Planning a trip

Objectives: Students research tourist attractions and historical sites of a given country and describe what they will do during a future visit.  To use when studying the chapter of Hispanics in the U.S. (Intended audience: Novice)

Context: One of your friends at the university is from a Latin American country (the students are assigned specific countries).  Some of your friends and you want to see where he/she is from and have planned a tip with him/her for next summer.  Make an itinerary of the places you will go and the things you will see and present it to the class. 

Grammatical features: Future

Preparation: On the day before the presentations the students will form groups of 2-3 and each group will be assigned a country.  For homework, the groups will conduct research on the given country and plan a trip based on the information found.  Students will be encouraged develop visual aids for the presentation. In-class prep-time: 5 minutes.

Student task in-class: Each group will explain to the class what they will do during their future trip.  The students will give appropriate historical and cultural information related to the places they will visit and other activities they have planned.  15 Minutes.

Witnesses to a crime

Objectives: The students pretend to have witnessed a crime and describe what they were doing when the crime occurred. (Intended audience: Novice)

Grammatical features: Present, preterit, and imperfect.

Student Task: The students form groups of 3-4.  Each group is given a card with a scenario, i.e. a student was kidnapped by a white van in front of the library at noon, a student is run-over by a white van at the corner of 4th Street and Highland Ave. at 12:03 PM, etc. The instructor combines each scenario to create a larger story.  Based on their experience at the university, the students brainstorm and write down a list of activities that usually take place at these places.  5 minutes.

The groups exchange cards with the scenario and the list of activities.  Each group writes a report in which each member chooses an activity and describes what he/she was doing when the crime occurred.  The instructor plays the role of the policeman and each group reports to the class what was happening when the crime took place.  10 minutes.

Possible Follow-up: The students write down the information reported by the other groups and then draw a map in which they recreate the sequence of events. 

Listening Exercise: Pedro Navaja

Objective: Students listen to the song “Pedro Navaja” by Rubén Blades with a focus on understanding and reproducing the storyline.  (Intended audience: Novice/Intermediate)

Materials: CD with the song.  Copy of the lyrics. Colored pencils or markers and paper for the students.

Pre-listening activity: Instructor writes important vocabulary on board.  Students take turns reading a line of the song as we go around the room.  Additional vocabulary is discussed. 5 minutes

Listening: The students listen to the song.

Student task: After listening to the song, the students divide into groups of 2-3.  Group size can vary depending on the size of the class.  The song has 10 primary stanzas.  Each group is assigned a stanza and the students make a drawing that explains the part of the storyline communicated by the stanza.  The groups then explain their drawing to the class in an order that re-creates the storyline.  The drawings are also placed in sequential order on the board to aid in the re-creation of the story.  10 minutes.