Well, I finally went through with it. Today we worked through talking about the students themselves, slooooooowly, with little to no prep beforehand. Meaning that I had a short list of questions- name, age, origin, and activity- but no set vocabulary list. No set unit or theme beyond discussing activities and related vocabulary that were related to the students' actual interests. It was our second day back and for my only Spanish 1 class this semester, the second day of Spanish ever, so we started with a super simple story from the fabulous Martina Bex before moving into group discussion. Especially for my 1s, I wanted them to hear and see Spanish in a nonthreatening, silly environment before anything was directed at them. It worked. I'd go as far as to say it went well. It wasn't spectacular, but even my weak students were saying 4 or 5 out of 10 so far as comprehension goes and while that's not where I want them, it is an improvement from where they normally are.
First and second block each had one interview. First block is my Spanish 1, so the list of vocabulary they didn't know is like twice the size of my other classes, but that's okay. I used a hybrid of different ideas- Scott Benedict's template for vocabulary that I wanted the students to keep and the physical white board for cognates and words that they asked about that were not as high frequency. I need a better way to make that work because I couldn't decide whether I should write out the general terms (canta- s/he sings) or the specific ones as a full phrase (Bob canta con Joan Jett porque canta muy bien) and my hybridization was weird. Third and fourth block both had two people, so we actually got to do some comparison. This made it more fun to some degree, but I'm reworking my plans a bit because I don't think that I can keep it going in an engaging manner for ninety minutes straight, or even close to ninety minutes. Now, what to add to tomorrow to pad out the time with useful input instead of something pointless?
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