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Big Grammar Review: Part 3 and Review game

Submitted by Nikki on

Class Activities: 

For warm-up activity, students wrote down all reflexive pronouns (me, te, se, nos, se).

I finished the grammar lecture, including:

Indirect object pronouns (which we worked on at the beginning of the year)

me
te
le
nos
les

These look similar to reflexive pronouns but are different in él/ella/usted and ellos/ustedes. Indirect objects are used (among other times) with verbs like gustar.

Students should think of gustar as to be pleasing to rather than to like.

Me gusta el café. (Literally, coffee is pleasing to me).
Indirect object pronouns mean, literally, to or for me/you/he/us/they.

It is also important for students to know how to use gustar. Gustar normally is seen as gusta or gustan.

Me gusta el chocolate. (gusta is used here because chocolate is a singular noun)
Me gusta viajar. (gusta is used here because what follows is an activity).
Me gustan las montañas (gustan is used because mountains are plural).

Futuro cercano (which we worked on earlier this year)

To talk about the "close" future, we use the combination of ir a + infinitivo.

Voy a estudiar mucho. (I am going to study a lot).
Vamos a hablar con nuestros amigos. (We are going to talk to our friends).

The rest of class we played a review game utilizing all of the information we've worked on lately. Students need to make sure they know all of this grammar from the last three classes so that we can move forward.

Tarea: complete attached worksheet filling in verb conjugations.

Class topics: 
indirect object pronouns
futuro cercano
Fluency level: 
Intermediate

Parts of body practice

Submitted by Nikki on

Class Activities: 

Do now activity was correcting a translated text (attached) that students had done for homework recently. The correct translation was put on the board and students were to correct their mistakes. They were to ask any questions about mistakes they made that they didn't understand.

As a class, we reviewed body parts and played class game of simon says (Simón dice).

Tarea: look up and bring in the words for the days of the week and months of the year (in Spanish).

Class topics: 
parts of body
Fluency level: 
Beginner

Big Grammar Review: Part 2

Submitted by Nikki on

Class Goals: 

To finish going over grammar that all students in the intermediate class should know (from previous classes and the first part of this year)

Class Activities: 

Students each received two flashcards and gave verb endings for regular present tense verbs.
-ar (o, as, a, amos, an)
-er/ir (o, es, e, emos/imos, en)

We continued our grammar review.

Possessive pronouns

mi/mis
tu/tus
su/sus
nuestro/a/os/as
su/sus

The singular/plural (and masculine/feminine in the case of nosotros) depends on the noun you're talking about.

Sus amigos (their friends--sus is plural because amigos is plural).
Nuestra casa. (Casa is singular and feminine).

definite/indefinite articles

la/las or el/los are definite articles
un(o)/una or unos/unas are indefinite articles

Just like in English, we use the to talk about something specific:

Hand me the phone. (Implies a specific phone).
Hand me a phone. (Implies any phone).

In Spanish unos/unas means some or a few.

Demonstrative pronouns

In English, there are four possibilities depending on singular/plural (this/these/that/those) while Spanish adds an additional four depending on gender.

this/these
este/estos (masculine singular/plural) esta/estas (feminine singular/plural)

that/those
ese/esos (masculine singular/plural) esa/esas (feminine singular/plural)

Reflexive verbs

For actions that people generally do to themselves, Spanish has a reflexive pronoun that goes before the verb:

Me
te
se
nos
se

Many routine verbs are reflexive despertarse, levantarse, lavarse, ducharse, vestirse (to wake up, to get up, to wash, to shower, to get dressed).

She washes her face. (Reflexive, she washes her own face)
She washes her dog. (Not reflexive, she is washing the dog)

The verb is conjugated like normal, and then needs a reflexive pronoun in front of it.

Tarea: students are again to study what we worked on today. Thursday we will finish the remaining review items (verbs like gustar, preterite, and futuro cercano).

Class topics: 
possessive pronouns
demonstrative pronouns
definite/indefinite article
verbos reflexivos
Fluency level: 
Intermediate

Review game

Submitted by Nikki on

Class Activities: 

We had a small class because of the snow, so we played a jeopardy review game to practice some things we've learned so far this year. There were 4 categories:

verbos
traducciones (translations)
partes del cuerpo
vocabulary general

Students had to choose a number of difficulty (100, 200, 300, 400, 500) and a category. Students competed in teams.

Tarea: continue to study body part vocabulary from the last class

Class topics: 
verbs
translations
vocabulary
body parts
Fluency level: 
Beginner

Gustar quiz and learning parts of body in Spanish

Submitted by Nikki on

Class Activities: 

Students completed attached quiz to finish up our unit on gustar.

