Back to School: Ice Breaker Activities for Intermediate/Advanced Students

I like to have students speak Spanish early in my classes, as a way to reinforce to both new students and students that have had me before that speaking is an integral part of class. While not all of the activities listed here are speaking activities, I find them all useful for getting to know the students, and as an added bonus, I can get a sense of students' abilities without putting them in a high pressure situation. I also use my Six Speaking Games that Only Require a Ball as a way to set the tone and get students accustomed to using Spanish first thing in the classroom.

Before I continue to the ice breakers, I think that it is important to note that I always participate with my students. They can get to know me better, and it sets the stage for a positive relationship with them.

Ice Breakers for Intermediate/Advanced Students:
-2 Truths and a Lie: Students say three things about themselves, two of them true, one of them false, and the class guesses which is the false item
- I have never: Students sit in a circle. Everyone holds up five or ten fingers. Everyone in the circle says: I have never ______________. If a student has done said item, he or she must put down one of his fingers. If you want, you can give the students pieces of paper to toss into the center, instead of using fingers, etc. The first person to loose all of his items or put down all of his fingers is the winner!
- Hollywood: Set a timer for two-five minutes. One student stands in the middle of the circle of students, and answers random questions from classmates. You might have to give the students some examples. Such as What would your super power be? Or,  Who is your role model? Any (appropriate) question is fair game. When the two-three minutes are up, a new person is chosen for the circle. I usually start this activity with volunteers, allowing the students who are more introverted to get used to the idea of being in the spotlight prior to tossing them into the center.
- Describe a classmate. Pair students at random, and ask them to learn eight new things about their classmate. Then, without revealing who their partner was, students say what they have learned and the class guesses who they are describing.
- Silly sentences using names: Students write their own name poem using the letters of their name. You could require a sentence per letter, or require that the entire name reads as one sentence. I usually have my advanced students do the second, and I have them do both first and last names. We often hang these up in the classroom.
-Twitter Wall: My school does not allow us to use social media with students, so I use a paper version in my classroom. I place several large pieces of paper around the room with things like #First day of classes, # first impressions of teachers, #today I feel, etc. and have students go around the room and write under each of the topics. Then we read the papers aloud as a class.

In my next post, I will focus on Ice-Breakers for Beginner and Early Intermediate Students. What are your favorite first day activities that encourage students to use the language and help you get to know them?

Literature circles

I really think that it is important that Spanish students begin reading real authentic works as soon as possible. As a result, with my eleventh grade students (A class that would mostly equate with an advanced level three or regular level four class), I developed a very intentional reading curriculum. During the first term, I used newspaper articles and current events with the students. At some point in the near future, I will post on using current events in the classroom. However, in the second term, I focus on literary works. While my students have access to the book Abriendo Paso, and we read many of the stories from this text, I also like to incorporate some element of choice. Therefore, I decided to use literature circles, much like teachers in elementary and middle school English classes. I made a list of the works that students could choose from and I created a series of worksheets which could accompany any literary work, as I knew that it would be important for my students to perceive the amount of homework as fair. The worksheets can be found at my TPT store, which is linked to the lower right hand corner of the blog. While the purpose of this post is not to promote the worksheets, I hope to give other teacher's ideas as to how literature circles can be completed without the seeming "unfair" component of different homework assignments.

Here is how I set-up the literary circles. In the class, I have informed the students that over the next twelve weeks, we will be reading six works (a work every other week). Upon the completion of the work, students will turn in the literary question worksheet, along with a personal reaction to the work that they read. The reaction specifications include items such as not summarizing the work because it is important to me that students personalize the story to their own lives. While the worksheets are all different, they contain similar elements. Some items that are included on the worksheets are asking students to find different verb tenses in the stories, or asking students to make word webs, or writing discussion questions for their literature circles. While I recognize that a two page worksheet is not overly long, I also count reading the work as part of their homework or class work, so I do not want to overload students too much as we will be continuing with grammar as well. Two days a week, students will meet with their literature circles to meet as a group and to discuss the work, their questions, items that they might write about for their reaction etc. Some days, I encourage the students to read the work together, especially in the beginning as they start new stories. Additionally. Every month, or after we have read two works, students will complete a project on one of the two works that they have read. Once again, the students are provided with numerous project ideas as to how they can both convey their knowledge of the work and add their own elements to the project.

I am generally fortunate in that my students are motivated to learn and practice speaking in Spanish, so I do not have to do too much reminding for them to try to use the target language; however, I have in the past, simply asked students to fill-out a small participation form in which students rank their use of Spanish in the class in the following manner.
4: I both stayed on task and spoke only Spanish
3: I spoke in English, but it was relevant to class and on task
2: I mostly stayed on task and mostly spoke Spanish
1: I had difficulty staying on task and speaking in Spanish

I found that having students rank themselves a few days in a row, quickly brought their conversations back into Spanish.

