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!
Before making this activity a few years ago, I polled my beginner Spanish students about the most well-known families from a TV show or movie. The Kardashians won, but Family Guy consistently took second, ¡so I went with la familia Griffin!
First, we watch the video below together to provide comprehensible input for introducing family vocabulary. I pause frequently to ask “circling” style questions, all in the target language, Spanish. (Click here for a great video on circling by Kaizen Teaching).
Finally, students put what they learned into production by writing a similar description of a family on the back of the handout. Here are the instructions I project on the board:
¡A escribir! Descripción de una familia Use theFamilyGuypresentation as a model
Describe una familia famosa(de la televisión, el cine, un libro, la historia, etc.)
Usa el vocabulario para expresar las relaciones entre los miembros de la familia.
¿Qué hacen los miembros de la familia?
–Escribe 1-3 frases sobre cada persona.
Dibuja (draw) un árbol familiar.
I instruct the students who finish writing early swap papers to do peer editing.
Any feedback welcome in the comments! I´d love to know if you use this activity in your classroom or have any suggestions for expansion/improvement!
Here is the latest video in the “Practice Spanish with Memes” series! In this video we start with a quick review of how to conjugate formal (USTED y USTEDES) commands & where to place the pronouns. Then it’s on to the memes!
Last week, a student emailed me that she was watching our “Direct Object Pronouns: Practice with Memes” video with her 11-year-old son, and he wanted to know what my very favorite meme in Spanish was! Our email exchange got me excited to make another video with more memes!
Here’s the latest video in the “Practice with Memes” series! It is meant to be a fun way to help students practice with stem-changing verbs, expand vocabulary, and especially to invite them to explore the Spanish-speaking world through the internet!
Many students are surprised to see that there are memes and YouTube videos in Spanish just like the ones they like in English. I hope that the memes video series can be just one way to encourage these sorts of connections between students’ interests and Spanish language learning!
And here’s a link to see all the memes and posts on this site categorized to stem-changing verbs! Stem-changing verbs posts
I have observed that many students in my most advanced courses still struggle with numbers above one hundred. Here is a video I made to go over things step-by-step.
This first video covers 100s through 900s, and the next one will be practice (with memes!) with the thousands up to the millions!
Main Street is closed for the whole city to enjoy 2 kilometers of cakes! Yes, this really happened! I came upon this scene January 7th of last year in Zacatecas, Mexico, and have been wanting to share this fun celebration the day after Día de Reyes with my students ever since. The result: this read-along video story (narrated by a native speaker from Zacatecas) and accompanying handout for story-based activities. I hope you will find it useful to incorporate into a unit on holidays, for targeted practice for preterite versus imperfect, and/or as a reading comprehension activity.
The following activity sheet features 5 components:
Vocabulario – quick prep for understanding key words in the story
Comprehensión de lectura
Conversación y escritura– retelling the narration to solidify comprehension and practice narration in the past tense
Gramática – Preterite versus imperfect cloze activity
Conexiones y culturas – internet search for other celebrations and written description of other ways Día de Reyes is celebrated
Also, teachers, if you would like to download this story as a Powerpoint or a PDF for a printable book for your classroom, I have uploaded a bundle on Teachers Pay Teachers! Click here!