PQA (Personalized Questions and Answers) is a wonderful teaching technique to use with any level, but especially with novice levels. As its name indicates, PQA involves personalizing language by asking questions to your students. This is a great way to connect the language directly with your students’ experiences. PQA is also valuable for teachers to get to know their students and for building classroom community; it can be used at any time, even as a quick follow-up activity. The best thing about PQA is that you don’t need materials to start!
Personalized Questions and Answers (PQA) is an easy way to engage students with questions connected to their students’ lives and interests.
Here’s how it might unfold:
Starting with a Question: The teacher asks a simple, personalized question in the target language, such as “¿Tienes una mascota?” (Do you have a pet?).
Student Responses: Students answer according to their experience. Responses might be as simple as “Sí” (Yes) or more detailed like “Tengo un perro” (I have a dog).
Follow-Up Questions: The teacher asks follow-up questions to encourage further conversation. For example, “¿Cómo se llama tu perro?” (What’s your dog’s name?) or “¿De qué color es tu perro?” (What color is your dog?).
Engaging the Class: As the conversation continues, the teacher may direct questions to other students to keep the whole class involved. “¿A quién más le gustan los perros?” (Who else likes dogs?) “¿Quién tiene un perro”? (Who else has a dog?).
Use of Visuals and Gestures: The teacher might use pictures or gestures to help clarify vocabulary or concepts, especially for novice learners. I specially like having flashcards for every questions (like the one seen in the picture below).
Repetition and Reinforcement: The teacher repeats key phrases or vocabulary throughout the conversation to help reinforce language in a natural context.
Encouragement: Students are encouraged to participate, even if their responses are as simple as a single word or a basic sentence.
Movement and Engagement: In younger classes, the teacher might add actions or games to accompany the questions, keeping energy levels high and the learning interactive.
You can complement this activity by documenting the responses of the student being interviewed. Later, you can share the results with the class and ask questions about that student. This allows the activity to shift from using first-person language to third-person, all within a meaningful context.
Personalized Questions and Answers (PQA) creates a learning environment where students can practice language in real-life situations.
Are you looking for a fresh, exciting way to introduce elementary-aged students to the Spanish language? Let me introduce you to Aventuras in Learning, a language program I’ve been developing with Valentina Correa, and it’s finally here!
Aventuras in Learning is an educational program created for world language educators, especially elementary Spanish teachers. Our stories are designed to help students acquire the language naturally while also getting to know other cultures through the characters’ adventures. From storytelling to hands-on crafts, the program incorporates a variety of creative tools that engages students’ attention while building their language skills. Whether they’re learning simple phrases, animal sounds, or vocabulary related to everyday life, they’ll feel like they’re on an adventure every step of the way!
Imagine walking into your classroom with everything you need to teach confidently from day one—engaging lessons, creative activities, and a plan that sets you and your students up for success. Aventuras in Learning is designed to save you time and energy while keeping your students engaged and acquiring the language through our characters and their exciting stories.
The program features stories tailored to three different levels. This example comes from one of our Level 1 stories, where learners understand and engage with very basic stories that use repetitive and predictable language. They recognize key words and the main idea. Typically, these learners are new to the language or have had minimal exposure to it.
In this story is called La ardilla y la bellota. In this adventure, a squirrel sets out to find acorns, helping your students learn colors and high-frequency words like “quiere,” “busca,” and “hay.”
The suggested teaching tips provide plenty of creative ideas for bringing the story to life in your classroom! Best of all, once you’ve finished telling the story, there are a variety of printable and digital activities to extend the learning!
And fun digital activities to continue engaging your students with the story while acquiring the language!
Read the story aloud to your students!
The best part? At Aventuras in Learning, we provide everything you need! You’ll get materials packed with ideas so you can focus on teaching and having fun with your students. From teaching tips and printables to story videos, digital games, and more—everything is designed to make your job easier and more enjoyable!
As we approach the final days or weeks of the academic year, maintaining student motivation and focus can become challenging. Nonetheless, seizing the opportunity to make these last days count is a positive way to conclude the school year on a high note. Here are some tips to ensure these days are productive and meaningful:
Maintain Your Routines
You’ve worked hard to establish routines throughout the year, so it’s important to maintain them until the end. Keeping these routines helps provide a sense of continuity and stability for both you and your students, helping a smooth transition into summer.
