I have spent 27 years in education. I have taught Spanish, ELA, Social Studies, Science and ESOL in all levels of public school, and even several years at a local community college. I am the Curriculum Director and Lead Instructional Coach for a language learning organization.
In the name of keeping it comprehensible, here is a super simple way to review vocabulary and/or grammar.
This one is for reviewing “mandatos” for the final exam I am required to give. I made it super quick, so excuse the quality, but hopefully it gives you the idea of how to do this. You can then use THIS as a template to change for whatever you are needing to review and/ or introduce.
I use these sometimes with pictures of my students, things in our school or even get other teachers to help me by letting me take pictures of them with the items or doing the actions for that set of vocabulary.
Then, I talk about each picture. This gives me a chance to review previous vocabulary and also reinforce staying in the class language for as long as possible.
For example, I would use the slide above to talk about the children by describing them and their clothing, reviewing colors, reviewing what they are doing (or any other form of the verb). I could talk about this picture for 2-3 minutes without much effort by pointing to all of the different visual supports.
As always, I hope this idea helps you have an easy day or inspires you to create something simple like it that keeps students engaged and you able to easily stay in the class language.
As I posted this week, I am creating lots of materials to help my students review for the required vocabulary and grammar in the school where I teach. I do not teach these out of context throughout the year, but we do have common semester assessments, so I want them to feel prepared. I believe strongly in the use of comprehensible input for true language acquisition, so this is quite a deviation from the way I generally teach.
That being said, I wanted to review but keep it fun, interactive and comprehensible. So, I came up with a method I explained in an earlier post HERE. I have taken all the required vocabulary and started to create some interactive activities we can do together or in small groups. Here is one I created to review zoo animals and prepositions of place. I was able to watch students use vocabulary, listen to instructions and demonstrate an understanding of animals and prepositions of place.
This can also be used with younger students to teach the vocabulary and have them practicing the vocabulary in an interactive way. You could certainly print the zoo page and the animals stickers and have students do this in class without the use of computers as well.
Here is the place to move and label the animals.
Here are some of the stickers I used.
Hope this inspires you to get them talking and working together! I will have this and other sets of common vocabulary units up for sale on my TpT store, but you could certainly just use notecards with simple drawings or pics you print. The key is to sail on into the summer with low stress and high engagement!
I am starting to prep for reviewing my students for the required curriculum in my district. One of the things they require is for students to know the location (and I taught capitals) of all the Spanish-speaking countries. So…
Here are a few for you to have!
Yes, I realize that México is not part of “Central America,” but this is the way I had to teach it for curriculum in my district. Below, you will find another.
Since Central America is not a continent, you could also use the one below if you prefer.
Hope they help make an easy addition to your final reviews if this is part of your content! I also added this to Schoology as a “Drag and Drop” assessment and it was a hit!
I have my students glue these into their interactive notebooks, and we work on them throughout the year. They color in the country and label it as we learn about that country. I generally do Central America in the fall and South America and the others in the spring. This, again, is because it is expected in our district.
Hope having these helps you not to have to create another map.
Happy Teaching!
Alana
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May… that super fun time of year when state testing, end of year behavior and teacher burnout start to really create a perfect storm.
So, for me, it is project time! I have several end of year projects I use from time to time. This year, I recycled a travel project that has really been getting my students talking. They are realizing there is a HUGE world out there, waiting for them to explore it AND they are learning all that goes into planning a trip.
You could have people work in pairs or groups, but at this time of year, I prefer to let them work alone. I did allow my students to research in English. My upper levels and Heritage Speaker classes presented in Spanish, but I allowed my lower level students to choose. I loved hearing their banter about the things they were discovering about travel and faraway places.
You can certainly use just a Google slideshow to have them do the project, or you could even take screenshots of the pics here and use them. The full project with all 14 slides can be found HERE for sale on my TpT store in English or in Spanish if you just want it already done :-).
It was fun, engaging and they learned and problem-solved a LOT! Win-win.
I hope this helps with some ideas for teaching about travel while keeping students focused!
It is that time of year! The students are restless and so are we! Time to get students working collaboratively so you can just observe!
This quarter, in my district, we have to teach vocabulary about travel and clothing. I have been doing lots of different things with this topic, and having fun! I will write about a few of the activities in the next few posts. This one is quick and easy after you have introduced some basic vocabulary to your students. This is kind of a twist on something a colleague of mine (MP) is doing in her class.
First, you use the vocabulary to make 5-6 cards with pictures. Each set of cards should be related to a visit to a certain place. For example, this one is related to a beach trip.
Then, you cut each “set” and put them in baggies. Then, each group of 3-4 students chooses a bag. They have to take the cards in the bag and use them to write about a trip they took together. Since I teach level 2, I had my students use the past tense and talk about a trip they took last year. I did pre-teach a couple of sentence stems they could use for some of their story. This is easy to level up and down according to the level of your students, but it is a great way to get them to be a little creative.
In order to prevent one person from doing all the work, my colleague had the students each write the paragraph and then only collected one from the group randomly to grade. This way, all the students had to work together to make sure they were all working. I think this is a great idea and is kind of like my daily notes sheets for students who have trouble concentrating.
Hope this inspires you to get them talking and working together! I will have a set of these Travel Story Cards up for sale on my TpT store, but you could certainly just use notecards with simple drawings or pics you print. The key is to sail on into the summer with low stress and high engagement!
Okay, so I am not sure about where YOU teach, but down here in Texas there is a BIG push for us to get the kids doing more interpersonal and presentational speaking. And, of course, writing to get them ready for that AP exam. It seems to me that kids don’t get excited about too much in class, so when I find something they like, I RUN with it!
