Quieres ir al… Invitations and Excuses KS3 Spanish 5 Lessons with Sentence Builder. This is a sequence of five (approx 1 hour) lessons using one sentence builder pitched at KS3 Spanish students. The sentence builder teaches students to answer the question: Quieres ir al… + place in town? And to answer with an excuse e.g. ¡Ni hablar! , ¡Ni en sueños! etc. It was particularly effective with Year 8. This resource consists of five complete lessons, fully animated, with answers. The content is designed to flood students with new language from the sentence builder (included with this pack), starting with receptive exposure to the phrases, and finishing with productive writing and speaking skills. Finally, there is an independent quiz, which can be peer marked, so that teachers can collect data on how successful the sequence has been. All of the tasks have been tried and tested over the last few years following the Conti method - a communicative language teaching approach developed by Gianfranco Conti: ‘extensive processing instruction’ (EPI) is based on the idea that language teachers should ‘teach less, not more’ by providing their students with a set of language ‘chunks’, drilling these, and finally pushing students to reproduce them. Given its emphasis on reducing cognitive overload, this method is likely to succeed in allowing students to feel like competent learners. I have spent the last two years adapting and tweaking my use of sentence builders so they are so they work best for our students. For more resources check out my store: https://www.tes.com/teaching-resources/shop/piensomas Always happy to receive feedback about my resources. Feel free to get in contact.

This is a sequence of five (approx 1 hour) lessons using one sentence builder pitched at KS3 Spanish students. The sentence builder teaches students to answer the question: What are you going to do next weekend? It was particularly effective with Year 8. The sequence uses the Conti method, and the activities have been designed following a training day run by Mr Conti himself. Activities include Faulty Echo, Delayed Dictation, Vocabulary Builders and more. This sequence of lessons finishes with an independent quiz testing all of the vocabulary covered in the sentence builder. This resource consists of five complete lessons, fully animated, with answers. The content is designed to flood students with new language from the sentence builder (included with this pack), starting with receptive exposure to the phrases, and finishing with productive writing and speaking skills. Finally, there is an independent quiz, which can be peer marked, so that teachers can collect data on how successful the sequence has been. All of the tasks have been tried and tested over the last few years following the Conti method - a communicative language teaching approach developed by Gianfranco Conti: ‘extensive processing instruction’ (EPI) is based on the idea that language teachers should ‘teach less, not more’ by providing their students with a set of language ‘chunks’, drilling these, and finally pushing students to reproduce them. Given its emphasis on reducing cognitive overload, this method is likely to succeed in allowing students to feel like competent learners. I have spent the last two years adapting and tweaking my use of sentence builders so they are so they work best for our students. For more resources check out my store: https://www.tes.com/teaching-resources/shop/piensomas

This is a sequence of five (approx 1 hour) lessons using one sentence builder pitched at KS3 Spanish students. The sentence builder teaches students to answer the question: where do you go in your free time? It was particularly effective with Year 8. The sequence uses the Conti method, and the activities have been designed following a training day run by Mr Conti himself. Activities include Faulty Echo, Delayed Dictation, Vocabulary Builders and more. This sequence of lessons finishes with an independent quiz testing all of the vocabulary covered in the sentence builder. This resource consists of five complete lessons, fully animated, with answers. The content is designed to flood students with new language from the sentence builder (included with this pack), starting with receptive exposure to the phrases, and finishing with productive writing and speaking skills. Finally, there is an independent quiz, which can be peer marked, so that teachers can collect data on how successful the sequence has been. All of the tasks have been tried and tested over the last few years following the Conti method - a communicative language teaching approach developed by Gianfranco Conti: ‘extensive processing instruction’ (EPI) is based on the idea that language teachers should ‘teach less, not more’ by providing their students with a set of language ‘chunks’, drilling these, and finally pushing students to reproduce them. Given its emphasis on reducing cognitive overload, this method is likely to succeed in allowing students to feel like competent learners. I have spent the last two years adapting and tweaking my use of sentence builders so they are so they work best for our students. For more resources check out my store: https://www.tes.com/teaching-resources/shop/piensomas

This lesson is about a sect and temple in Thailand called Wat Phra Dhammakaya which has been in the media due to its modern take on Buddhism. Wat Phra Dhammakaya has attracted a lot of attention for its modern methods of spreading Buddhist teachings, which go against traditional teachings of Buddhism. They raise money through marketing campaigns, subscriptions to their Sangha, and use it to give to good causes, even though financial gain is considered to be unethical for Buddhist communities or Sanghas which should exist only to teach about the message of the Buddha. It is also considered unethical for monks to handle money. It caused particular controversy when money they received once was found to be from the proceeds of a money laundering scheme. They have also created a searchable CD of the Pali cannon, the Buddhist scripture, which goes against the Buddhist view that using modern technology for holy means is wrong. They also offer distance learning, and a more secular approach to teaching about Buddhism. You can only access the community if you pay a subscription fee, which, although very small, goes against the teachings of the Buddha. With a huge number of followers, Wat Phra has at times caused the military government to feel threatened, resulting in the attempted arrest of the Abbott, and to Buddhist monks preventing the police from entering the temple, in a non-violent stand off. The aim of this lesson is to give students the opportunity to reflect on how the teachings of the Buddha are being interpreted in modern society, and to learn about the changing attitudes towards spiritual life in cultures beyond our own western ones.

This is a foundation resource to teach GCSE Spanish Viva textbook, Module 1, Unit 3, Destino Barcelona. 3 lessons, using a sentence builder, following the Conti method. The first lesson allows students to get to grips with the new language, using the preterite to describe a plast holiday, and imperfect tense to describe the accommodation e.g. hotel. The last activity is a printable vocabulary builder worksheet. The imperfect tense is only needed as a vocabulary item for foundation, so the imperfect tense is not taught explicitly here. The three one hour lesson sequence aims to take students from receptive to active language processing. Hope this is useful to fellow Spanish teachers out there. X