Spanish Conversation Class – Intermediate/Advanced
Language Resident Name: Katherine Pérez Gutiérrez
Class theme/topic discussed
Social media
Goal of the class
Practice vocabulary related to social media
Compare and contrast different situations usually found in social media
Create new social media platforms
Class’ structure
Attendance (2 min)
Warm up: What do you know about social networks? What words come up to your mind: Students create a Menti Word cloud with words they would use to define social media. Most interesting words are chosen and discussed by everyone: Would you use this word as well? Why? Where in social networks do we see it reflected the most? (10-15 min)
Input: Video + Survey: I show students a video that talks about uses, advantages and disadvantages of social network uses. Followed by a discussion: Do you agree with this? How many of you do this kind of things when on the internet? We also talk about a survey that shows which are the most common social platforms used in some Hispanic countries. They discuss and compare to the US (5-7 min)
Activity 1: Toteking – “Redes Sociales” music video. Students watch half of the video and, as they are watching it, they have to check at least 2 critiques the singers makes to social media. Afterwards, they get three short statements from they just heard. In groups they discuss they statements to finally report their discussions to the class (10-15 min)
Activity 2: Made-up social media platform: After giving an example of a social media platform my sister and I created, in groups of three, students have to create new social platforms using either of the criteria provided in the table (they can also add new ones). They have to consider three different categories: Topic, target audience and functions. Also, they have to create a name and a logo for their platforms (15-20 min)
Reflection: What worked/did not work? How can it be improved?
I did this class at the beginning of the year so students felt more comfortable working in groups at first. For Activity 2 you have to be careful not to take that much time giving an example about what they have to create because the activity itself already takes a long time. They had a lot of fun with activity two and you can even do a jury like activity in a following class where they all have to grade each other’s platforms
Annex
Social networks table
Categoría
Público
Funciones
Citas Empleo Noticias Compra y venta Lifestyle Educación Comida OTROS
Ancianos Adultos +30 Jóvenes Niños Animales OTROS
Fotos y videos Transmitir en vivo Juegos Mensajería directa Música OTROS
Class theme/topic discussed: People’s physical appearance.
Goal of the class: Learn vocabulary to describe someone’s physical appearance.
Class’ structure
Attendance (2 min)
Warm up: In small groups, students brainstorm words related to physical description. They also answer: What do you think about when talking about physical appearance? How would you describe your closest friend? How would you describe yourself? (3-5 min)
Input: I show students a picture of my friends and I give a mini description of almost each one of them. Students have to give a mini description of 2 people in the picture, who I haven’t described yet. (5-7 min)
Activity 1: “Una mujer fantástica” trailer: Students watch the trailer of the movie and describe the main character’s appearance (height, hair, age, etc) in small groups. Then, they whole class comment on the description and add more traits to have a more detailed description of the movie characters’ (5-7 min)
Activity 2: In pairs, students describe each other. One by one, students get a paper with a classmate’s name written on it. They have to give a description of that classmate so that the rest of the class guess who are they taking about (emphasize that the descriptions have to be hard enough for the class to not guess immediately right after) (5-7 min)
Activity 3: Detective role play: Each student get a picture of someone who “has gone missing”. One of the student is a detective and the other one has to tell how does the person missing looks like. The “detective” draws the person who is being described. Both students get to be a “detective” using one different picture each. After having done this, each group describes their partners’ picture and we all get to compare and see how accurate the description was (15-20 min)
Reflection: What worked/did not work? How can it be improved?
The activities worked okay. Activity Nº2 worked fine because the class was small, but it could also be done with smaller groups in a larger class. The topic could have been developed in a bit more depth with a more complex activity to make it a bit more challenging.
