If any of you are like me, you are very concerned about restarting classes in the fall. The numbers for the Coronavirus are at an all time high, much higher than they were in March when we closed down. People are still meeting via Zoom and other methods, but the local school boards and our government are eager to put us back to work. Whatever the decision may be, we will have to teach our students. We want them to learn. Is it going to be in person? digital? or a hybrid? Who knows at this point, but we have to be prepared.
Students will get bored easily if we stick to the same kinds of assignments all the time. This is true in the classroom and it is definitely true when teaching digitally. How can we vary up our practices to engage students while increasing acquistion? That is the $64,000 question!
When I taught digitally in the Spring, I would offer a mixture of assignments – some that students would do on paper then take a picture and submit and others that required them to do online quizzes or do computer activities.
Here are some examples of a variety of things I would do:
- Like and Dislike – Give students a list of items and they have to classify them into columns on paper. Use a mixture of vocabulary topics (not just food).
- Always, sometimes, and never – This is another classifying activity. Perfect for verb practice.
- Parallel Story – Have students write a story similar to the one they read, changing minor details but keeping the plot close to the original.
- Dictée – Record yourself doing a dictee and let students do it at their own pace. See directions here.
- Watch a (verb ninja) video and create a quiz – We would love you to use ours but people like Alice Ayel and Dreaming Spanish are really good alternatives
- Do a comic strip – Have students read a story and break the story down into 8 boxes. Draw pictures, color, and add a caption in each box.
- Celebrity Interview – Ask some questions and have them answer them based on a celebrity (or they can answer about themselves).
- Padlet – Make a padlet to respond to a topic, post a picture and comment, or whatever you can think of
- Voice Thread – Have students design a voice thread on a topic. You can give them the story or they can create their own. Then, they can record the captions.
- Quizlet – Let students practive vocabulary.
- Textivate – This is good for practicing story vocabulary over and over.
- Verb Ninja activities – Select from any of our activities and assign them to your students. Ask them to screenshot their results. See the support tab for more info.
- Mini-stories out of order – Give them some stories out of order and have them rewrite them in the correct order then draw a picture to demostrate comprehension. Keep stories about 5-6 sentences in length total.
There are a lot of things you can do to keep it fresh. Comment some of the things you like to do!