Finding a maternity substitute was, for me, not unlike any classic tale of unrequited love. I was “enamored” by several of my options, only to find them uninterested, unavailable, or snatched out from under me by dazzling offers of full-time positions (Emily!). I began to think that there was no other option but to turn…
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Caperucita Roja
I wrote this version of Little Red Riding Hood last year as a preterite practice for my students. It includes comprehension questions and a follow-up grammar activity that focuses on the verb forms. Sherry in PA found the activity on my website http://www.martinabex.com and created an ActivInspire Flipchart to accompany it. Her website also has super…
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Zoológico Loco
Here is a project that you can use while studying the imperfect past tense. Basically, students create an imaginary animal that is now extinct and describe it. My students receive a Citizenship grade (effort/on time?) and a Writing grade for the project. Notes for the imperfect can be downloaded here.
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Horizontal Conjugation
My second year Spanish students need some practice distinguishing between subjects with their verb forms (subject/verb agreement), so I modified and typed up one of my student’s free writes (work smarter, not harder, right?) for a good ol’ horizontal conjugation practice. What is a horizontal conjugation? A horizontal conjugation is a perspective re-write. It is…
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Subject Pronouns
Even though I have switched to an acquisition-driven, whole-language approach to teaching Spanish, I still like to do mini grammar lessons every once in awhile. When should I give a grammar lesson? I always wait to give an expository grammar lesson until after my students have been repeatedly exposed to whatever it is that I…
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Cognates lesson: skill building that supports comprehension
I created a simple Cognates worksheet for my Spanish A students to complete tomorrow while I am at the 2011 AFLA Conference. My students will read through the information on this worksheet on their own, while supervised by the sub, and then choose some children’s books from our class library to scan for cognates that…
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Who, What, Where?
This is a listening assessment that I used after we spent some time using present progressive verbs, and I think that it works best when you have a targeted verb tense that you are comparing to something else. In this case, present vs. present progressive. First, write up five to six mini-scenes (only one or…
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