Talk about current immigration affairs (both on a personal and general level)
Practice the use of past tenses (preterite & preterite imperfect)
Practice storytelling (1st & 3rd person)
Class’ structure
Attendance (2 min)
Warm-up: Students and I go over the talk we went to on the previous class (“Commonsense Racism and Latin American Mobility in the Time of Trump”) and comment a bit on what the speaker said. In small groups, they start discussing: What where some common phrases used by Trump? What group/s of people is he usually referring to when talking about migrants? Why do you think people leave their countries? Which ones are the largest groups of migrants in the US? Do you have any idea about immigration in other places, like Chile? (5-7 min)
Input: 1) Students look up on their phone where do people who migrate to Chile come from. After discussing their findings, I showed them a video about a Foundation in Santiago. During the video they had to answer: When was the foundation created and by whom?Around how many students and volunteers where participating there? What was the role of the more advanced students?
2) I also talk about how my experience working in that foundation was. (5-7 min)
Activity 1: In groups, students tell each other wether or not they have had any experience related to migration, and, if so, they share it to one another. Afterwards each group share their stories with the whole class, but each student has to tell one of their classmate’s story. (10-15 min)
Activity 2: Aporofobia (fear and rejection towards poverty and poor people): Students look up the meaning of that word and comment on it. They have to answer: Have you seen an example of that in the U.S? Where? When? Does that sound similar to what I’ve told you about Chile? (5-7 min)
Acrivity 3: “Linguistic barrier”: I read a paragraph from a news article about Haitians in Chile and how language is a barrier for them as well. Students comment on that as well, comparing and contrasting U.S. situation with Chile’s one (5-7 min)
Activity 4: Migration explained with kitties: I play a video that explains Central American migrants situation with kitties. In groups, students answer some questions related to the video: Why are they using cats to explain the migratory situation? Why do Central American migrants travel in caravans? What are some of the issues they face along the way? Mention 3 reasons why they leave their countries. (10-15 min)
Reflection: What worked/did not work? How can it be improved?
.The class worked really well in spite of how sensitive the topic can be. If you emphasize that they should not feel pushed to share anything they don’t want to, as long as you pay attention to how students are feeling, the class should work just fine.
Language and Level: Spanish Conversation Intermediate
Class theme/topics discussed:
Selling things
Goal of the class:
To come up with an innovative product and sell it
How did you structure the class?
Ice breaker: Students are asked to talk with a classmate about their weekends. Then, they share their anecdotes with the rest of the class.
Activity 1: Individually, students are given a random object (a ruler, dvd case, pokemon cards) and are asked to come up with an innovative idea about said object. They sell this object creating their own campaigns to the rest of the class. The rest of the class prepare questions that the pair has to answer.
What technology, media or props did you use? (internet resources, playmobiles, handouts, etc.)
What worked well in this class? What did not work?
Students were really creative and enthusiastic with the activity. They worked individually as we only have six students in class. Even though they had a lower level than the advanced class, they came up with great ideas and with very good grammar and vocabulary.
How could this class be improved/ modified?
The class worked out excellent. This works pretty well in an advanced class too. If the class was bigger, it would be better to make students to work in pairs so they can talk with someone while coming up with their idea.
Language and Level: Spanish Conversation Intermediate
Class theme/topics discussed:
Improvisation
Connecting random topics
Goal of the class:
To improvise conversation based on random topics
How did you structure the class?
Activity 1: In pairs, students come in front of the class. They have to choose two random topics from two pits on the table: one of them very simple (e.g.: “cheese”, “chocolate” or “pets”) and the other one complex (e.g.: “The Cold War” or “Plato’s Allegory of the Cave”). They have to start a conversation with the first topic and find a way to get to the other topic without forcing it.
Activity 2: Following the same idea as before, students are assigned a different topic each. One of them starts talking about their topic. Then, when the time is right, someone else takes over the conversation with their topic and so on until everyone gets to speak.
What technology, media or props did you use? (internet resources, playmobiles, handouts, etc.)
What worked well in this class? What did not work?
The class worked out quite well. Students had fun and were very creative on coming up with ways to connect the topics.
Class is divided in three groups, one consisting of two persons (the jury) and two big groups of four persons each. One topic is given, and both groups are playing against each other, whether it is for the statement or against it. Students present their arguments in 5 minutes and then the jury decides. Another statement is given to the students, this time a little more serious. Statements go from “Birkenstocks and socks are a good look” to more serious ones.
What technology, media or props did you use? (internet resources, playmobiles, handouts, etc.)
