With this video and guided notes, learners will use a graphic organizer to categorize common Irregular Preterite Verbs in Spanish.
They will practice conjugating the verbs in example sentences and understand how verbs such as «saber, querer, and poder» are used in the preterite to refer to specific, completed actions in the past.
This introductory activity prepares learners to use irregular preterite verbs. I use it for my online classes, and it could be a nice resource for a flipped classroom or to provide extra student support as well.
If you use these materials, I would love to hear how it goes in the comments!
This cute, short story is ideal for beginners who are just getting started with -AR verbs.
Learners can build confidence as they repeat the refrain, «y el gato ayuda» and perhaps read along with the rest as they wait for the next hilarious cat gif!
This blog post includes the video story as well as a free PDF activity sheet.
Expansion activity: Students can write a similar story about another animal that helps (el elefante ayuda, el pingüino ayuda, el oso ayuda, etc.).
If you share this with your students, I would love to know how it goes! Any feedback is always welcome and appreciated 🙂
In this video we’ll learn about stem-changing verbs in the preterite. Then we’ll practice making sentences with verbs in the preterite to talk about what people bought on their shopping trips.
There is a printable PDF document of Guided Notes that you can fill out as you watch the video posted below this video link.
This video lesson for beginning Spanish learners provides an introduction to the preterite.
We’ll learn the basics of when to use the preterite, how to conjugate regular preterite verbs, and words we commonly see with pretererite verbs. We’ll see plenty of examples along the way!
Download the free PDF handout as a guide for taking notes you watch the video.
This activity is designed for beginning learners to get introduced to regular preterite verb conjugations while practicing with vocabulary for food & drinks. It also invites students to learn more about Puerto Rican food.
The first half of the video introduces regular preterite verb conjugations for -ar & -er/ir verbs. It also explains “spelling change” verbs (-CAR, -GAR, -ZAR –> -QUÉ, GUÉ, CÉ) with the examples llegar – yo llegué and pagar – yo pagué.
Note: This activity does not include any irregular or stem-changing verbs.
The read-along story begins at minute 5:48 of the video. It is narrated by a Spanish-speaker from Zacatecas, México.
The free PDF activity sheet features prompts for pre- and post-viewing discussion, charts & brief questions about regular preterite conjugations based on the video, and a cloze activity with the story.
Any comments or suggestions are welcome!
If you use this with your students, I´d love to hear how it goes!
Algunas fechas importantes en la historia del mundo hispano: Una actividad para practicar los años y el pretérito
In this video lesson, we begin with how to say years in Spanish. Next, we practice while learning about some of the many important dates in the history of the Spanish speaking world. We´ll also practice preterit verb forms while we talk about these historical feats.
Los mandatos informales, informal «tú» commands, can be a bit challenging at first because you must remember to conjugate the verb differently depending on whether the command is affirmative (Yes! Do it! ¡Sí! ¡Hazlo!) or negative (No! Don´t do it! ¡No! ¡No lo hagas!) This cultural presentation will take you on a journey of table manners around the world while practicing affirmative versus negative tú commands.
Objectives:
Practice conjugating affirmative and negative tú commands
Share your reflections and what you´ve learned in the questions at the bottom of the handout. Do you think any of these tips for international table manners will come in handy someday?
If you would like to share these materials, please do so by providing a link to this blog post. Thank you!
Update: A typo in the handout has been corrected (10-8-2018)!
Update: This post has been changed & updated to include the video lesson (5-21-2020)! We re-posted to the front page of the blog for visibility without deleting the previous link for those who may have saved it.
«Un día típico de un estudiante universitario» is a read-along story for beginner-level students. There’s a special focus on «yo-go» verbs, por versus para, and food vocabulary, my class’ learning objectives for this unit.
There’s one notable absence: reflexive verbs! Usually ubiquitous in any daily routine story, I have left them out of this sequence because my total-beginner students haven’t learned about them yet. My goal is for students to become comfortable with writing and talking about daily routines and sequences of events in a contextual narrative before we reach the next unit in which the main focus is daily routines with reflexive verbs!
estudiafeliz 