In September I began teaching unit 1 of Cycle A of my mixed age Spanish scheme of work (we started with Cycle B last year - don't ask). Lesson 1 was all about saying hola and adiós, saying our name using soy... and introducing the question ¿Quién eres?
The learning was brought together towards the end of the lesson using a simple dialogue, as seen above.
Here's how we used it:
- Using escuchad y repetid (listen and repeat) we practised each line several times, going through the whole thing twice. When I use more complex dialogues I split some lines into chunks to start with. The children were very good at copying my intonation.
- We discussed the meaning of each part.
- We read all the dialogue all together three times.
- We split the class in half - by tables and then girls/boys - and performed the dialogue in teams, half the class being person A and the other half person B, then swapping roles.
- I asked the children to practise the dialogue with their partner. We talked about what they might change in the dialogue when speaking as themselves.
- While they were practising (I only gave them a few minutes) I circulated to help as necessary and to listen in.
- Quite a few pairs of children in each class volunteered to perform their dialogue in front of the class.
Practising a dialogue enables children to ask and answer questions, engage
in conversations, speak in sentences and speak with increasing confidence,
as required by the Key Stage 2 national curriculum for Languages. It also enables children to speak an extended passage of the language, in this case at the end of the first lesson of the term.
We revisited the dialogue in the following two lessons. A highlight was a Year 3 beginner reciting the entire dialogue perfectly to his class teacher and me in the corridor, with excellent pronunciation and intonation.
Dialogues like this will work with most topic areas and most levels of language. I recommend giving them a try!
