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Smart Lesson Plans: use technology in the classroom without getting a headache

Posted by Alvaro

We’re very glad to launch a new section in our website, the Smart Lesson Plans, a new step in our goal to provide additional teaching materials for the Spanish class.

  • What’s exactly a Smart Lesson Plan?
    • A Smart Lesson Plan is a complete unit that tries to take advantage of the new technology available in many classrooms, without driving the teacher crazy. All you need to use it is a computer, loudspeakers and a projector or digital board. In our opinion, the use of this technology allows us to bring more variety into the classroom, and it therefore helps us reach students who have different learning styles.

  • The main features of Smart Lesson Plans are:

    • 1) They contain a .doc file (in English and Spanish) with all the information you need to use the different files of the package. The document starts with the level, objectives and time of the lesson, and then it describes in clear steps how to get the most of the different Power Point files, the video and the rest of the activities. Since it’s a .doc file, it’ll be easy for you to modify it if you’d like to add activities or to delete some. You can also change the order of the exercises, adapting them to the length of your classes.

    2) Once you download the Lesson Plan, you’ll be ready to go. No installation is required, and because of the extensions of the files (.doc, .ppt,. mp4, .jpg), you’ll be able to open any of them with just a click. Even if your computer doesn’t have the basic and most common software, such as a media player or a document editor, there are free programs you can use to open all of our files (VLC for video and Open Office for presentations and documents).

    3) The Smart lesson plan focuses on verbal communication, trying to improve the listening comprehension and the speaking skills of the students:

    • Listening comprehension: it’s important to be familiar with the vocabulary to understand the video and audio files. We learn vocabulary through meaningful repetition, and the lesson plans include many activities that will help your students master the key vocabulary, using TPR, games and virtual vocabulary cards. We have also added a subtitled version of the video to the lesson plans: we believe that the combination of listening and reading is a great exercise to improve the listening comprehension.

    • Speaking: the lesson plans include a lot of graphical support that will make speaking easier for your students, especially once they’re familiar with the vocabulary of the unit.

    4) The lesson plan is very interactive: all the presentations try to encourage participation, in an effort to make the class more dynamic. The images displayed in the different presentation will contribute to a more extensive use of Spanish in the class. Students will be engaged in games, group activities and a constant interaction with the teacher.

    5) As a result of the interaction, the teacher has continuous feedback from the learners. There is a permanent evaluation process, and the lesson plan includes additional files you can use whether you consider there are students who need extra practice.

    We have summarized these points in the following video, but please contact us if you’d like to have more information about the Smart Lesson Plans.

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    Hablan2: Work on your student’s speaking fluency from day 1

    Posted by Alvaro under: News

    Hablan2 is a photocopiable resource book that contains 23 activities to develop your beginner student’s speaking skills. It covers the main topics of the Spanish I/A1 curriculum: the alphabet, numbers, personal information (name, age, etc.), time, classroom objects, the verb “gustar”, family, weather, shopping, food, holidays, etc.

    These activities have been designed to be worked in pairs. They have two different parts: A and B, with the objective that each participant has information that the other does not have. The students will need to work together, using the target language, to achieve a common task. The activities are very varied: in some of them the students will need to identify pictures, and in others they will need to obtain information, play games or role-play following a model.

    Hablan2 is available from the Videos and More section of this site. Delivery charges only apply to orders below 80$, so take a look at our DVDs before making a decision.You can pre-view the first 8 activities of Hablan2 here:

     


    If you’re interested in receiving a free .pdf sample of some of the activities included in Hablan2, please contact us through our contact form and we’ll be glad to send it to you.

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    El día de San Valentín

    Posted by Alvaro

    Many people in Spain call it “El Día de El Corte Inglés”, because they think “el día de San Valentín” is just a commercial festivity (“El Corte Inglés” is the main Spanish department store). But there are also many people who consider it a special day, and they celebrate it showing their love and friendship. Although it isn’t a very important day in our country, we wanted to do an icebreaker about this topic because it’s a great opportunity to learn or review vocabulary related to love and relationships, and also it’s easy to connect it to the present perfect tense. The result is “El día de San Valentín”, a 6-minute story about three friends and the importance that 14 February has in their lives.

    The activities that accompany the video also include an explanation of the Colombian “día del Amor y la Amistad”, a similar celebration that takes places every 18 September.
    We also have another video related to friendship: “Mi mejor amiga” that might be a better option for beginner levels (Spanish I / II), since the plot is easier and the grammar just focuses on the indirect object pronouns. You can purchase and preview these videos in low resolution in the icebreaker section of our website.

    Keep an eye on our forum for extra activities or more information about the ones included in the PDF booklet.

    Esperamos que tengan un buen día de San Valentín.

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    ¿Cómo es?

    Posted by Alvaro

    Foreign language learners very often get stuck when trying to speak in the target language because they lack vocabulary. There are many strategies to solve that problem, such as using synonyms or asking someone to translate the word they’re trying to say (¿Cómo se dice “x” en español?). A very useful technique is to describe the object they have in mind, and our new ”¿Cómo es?” icebreaker covers all the basic expressions and vocabulary to do that: shapes, sizes, colors, expressions to describe its utility, adjectives such as ligero, pesado, blando, duro, etc.

    The video, which you can preview in low resolution in the icebreaker section, features eight students from Aluche (Madrid) describing several objects from their school. The activities that accompany the video will prepare your students to understand it, and they’ll have many opportunities to practice these new concepts. Those exercises include four listening activities and a guessing game to play with the whole class, as you can see in the sample below:

     

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