Every year around this time I end up teaching the Pretérito to my Grade 11 Spanish class, and amongst the various practice exercises, I customise one every year called the Pretérito de la Clase. It is simply a series of sentences that reflect each one of the students in the class, be it their personality, an activity I know they are interested, basically anything that I can use to help identify them and set them apart from the rest. I write up each sentence, leaving out the name of the student and a blank where they conjugate the given verb. The pieces are cut up and stuck around the room. Here is a snapshot of what the exercise looks like prior to cutting.
Each numbered sentence is put up in no particular order around the room. They must go around and copy the sentence, conjugate the verb in the Pretérito and figure out who I am describing. It was fun to see their reactions to information I put up about them. Some were shocked that I would knew all that about all the students, but I have my ears open at all times listening to what they are saying even if it seems like I'm not paying attention. They must forget all the talks we have daily and how much they actually tell me, or maybe they don't expect me to remember, but I do. Here are my students in action.
I love this group! They have some fantastic ideas for improv situations and everything they do just makes you smile, if not bust a gut laughing. I happened to be talking about the Running of the Bulls with my Grade 12s as one of them painted a scene for her Art Project (will post later about that), and then I came across this.
While going through the Presente Perfecto, I thought about having my students come up with some funny ecards. I've spent way too much time reading through these in the past and find them very entertaining. They are to use the someecards website to make them. I will post some of them The 2 titles were: 1) Dijo ningún estudiante nunca. 2) Dijo ningún maestro nunca. Here are the two I made as an example.