What worked well in this class? What did not work?
The Activity worked out very well. Students were eager to debate even about “dumb” topics. It also gave an opportunity to discuss serious issues within American society. The format was really appreciated by students too.
Class theme/topics discussed: Latin American history, Latin American music
Goal of the class:
To promote talking through small talk
To get to know about Latin-America through music
How did you structure the class?
Ice Breaker: In pairs, students talk about the question “With what historical figure would you have dinner with?”, so they can practice conversation. We follow up by sharing their answers and working on questions regarding vocabulary or grammar. This is to activate their Spanish conversation abilities before moving forward.
Activity 1: We listen to the song “Latinoamérica” by Puerto Rican duo Calle 13. Students pay attention to the lyrics and topics in the song. Students get the lyrics with highlited topics.
Activity 2: In pairs, students are assigned one theme tackled in the song Latinoamérica alongside a set of questions related to the topic. They are related to the life, history and culture of the subcontinent. They are asked to research on the topic and present it to the rest of the class. (Refer to the appendix to see the topics).
What technology, media or props did you use? (internet resources, playmobiles, handouts, etc.)
What worked well in this class? What did not work?
The class worked out very well. Particularly in advanced, students are really eager to talk to each other, so the first activity worked out quite well. The second activity worked out well too, but this activity requires more than one class.
How could this class be improved/ modified?
The class worked well. Maybe it is important to consider two classes to work on this instead of one.
Language and Level (intermediate
or advanced class):
Spanish advanced
Class theme/topics discussed: Fear
Goal of the class: Learn
vocabulary about fear and express emotions
How did you structure the class?
Activity 1 (10’): Students
get asked about Fear and the things that they feel fear about.
Activity 2(15’): Game of
Fear. Students get different situations and they react and show what they feel
about them. Instructions in Spanish below.
Activity 3 (10’): Students
listen to the audio of a scary movie video. They only hear it and have to
hypothesize about it.
Activity 4 (5’): Students
see the video, comment upon it and confirm their hypothesis.
Activity 5 (20’): Students
get some slips of paper with different situations of risk. They are asked to
say how they would react to those situations. After that, in groups of 3. They
have to choose one of their situations and propose an alternative ending to it.
What technology, media or props
did you use? (Internet resources, playmobiles, handouts, etc.)
I needed to print out many tags for the fear game. 5 for each student.
I also printed out a A3 paper of the fear scale
Slips of paper with the different fear situations to make hypothesizes
What worked well in this class?
What did not work?
The game of the fear was fun. It was not as exciting as I thought it
would be but they did learn the structures that I had as part of my objectives
so I am satisfied. I will choose other items to talk about fear next time to
make it more appealing.
If you have a more detailed
lesson plan, please attach it below (OK to use target language for that). Please attach any handouts as well.
Spanish Instruction
of the fear game
Instrucciones del juego del miedo
1) Imprima la
primera página, el medidor de presión, en formato A3 y las páginas 2 a 4 en
formato A4. En la página 4, hay un conjunto de 5 tarjetas diferentes para
expresar sus temores, imprimirlas y recortarlas para que cada alumno tenga un
lote personal de 5 tarjetas diferentes (en una página, ya hay 3 muchas cartas).
Luego recorte los papeles pequeños en las páginas 2 y 3 que representan las
“cosas que tememos”.
2) Coloque el
trouilómetro en el centro de la mesa. Da un juego de 5 tarjetas para expresar
los temores de cada estudiante. Luego, coloque los papeles pequeños en las
páginas 2 y 3 (las cosas que tememos) en una pila, boca abajo al lado del
medidor de presión.
3) Elija un
alumno que comienza el juego. Él devuelve un pequeño papel “cosas que
tememos”. Su objetivo es adivinar la respuesta más probable que harán
otros alumnos a la pregunta “¿Cuánto le teme a eso?”
4) Para esto,
cada uno de los demás alumnos elige en secreto una carta de su mano que
determina su nivel de miedo en este tema. Luego lo coloca boca abajo en el
centro de la mesa.
5) Cuando cada
alumno haya jugado una carta, mezcle y tome en su mano el paquete así formado.
