January 26, 2017

Conversational Spanish Lesson Plans

Teaching Spanish through games and songs is one way to help students become increasingly familiar with pronunciation and the meaning of words and phrases. Holidays and other activities also lend themselves to making the connection with traditional lesson plans while having fun!

Lesson Plans Dealing With Verbs, Adverbs and Basic Vocabulary

Lesson plans can include games and activities to break up the monotony of memorizing and conjugating verbs. Even the driest of lesson plans can be adapted to include both memorization and interaction among peers to reinforce proper usage and pronunciation.

Tip: Consider keeping the material fresh and the students engaged by forming conversational groups to practice pronunciation and conversational skills.

The following lesson plans focus on verbs, adverbs, forming questions and learning the days of the week.
Adapting to Learning Styles Through Activities

Every child has a different style of learning and sometimes combinations work best. Adapting the curriculum to set students up for success will enable them to learn without stress. Teachers are exposed to students' needs through years of experience; but in order for parents to know how their child learns best, they may need to compare notes with the teachers and employ similar methods at home. It will reinforce what they learn at school and make it easier for parents to adapt the techniques of teaching household chores or other academic material.

The following articles focus on teaching through your student's learning style and focuses on activities to reinforce vocabulary, conjugation and moving from days of the week to months of the year and more.
Vocabulary Related to Holidays, Family, Cooking and Home

Below we offer lesson plans to increase student vocabulary with familiar holiday themes. Traditional meals can be combined with Spanish fare, and both teachers and parents should encourage children to use the words for common items in both languages. Combining meals with traditional holidays seems like an easy way to introduce Spanish cooking vocabulary and food preparation terms.

The empanadas in the picture on the left are easy to make from dough and can be filled with cut-up apples and sprinkled with cinnamon to make apple turnovers with a Spanish flavor, or filled with ham and cheese and baked in the oven for a delicious afternoon snack. Make sure to use the words: Manzana (apple), Jamon (Ham) or Queso (cheese) while they shape the dough (masa). They will see those words all over ethnic foods at the supermarket and Spanish-style bakeries, which will reinforce their classroom learning.
Teaching Through Songs and Dance

Do kids love playing? Dancing? Singing? Adapting these natural inclinations to learning is a no-brainer to most teachers. Below are some ideas that will make the day enjoyable and your students happy to demonstrate their new-found skills.

Encourage your students to share what they leaned and what it means at home with their parents. It helps to reinforce the classroom activities and gets them ready to add to their repertoire the next day.
Teaching Through Games

Parents and teachers know that kids learn through games. Learning Spanish is no different; they simply play games in a different language and have fun developing their manual dexterity, reasoning skills and retaining something new that they are more than willing to share with parents and other siblings after school. What is better than playing a game in a new language? Becoming bilingual without noticing!

Use things commonly found in English and tape the Spanish words over them. Use something like the chart on the right with simple words to enumerate, describe colors or body parts in Spanish. Visual reinforcement alongside with reading and verbalizing are a winning combination.
How Do You Teach?

If you have been teaching Spanish for the past few years, you must have some true and tried methods to engage your students and keep them wanting to learn more. Use the comments section to share your teaching experiences-we'd love to hear from you.