Integrating the appeals of TIC into the Spanish courses<

Integrating the appeals of TIC into the Spanish courses

My name is Samanta Tojo Lopez and I have been an ELE teacher in Italian public schools for several years.

I would like my contribution to this blog to be a reflection on how difficult it is for teachers to make conversation classes more interactive and how important technology is to this project.

One of the biggest difficulties with teaching a foreign language is getting students to participate in oral activities. Often, the students feel inhibited and awkward about speaking in public. Therefore, it is very important that the activities are fun and original. The students must feel comfortable enough to do them, while enjoying themselves and learning at the same time.

Using technology really helps make the students more interested in the activities and consequently, more enthusiastic about participating.

As part of my contribution to the blog, I would like to designa “Role Play” activity for a conversation class, using both group work and technology.

SUBJECT: Journalists and celebrities

LEVEL: This activity could probably be for level B2-C1 and for 15 people

MATERIALS: a video camera with sound (camera, Smartphone etc), a computer

TIME: 4 Sessions of 50 minutes each

GENERAL GOALS
- Practise writing
- Practise oral comprehension
- Practise speaking

LINGUISTIC OBJECTIVES
- Revise verb tenses
- Revise the rules of interrogative structures

Choose a famous couple in the country you are in (for example Penelope Cruz and Javier Badem if you are in Spain; Kate and William for England, Brad Pitt and Anfelina Jolie for the US etc). Ask the students if they and what they know about the celebrities. Make sure that they have enough information about them, and if not, you can take a celebrity magazine to class or show them a recent article.
Chose a current topic related to the couple; it could be controversial or uncomfortable for them (they could have just had a child, they could be about to get divorced, there could be rumours of an affair etc).
The activity involves preparing questions and answers for a fake interview. In order to prepare for it, the group of celebrities must try and imagine potential questions, possibly of the tactless variety, that the group of journalists would probably ask, and try and come up with answers.
Say you choose Penelope and Javier Bardem.
Divide the class into groups of 4. One group will be responsible for preparing answers to the questions which the journalist would probably ask Penelope Cruz. Another group will prepare answers to the questions which the journalist will probably ask Javier Bardem.

These groups must decide which questions will be complicated or embarrassing for the character and which answers would be most effective at getting them out of a tight spot. The third group will have to come up with questions that the journalist will ask the couple.
Once the questions and answers have been prepared and written up, you can act out the interview.
One member of the group will be Penelope, another will be Javier, another the journalist and one other the cameraman for the TV program. The students should take turns so that everybody will have the opportunity to participate.
Once you have the recording you can use a video-editing programme to create a montage, similar to what a TV show would display.
It would be interesting to see if the famous people had predicted the right questions, what the most clever answers would be, and how tactfully they would answer the questions that they hadn´t foreseen and therefore hadn’t prepared answers to beforehand.

The teacher could also prepare questions beforehand and his job would be to control the groups and suggest questions or answers that could bring something new to the task if the students are having problems.