So, I was using some random pics of Mark Wahlberg as conversation starters the week before spring break. Why Mark Wahlberg, you ask? Well, my students would tell you I have an obsession. LOL. I figure, if I HAVE to find some pictures to talk about and do that all day, they may as well be something I like looking at. (My students even made an IG account a few years ago where they edit pics of Mark and I together, and they have been passing the torch over the years). Anyway, I digress…
So, I decided to make some that hit the cycles of instruction I use from the Stepping Stones materials. I also have required vocabulary I have to teach, so this has worked out perfectly. It allows for personalized learning because I can evaluate the output according to level.
I have used them by printing them with the pic on the front and the prompts on the back. There are LOTS of ways to use these!
For Interpersonal Speaking, I hand out a card to each pair of students in my class and then I have them choose one of the prompts on the back. I give them about 90 seconds to collect their thoughts and then I have them start by using the prompt to give some info and ask some questions. The partner has to look at the picture (provides scaffolding) and talk about it with their partner.
For Presentational Speaking or Writing, I give a card to each student. For this one, I told them which prompt they had to use, gave them a couple minutes to prep and then got them talking ( or writing).
You can use any pics you want. I have more of them for sale in my TpT store HERE.
It seems that ever since we went virtual out of necessity at the start of the pandemic, we have made most things digital. That is okay for lots of things, but I find more and more that kids are burnt out on technology. That may not be true for your students in your teaching context, but it is my reality right now. So, how can I address this tech fatigue??
One thing I did a few weeks ago was play the old game “Dots and Boxes.” I wasn’t sure how it would go. To be honest, I had a back-up Gimkit game all loaded and ready to go just in case. Much to my surprise, it was a HUGE hit!
The digital version of this can be found on my TpT store.
So, what did I do? Well, I reached back into my archive of worksheets that would review the concepts we needed for the assessment. Some were reading worksheets with questions about the reading (reading). Some were fill in the blank worksheets with targeted vocab and grammar required by my district (writing). Some were questions that had to be answered aloud (speaking). Some were based on a podcast and/or video they had to watch and listen to in order to answer the question. I briefly explained each page (I gave them 5) and then explained the game like this:
First, you start with a blank grid of dots.
Then, you allow one person to connect two dots to make one line.
Then, the next person must connect two dots, making a line.
This continues until there are are enough to make a box.
If you draw the 4th line that closes the box, you get to put your initials in that box.
This continues until all boxes have been made.
The winner is the one with the MOST boxes with initials.
The dots that you draw can be on your whiteboard or you can project the image above.
So, you have the worksheets, you have the grid…how do you put it all together? Great question! What I did was first project the image above on my board. Then, I passed out a packet of the worksheets. I sat in a central part of my classroom where I could watch what was happening and I got a self-inking stamp (this will save your initials a million times in one day). Once students finished a couple of questions, they could come to me to check. I told them they had to have 5 questions completed on the worksheets or have one of the speaking prompts ready to go. If they were all correct, they got a stamp on their paper (made grading easier when I chose which one to grade) and they got to go draw a line. They could NOT draw a line until they were all correct. If even one was incorrect, I sent them back. This infuriated some, as I wouldn’t tell them which was incorrect. It made for some great group work though! They were ALL engaged and trying to win another line!
It was fun, engaging and they learned and problem-solved a LOT! Win-win.
I hope this helps with some ideas for teaching these required vocabulary sets and/or topics while keeping lessons focused on communication!
I am currently teaching in the Narration Cycle of the instructional framework. I have been telling a new story every week, and needed a new way to review the stories and get my students writing. So, I took a step back into my days teaching language arts and pulled out this classic review strategy.
It is the 5 finger review! I wanted a fresh way to summarize the story and get my students writing, not just listening to the story. I found my students really needed a way to organize their thoughts, so I drew a hand on the board. After that class, I realized it would have been great to have allowed my students to use this as a graphic organizer WHILE I was telling the story, not just after. It would also have been great to have a digital version I could have created with students. On top of that, I am just a REALLY bad artist. LOL. I mean, epically bad. So bad that my students end up having a running joke about some drawing I have tried to make at some point during the year. It is just one of those things about teaching with CI…you have to draw.
Anyway, after doing the notes that go on each finger, you can use those points to write a great summary. It worked out well, so I wanted to share! You can download the color English version HERE. The Spanish and English versions in both color and printable black and white can be found in my TpT store, linked below.
So, everyone knows teaching required vocabulary can be dry and SUPER boring for students AND their teachers. I posted earlier in THIS post about one way I was working through some vocabulary required by my district in a more engaging way and incorporating listening and speaking.
Well, I am teaching some restaurant-related vocabulary now and decided to do the same kind of activity since it was super popular last time. So, HERE is the activity I call, “What’s on the Menu?” I have included some common foods you would find at restaurants, but it is super easy to insert your own too! I hope this helps some of you make this a less painful vocabulary lesson! Remember, if YOU enjoy the activity, they will too!!!
I hope this helps with some ideas for teaching these required vocabulary sets and/or topics while keeping lessons focused on communication!
It’s the “lucky” time of year with St. Patrick’s Day just around the corner! So, it is a perfect time to use this Cartoon Story to engage your learners.
You can use this story to help students tell a short visual story aloud OR have them write what they think each box is about.
You could have students make it up in groups or with a partner and have them share with the class.
You could cut up the pictures and place them around the room and have students add a sentence below each picture on a Gallery Walk.
You could make a listening activity and mix up the pictures, then allow students to work on putting them in order according to the story they hear you tell.
Honestly, this has SO many variations! Have fun telling these LUCKY stories! Share what your students come up with in the comments!
There are also two stories with Story Scripts on my TpT store HERE if you are interested in a companion story and possible script.
I hope this helps with some ideas for teaching these required vocabulary sets and/or topics while keeping lessons focused on communication!
Sra. K. Spanish 