The end of the school year is a great time to do activities that are a culmination of the many things your students have been learning in Spanish. I like to do activities that allow the students to use Spanish in simulated real-life situations.
We did a Mexican Restaurant Activity one year while using my Viajes themed package. (Check Viajes it out here for home use and here for class use.) One unit in our book was about the Mexican restaurant. They learned key vocabulary, verbs, and grammar that would allow them to speak, read, and write about visiting a Mexican restaurant as well as communicate in Spanish while actually being in one. The unit also incorporated concepts from previous units of the book.
Here’s How to Plan a Culminating Activity:
- Keep it simple so that students can focus on the Spanish language usage as opposed to following complicated activity instructions.
- Plan for students to work in small groups, no more than 3 or 4.
- Decide on a simulated real-life situation – a Mexican restaurant, a visit to the beach, having a picnic lunch, etc.
- Create a list of Spanish vocabulary, verbs, and grammar concepts you want to use.
- Create a guide to step students through the activity. This may be something you write on the board or make as a hand-out. For example, in my restaurant activity, there were 9 steps – step 1: Customers and waiter greet each other, step 2: Customers ask for a menu, Step 3: Customers talk to each other about what is on the menu, etc. This guide is what helps prompt the students to use the language from your vocabulary, verb, and grammar list.
- Create additional materials to bring the simulation to life, but keep the materials simple. For example, I created a menu, order sheet, and bill sheet students could use in the activity.
- Create an assessment rubric if you plan to grade them. Some items you may want to include in your rubric are: accuracy of pronunciation, speaking in Spanish only, correct grammar usage, correct conjugated verb usage, etc.
How to Implement the Activity:
- Have your materials set up prior to class.
- Describe the activity to the students.
- Put the steps for the activity on the board or pass out to each student.
- Act out the activity with volunteers prior to everyone doing the activity in their groups.
- Put students in their groups and pass out the materials needed.
- Remind students to only speak in Spanish. If needed, provide an incentive. You can give a prize, keep score on the board by giving each group a number of points and deducting a point each time you hear English, or you can give each student a “Certificate of Success.” Think of what would motivate your students.
Do for Fun and/or Evaluation
You can choose to do your culminating activity for assessment or not. Some ideas:
- Have groups do the simulation simultaneously just for fun.
- Have volunteers act out their simulations for the class for fun.
- Have all groups act out their simulation for the class for assessment and evaluate them according to a rubric. But, be sure to let them practice several times first.
- Have groups act out their simulation for you, not in front of the class, for assessment.
MOST OF ALL – HAVE FUN!
Debbie
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