Adjective Agreement Practice

Spanish III worked with adjectives today but I decided this year not to pound them with repetitive drill practice.  (Maybe I will regret it later, we'll see).  Instead they received their lists of vocabulary with the new words filled in, old ones from previous years left blank for them to look up and fill in if they did not remember.

To practice agreement we picked one adjective and wrote it on the back of the notes in all four forms: masculine singular, feminine singular, masculine plural, and feminine plural.  The students were then responsible for writing the names of celebrities or fictional characters that had that characteristic but with the right form.  (Example: one woman for the feminine singular category).  I had the students share in small groups.

After this I pointed out the white papers around the room that each had one adjective on them.  The forms varied from masculine singular to feminine plural.  The students were given the task of writing down celebrities or characters that matched that adjective.  They also had to sign their last names by their contributions so I could give them credit for classwork if I chose to do so.

I made sure to have at least half as many adjectives as students.  I also spread them out around the room, and I think it worked to avoid major jam-ups of students at one spot.

I also was diligent in checking what students were writing.  They did really well on noticing masculine vs feminine but were less observant with the plural forms without me hinting.