Language Resident: Franco Rivas Quiroz

Level: Advanced

Class theme/topic discussed: My hometown (Online)

Goal of the class:

Students will be able to:

  • Describe their home city/town and express what they like/ do not like about it. “Lo que me gusta de mi ciudad es que / lo que no me gusta es que” “Lo que más me gusta/ lo que menos me gusta

Use comparatives and superlatives to express similarities and differences among cities “Sao Paulo es más grande que Valparaíso” “Santiago es la ciudad más grande de Chile”

  • Express desires for the future and explain the reasons for that. Example: “me gustaría vivir en Nueva York, porque hay muchos restaurantes allí”

Class structure:

Warm up:

Mi lugar favorito: Students will show us a picture of their favorite place in their hometown and explain why do the like that so much.

Activities:

  • -The facilitator describes his hometown (Valparaiso) and shows pictures using a powerpoint presentation. Students are encouraged to ask questions about it if they want to know something else about it.
  • -Students are divided in pairs or groups of three using breakout rooms. Each one in their corresponding groups describes their hometown and talk about what they like/do not like about it. After that, some students share with the rest of the class what they like the most and the least about their hometowns, while the facilitator shows pictures about their hometowns using the projector and Google Images.
  • -In groups or couples, students talk about the city where they would like to live, and explain why. Then they share it with the rest of the class.
  • -Students see 4 images of cities around the world (Santiago, Chile; Sao Paulo, Brazil; Morelia, Mexico; Singapur, Singapur). In breakout rooms, they discuss the following questions: what city do you think it is? Which one of them do you think is  more quiet? which one is it closer? which one is more similar to your hometown? They share with the rest of the class after that.

Wrap up:

Using Jamboard, students design how the perfect city would look like and they give it a name. Then they share to the class.

Resources used: Powerpoint presentation, Google Images, Jamboard.

Reflection: What worked/did not work? How can it be improved?

Students participated well. They seemed engaged trying to figure out what cities they were and comparing them to where they came from. It seemed like students had fun with the last activity and laughed. What didn’t work that well was the fact that in one of the breakout rooms, students were not talking at all. I asked them about the questions and they started speaking, but maybe they were too shy to start speaking, or they had already talked about them quickly.