Continue Building Classroom Community Until the Last Day:
Look for opportunities to celebrate your students’ accomplishments and milestones. Reflect with them on all they’ve achieved throughout the year, and keep finding ways to continue connecting and building on those relationships. It might be the case that you will have the same students the next school year
Keep the Brain Breaks Going
Simple brain breaks, such as Chocolate or the Aguacate game, that invite your students to move and then center back into the activities will help! If there’s too much energy, breathing breaks will help with this!
Make the Last Days Extra Fun
Wrap up the school year with your students’ favorite games and tunes in your class. Sing-alongs are always a hit! Try the Wheel of Names to pick the songs and games. This will also add excitement!
Bring Quick and Easy Activities
Bring in activities that don’t require a lot of follow-up and can be completed in one or two classes. Examples include creating a craft with memories of the school year, working on a short story with a follow-up craft, or doing color-by-code pages. These activities are fun and easy to manage, providing a relaxing yet meaningful end to the school year.
Reflect on Your Teaching Practices
Take time to evaluate what worked well and what didn’t throughout the year. Engage your students in this reflection process by having them complete a short survey to share their thoughts on what was helpful in their learning. This feedback can provide valuable insights for your upcoming school year.
The calmer and happier we are in the final weeks, the better our students will do. Stress causes more stress, so plan ahead and take deep breaths!
Aguacate has to be one of the most fun movement games my students enjoy! The great thing about this game is that it can be played with any grade level and at any time during the school year. It doesn’t require a lot of preparation—just a few vocabulary flashcards and a picture of a silly clipart avocado jumping, and that’s all! I have blogged about this game in the past, so if you need instructions and more cards for the game, I recommend that you visit the post.
This game is so much fun that it deserved a summer version! And of course, I don’t expect my students to know all these words. The first few times we play the game, I usually ask my students to repeat after me, and we all jump and say “Aguacate” together when the picture of the aguacate comes up. For this version, I added a set of vocabulary flashcards just in case you want to introduce them before playing the game.
Ready to play the Aguacate summer version? Click here or on the picture to download it!
As an elementary Spanish teacher with limited class time, finding ways to keep students engaged and motivated is key so we can get the most out of our time together, and as a teacher, I’m able to support and facilitate their language acquisition journey better.
Here are some useful tips to keep your students’ motivation going:
Understand the age group you are teaching
I highly recommend the “Yardsticks” book by Responsive Classroom, which outlines developmental traits and interests of children according to their age.
Understand the proficiency level of your students
This will help you develop goals that support their acquisition journey. Visit the ACTFL website to download the updated Proficiency Guidelines.
Make sure that your activities support the different modes of communication
Remember that students acquire language at different paces and that in one class you might have students who are at different proficiency levels. Including activities with different communication modes ( Interpersonal, Interpretative and Presentational) will reach out to different students.
Connect with your students
Building a strong teacher-student bond should extend beyond the initial weeks of the school year. Continuously engage with your students by learning about their interests, hobbies, and family celebrations, and incorporate these aspects into your lessons. Bring topics that are relevant to their age group too!
Use Comprehensible Input
Students need to be able to understand the language, but also the language have to be challenging to support and help students move beyond their current proficiency level. Not only comprehensible input but also compelling! Making sure that the input is interesting for the students. Visit Dr. Stephen Krashen’s website to read more about comprehensible input. You can also explore comprehensible input strategies and methods in this post.
Use Stories
Stories are super useful for teaching languages because they make learners feel things, give them real-life situations to learn from, show them how people actually talk, help them connect emotionally, and demonstrate different ways to use language. All of this makes learning easier and more comfortable. After listening to stories, students can act out scenes or pretend to be characters, which keeps them interested and involved.
Use Games
Bring games to your classes, especially non-competitive games .Explore options like memory games and bingo, which integrate vocabulary, phrases, or story sentences. These activities are easy to set up and can even be tailored to your students’ preferences. Movement-based games like Four Corners and A mí también add an extra layer of fun. Additionally, Total Physical Response (TPR) games such as Follow the Leader, Simon Says, and Charades are highly effective for language learning. Find different types of game in this blog!
