Ever wish you had a list of prepositions to give to higher level Spanish students to use when they are doing journal entries or guided writings? Well, now you do! :) I let my students use these when they are composing paragraphs on assessments. I ask them to use a finite number (you decide) and underline or circle them as they write to identify they have used them.

Make learning numbers fun. Students circle the numbers as you read them in the target language. Each row gets a little faster with row 5 being the "speed row". Reward perfect papers with candy/points, then play another round. This grid can be used for any foreign language or basic ESL activity.

One of my students favourite projects, the murder mystery project is excellent for 2nd year students finishing up preterite vs imperfect usage or for 3rd year students as a review of the concept. Students create their own powerpoint murder mystery where they present the victim, 3 suspects and the crime scene. Using preterite and imperfect they include motives, locations, descriptions, personality characteristics in a creative and unique presentation. I assign this project in pairs but a student could easily complete it alone. Students present their mysteries to classmates in powerpoint and peers can make their guess to arrest before the last slide gets revealed. This project won an award as a Missouri Best Lesson Showcase project. Project instructions are in English, model examples in Spanish, project could be easily adapted to Passe Compose/Imparfait usage in French.

Practice using SER and ESTAR

This lesson includes start up notes for students on how to identify the gender of a noun and decide the correct article to use with nouns in Spanish. Each note section is followed by practices that can be completed indidivually as homework or together as a class during introduction of the concept. Page 2 outlines rules for making nouns plural and includes 40 practice examples. Lessons can be taught separately or together.

Teaching the Cultural Component to a foreign language class can be challenging. This collection of 99 independent projects grouped together by interest (art, music, history, internet, etc) has something for everyone. Students select which projects to complete and present their findings in the first five minutes of the class daily. Projects have different point values based on time and difficulty levels which students combine to complete 50 points each semester. This portfolio is the ongoing work and revision of 15 years of teaching cultural topics in foreign language classes. Years later students tell me that these are the projects they found to be the most interesting and memorable in their foreign language experience because they connected to areas of personal interest. Download contains goals of investigation, step by step instructions on how to complete the projects, activity sheets for students, 99 diverse cultural activities, supporting guided adventure sheets for community excursions and an exit survey to collect their feedback year end. You will need a couple of days in class to explain to them how to do the projects and to field any specific questions they might have. I ask students to read the activity list and highlight projects of interest to discuss in further on day 2. Afterwards, every day is a new adventure as your students lead the class in their discoveries. Projects help students hone their presentation/public speaking skills while everyone learns. This portfolio works great for home-schooled students as well, they can work at their own pace to discover as many different adventures of interest and connect them to other curricular areas such as art, history, music and culinary. Load up your printer, download is 43 pages long! Note: You will need to insert your own "approved restaurant list" as it will vary depending on where you live and teach. Keywords: differentiated, internet, culture, French, presentation, community, historical, artistic, culinary, communicative

This giant 36 slide powerpoint covers Direct Object pronouns from beginning to end. We start by identifying them in English, then moving into Spanish, we replace Direct Objects with pronouns in 1 verb, 2 verb, gerund, postive command, negative command and use them in questions. Slides contain step by step notes, explanations of accents, personal "a" usage and contains tons of examples. This powerpoint is best used over several days of instruction with classroom activities and exercises as students learn all the uses for DOP's. Best suited for SPanish II students learning pronouns for the first time or as a review for a higher level course. All practice examples reveal the answers as you go along, so no worries about an answer key! Total teaching time is at least 90 minutes if students work the practice examples as you go along, but I would chunk this up over several days as DOPs can be overwhelming.

Students research a famous Latino musical artist and create a powerpoint to present their artist to their classmates. Presentations are around 3-4 minutes in length and work best for a level III class or higher who already has some prior practice speaking in the past tenses. This lesson also works great for Heritage Learner classes who are already conversant in Spanish as a means to gain some practice public speaking with a topic they are comfortable . Download contains requirements of project with guiding questions for students and a long list of famous Latino musicians for students to choose one of interest. Plan at least 2 days of computer lab time and about 6-8 presentations can be seen per day.

We all have stories of migration or immigration that brought members of our families to this country. I created this project for a level IV class with a mixed population of recent arrivals and long time residents of our city. Students share out either their own personal story or one of a family member in a 3 minute oral presentation. Download includes directions for students, guiding questions to help them interview a famiy member, grading rubric for you (and them) and a listening activity for students to take notes on their friends family stories. Students will need a couple of days to work on the presentations and you should budget to hear no more than 7 a day in class. Worked great in levels IV and V. Also suitable for a Heritage Language learner class if students are comfortable sharing their stories.