While I certainly recognize that a downside to completing literary circles is that students may not fully comprehend a work without a full class discussion to clarify certain elements. I generally find that students' enthusiasm for reading increases throughout the term, as they view their classmates projects and then are curious to read the story for themselves. Additionally, weaker students learn to ask me questions during the two days that they meet in-class with their groups, once they have received negative feedback on an early reaction or from the first worksheet being graded. Upon the completion of the term last year, most students viewed the literary circles positively when asked to complete an anonymous survey about the term.

authentic listening en 60 segundos

Many Spanish teachers that I have worked with lament the difficulty of using authentic listening texts. While I agree that listening texts can be difficult to find and unpredictable in terms of quality once they have been found, one of my favorite listening activities is to use el boletín: noticias en 60 segundos by bbcmundo.com The boletín can often be found on the home page of bbcmundo.com, but if it is not there, choose the video/foto tab at the top of the screen and it will appear on that page. The best thing about the boletín is that you can sign up to have it sent directly to your inbox.

To me, the boletín is perfect because it presents a bunch of information in an extremely short time period. Additionally, it is short enough that it can be played numerous times without having to cut something else out of the lesson. Finally, the boletín always has the news of the day, so it is highly relatable to students and they are constantly being exposed to the important world events of the day. 

When I first started using the boletín, my co-worker thought I was nuts. After all, what eleventh grader can understand the rapid speech rate of a news item being described in twenty seconds or less? It turns-out that most eleventh graders can understand this type of text, when challenged to understand the main points, and when they are encouraged throughout the year to continue making progress. Finally, I have found that it is often not my "A" students who really succeed in the listening arena and listening to the boletín provides an opportunity for other students to shine. 

Here is how I slowly scaffold my students to listening to and comprehending the boletín 

Prior to using the boletiín in my class, I listen to it to see how many different items are presented (usually 4 to six). Then for students who are new to listening/watching, I write just two questions on the board for however many items are presented. These questions are simply ¿Dónde? and ¿Qué? 
My board would look like: 
1) a.   ¿Dónde?                                                2) a.    ¿Dónde

    b.    ¿Qué?                                                       b.     ¿Qué? 


3) a.     ¿Dónde?                                            4)   a.     ¿Dónde? 

     b.    ¿Qué?                                                      b.    ¿Qué? 

If you have ever watched el boletín you might be thinking that anyone could glean the answers to these two questions simply from watching the video. I agree and that is the point. Students quickly learn that they can understand the boletín simply from being attentive to what they are watching, and as a result they begin to relax, once they realize that they can accomplish the task. Once students have become accustomed to hearing the boletín and they are mostly comfortable answering the two questions above, I begin to add other questions such as ¿Quién? This question often cannot be answered by simply watching the video and the students begin to listen for the salient information without realizing how much their listening skills have grown. Finally, I add ¿por qué? when relevant. Sometimes with the addition of new questions, I have to repeat the video more than the standard two times that I use once students are comfortable at each new level.

While this activity is challenging for students, I find that they are generally excited and proud to be able to go up to the board upon the completion of the video and fill-in the answers to the questions. Another added bonus to using the boletín,  according to my AP Spanish students, is that every other listening article seems slow in comparison.

Do you use el boletín in your classroom? What are your favorite listening sites? LAITS?

¡Día del café!

One of the best and to me most exciting parts of teaching a foreign language is watching and hearing students use the language. Every week, I do a lesson that is specifically focused on speaking with my upper level students. I do not mean to imply that I don't give students the opportunity to speak other days of the week because I certainly do! However, once a week, I try to devise a lesson that specifically focuses on speaking. Usually I rotate the modes between more interpersonal and presentational, depending on which mode works best with the materials being studied the rest of the week. Día del café is a day that focuses on the interpersonal mode. I put a question in large letters at the center of a grouping of desks, and students choose at random where they sit. Most often, the questions will be directly or indirectly related to a literary work or thematic topic that we are studying, but occasionally, I will choose random questions. I also always include a station that requires that the students write a question for the next group. I have the students discuss the questions in their small groups for a set length of time (usually between 2-5 minutes) and then I ask them to rotate and find a new question to answer or discuss. Towards the end of class, I ask a few students to share their thoughts and ideas. I often include enough questions that there are a few stations that are empty in each round. I imagine that those teachers who have larger classes, would not ever have a blank round, but I almost always have as many  questions as I have students. I tell students that they must sit with a minimum of two other students that way they can truly discuss and work to express their opinions. In this way, I hope to personalize the literary works that we read or encourage students  to think more profoundly about the current events that we have studied. If día del café falls on a morning, I sometimes bring maté or hot chocolate to truly authenticate the experience! An example of the question types that I might ask is something along the lines of "if you were X character in this work, how would you respond to y situation?" Or do you think that X's actions were justified given his life experiences. etc. What sort of small group discussions do you do in your upper level classes?