A series of nineteen starter activities that can be used in the run-up to Christmas in Spanish Lessons. They are targeted at GCSE students, but they can also be used with A Level as quick activities, and some of them would be suitable or easily adaptable for KS3 students. The activities include games, quizzes, writing frames, a role play, a photo card and even a template to write a letter to the Wise Men.

This booklet contains 18 discussion cards based on Theme 2 of the new AQA Spanish A Level course (Artistic culture in the Hispanic world). The cards contain quite a lot of factual information about the theme (a lot more than the sample cards from AQA) and three questions, the first one always being “How do you react to the information on this card?”. The aim of presenting the cards like this is to provide the students with a lot of ideas on what to say about the theme, as well as making them more aware that they always have to discuss the information printed on the card (AO2 and AO4). Each section is followed by around 20 questions for the students to research / discuss the topic further. Finally, the booklet also contains an overview of the A Level course and the Paper 3 exam, as well as a list of useful language for the test. The titles for the cards are: Enrique Iglesias y Ana Kournikova, padres de gemelos. Shakira: “El destino de los niños puede cambiar”. Penélope Cruz: la reina de las polémicas. Belén Esteban: el triunfo de la mediocridad. “Mis medidas son 2.202 casos por feminicidios reportados en los últimos 9 años en mi país.” “Para la industria soy una modelo de talla grande, pero para mí soy una mujer real”. El Colacho: ¿el festival español más original? Masiva protesta contra las corridas de toros antes del comienzo de San Fermín La gastronomía española: los diez platos típicos que debes probar al menos una vez en la vida La cosecha de uva en La Rioja de 2017 es «escasa y de gran calidad» Euskera Araban: El 62,4% de los alaveses no sabe Euskera y el 93% usa sobre todo el Castellano La inmersión lingüística y la escolarización en castellano: el eterno conflicto en Cataluña La Alhambra de Granada, el monumento más visitado de España Teotihuacán, el “lugar donde los hombres se convierten en dioses”. Frida Kahlo, grandeza y tragedia. El Museo del Prado. El aurresku: la danza solemne que da la bienvenida al País Vasco. La música precolombina: un tesoro casi perdido.

Lesson resources based on the trailers of well-known Spanish movies to prepare students to write and speak about films in Spanish (with links to those trailers). It includes a translation about El laberinto del fauno.

This resource contains a lot actual information about Spanish culture and society, focusing on the topic of Integration (part of the theme Multiculturalism in Hispanic society of the new Spanish A Level). It provides students with facts and statistics, which should be very helpful in preparation for Paper 3 (the speaking exam). The information can also be used for translation practice and it can be very easily adapted into a variety of reading activities.

This resource includes six discussion cards based on the sub-theme of Racism, part of the theme Multiculturalism in the Hispanic world of the New A Level course. The cards are based on the new speaking exam. Each of them includes information on each the sub theme followed by three questions on each specific topic, the first of which always asks the students to react to the information on the card. Finally, the six cards are followed by twenty questions that can be used to explore the sub-theme further, and a list of useful vocabulary for the speaking test.

This resource contains two versions of the same booklet (at foundation and higher level). Each of the booklet contains extensive translation practice (from Spanish into English) covering all themes and topics of the new Spanish GCSE course (based on the AQA specification). The translations include references to a variety of tenses (present, preterite, imperfect, present perfect, conditional, future), as well as a wide range of complex structures (negatives, comparatives, conditional clauses…). The booklets can also be found separately on these links: Foundation: https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/new-spanish-gcse-spanish-to-english-translations-foundation-11958634 Higher: https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/new-spanish-gcse-spanish-to-english-translations-higher-11958629

A set of 20 writing mats/templates covering a series of different topics in Spanish. The topics include leisure activities, the weather, festivals, films, basic personal information, holidays, school subjects, healthy diet and charity work. All mats are bilingual (all the content is in English as well as Spanish), and there is an emphasis on opinions and tenses. The mats are designed for KS3 students mainly, but they can also be used for a variety of revision or starter activities at KS4. These mats are perfect to set cover work (students can use them to write sentences and paragraphs on each topic, use them to produce posters and classroom displays, or to create revision mind maps). I have also used them in lessons. Some of the activities I have used these templates for include: dictation: read a text that uses the language in the mats and ask the students to write it down. dicta-translation: read a text based on the mat in Spanish and ask the students to write it down in English, or the other way round. paired dictation and translation: same as above but the students read to each other. “great minds think alike”: ask the students to write a number of sentences and then ask them to find out, by reading their sentences to each other, if someone else wrote the exact same sentences, thus proving that they are great minds. “stand up if”: ask the students to highlight sentences in the mats. Then read a text based on it and ask the students to stand up (and then immediately sit down) every time that you read a word or phrase that they’ve highlighted. speed reading: time the students while they read from the template, see how many sentences they can read out/who is the first to read a full text etc. And of course the students can use the writing mat to write their own texts. More mats will be added shortly on topics such as health, school and relationships.