Rows of alphabet letters for you to read to beginning students as a game. Easy fun way to practice learning the alphabet and drill on those pesky vowels. Could easily be adapted (remove a few letters) for French or German practice. Enjoy.

Radioambulante.org is an online radio show that does documentary style interviews with Spanish speakers around the world, similar to the program THIS AMERICAN LIFE on NPR. The stories are often incredible, narrated by the people who have actually lived them. Stories vary in length but most run around 15-20 minutes and I use them in my Heritage Speaker Spanish classes this year to promote listening as well as give students a wide exposure to accents and styles of speaking. Each guide accompanies a partibular episode of RADIO AMBULANTE stories and I am certain that when you listen to them you will want to play them all, for your students or just for yourself. This resource would also be good for an AP level Spanish V class to practice prepping for the listening section of the test, although you may want to pause it periodically or replay it a second time to help students comprehend sustained Spanish. To access the episodes go to radioambulante.org and you can search them by title.

This partner practice works best for level 2 or higher who have already been introduced to regular verbs and SER in the preterite. Questions are geared to a class returning from a long weekend or break. Students complete their portion of the survey first using preterite YO verbs, then interview a classmate and record their answers using EL/ELLA preterite verbs. Activity takes about 25 minutes if you allow them time to complete their own answers in class or it could be assigned as homework the night before and just run the partner interview in class. (15 minutes) Great review to get them thinking in Spanish again after some time off.

This game takes students through a 6 station rotation of verb conjugation. At each new station they check their answers from the previous and then continue to the next challenge. This game is best suited as practice for regular and irregular preterite verbs at the Spanish II level or higher. Download includes rules of play, student sheet for fill ins and challenge questions/answer keys for six stations in your room. Activity takes one class period to complete and is an excellent review before a test or as a refresher from last year for Spanish III.

This 20 slide powerpoint covers conjugation of the verb tener with a few short practice examples and then introduces expressions used with TENER in Spanish. Preview file for this product is a downloadable worksheet for note taking as you present the slides to students. This powerpoint works best as an introductory lesson for Spanish I or as a quick review for Spanish II students returning from the long summer break.

This is an easy worksheet on SABER and CONOCER that could be used to introduce the concept or as extra practice for students who need it. Worksheet introduces when to use each verb and has conjugation boxes for each verb. 20 practice examples follow for students to demonstrate their understanding of the differences. Answer key provided.

This 40 point quiz within the context of the fairy tale Little Red Ridinghood works best for students at level III or higher who have been working with Preterite vs Imperfect within the context of a short story. Students prior knowledge of this famous fairy tale will help them to comprehend the context of the story and select the best verb choice. Answer key included, quiz takes about 20 minutes to complete in class. Quiz could also be used as a practice.

This A/B Partner practice has students completing conditional sentences with past subjunctives. EX: Compraria un coche deportivo si... --> ganara el powerball. Students take turns starting the conditional sentences and then waiting for their partners to complete the situation creatively using the past subjunctive. Practice works best in a level IV or V AP class or a Heritage Speakers class where students have already been working with the past subjunctive for a couple of days and are familiar with forming both regular and irregular verbs. Download also includes an essay prompt for students to practice writing past subjunctives in response to a condition, prompt has rubric included as well.

This 56 minute documentary on Netflix is the best thing I have seen this year for either a Spanish or Social Studies. 4 college students spend 56 days in a remote Guatemalan village on 1 dollar a day budget, while exploring effects of living in extreme poverty and some innovative solutions people have come up with to survive. Excellent for any Spanish class where you have been studying immigration and reasons people leave their home countries to risk their lives traveling to the US, or for a Social Studies class looking at underdeveloped countries and what it means to live in extreme poverty. My students loved this film bc it was created by four college students and used their observations and connections as narrative between interviews with people in the village. (Interviews are in Spanish with subtitles, narrative in English. ) Suitable for any level middle, high school, available on Netflix, this film was such a gem you will want to own a copy. Movie guide contains 29 questions.

Helpful list of the numeric codes to key when typing letters with accents. Printable word doc that you can share with your students.

Seems like your textbook NUNCA gives enough practice on this difficult concept? and NADIE comprende when we teach it? Here are 30 basic practice sentences with box charts and notes for students who are learning indefinites for the first time or just need extra practice.