How to teach “to have” and “to be.”

Kids’ souls, err I mean cell phones, fit perfectly into the Intro Routine and are an awesome way to teach “to have” and “to be located in” (tener and estar).

1. If you cruelly collect cell phones, you walk around with the phone basket as class starts and you have these simple conversations. You’re going to have to model them the first time or two. I hold my phone out and use it to clariify if kids have trouble answering.

Do you have your phone? — Yes, I have my phone/no, I don’t have my phone.

How much battery do you have? — I have lots of/little battery. In Spanish, ¿cuánta pila tienes? –Tengo mucha/poca pila.

Do you have a Galaxy 96/iPhone 24? –No, I have a Galaxy 6/iPhone 7.

Where is your phone? — my phone is at home/in my locker/in my pack — I don’t have my phone

(in Spanish, ¿dónde está tu teléfono? — está en… or no tengo mi teléfono)

I also like to react with mock horror: What?!? You don’t have your phone?!? (in Spanish, get your pronouns on: ¿qué? ¿No lo tienes?

The “cell phone hotel”:

2. If your kids put phones in a “cell phone parking lot” (especially good if spots are numbered/named) you stand beside the “lot,” point and pause, and ask the questions above, plus ones such as these:

Where is John’s phone– in 4 or 17? Whose phone is in 6? Does Mandeep have her phone, or is it in the phone hotel?

In my class, any kid who gets 100% can have their phone. Major jealousy from slackers! So to model plurals, I’ll point at a kid who has their phone and ask/say things such as

Do Bani and I have our phones? Do Bani and Jagveer have their phones? Where are out phones?

Anyway. Simple, easy and of some interest to kids. Note: don’t overkill: kids will hear this every day, so no need to beat it to death. Just make sure they understand.

Spring 2017 Spanish 1 Results

Here are two story writes. Students had 25 minutes to write a story. No notes, no dictionary, no questions: write what you can en español.

These kids have had about 35 hours of input, zero writing/talking practice, very few grammar pop-ups, no workbook etc exercises.  As close to pure comprehensible input as you can get before moving into story listening.

First, Kaye. She is originally from the Philippines, and Spanish is her fourth language. I’m including her story because

A. it’s good
B. Kaye likes Duolingo…you can see her playing around with words I havn’t used.

Next, Bani. She is from the Punjab, and Spanish is her 4th language. What can I say? She rocks!

 

Note: not all students did this well. For the kids who are there for 19/20 classes and who pay attention, the average wordcount was about 175 and grammar mark 2.5/3. The skippers and burnouts do much, much worse.