Students drew a person, and we went over el cuerpo humano (the human body) vocabulary.

cabeza (f) head
pelo hair
ojos eyes
nariz (f) nose
boca (f) mouth
orejas (f) ears
cuello neck
hombro shoulder
brazo arm
mano (f) hand
dedos fingers
pecho chest
estómago stomach
piernas legs
pies feet
dedos del pie toes

tarea: estudiar las partes del cuerpo (study above vocabulary)

Class topics: 
gustar
parts of body
Fluency level: 
Beginner

Big Grammar Review: Part 1

Submitted by Nikki on

Class Goals: 

To go over grammar that students should all know by being in the intermediate class.

Class Activities: 

Do now activity: students each get two flashcards and on one side wrote "pretérito -ar" and on the other side write the verb conjugation endings (é, aste, ó, amos, aron). On another flashcard, they wrote the conjugations for -er/-ir verbs.

The next two classes will be reviewing basic grammar that all students should know. Since students all have different backgrounds and a few students recently moved up to the intermediate class, we need to make sure everyone knows grammar basics.

masculine and feminine articles

As a general rule, nouns ending in -a get a feminine article (la/las) and verbs ending in -o are considered masculine (el/los). Other rules: words ending in -ma (problema, programa, sistema, tema) are masculine. Words ending in -dad/-tad and -ción are feminine. There are always exceptions, like el mapa and la mano.

Present tense verb conjugation

-ar verbs (o, as, a, amos, an)
-er verbs (o, es, e, emos, en)
-ir verbs (o, es, e, imos, en)

Notice that there is only one difference (nosotros conjugation) for er/ir verbs.

Irregular verbs (present tense)

Several verbs we use frequently are irregular:

ir (to go): voy, vas, va, vamos, van
ser (to be): soy, eres, es, somos, son
oír (to hear): oigo, oyes, oye, oímos, oyen

several verbs are only irregular in the yo conjugation:
hacer (to do/to make): yo hago
saber (to know): yo sé
dar (to give): yo doy

tener and venir have very similar irregular conjugation:
tener (tengo, tienes, tiene, tenemos, tienen)
venir (vengo, vienes, viene, venimos, vienen)

Stem changing verbs

There are three categories of verbs that change in a consistent way in all conjugations but nosotros.

poder (o:ue): to be able to
(puedo, puedes, puede, podemos, pueden)
querer (e:ie): to want
(quiero, quieres, quiere, queremos, quieren)
pedir (e:i): to ask for
(pido, pides, pide, pedimos, piden)

Tarea: students should study and know everything we went over today for Tuesday's class

Class topics: 
articles
masculine
feminine
present tense verbs
stem changing verbs
irregular verbs present
Fluency level: 
Intermediate

Review gustar and combining previous material

Submitted by Nikki on

Class Activities: 

Students completed attached do now activity.

Reviewed verb gustar as a class and drilled practice sentences. There will be a brief quiz on Friday making sure everyone understands the concept.

Students received attached translation of a short text about Eduardo, bringing together concepts we've been working about since the beginning of the year.

Tarea: students need to complete the translation about Eduardo and review _gustar_for Friday's quiz.

Class topics: 
gustar
Fluency level: 
Beginner

Preterite practice: talking about break

Submitted by Nikki on

Class Activities: 

Students completed attached do now activity describing their winter break using preterite past.

Students went around and asked everyone in class about their break:
¿Qué hiciste durante las vacaciones?
Each person shared one thing they did and others wrote it down (changing yo past to él/ella.

Students read attached text about a trip to Egypt and started answering questions posed in Secciones A, B, C, D.

Tarea: Complete class activity (Secciones A-D). On page 3 of the attached activity, there are several phrases used in the text about Egypt. Students are to choose a trip they've taken (or can invent a trip) and write a text using as many of the phrases as possible.

Class topics: 
travel
common verbs
preterite
Fluency level: 
Intermediate

Animals and listening practice

Submitted by Nikki on

Class Activities: 

Students completed attached do now activity describing animals they know the names for in Spanish.

Students received attached handout with photos of various common animals. We listened to someone describing and explaining the different animals. Students were to write down the name of the animal in Spanish as well as write down any other information they heard. Ej.: Los patos viven en la granja y en los parques de Denver, Colorado, etc.

Tarea: no hay

Class topics: 
listening comprehension
animal vocabulary
Fluency level: 
Intermediate

More sentence order with gustar

Submitted by Nikki on

Class Activities: 

All AS students missed class Monday, so we extended Monday's class.

Reviewed on board how gustar is used.

Individually, students received the attached worksheet to use with the class activity. Students received a stack of notecards, each with a word on it. Students needed to put the cards in order to create a sentence, which they wrote down. Once students correctly ordered and wrote down sentences, they passed along the cards/sentence to the next person. Students on Monday got through about 5 sentences, so their task today was to try to complete 17 sentences.

Tarea: review gustar concepts for us to wrap up unit after break.

Class topics: 
gustar
indirect object pronouns
Fluency level: 
Beginner

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