Starting the School Year: Spanish 1

One of my favorite ways to start the school year is Card Talk, also known as Circling with Balls.  Ben Slavic, who created this activity, provides an excellent description here:
https://www.benslavic.com/circling-with-balls.html

Card Talk works across a wide range of ages; I used it this year with 4th grade students and with Upper School Spanish 1 students.  I began by handing out a piece of card stock to each student.  The students folded the card stock in half.  On one side of the folded card stock, they wrote their name in large letters and drew a sport or activity they enjoyed.  Then they set the folded card stock on the table in front of them, standing it up like a tent so I could see their name and the picture they had drawn.  Looking around the room, I chose a sport that sounded similar in Spanish and in English.  I wrote the sport on the board in both languages.  Example:

juega al béisbol - he/she plays baseball

Then I began asking questions about the student who played that sport.  (Note: All of the students in this blog post are fictitious.)

Teacher: Edward juega al béisbol.  ¿Juega Edward al béisbol?

Class: Yes.

Teacher: Sí, Edward juega al béisbol.  ¿Juega Edward al fútbol?

Class: No.

Teacher: No, Edward no juega al fútbol.  Edward juega al béisbol.  ¿Juega Edward al béisbol o al fútbol?

Class: Baseball.

Teacher: Sí, Edward juega al béisbol.  Edward NO juega al fútbol.  Edward juega al béisbol.

At this point, I wrote the following on the board:

juega al fútbol - he/she plays soccer

Looking around the room, I chose a student who played soccer.  I asked similar questions about that student, comparing/contrasting them with Edward.

On the second day of class, I continued Card Talk to learn about about the different sports/activities students enjoyed.  However, I also wanted to bring in some culture about Spain.  I decided to talk about Usman Garuba, a 16-year-old basketball player who was recently named one of the 10 most promising athletes in Spain.

I projected a picture of Usman Garuba on the board.  Next to the picture, I wrote:

Éste es un chico.  

Teacher: Éste es un chico.  ¿Es un chico?

Class: Sí.

Teacher: Sí, es un chico.  ¿Es una chica?

Class: No.

Teacher: No, no es una chica.  Es un chico.

Then I wrote:

El chico se llama Usman Garuba.

Teacher: El chico se llama Usman Garuba.  ¿Cómo se llama el chico?

Class: Usman Garuba.

Teacher: Sí, el chico se llama Usman Garuba.  ¿Es Usman Garuba un chico?

Class: Sí.

Teacher: Sí, Usman Garuba es un chico.  ¿Es Usman Garuba una chica?

Class: No.

Teacher: No, Usman Garuba no es una chica.  Usman Garuba es un chico.  No es una chica.  Es un chico.

Then I wrote:

Usman Garuba es de España.

At the beginning of class, students had written down the following structures:

es de ____           he/she is from
¿De dónde es?    Where is he/she from?

Teacher: ¿De dónde es Usman Garuba?

Since this was a new structure, I paused and let students think about this question.  Then I wrote it on the board:

¿De dónde es Usman Garuba?

Teacher: How do we say this in English?  You can look back at your notes if you need to.

Student: Where is Usman Garuba from?

Teacher: Muy bien.  ¿De dónde es Usman Garuba?  Es de Canadá?

Class: No.

Teacher: No, Usman Garuba no es de Canadá.  ¿De dónde es Usman Garuba?

Class: España.

Teacher: Sí, Usman Garuba es de España.

I went around the room and asked the class where each student was from.  I asked all of the questions in the third person to practice "¿de dónde es?", so I addressed the class rather than the individual student.  It was fun to see if my students knew where their classmates were from.  When I had gone around the entire classroom, I returned to the board and asked: "¿De dónde es Usman Garuba?"  I then compared/contrasted him with a few students.

After this, I wrote:

Usman Garuba juega al baloncesto.

Teacher: Usman Garuba juega al baloncesto.  ¿Juega al fútbol?

Class: No.

Teacher: No, Usman Garuba no juega al fútbol.  Juega al baloncesto.  ¿Juega al béisbol?

Class: No.

Teacher: No, no juega al béisbol.  Juega al baloncesto.  Usman Garuba NO juega al fútbol.  NO juega al béisbol.  Juega al baloncesto.

After this, I returned to Card Talk.  For the first week of school, I had my students keep the card stock papers in front of them so I could see their names and their favorite sport/activity.  I used this information to compare/contrast several students with Usman Garuba.

Example: Usman Garuba plays basketball.  In this class, who plays basketball?  Theo plays basketball!  Usman Garuba plays basketball and Theo plays basketball!  Anna plays basketball!  Usman Garuba plays basketball and Anna plays basketball!  Does Usman Garuba play soccer?  No, he does not play soccer.  Who plays soccer? George plays soccer!  Usman Garuba does not play soccer.  George plays soccer.  Who plays soccer, Usman Garuba or George?  George plays soccer.  Usman Garuba does not play soccer.

I then wrote:

Usman Garuba tiene mucho talento.  Usman Garuba es famoso.

I checked for understanding by asking my students to translate these sentences into English.  Then I asked if any of my students were famous.  (I reminded my students that in Spanish class, they can be anything they want to be, as long as they answer in Spanish.)  A few students responded that they were famous.  I wrote their names on the board and we made a little story about them:

Example 1:

Éste es un chico.  El chico se llama Vincent.  Vincent es de Wisconsin.

Vincent juega al fútbol americano.  Vincent tiene mucho talento.  Vincent es famoso.

Example 1:

Ésta es un chica.  La chica se llama Susannah.  Susannah es de Minnesota.

Vincent juega al hockey.  Susannah tiene mucho talento.  Susannah es famosa.

The next day in class, I introduced how to ask and tell someone's age.  I went around the classroom and asked each student his/her age.  Then we returned to the story of Usman Garuba, with the additional information that he is sixteen years old.

I then handed out a reading with true/false questions.  If you are interested in using the reading, you can find it at this Google drive link:
Usman Garuba Reading + Answer Key
Download files at your own risk.

It was so much fun to teach about an athlete from Spain, almost completely in Spanish, on the second day of Spanish 1!