BablinguaForum

Speaking activities

2009-05-11T08:02:28+00:00

Hola a todos,

I teach High School Spanish and I’m trying my best to improve my student’s fluency. My Spanish II students have no problems describing themselves and people in general, talking about the weather, and describing pictures.

Does anybody have some ideas to work on their fluency in a fun way?

Muchas gracias!

Let’s start the class doing something different

2010-02-11T22:09:40+00:00

This is an activity that works better in pre-intermediate to advanced classes, but you could also try it with beginners, once you cover the vocabulary about feelings.

Tell your students to think about what they’ll answer if you ask them how they are. Tell them to be original, you don’t want everybody to say “bien”.

Ask them to stand up, and explain to them that you’re going to say different adjectives and, that when you say the one they were thinking of, they must sit down.

Then, say as many adjectives and expressions as you can imagine to answer a “¿Cómo estás? question. Something like “bien, mal, muy bien, muy mal, regular, así así, cansado, aburrido, feliz, alegre, contento, enfadado, enojado, enfermo, estresado, etc.”

Stop when all your students are seated, or when you run out of ideas. If that is the case, ask the ones who are still standing the word they were thinking about.

This is an easy way to start the class differently, and you might get some ideas from it to continue the activity with further questions (i.e. if half of the class sat down after you said “cansado”, you might want to ask them why).

You can repeat the activity another day, asking for a volunteer to say the adjectives instead of you.

Adding fun personality tests to our classes

2009-06-23T09:19:06+00:00

I sometimes use personality tests in my classes. They can be easily found in the Internet, and students usually like them.

There’s a very short test about priorities that you can use when explaining the “presente continuo”. You can find the test in English here:

http://www.personalityquiz.net/relational/prioritytest.htm

And in Spanish here:

http://elavispo.blogspot.com/2007/02/test-nro-1-prioridades-en-la-vida.html

I use the presente continuo to explain the situation described in the text:

Estás en una habitación y el teléfono está sonando. Además, alguien está llamando a la puerta. Está lloviendo y tienes ropa tendida. Tu hermano pequeño está en una cuna y está llorando. Por último, el grifo está abierto y el agua está saliendo de la pila. ¿Qué harías primero?

Students then need to explain what they’d do first, second, third, forth and last. Once they have explained their answers, individually or in groups, give them the results:

ACTION PRIORITY

Attend the phone Career and job
See who is at the door Friends and relatives
Pick up the clothes Love (originally sex, but inappropriate in most classes, I suppose)
Attend the baby Family
Switch the tap off Wealth

It is of course a silly test, but it’s definitely an original activity, good to break the routine of our classes.

Quick vocabulary review

2009-05-21T09:10:11+00:00

Buenos días,

My name is Sandra and I teach Spanish in High School in Georgia. I’d like to share with you an activity that I do to start the class, hoping to receive similar activities from other teachers.

What I do, is to give one word to a student, regarding one of the topics we’re covering in class. Then, the next student has to say a word connected to the one the first students said. Then a third students will add a new word, connected to the previous one, and we keep going until everybody in the class speaks.

For example, if our topic is “restaurant”, I might say “Restaurante”. And this could be a logical chain of words from student to students:

Restaurante > Menú > Comida > Pescado > Agua > Vaso > Botella…

If someone says a word that we don’t think is connected to the previous one, we ask that student to explain why he said it.

It’s a quick activity, helpful to review many words in a short time, and to make sure everybody participates.

Actividad > Descripción de una persona

2009-01-27T10:47:32+00:00

Esta es una actividad muy fácil que pueden utilizar para empezar la clase y que sirve para repasar las partes del cuerpo, las descripciones físicas y la ropa. Hay otro ejemplo de esta actividad en el archivo PDF que viene con el icebreaker de “El personaje misterioso”.

Los alumnos tienen que averiguar qué persona estamos describiendo, escuchando las pistas que les vamos dando. Podemos leer las pistas o irlas descubriendo con la ayuda de un proyector, si hacemos una transparencia de una hoja con las siguientes pistas:

1. No es español.
2. Tiene el pelo corto, liso y negro.
3. Es muy alto.
4. No tiene barba.
5. No tiene gafas.
6. Es muy fuerte.
7. No es feliz.
8. No tiene camiseta.
9. No tiene zapatos.
10. Es de color verde.

El profesor va leyendo las pistas una a una hasta que alguien averigue a quién estamos describiendo (“La Masa” o “The Hulk”).

Otros ejemplo muy fáciles serían Frodo (del Señor de los Anillos o “The Lord of the Rings”) o cualquier personaje famoso de dibujos animados. También, por supuesto, podemos utilizar personas reales.

Después de hacer un ejemplo, podemos pedirle a los estudiantes que hagan su propia hoja, individualmente o por parejas, y que la lean a la clase para ver quién adivina a la persona que están describiendo.