Archivo de la etiqueta: ser

¡Nombrar/crear/describir animales híbridos! A creative & fun activity for practicing descriptions! (ser) (tiempo presente) (vocabulario: animales)

How cool are these photoshopped pictures of hybrid animals? They could kick-off some really interesting activities for practicing descriptions and/or learning animal vocabulary words (not just the names of the animals, but also their features, body parts, behaviors, habitat)! Students could name and write descriptions of these animals, or even better, draw their own!

nombrar los animales_photoshop

Leer la mano: A fun activity for practicing descriptions! (tiempo presente) (ser)

I came across this guide for palm reading, and thought it could make an interesting activity for students to practice descriptions, the verb ser, and the present tense (what we’re working on this unit)! Here’s a possible way of giving the lesson:

1. Discuss the guide:

  • vocabulary expansion

  • present tense verbs & present tense conjugations of ser for describing personality traits

  • gender of the adjectives must agree with the person being described

2. In pairs, students read each other’s palms and compare what the palm tells about their personality with how they really are.

3. Students get a new partner and describe their first partner based on what the palm-reading revealed and the discussion that followed OR that could be the writing prompt:

¿Qué aprendiste sobre tu compañero al leer su mano? ¿Es así de verdad?

descripciones_leer_la_mano

Creative-writing song activity: «Esta soy yo» – Francisca Valenzuela (Ser, Descripciones)

This fun, creative music video by Chilean singer-songwriter Francisca Valenzuela, who has been dubbed «la princesa del rock chileno,» is sure to be a hit with your students! Here you will find a free PDF worksheet with which your students can get creative as well! I would recommend this activity for beginner and intermediate-beginner levels. It could be used at the beginning of the semester, which from my experience usually features a unit on the verb ser and descriptions. The activity begins with simply watching the video. I show it twice (or three times if requested) to give the students time to both enjoy the video and follow along with the lyrics, which are provided on the worksheet. As you can see, the lyrics have plenty of cognates, and I´ve provided translations of some other words verse by verse. After discussing the video and lyrics, the students fill out the bottom part of the worksheet in which they rewrite the first verse to describe their own personality. Special attention is drawn to agreement between possessive adjectives and the nouns they describe.

One thing to mention in the class discussion is that the singer´s description of herself is quite candid and includes some negative traits. She states that she feels she needs to change, while in the end we hear that the recipient of the song does not think she needs to change at all. Here we find the message of the song, that it is dedicated to someone who loves the singer for just who she is, the good and the bad. Students may want to take this angle to writing their own verses, but it´s just one option. Any sort of description will be fine!

As always, feel free to leave a comment with any suggestions. I love getting comments! Also, if you try this activity in your class I´d love to know how it goes!

Hoja de actividades: «Esta soy yo» – Francisca Valenzuela

Note: Currently on the video there is a pop-up annotation that takes you to another music video for the song «Buen Soldado.» Just a heads up, that video is not school-appropriate!

Here’s a gallery of some examples of my students’ work. We did this activity on the second day of class, so while checking them I got to know a little bit of each student’s personality. The students participated really well, and we got the semester off to a great start!

El pase de diapositivas requiere JavaScript.