Luego pídale al alumno que sacó el papel que lo coloque en el esfigmomanómetro,
bajo la respuesta que parezca más probable en el grupo. Pídale que justifique
su elección (por ejemplo: “Creo que la respuesta más probable para
el” calentamiento global “es” un poco asustada “porque la
gente se preocupa un poco por este problema, pero no le preocupa sus vidas
inmediatas, por lo que son un poco indiferentes y por eso tienen un poco de
miedo de eso)
6) Luego revele
las tarjetas elegidas por los otros estudiantes. Si la respuesta que ha elegido
es la más común entre las respuestas de otros alumnos, gana un punto. En caso
de igualdad entre 2 respuestas, dale el punto de todos modos.
Los otros
estudiantes pueden, si lo desean, dar su punto de vista sobre las respuestas
propuestas. Déjalos debatir juntos si surge la necesidad.
7) Luego, el
alumno de la izquierda toma el mismo proceso: devuelve un pequeño papel, no
vota, pero trata de adivinar la respuesta más probable, etc.
Cuando cada
alumno haya desempeñado el papel principal tantas veces, finalice el juego y
cuente los puntos. Dé simbólicamente la victoria a quien tenga más puntos y
quien haya mostrado más empatía.
Esta es una manera elegante de hablar sobre nuestros miedos sin expresarlos directamente en público, evitando así la incomodidad que este tipo de tema puede generar en el aula.
Language and Level (intermediate
or advanced class): Advanced
Class theme/topics discussed:
The Weather
Goal of the class: To
practice weather vocabulary, describe atmospheric phenomena and give their own
weather forecast
How did you structure the class?
Warm-up: (10’) Describe the
weather in a picture as best as they can
Activity 2 (5’): Students divide
in 4 groups.
Each group gets a different picture. They have to give at least 6
activities they could do with that weather, using the conditional tense in
Spanish “I could go on a hike because it is sunny”
They have to put the weather flashcard that fit depending on the
picture. In a sunny picture they would attach It’s hot, it’s warm, it’s sunny,
it is daytime, sunset… and so on
Students present their pictures
and the others have to guess which flashcards they used for their pictures,
removing them as the other guess them
Activity 3:
Students see a video of a weather forecast in Spanish.
(10’) Students are given a blank map of a country. They have to look up in the internet the current
weather forecast for that country. Fill the map with the symbols, and prepare
the forecast. They have to use the expressions that they have learned. They
must include the use of the conditional, describe activities that they could
do, and new vocabulary properly.
Then, they present their own
weather forecast.
Music while they present: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxIsWauHEyc
What technology, media or props
did you use? (internet resources, playmobiles, handouts, etc.)
6
handouts with weather-related vocabulary
3
sheets with Celsius-Farenheit
11
word search activities
6
print blank country maps for the presentation
What worked well in this class?
What did not work?
How could this class be
improved/ modified?
If you have a more detailed lesson plan,
please attach it below (OK to use target language for that). Please attach any handouts as well.
Language and Level (intermediate
or advanced class):
Spanish Advanced
Class theme/topics discussed:
Unemployment, politics, Spain.
Goal of the class: To review
vocabulary related to politics, economy and the job market. To discuss and
raise awareness about the current political and financial situation in Spain.
How did you structure the class?
Head’s up: cultural events
Warm-up (10’): Memory game
about professions
Students will be divided into two groups and handed a set of cards with
professions. They will have to play a memory game and say the name of the
profession aloud every time they uncover one card.
Activity 1 (video and
discussion)
(5’) Students will be asked what they know
about the employment situation in Spain.
(10’) An interactive short film will be
shown on the screen. The video is called “La Entrevista” “The Interview”. The
video is interactive as it stops at some point to prompt student’s reactions
and guesses. It also includes some hints on vocab to facilitate comprehension.
The video tackles the topic of
the over qualification at companies and how desperation pushes people to
happily take any job that is under their skills. It all happens throughout a
job interview in which the boss is clearly taking advantage of this precarious
situation.
Students will also make notes on the questions
the boss asks as they will use them in an activity later on.
