Object Pronouns

My students love hate/fear object pronouns.  I have tried teaching them according to grammar rules and the idea of asking a set of questions (what is the action of the sentence?  what is receiving the action?  what or who is receiving something).  I have taught what object pronouns are in English even spending a whole day reviewing the concept alone with no Spanish involved.  Nothing works.

This year to review with Spanish III I took a different approach.  I still don't know if it is better but for one day at least the students were more confident in what they were doing (unfortunately today's activity seemed to put us back at square one but I have to start somewhere!).

Instead of going through any rules, I just dove in with a question: ¿Me comprarás la pizza?  Students used their individual whiteboards to write me a complete sentence answer in Spanish.  We did several questions like this and even had them create one of their own using their own vocabulary.  Then after we had practiced with "me" and "te," we expanded to include "nos" and "les."  Eventually we even got to "le."

Each time I was asking a question and they were responding, another area that we struggle in.  What was also different this time around was that we started with indirect objects first.  I have always begun with direct objects in previous years.

We took some simple notes the next day, not even writing anything done this first day of practice.  We just worked with the concept without any official rules.

The jury is still out on this twist in my approach but at the very least I don't think we're any farther behind.  (Plus I think today's problems had as much to do with some incorrect answers in the key for their activity as anything else--double check everything!)  I am debating on using this approach in Spanish II to see if it would work with students who do not have any prior Spanish knowledge of the concept.  What do you think?

Happy Friday!