Improve Proficiency in Spanish Using a Student Interest Survey

My name is Rich Sayers. I began teaching Spanish at Niwot High School in Colorado in the late 70s. I taught all levels, 1 through AP Language. At that time, many of our world language departments had based our goals and objectives on student mastery of vocabulary and grammar topics. During my years teaching, however, we began to focus on building communicative proficiency in Spanish with our students. One strategy I heard about at a conference was to use surveys about topics related to students' lives to get them to communicate and, in the process, use the vocabulary and grammatical structures that were part of our outcomes.

I tried a survey, but the open-ended nature of the activity created havoc in my classroom. As I reflected on the experience, I determined that I needed to add structure to the survey that would help me manage it better. These are some steps I took:

• Introduce a topic, like “what are your eating and drinking habits on the weekend,” and have students fill in a chart with the foods and beverages they consume.
• Write questions they can ask classmates to find out their eating and drinking habits. All these instructions could be given in Spanish because I modeled on the board in front of them what they were to do.
• Divide the students into Estudiante A or Estudiante B and explain the roles of each. Again, with many gestures and common phrases, I explained these in Spanish:
  • Estudiante A: You will stand and move to Estudiante B, who is seated. You will remain standing and listen to the questions Estudiante B asks you. You will respond to the questions. When Estudiante B has recorded information about you, they will tell you, “¡Gracias, Hasta luego!” and you will look for another Estudiante A who is seated, looking lonely and wanting someone to talk to. Go to that person and answer the questions you hear.
  • Estudiante B: You will remain seated, with your questions and the chart you made about food and beverage habits. Estudiante A will walk to where you are seated. Ask Estudiante A a question based on the chart, like, “En el fin de semana, ¿qué comes en el desayuno?” Write the name of Estudiante A in your chart and the information you receive. Tell Estudiante A, “¡Gracias, Hasta luego!” and wait for another Estudiante A to approach you. Continue to ask questions and record the information you hear from each person.
• Halfway through the time allotted for the activity, have students switch roles and continue the survey.
• All students return to their seats to use the information they gathered for a summary of students’ likes and dislikes. Encourage students to include information about themselves and others, comparing and contrasting what the survey disclosed. Teachers can make this into an extensive written or oral presentation or simply use it as an exit ticket.