How to use a mini story in a Spanish beginner class

I have become a fan of TPRS because I do believe it is the most efficient way so far to help students develop both fluency and accuracy in Spanish. However, I am new to the techniques and although I read the Big Green Book: Fluency through TPR Storytelling,

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The Spanish alphabet

This is a simple activity to do with Spanish beginners when you are teaching the alphabet: students create their own alphabet page by looking for words which start with each letter of the Spanish alphabet. This is the first year in my teaching career that I do this activity and I have found out that my grade 6 students (11-12 years old) had a lot of fun doing this.

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activity13 alphabet1 beginner318 browse1 browsing1 culture246 dictionary3 enjoy48 find6 finding2 foreign language35 fun413 language45 letter2 letters2 looking for1 reading252 research17 simple15 skills26 Spanish33 writing55

Spanish curriculum: scope and sequence

It has been a challenging school year in terms of timetabling and workload but the one thing which I am very pleased with is that I have managed to write all the scope and sequence documents for all grades and levels (yeah!), which means I more or less know which topics and structures I am going to cover with my classes over the years!

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ab initio2 curricula2 curriculum5 Education20 foreign language35 grade 108 grade 111 grade 123 grade 74 grade 85 grade 98 IB9 IGCSE12 language B4 programm2 ressources40 scope1 sequences1 Spanish33 wiki5

How to use poems with first year Spanish learners?

I found this lovely poem on Pinterest and I used it with my grade 6 students (11-12 years old) as it was the prefect review for physical description and family.

Listening/comprehension: I told the poem “TPRS style” by drawing the “abuela”

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beginner318 description96 family164 physical10 poem71 pronunciation11 re-telling1 re-write2 read40 reading252 Spanish33 speaking73 story46 storytelling39 structures7 TPRS71 vocabulary256 write59 writing55

How to use stories written by students?

As I mentioned in my previous post, I am a big fan of The Comprehensible Classroom because there are so many fun story scripts to be used and Martina Bex (the author) shares so many fabulous ideas and lesson plans! One story script I have used with my middle school students (grade 6 to 8) is Buscando Gafas.

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book95 comprehensible100 comprehension250 creative13 Education20 engage150 grade 74 grade 85 input47 key structure10 middle school3 mini-book2 output44 productive9 proud1 querer1 reading252 retelling4 reusing1 script201 skills26 Spanish33 speaking73 story46 storytelling39 telling3 tener1 writing55

Different language projects around the topic of school

The topic of school in grade 6 (11-12 years old) gives the opportunity to learn about the facilities at a school, the different subjects and the time (here is the curriculum I planned for this topic). At the end of the topic I like to have a my students work on a project to recap all the new vocabulary and structures they have learned.

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assessment1 connective1 creativity4 curriculum5 design4 Education20 engage150 fluency107 key structure10 leaflet1 map2 peer assessment2 picture5 presentation140 project11 recap1 record3 school35 Spanish33 speaking73 structure10 topic24 video350

Fun and simple idea to practice “gustar”

The verb “gustar” is not an easy verb to use as it is so different from “normal”verbs. The majority of students know how to use it in the first person singular “me gusta” but they rarely know how to use it when they want to refer to someone else.

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activities5 cards1 clapping1 Education20 engage150 focus36 grammar66 gustar1 lesson7 listening52 marker1 matching1 motivation201 objective21 practice33 reading252 Spanish33 speaking73 warm up36 whiteboard2 writing55