Does your school use an outdated textbook that you hate? Are you trying to come up with ways to make your Spanish class fun and still meet the demands of your department?
You’re not alone.
So many schools have require that teachers follow their text book so students can pass a
When I taught with the Spanish textbook Así se Dice, I supplemented almost everything. I used the vocabulary and grammar concepts from the book so that my students would be prepared to move on to another teacher, but I jazzed it up as much as possible! I made new speaking activities, changed the listening practice, wrote stories to incorporate the vocabulary, and created hundreds of games to engage my students as much as possible!
How to start planning with a textbook
If you are just starting out using Así se Dice or another textbook series, you need to give yourself time to gauge your students. Each group will move at a different pace, so try not to plan too far out or you will feel like you’ve wasted a lot of time.
Before I dive into the textbook, I begin with lessons on cognates and some storytelling to alleviate the anxiety students bring into the room and show them that they can understand. Then I introduce Total Physical Response (TPR) by teaching the weather. Sure, it doesn’t come up in Así se Dice or most other textbooks until much later on, but it’s something you can talk about everyday, so why not move it up? Students leave the room that first week feeling confident with some concrete, useful Spanish phrases under their belts. We lead into months and days of the week, two topics covered in Así se Dice’s Lecciones Preliminares (or the first chapter of any book!) and we use this for calendar talk as the year goes on.
I front load several other topics to Lecciones Preliminares, such as colors, numbers up to 100, and school supplies. The reason for this is so that both myself and my students can communicate in Spanish as much as possible. I taught from Así se Dice for middle school, so I spent around 10 weeks on Lecciones Preliminares, including all the other topics I added.
This meant I could go more quickly in later chapters though because I had already covered the topics early on. So when we got to Chapter 3, we already had the vocabulary to talk about school in a deeper and more advanced way.
What can you do to make those beginning textbook units fun?
One word: Games!
I teach letters with a catchy song, battleship game, and a hilarious spelling bee game. Students line up and I give them a word to spell in Spanish. Each person says one letter until the word is complete. The next person says ¡Adiós! And the person after that is out for no reason at all. The kids LOVE it and ask to play it throughout the year with other vocabulary.
Numbers: We play tic-tac-toe, bingo, and a ton more!
School supplies: A game called “Pásenme.” I call out a school supply or series of items that I want: “Pásenme 3 lápices y una pluma roja!” The students work with their table to hold up the items as quickly as possible. The first team gets two points and all other teams who complete the task earn one point.
At the end of this unit, students take all of the vocabulary they have learned to create an itinerary for a vacation to a Spanish speaking country. Students must include the dates and times of their activities and what the weather will be like at that time. They also tell me the price of the activities they chose to incorporate numbers. They really enjoy it!
Así se dice: the later chapters
As students acquire more language, I add in more difficult readings or more speaking opportunities. During my 5 years teaching from this textbook, I created materials for all eleven chapters of Así se Dice books 1 and 2. All of my units include the same great variety of games throughout as well as assessments and projects.
Here’s a sample from chapter 2:
If you teach from the textbook series Así se Dice, here is a complete list of my supplemental materials. Year 1 refers to my 6th grade Spanish curriculum, Year 2 was taught to 7th graders and chapters 7-10 were completed by 8th graders. All three years together equated to high school level Spanish I. After completing three years of this curriculum with me, 98% of my students passed into Spanish II for Freshman year!
There is no such thing as a perfect Spanish textbook or curriculum. If you ask for help on Facebook or social media, you will receive hundreds of suggestions for different Spanish curriculums and programs. However, if you are walking into a traditional program with traditional expectations (meaning not a Comprehensible Input model), this curriculum will be exceptionally helpful to you! Happy teaching!
