Confession

I do not speak in Spanish enough in my classroom.  I can give a least of excuses but what is more important is what am I doing to raise the percentage of time spent in the target language for me and my students?

Spanish III today started the process of learning how to hold conversations in Spanish.  They downloaded a document with 18 questions broken into 3 groups.  Individually they worked on writing answers to the questions.  However, I divided the students into 3 groups that started in different spots so all questions were addressed.  I let the students work for 5-10 minutes and then I started talking with them in small groups of 6-8 kids.

I started by asking one of the questions in the group they had been initially assigned.  Volunteers would answer and then we moved to the next question.  I did not always go in order so they had to listen to what I was asking.  Also, after a few answers I started to ask a few follow-up questions.

I liked how the activity gave the students some security by getting to see the questions and having time to work on responses.  However, I am happier with the follow-up questions that started to push them out of their comfort zones and into creating true conversation.