Exploratory Spanish - What to teach for 9 weeks

 At my school all our sixth graders take exploratory language classes for a quarter. One quarter of Spanish, one quarter of French, and one quarter of Chinese. Then they choose their language to continue with the rest of middle school. This is our opportunity to showcase our classes and what they should expect if they continue on with us. It's also a great time to emphasize the basics so we can hit the ground running when they come back to me. 

So what do I do? 

I do a unit I call My Passport to the World. Students learn how to answer basic questions about themselves, calendar time, the Spanish-speaking countries, colors, numbers, and if there's time clothing. All in 9 weeks! At the end we do a passport control role-play and they take a virtual field trip to a Spanish speaking country. 

Here's the breakdown - click the links for the videos that I use!

Week 1 - expectations, Sí se puede bubbles & proficiency levels, ¿Cómo estás?, and calendar time - months, numbers, days of the week, and weather. 

Week 2 - ¿Cómo estás?, calendar time, ¿Cómo te llamas?, Greetings - Buenos días, Buenas tardes, & Buenas noches, Hasta mañana, Hasta luego

Week 3 - All of the above + Spanish speaking countries, ¿De dónde eres tú?, & ¿Cuándo es tu cumpleaños?

Week 4 - All of the above + colors, Spanish speaking country flags, & ¿Cuántos años tienes?

Week 5 - All of the above + clothing in calendar time, passports & their function, ¿Dónde vives tú?

Week 6 - All of the above + students create their own passports and research countries that have the strongest and weakest passports. 

Week 7 - All of the above + Clothing for different weather, packing lists, ¿Qué necesito?

Week 8 - Passport role play and virtual field trip - students "pack" a paper suitcase that they've drawn their clothing on, "fly" in a paper airplane that they make to their country of choice, "arrive" and go through immigration with me, showing their passport and answering all of our questions, and then "visit" with a virtual field trip. 

Week 9 - It never works out to be exactly 9 week so most of the time by this point we are catching up, playing review games this week. 

Making it work

The trick is to create routines and then each week add on, building their vocabulary while always reinforcing what they have already learned. 

I start with the calendar routine - I have songs for months of the year, numbers, days of the week and the weather. We practice greetings and ¿Cómo estás? by repeating after me and then practicing with our shoulder and face partners, then doing Kagan structures like Hand Up Pair up, and Mix Pair Share. At some point in the week we do listening practice with a video, and we fill in a page of our Spanish notebooks (a stapled packet of all our worksheets for the quarter.)

I repeat that formula for each week. We start class by practicing all the questions we know how to answer. We do a new song for the latest question, Kagan structures and games to practice, listening practice, and a page or two in our notebooks. 

Additional Notes

Students get really good at answering the questions and introducing themselves. Some of them get really good at knowing the countries but it's not something I test them on because labeling a map is not considered an authentic assessment for Spanish class. The same goes for colors. 

I usually do 3 formal assessments in the 9 weeks - a calendar and greetings quiz in week 4. It's multiple choice and on paper. And then two speaking tests - one just me walking around asking questions while they work independently and then our passport roleplay. Unless a student has goofed off all quarter or has a ton of absences, everyone gets an A or a B for the quarter. They also get a feel for my class and when it comes to the first unit in 7th grade we can hit the ground running because they already know how to introduce and talk about themselves.