompted (by a picture, where possible) and the first student to respond either becomes or remains the champion. The line should be gone through at least a couple of times so that every student has multiple opportunities to succeed.

Optional rule: If the class has vastly different levels of students, a limit can be placed on consecutive victories before that champion moves to the back of the line.

Another optional rule: Students with sufficient knowledge to do so may be prompted to form sentences using the words after correctly naming the item in question. This allows the activity to be somewhat more communicative as the students are presented an open-ended opportunity to express themselves.

Spanish 1001: Midterm Review

I know everyone’s getting nervous about the midterm and all the new material they need has been both presented and reviewed to some extent, so I wanted to mainly focus on their questions today. While I have some idea on where they could use some help, I want to give them the opportunity to give me feedback on where they believe they need help. I gave them back their quizzes (on which they generally did quite well) and asked if they had any questions about those, then wrote up a quick “study guide” and asked what they wanted to review from it. In case they didn’t have questions (always a danger), I also had some review activities planned, such as Pedro Pistolas to practice vocab and verb conjugation competitions – games they are already familiar with so they didn’t take a lot of time on setup.

Results on September 29, 2010: Thankfully, both classes had a lot of good questions and we were able to review just about everything I think they need to know for the midterm. I feel as though they left class satisfied and confident today or, at the very least, more confident than when they came in. I feel as though I used a bit too much English today, though – I’ll have to be more careful about that.

Spanish 1001: More on possessives, adjectives and the verb Deber

Specific objectives: Students should

Work together to organize sentences with possessives and adjectives

Understand and use correctly the verb Deber in both verbal and written form

Since we’re gearing up for the midterm at this point in the semester, there’s not a whole lot of new material right here. Thus, we can really focus on some fundamental concepts and engrain well the new material. The idea that “should” functions as a verb can be a tough one for native English speakers, so I really wanted to dedicate a good portion of today’s lesson to it.

Results on September 28, 2010: Interestingly, the first class, which went somewhat poorly yesterday, was far more “on the ball” today. They knew their possessives and were able to use them well and had obviously studied up on their adjectives. Working in their teams, I had them come up with lists of things that they should and should not do in given situations, then gave teams points for having unique answers, allowing the students to work communicatively and talk about things that interested them. They had some fun with this one, stating such things as “We should not dance in our Spanish class.” I feel like today got everyone on the same page and that the day was effective.

Spanish 1001: –er and –ir verbs and possessives

Specific Objectives: Students should. . .

Learn some basic verbs

Correctly conjugate basic -er and -ir verbs

Recognize and begin to use possessive pronouns verbally.

After introducing some new verbs and their conjugation patterns (using pictures on a powerpoint rather than simply putting the English word with the Spanish word), I gave them a bit of culture in the form of a poem, Borges y yo but with many of the verbs unconjugated. My main objective in doing this, beyond giving them some cultural flavor, was to give the students confidence by showing them tgat they now had the basic tools needed to conjugate A LOT of verbs, even if they were unfamiliar with the verb itself.

I then used a photo album from my time in Guatemala to demonstrate some possessive pronouns and planned to have the students talk about some objects they were carrying in pairs or small groups.

Results September 27, 2010: Things didn’t quite work out as hoped in my first class – the students got a bit frustrated with the poem (while it uses comparatively simple vocabulary, they got caught up in the existentialism) and ended up taking longer than hoped with it. As a result, I didn’t quite get to all that I had planned. Since the students were already a bit frustrated, my brief presentation on possessives using my photo album from my time in Guatemala kinda fell flat. I reorganized things for the second class, placing the students in pairs to work out the poem together and worked a little more on the presentation of the poem itself, so the second class went a bit more smoothly.

Quiz days

Quiz days are always tough days to try and teach. You either take the beginning of class reviewing the material on the quiz (in which case, experience has shown that students won’t study for it) or teaching new material (in which case students won’t absorb it because they’re focusing on the quiz). If you try and teach afterwards, the students feel burned out and, again, absorb nothing. Thus, when I have a brief class (50 minutes) I try to keep quiz days simple – answer any questions they have, give them the quiz and either give them a brief in-class writing assignment or simply let them go. This setup also allows me to grant the necessary extra time to any special needs students I may have without scheduling a completely separate time for the quiz.

In preparing students for a quiz, once they have enough knowledge to do so (This can begin as early as mid-way through the first semester), I will sometimes have them prepare a quiz in groups and hand it in to me the day before they receive the actual quiz. I then use some of what is provided by the students (in addition to some items of my own invention) in creating their quiz. Students seem to appreciate being involved in the process of assessment and it gets them to think critically about the material they've absorbed.

Spanish 1001: Chapter 2 review

Specific objectives: Students should . . .

Identify family-related terms and expressions

Express (both verbally and orthographically) age with numbers up to 100

Demonstrate some fundamental cultural knowledge

Prepare for Quiz

Results on September 22, 2010: I feel that today went exceptionally well. I set up a jeopardy-based powerpoint to review the major concepts, including a column for culture (some reading for which was assigned as homework). I had the teams working together but, instead of a race to state the answer first, I had each time write the correct answer to the question. This gave an opportunity for all of the students to participate (as they discussed the answers among themselves) and allowed everyone an opportunity to succeed. Thus, I think the class was both useful/informative and enjoyable, as well as a good confidence booster for the quiz.

Family Logic Puzzle

This puzzle (translated into Spanish, of course) is an exercise I use in teaching family terms. I convert the names into typical Spanish names and have modified some of the descriptions to include a bit of Spanish culture.

Can you help me figure out my family tree? There are two grandparents, who had two children, who both got married and had 2 more children each. Totaling 10 people in all (Alex, David, Jamie, Jessica, John, Justin, Lincoln, Martha, Mary and Tina).

1. One of Jamie's ancestors was David.

2. John's sister gave birth to Tina.

3. Mary baked flan with her nephew last Saturday.

4. Alex visited one of his primas at Christmas and shot off fireworks.

5. Justin married Mary.

6. Jessica is not an ancestor, nor cousin of Tina.

7. Lincoln's brother played soccer with Justin's son.