How to Teach Foods in Spanish

Teaching foods in Spanish is always a hit in my Spanish classes! After all, who doesn’t love to eat? Students will enjoy talking about what they like to eat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner and where they like to eat out. It’s also a great way to integrate cultural learning as each Spanish-speaking country has its own traditional dishes.

I teach my food unit over seven weeks in alignment with the textbook Así Se Dice Level 1 Chapter 4, but you can use the following strategies and resources in conjunction with any textbook or even without one. This unit includes activities in speaking, listening, reading, and writing and covers the following objectives:

Identify foods and discuss meals
Talk about where and when you eat
Order food and drinks in a café
Compare eating habits in Spain, Latin America, and the U.S.
Conjugate ER/IR verbs

Week 1: Teaching Food Vocabulary in Spanish

You can start your food unit by piquing your students’ interest with images of delicious food. Students can talk about what foods they know or want to know in Spanish. You could also explore some common misconceptions about Latin American foods such as the belief that tacos are traditionally eaten in all Spanish-speaking countries. This will set a purpose and get students interested in the topic.

Since this unit tends to be very vocabulary-heavy, I suggest having students use Quizlet vocabulary cards to learn new food vocabulary for homework. Really stress that they need to turn up the volume so they can hear the correct pronunciation of the words. Ask them to record the definitions/words in English and draw a picture in a chart like this one:

In this way, students will come to class already prepared to jump right into using food vocabulary in Spanish!

By the end of the first week, you can ask various questions about what they eat and when (¿Cuándo comes el desayuno? ¿Qué comes?) and give them riddles or clues so they have to guess the correct food. Example: Es la comida de la mañana (el desayuno).

Week 2: Reinforce vocabulary in context

A great way to reinforce new vocabulary is in the context of a story. Here is a simple story for beginners that I wrote in the present tense about a boy named Miguel who orders lots of fast food:

In addition to reading, give students the opportunity to work on listening comprehension. There are so many great videos on YouTube where native speakers discuss foods they eat in Spanish. The activity below is a great tool for assessment or homework.

Week 3: Comparing Foods in Spanish

Most students don’t know that Mexican and Spanish cuisines are very different. It’s important to teach them cultural competency by exposing them to the cultural differences between various Spanish-speaking countries. This presentation compares and contrasts traditional dishes from Mexico and Spain. At the end of the presentation, students find similarities and differences between the two countries’ foods and discuss which dishes they prefer and why.

Comparing foods from different Spanish-speaking countries is also a great way to introduce the unit and hook your students. Here is a webquest project that compares traditional foods from many Spanish-speaking countries:

Week 4: Ordering Foods in Spanish

Once students have mastered the vocabulary for foods in Spanish, it’s important that they learn how to order in a restaurant! Here is an engaging YouTube video that shows students how to order tapas at a Spanish cafe.

As they watch, have students write down expressions they hear for ordering in a restaurant. At one point, the video shows a menu. To make the lesson even more interactive, pause on that screen and have students practice being the waiter and the customer, taking turns ordering from each other.

For further practice ordering in a restuarant, provide reading activities to your students. Below are two examples: a dialogue and a silly story.

Assessments

Next, students can show you what they have learned through a cumulative project!

In groups, have students create a menu in Spanish for a new cafe or restaurant in the Spanish-speaking country of their choice. Their menu needs to have a minimum of three different categories of food and/or drinks ( i.e. desayuno, almuerzo, tapas, cena, postre, bebidas, etc) and should include prices in the currency of the country where the restaurant is located as well as appealing photos or illustrations of the foods.

For part two of the project, have students use their menus to simulate ordering food at a restaurant. Randomly choose three students to practice and perform a short skit in front of the class as a speaking assessment.

Week 5 and beyond: ER/IR Verbs to (talk about foods in Spanish)

You can teach the unit for foods in Spanish in about four weeks or you can extend the unit by including ER/IR verbs. It’s easy to do since there are several common ER/IR verbs used to talk about food (i.e. comer, beber, pedir, compartir, etc). Before students write down any new verbs and definitions, use TPR (Total Physical Response) to teach them their meanings. For example, say comer and pretend you are putting a spoon to your mouth to eat while they mimic you. Then you say come rápidamente/lentamente and show them how. Repeat 3-5 times adding/eliminating adjectives if possible. Then move on to another word and action but continue going back to previous ones. Note: Teach new verbs in small chunks of no more than 5-7.

Next, you can teach students how to conjugate the verbs using traditional notes or already conjugated in the context of simple and fun stories like this one featuring the characters from the TV hit series, Friends: