Nearly six months of silence and now I offer two posts in a row. It’s obvious I’m on holidays, isn’t it?

Some of you may know already what Geocaching is, some even may have played to this 21st-century treasure hunt requiring a phone with GPS. By the way, it is pronounced geo-cashing.

How does it work? It’s really easy: you hide an item in waterproof conditions anywhere in the world, you provide the GPS coordinates -and some clues maybe- to the Geocaching community, and you wait for someone to find it and replace it with something else of equal or greater value (you can also put a new clue leading to the actual geocache). In the meantime, you go and find somebody else’s treasure. If you do so, you must sign the logbook and inform the community you have found it without giving any additional clues. It’s a family-friendly adventure!

You can either use the actual Geocaching app, which would probably require the school’s and parents’ permission, or prepare your own version with post-its around the school. You may want to include this lesson in a teaching unit about survival or detective work. Imagine how much fun your students will have!

For further information about Geocaching, please refer to the official website: www.geocaching.com (Media FAQs) or Wikipedia.

¿Cómo? ¿Ya lo habéis encontrado?

The Time Doors? What the hell is that? Just some random doors that lead you to different moments of Spanish History. That is what this TV series is all about. El Ministerio del Tiempo is a new TV show whose main characters travel through time to preserve historical events and prevent anyone from changing the course of history for their own benefit. Many will agree there are a few mistakes in the script, but not related to the historical events, as I don’t know more than what I learnt at school. However, this show suggests an amazing way of discovering Spain’s history for our students.

We could show them the first episode or any that you like and invite them to create their own. They will have to choose an important event and write a script or a short story about what happened or what could happen if anyone tried to change it.

All the episodes are available online on the national channel’s website (www.rtve.es), I hope for everyone regardless of what country you live in, and they are not only subtitled in Spanish, but they also provide a lot of information about the real events happening in each episode.

¿Qué os parece? ¿Nos damos una vuelta por la historia de España?

El Ministerio del Tiempo

P.S. If you would like to learn more about Spanish TV series/films, please check this old post.

Have you ever been to this huge Foyles bookshop in Tottenham Court Rd? It was my first time and I couldn’t avoid buying a new board game: Word Dominoes, a name I do not totally approve, as the tiles contain two little pictures instead of dots or words.

The game consists of guessing what phrase, title, name or idea your mates have in their mind after choosing to put certain picture next to the previous one. Every player must write  it in a piece of paper and who ever guessed it right, wins a point. The player who placed the tile also wins one point per each person that correctly matched the answer unless all of them did so. If only one person guessed the meaning of the tiles right, that player scores two extra points (so three altogether). The first player to score 11 points wins. It looks interesting, doesn’t it?

The pictures can be anything: a bed, a star, a lollipop, a cloud, etc. You can make your own set in cards or buy the original game with dominoes tiles. It costs around £20.

In order to learn Spanish, you can play according to the above-mentioned instructions or invent your own rules: make a sentence to get rid of each tile, make compound words, say names and adjectives…

It’s just another version of this game, which many teachers suggest to use in class, as I did in a previous post.

¿Os gusta?

Mainly because it’s 10 PM, hehe. I just realised I usually say “buenos días” to say hello in the morning, I could say “buenas tardes” in the afternoon -although it is not common, but I’d never say “buenas noches” unless I’m saying goodbye and I’m pretty sure I’m going straight to bed, at 3 AM for instance. I think it´s the same in English, isn´t it? However, this is not what I wanted to write about

Today I watched an advert that made me laugh for a little while, and I thought it would be hilarious to do the same with our students. Transferwise, in order to attract Spanish customers probably, decided to record an advertisement about Spanish idioms which are very funny if translated literally into English.

So… Why not challenge our students to choose another idiom and make a funny short film about it? With a bit of context I would add.

Please watch the ad below and let me know if you like the idea.

They also made the advert in French and German.

You may want to include this activity in a lesson about publicity or the media.

Here you have a link to a website where you will find some idioms in Spanish with their closest equivalent in English so that your students can choose which one they would like to translate literally and then perform.

www.lingolex.com

By the way, long time ago, I posted something else about Spanish idioms. Would you like to read it?

Ahora sí… ¡Buenas noches y hasta pronto!

¡Qué frío hace hoy en Londres! Anyway… I was reading this book in which the narrator explains how his friend and him invented so many ways to entertain themselves on the way back from school and I thought… Why don’t we use these silly games in class as a starter? Routines are very important in primary, but they may also be a funny way to motivate your students before the lesson.

Examples of silly games that require good listening and comprehension skills:

1. Everyone look through the window! How many red cars do you see in a minute?
2. Show me how to walk from the window to the door as slowly as possible (to two students maybe)
3. Make an impression of a lion jumping through a big hoop in fire.
4. How many students in the classroom have short hair if ‘short hair’ means over the shoulder?
5. What teacher in this corridor is wearing today red trousers?

What do you think? You could give points to students who answer right, which would benefit them at the end of the term.
 

Today I went to Benjamin Pollock’s Toyshop, in Covent Garden, and found a simple game to do some storytelling (funny pictures for children to develop creativity). And right before paying, I saw this little booklet about hand shadows, which we call sombras chinas in Spain.

I think it would be very interesting to do some storytelling with these shadows. To make it more interactive, students could tell a story normally and expect their classmates to call out the name of the shadow whenever storytellers use one. I would provide a worksheet with some examples before. There are plenty all over the Internet.

You could also play a simple mimicking game: a student performs something with hand shadows and their classmates must guess what is happening.

I’ll try it in my Spanish club as soon as possible

This is a very simple idea that many Spanish teachers probably use, but just in case you didn’t know about it, I will introduce you the Spanish cards (la baraja española), which are slightly different from the cards used to play poker (la baraja francesa, as it is known in Spain). Spanish cards are numbered 1 to 12 and have four different suits: gold coins (oros), goblets (copas), swords (espadas) and clubs (bastos).

La baraja española

As you may have already imagined, you can use these cards to learn or practice the first twelve numbers, to play Rummikub or to call a student to participate in another game or activity (whoever has the four gold coins, please come to the front…).

It is simple, isn’t it?

]]> https://ideasforspanishteachers.wordpress.com/2015/08/10/la-baraja-espanola/feed/ 0 albamena La baraja española https://ideasforspanishteachers.wordpress.com/2015/06/16/noticias-graciosas/ https://ideasforspanishteachers.wordpress.com/2015/06/16/noticias-graciosas/#respond Mon, 15 Jun 2015 23:25:18 +0000 http://ideasforspanishteachers.wordpress.com/?p=2443 ¡Hola, holita!

Vayamos al grano (let’s get to the point). Reading newspaper articles is important for our students because they get to know the target culture through a specific text genre. However, let’s be honest. Most of them are not interested in reading real papers, not even in their own mother tongue. So why not give them to read a different kind of article? A funny one that might make them laugh a little bit? Here you have an example of newspaper that only publishes funny pieces of news. They read like real news, but they are all false.

El Mundo Today

I hope you fall about laughing! XD

It’s pretty late to start writing a post and that is why I will be brief. I think there are loads of short clips out there that tell us plenty of interesting things. I think watching one of them every week will probably interest your students and they will have something to say about it, and if they can say it in Spanish, much better. Please find below an example of an interesting short clip.

La vida es un momento

I hope I’ll find the time to compile a list of all the videos I like. I usually download them in case the Internet does not work that day, but you should always use the original link if possible.

Good night

Today I just want to share with you a book that has been very useful for my Spanish after-school club. My pupils didn’t know anything about Spanish but they are learning a lot little by little.

In order to get ideas from experienced primary teachers, I bought this book on Amazon: Practising Modern Foreign Languages in the Primary Classroom, by Sue Cave. It is not very expensive and it gives plenty of interesting ideas for games and other activities as well as the recipe for a successful lesson.

Another useful book: Games and activities for Primary Modern Foreign Languages, by Nicola Drinkwater. Also available on Amazon.

Remember games and playful activities help to motivate and make the learning process easier for your students.

¡Hasta la vista!