Practicing New Vocabulary in Spanish Class

Before I go back to school this year I am doing a Back to Basics series. In Part One - Introducing New Vocabulary in Spanish Class (click here to read) I discussed some basics of how to introduce new vocabulary. Once the students have heard the new language, now they need to practice it in class with different activities. 

Way back in 2015 I was lucky enough to attend a two day workshop with Helena Curtain where we talked about deep and rich activities for learners. To sum up, she told us that deep & rich activities have at least two of the following four components - intrinsically motivating, cognitively engaging, culturally connected, and communicatively purposeful. Read more about this here. I try to keep those in mind when choosing activities to practice new vocab in class. 

Here are a few of my favorite go to activities to help students practice and really learn new vocabulary in Spanish class.

1. Silly stories with lots of repitition

When I teach my food unit, I tell a story about how hungry I am and all the unhealthy things I eat. At the end of the story I'm very sick and need to eat healthier. Then we practice saying what healthy foods we like. 

When I teach hobbies and activities, I tell a story about telling a friend what I want to do and they don't like anything I suggest. I get more and more annoyed as the story goes on until I finally ask what she wants to do. When I teach family members I accuse everyone in the family of eating my donut and ask if it was them.

Sometimes I use fairy tales like Caperucita Roja or Cenicienta to reinforce vocabulary such as emotions and body parts or rooms of the house. 

For all of these I have visuals up on the board or story props to help students understand and process the language we're practicing. 

2. Either/Or

I put up two choices on the board and students choose which they like better and tell their table partner. Or show one item and have students move between Me gusta on one side of the room and No me gusta on the other (somewhere in the middle is más o menos.) 

3. Where is my ____? game

This one is great for tons of repitition. I hide something either for real using flashcards and a prop, on jamboard, or just think of place in my mind. Usually there is some story behind what we're looking for. In our supermarket unit, I have dropped my money in the store and I need to find it. In the family unit, we're looking for the family member who ate my donut. In the house unit we're looking for grandma. In the city unit my dog has run away and we're looking for her. 

Whatever we're practicing, I'll have students repeat after me and then they raise their hands and take turns guessing where it is by saying the different vocabulary words. So that everyone is practicing, we chant the word and I play it up before revealing if they are correct. It's high energy and kids love it. Once you've played it as a group several times then you can let students play in pairs to get even more practice. 

4. Rally Robin

This is a cooperative learning structure that gets you a lot of bang for your buck and it's so easy! Students just take turns using the new vocabulary in a sentence. For example, in our supermarket unit I would have students repeat the food names after me, then we would sing our food chant, and then they would turn to one another and take turns saying Me gusta (a food here.) I have students point at themselves and then at their partner to show whose turn it is. 

5. Graphing

There are so many ways to have students graph! We graph our favorite animal, specials class, activity, food, etc. I like to print out worksheets with the graphs and put them in page protecters. Before we start I ask students to predict what they think the most popular will be in their class. This small addition to the activity has really upped the engagement and excitement because they want to know if they were right or not. Then I go around the room and everyone shares their answer. I fill in a large graph up on the board while students use a whiteboard marker to keep track on their own pages. 

What are your favorite ways to practice new vocabulary in your classes? Share in the comments below!

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