(10’) Discussion Feelings
What do you think is the main
topic of the video?
What is wrong?
What does it say about the
situation in Spain?
How could a society improve
that?
Does it happen in your country?
Do you think that the fact that
she is a woman influences the position?
Is it common in your country to see men
as the boss and women as secretary or cleaner?
Activity 2 (20’) (JOB
INTERVIEW/role play): In pairs, each student will take a role. One of them
will be a manager, and the other one will be interviewed for the job. For this
activity students will have some resources on how a job interview is carried
out. Additionally, they will get a handout on the table with accurate questions
so that they can improve their grammatical structures as well as their fluency.
First, they will prepare their
role (one of them will prepare the profile of the candidate, and the other one
will prepare the profile of the employer/company)
Then they will have an interview, at the
end, some of the people will show their interview in front of the class.
What technology, media or props
did you use? (Internet resources, playmobiles, handouts, etc.)
What worked well in this class?
What did not work?
This was one of the students’ favorite class since it allowed them to
speak all the time, improve their grammar, as well as raising cultural
awareness of the job situation in Spain.
How could this class be
improved/ modified?
I think this class works very well, sometimes it can take longer and
might be split into two classes.
If you have a more detailed
lesson plan, please attach it below (OK to use target language for that). Please attach any handouts as well.
Find attached below the possible job interview questions
that I have given them in a handout
Actividad 2 (20’): Students create their own advert of a product.
They have to imagine that they work for a marketing company. I will bring some items to class and in groups they will have to create an advert and act it out in class. They should include features and the slogan of their advert.
The rest of the students get a worksheet
to write good and bad aspects of the classmates’ product. Then, they can make
questions about the product and therefore bringing a discussion about the
topic.
What technology,
media or props did you use? (internet resources, playmobiles, handouts,
etc.)
6 sheets about slogans
Youtube
What worked
well in this class? What did not work?
Students learn a lot about the Spanish culture if you add some comments before the commercials of after them. They really enjoy edit and managed to think about very creative products.
Bringing authentic materials is always interesting for students
I used a worksheet from the webpage ELEINTERNACIONAL
Maybe some more updated commercials would have been better. Also, using a worksheet for students to rate their classmates’ products was great. They got more engaged and it helped develop discussion.
If you have a more detailed lesson plan,please attach it below (OK to use target language for that). Please attach any handouts as well.
¿Qué es lo último que
compraste en Amazon y por qué?
¿Cómo crees que te
influencian los anuncios de Youtube?
¿Por qué tienes un Iphone
y no un Android? ¿Por qué un Android y no un Iphone?
¿Prefieres llevar ropa de
marca? ¿Cuál es la marca de la ropa que llevas puesta?
¿Cuál es la última
publicidad que has visto en Instagram? ¿Crees que es más efectiva que en Televisión?
¿Estarías dispuesto a
pagar por Spotify Premium para evitar anuncios?
¿Crees que la publicidad
americana es agresiva o irrespetuosa?
Háblame de algún anuncio
que recuerdes ¿qué tiene de especial?
Language and Level (intermediate
or advanced class): Spanish Intermediate
Class theme/topics discussed:Habits, and future.
Goal of the class: Review vocabulary about daily routines and talk about future events.
How did you structure the class?
Activity 1 (5’):
Students review quickly the grammar forms in the future.
Activity 2 (25):
Students are shown a video with different clips. Each clip stops and students has to make a prediction of what is going to happen. All the video are supposed to be funny and bring up creative predictions.
Activity 3 (30’)
Now that they have practice the future and have made predictions. Students get a crystal ball to predict the future to their classmates. They get the story cubes in order to help them create stories. They need to stick to the structures required for this speech act.
What technology, media or props
did you use? (internet resources, playmobiles, handouts, etc.)
Powerpoint presentation
16 sheets of paper with visual material
What worked well in this class?
What did not work?
The activity with the video turned out to be very fun and entertaining for the students. The story cubes activity was also really fun, they came up with crazy stories and they managed to product the correct structures. They had visual aid the whole time on the screen in case they forgot the form.
How could this class be
improved/ modified?
