Creating fun Spanish lesson plans can be a complicated process especially when you are trying to create meaningful lesson plans as well.
To make sure you have a complete, and effective lesson plan, it is necessary that you create your objectives for the lesson. What should the students be able to do after the lesson? Come up with I can… statements (ex. I can describe myself. I can conjugate hablar). These statements allow the student to track their own learning. Post these in the classroom so that the students know exactly what they should be monitoring from day to day.
All our lesson plans inside the Spanish Teachers Community are aligned with ACTFL standards and have Can Do Statements already written.
Starting with the objectives allows you to plan with a clear focus of what you want to teach. From the objectives, plan out several communicative activities that practice each objective. Make sure these communicative activities focus on the students producing their own language.
Make the activities a type of game instead of students just talking. Most high school students like to talk, but when they are instructed to talk, they lose that desire. Give a premise around the activity; try having a social gathering where you provide finger foods and drinks or create a mystery where the students must figure out who did what, where and when. Even a simple board or card game played while conversing (in Spanish) will do the trick.
Giving a background story to each activity allows the students to become more engaged in the activity and less focused on the mistakes that they are making. Make the conversation a natural part of the activity, not the central focus. Remember that each objective should have at least two communicative activities that focus on that sole objective.
Another way to create fun Spanish lesson plans is to center the plans around an unusual outing, either planned or spontaneous. Take the class outside and have the students create a visual of the current lesson with sidewalk chalk, or have the students go on a scavenger hunt around school. Having students get out of the classroom, while still utilizing the language will increase the enjoyment factor for the students and distract their attention from focusing on mistakes or the conversation itself.
It is possible to create fun Spanish lesson plans while still having a routine to your classroom. Fun can happen, but students have always expressed that they enjoy a predictable pattern to the class. If you consistently have a bell-ringer exercise (an exercise the students do while they enter the room, right before and after the starting bell rings), keep that in your lesson. All you would do is add in objectives and communicative activities. Those out-of-the-ordinary moments must remain arbitrary in order for the students to appreciate them. If they occur too often, the students will lose interest.
Examples of Spanish Lesson Plans for High School Students
Classroom Commands in Spanish and Other Useful Phrases Mini-Lesson Plan
Objectives:
- Learn basic classroom commands in Spanish.
- Learn other useful phrases that students can use to ask questions and follow instructions in Spanish.
Body Parts & Health Vocabulary – DOLER and Indirect Object Pronouns Lesson Plan
Objectives:
- At the end of this activity, students will have reviewed and used parts of the body and specific health vocabulary.
- Students will also review and use indirect objects to talk about feeling sick, more specifically Indirect Object + doler + part of the body.
- Students can say body parts and common school illnesses in Spanish.
- Students can create an infographic about a common illness in Spanish.
- Students can ask and respond to simple questions based on my infographic and body parts diagram in Spanish.
Empanadas Spanish Substitute Lesson Plan for Novice-Low Students
Objectives:
- At the end of this activity, students will understand what an empanada is and will have learned a variety of food vocabulary through the creation of a menu.
Guatemala – Sweet 16 Verbs – Emergency Substitute Lesson Plan for Spanish Intermediate Students
Objectives:
- At the end of this activity students will have practiced many of the Sweet 16 verbs in the present tense while learning about some places to visit in Guatemala.
The Alphabet and its Pronunciation in Preliminary Spanish Lesson Plan
Objectives:
- Learn the names of the alphabet letters in Spanish.
- Learn the pronunciation of the vowels and consonants in Spanish.
Present Subjunctive with Conjunctions – Caring for the Environment Lesson Plan for Spanish 3
Objectives:
- Understand when the present subjunctive is being used in combination with certain expressions to signify certain nuances (e.g a menos que [subjunctive], a fin de que [subjunctive], etc.)
- Identify and understand common expressions related to the topics of environment and endangered animals.
How do you go about planning fun Spanish lesson plans? Are there any components you always include?
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