A booklet with eight 150-word questions to revise the theme of Current and Future Study and Employment of the new Spanish GCSE exam. There are two questions for each of the topics in Theme Three (My studies, School Life, Education Post-16 and Jobs, career choices and ambitions). Each of the questions contains two bullet points that the students are expected to cover; the bullet points are written to resemble the ones found in the 2018 paper and those in the sample questions provided by AQA. At least one of the bullet points in each question prompts the students to refer to either the past or the future, and several questions ask the students to write their “recommendations”. Finally, the booklet also contains a copy of the mark scheme for the 150 word question and an overview of the themes and topics. This resource can be used as part of everyday teaching, as end of unit assessment, for revision purposes and it is an easy way of setting useful homework.

A very comprehensive set of sentences (suitable for all abilities) and paragraphs (mainly higher) to translate from Spanish into English. The resource includes 95 sentences and six long paragraphs and they cover the following aspects of Theme 1 (Identity and Culture): 1.a. Me, my family and friends (35 sentences) 1.b. Technology in everyday life (20 sentences) 1.c. Free time activities (20 sentences) 1d. Customs and Festivals in Spain (10 sentences) Finally, the six longer paragraphs include language related to all four categories. The sentences include references to a variety of tenses (present, preterite, imperfect, present perfect, conditional, future), as well as a wide range of complex structures (negatives, comparatives, conditional clauses…).

This three-page file includes a lot actual information about Spanish culture and society, focusing on the topic of Cultural Heritage (historical sites, painters, architecture, music), part of the theme Artistic Culture in the Hispanic World of the new Spanish A Level. It provides students with wide range of facts and statistics about the topic, which should be very helpful in preparation for Paper 3 (the speaking exam). The information in the file can also be easily adapted to reading or translation activities.

Two lessons on the topic of technology, focusing on being able to express opinions about technology in different tenses and talking about what the students use technology for in different tenses. The second lesson includes a series of GCSE exam-like activities, including photo cards, translation and 90 word question. Finally, a writing mat has been added to this resource to support students of all abilities with their written work. Update: I have now included a PowerPoint version of the main file, converted from the original Notebook file. I recommend whenever possible to use the original version, as the file conversion has changed the layout of some slides and some features work less effectively on Power Point.

A couple of lessons to prepare students to express an justify their opinions about TV programmes, using a variety of expressions (beyond the basic "me gusta"), adjectives and tenses. Supported by a template worksheet to express opinions in the present and in te past and a variety of activities.

Lesson on how to conjugate and use the future simple in Spanish. Suitable to GCSE students of all abilities. The lesson includes differentiated good and better WILFs, several writing activities of different levels of difficulty, a game of battleships and an extension with an in-depth explanation on how to use the tense and further activities for higher ability students. Please note that the presentation was created on Notebook and then converted to PowerPoint, which loses some of the features and changed the layout of some slides.

This booklet contains twenty four questions that follow the format of the 90-word questions in the new Spanish GCSE writing exam. They cover all three themes of the AQA specification, but can be easily adapted to other exam boards. There are eight questions for each theme, and they can be used in lessons, but also as an easy way to set useful homework activities for the students. All questions include four bullet points that the students are prompted to cover, and they explicitly require them to include references to three time frames and opinions (as per the AQA mark scheme). When possible, one of the bullet points starts with ‘qué hiciste’, a question which appears in many of the AQA samples and that some students often fail to understand. UPDATE: A similar resource, focusing on the 150 word questions (higher paper) can be found in this link: https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/spanish-gcse-higher-writing-practice-150-word-questions-12082077

This booklet contains twenty four questions that follow the format of the 90-word questions in the new French GCSE writing exam. They cover all three themes of the AQA specification, but can be easily adapted to other exam boards. There are eight questions for each theme, and they can be used in lessons, as well as as an easy way to set useful homework activities for the students. All questions include four bullet points that the students are prompted to cover, and they explicitly require them to include references to three time frames and opinions (as per the AQA mark scheme).

This booklet contains eight questions that follow the format of the 90-word questions in the new French GCSE writing exam. They cover all aspects of Theme 2 (Local, national, international and global areas of interest), and they can be used in lessons, but also as an easy way to set useful homework activities for the students. All questions include four bullet points that the students are prompted to cover, and they explicitly require them to include references to three time frames and opinions (as per the AQA mark scheme). A booklet with 24 questions covering all three themes can be found here: https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/new-french-gcse-writing-exam-90-word-questions-11822119

This double-sided mat provides the students of all abilities with a lot of useful language to support them when writing about Customs and festivals. Page one contains a lot of vocabulary (nouns, adjectives, conjunctions, time phrases and intensifiers) as well as a series of scaffolding structures (“sentence starters”). The second page contains twelve key verbs conjugated in the first person singular (yo) in six different tenses (the preterite, the imperfect, the present, the future, the conditional and the present subjunctive). Finally, there is also a section on complex structures on the second page, with examples of comparatives and superlatives, idiomatic expressions, conditional sentences (“si fuera…”), the present perfect and negative sentences.