Grumpy ticket officers and shy or flirtatious customers starred in a role-play in my Year 10 Spanish class after I asked each pupil to act an emotion. It increased their enjoyment, gave them confidence in speaking and revised adjectives.
Concerned by the near absence of Spanish being used when they were composing the role-plays, I appointed two referees, who were to shout “Ingles” when anything but Spanish was spoken. The pupils who had used English became the class interpreters and were responsible for translating classroom instructions for the others.
When asking for information, pupils need destinations. A quick revision of places seemed uninspiring, so I asked pupils to guess the place when the word was written without vowels: ply - playa (beach).
The pupil who guessed correctly then added another word without vowels until the list of destinations was adequate.
With the number of revised words, a plenary at the end of the lesson was essential. Speaking Spanish, I invited a volunteer to be profesor for five minutes. This involved teaching the others some of the structures used in the lesson.
The class had to respond to the profesor and then he or she was responsible for encouraging them to listen and repeat. I used four or five profesores for the recap, each revising a section , then a vote was taken on the best.
Christopher Greenough, PGCE student at Edge Hill University College, Ormskirk, Lancashire