I had to divide this class in two because it took too much time.
If you have a more detailed lesson plan,
please attach it below (OK to use target language for that). Please attach any handouts as well.
Language and Level:Spanish Conversation Intermediate
Class theme/topics discussed: Vocabulary, games, pop culture
Goal of the class:
To play games to review and acquire new vocabulary
How did you structure the class?
Activity 1: with the help on an online webpage, students play a game of jeopardy to review and acquire new knowledge on vocabulary, grammar and pop culture.
What technology, media or props did you use? (internet resources, playmobiles, handouts, etc.)
What worked well in this class? What did not work?
Even though I thought out the activity as an ice breaker, we ended up playing the game for the whole class. It helped to tackle some vocabulary and grammar doubts and to learn some interesting facts about pop culture. It is very important to follow up each question with some explanation or discussion in regards to students’ doubts.
Language and Level (intermediate
or advanced class):
Spanish advanced
Class theme/topics discussed:
.Goal of the class: To learn and discuss about traditions in Spain. To discover new music artists in Spain
How did you structure the class?
Activity 1:
Students get a piece of paper with prompts to discuss about their musical taste
They stand up and walk around asking each other
Activity 2:
Students are asked the features that a good artist needs to have. We write those words in the whiteboard
Activity 3:
Students look up the artist Rosalía on Instagram. They describe what they see and what they think of her.
Activity 4:
We brainstorm different elements from the Spanish culture. Students are
guided with a powerpoint presentation in order to get them to discuss about
semana santa, bullfighting, suburbs…
Activity 5:
Students watch the Malamente music video by Rosalia. They have toidentify the elements we have learnt before. Then we discuss how they arerepresented in the video and figure out the meaning of the video.
Activity 6:
Now that students are more familiar with the artist and the imagery. We discuss about elements that are relevant also in the US. Cultural appropriation and Rosalía.
Activity 7: If there is time, we watch another music video by the same artist that shows similar topics, and discuss the different elements portrayed in it.
What technology, media or props
did you use? (Internet resources, playmobiles, handouts, etc.)
We used prompts to bring up the topic at the beginning of the class.
We also used a powerpoint presentation to bring the imagery of the
artist to the classroom and make it more fun to engage in the topic.
What worked well in this class?
What did not work?
This class worked very well with advanced students because they really liked the artist. They could see and discuss elements from the Spanish culture that they were already familiar with, and put them into a different perspective. After this class, this artist became a recurrent topic in class, students would follow her progress and the new material she was releasing. It was a fantastic resource for them to bring Spanish home and keep practicing.
If you have a more detailed
lesson plan, please attach it below (OK to use target language for that). Please attach any handouts as well.
Language and Level (intermediate
or advanced class):
Spanish advanced
Class theme/topics discussed: Fear
Goal of the class: Learn
vocabulary about fear and express emotions
How did you structure the class?
Head’s up (FLRC Open House) (5’)
Activity 1 (10’):
Students get asked about Fear and the things that they feel fear about.
Activity 2 (15’):
Students get some phrases to react to different things that might make
them be scared. They comment on them using the vocabulary that they are given.
Activity 3 (10’):
Students listen to the audio of
a scary movie video. They only hear it and have to hypothesize about it.
Activity 4 (5’):
Students see the video, comment
upon it and confirm their hypothesis.
Activity 5 (20’):
Students get some slips of paper with different situations of risk.
They are asked to say how they would react to those situations. After that, in
groups of 3. They have to choose one of their situations and propose an
alternative ending to it.
What technology, media or props
did you use? (Internet resources, playmobiles, handouts, etc.)
We used slips of paper with prompts.
We used Youtube and a PowerPoint presentation
What worked well in this class?
What did not work?
Most of the students really enjoyed the class since it somehow brought
some suspense. Also, they could be creative with the stories at the end which
they enjoyed a lot.
Some of the students are not into scary things, so they felt a bit
uncomfortable at times, but I gave a disclaimer at the beginning of the class
and they were fine with it.
If you have a more detailed
lesson plan, please attach it below (OK to use target language for that). Please attach any handouts as well.
