We’re going to talk about some tips for helping you lesson plan! Specifically, we’re going to talk about how we can balance and protect our energy levels between high energy lessons that take a lot out of us to lesson plans that are a little more laid back in what they take from us. We’ll take a look at balancing our needs and the needs of our students, and a few options for high prep, low prep, high energy, and low energy lessons. Let’s dig into these lesson planning tips for world language teachers!
Watch the Video
Let’s look at your current practices
Grab a piece of scratch paper and a writing utensil (or techie if you prefer)! Brainstorm a list of activities (anything!) you do in your classes. When I say “activities” I mean anything that you do in your classes that takes up class time. Whether it’s how you begin class each day, review activities, wrap up activities – list it all!
When you’ve got your list, I want you to sort your activities into something like this:
Where do your activities fall on the spectrum? If you’re sorting them high energy vs low energy, high energy and low energy, do you notice any large gaps? On the other hand, is there anything that you would like to cut?
A quick note – I know that sometimes things can FEEL really high energy in a room (running dictation, Corre en Círculos) but they’re pretty low energy on your part because you just set it up and let the kids go!
Adding More Options to our Plans
Next I want to share some ideas for you that would fall into each quadrant on the graphic organizer above. I do want to note a few things though:
- My high energy ≠ your high energy (we’re different people!)
- My prep ≠ your prep (maybe something I’m really fast at, you’re not? or vice versa?)
- Student energy vs your energy
- Prep vs materials needed (something may be low prep, but might need a different material that requires a trip to a store, increasing the prep overall)
One last reminder- all day every day doesn’t need to be High Energy + High Prep, and it doesn’t always need to be Low Energy + Low Prep. Find balance in what works for you and what works for your students.
High Energy + High Prep Activity Ideas
- La Silla Caliente – Erin Coleman blog post
- teams earn points based on where they are seated, rotate chairs
- Scrambled Sentences
- write pieces of a sentence on cards, students have to put them in order
- Special Guest for Special Person blog post
- Invite in another staff member or guest for Special Person interviews
- The Unfair Game blog post
- students answer questions, are awarded or lose points randomly
High Energy + Low Prep Activity Ideas
- ¡Corre en Círculos! blog post
- scavenger hunt style activity
- Human Bingo
- students walk around and ask/answer questions to complete a bingo sheet
- Digital games – *premade
- Kahoot, Quizlet Live, Blooket, Gimkit, Quizizz
- Tabata Timeline blog post
- read and sequence events, (sort out T/F), rotating on a tabata timer
Low Energy + Low Prep Activity Ideas
- The Most Important Sentence – Eric Richards blog post
- students narrow down the text until they choose 1 sentence
- Textivate/TeachVid
- Digital tools that have students play with language chunks
- Read & Screenshot Video
- Write sentences that go with a video. Students grab screenshots of the video to illustrate the sentences
- Find the Spanish (Language) – Pablo Martelli
- Teacher says something in English from the text and students find it
Low Energy + High Prep Activities
- Blind Kahoot video
- introduce new concepts to your students, can also be used to tell story
- Gallery Walks (high prep the first time!)
- hang materials around the room and students interact with them
- Grid Puzzles blog post
- puzzles where students have to line up the edges of each piece
- Flipgrid + Interpretive Quick Quizzes – Laura Sexton, AnneMarie Chase post
- choose videos from the novice listening library and pair with a quick quiz from Señora Chase
More ideas to help you lesson plan
Each of the activities I described in this post are linked in this spreadsheet, plus about 70 more. I think you’re going to love it – make sure you bookmark the page to easily return to for whenever you need inspiration!
Wrapping Up
If if there is anything that I missed in the spreadsheet, please comment below and let me know! What is one of your favorite activities to do with your classes?
If you like these activities and you want to hear more, check out the playlist that I have here for you! This is my playlist on reading activities so if you liked this, that’s a playlist full of activities kind of like these but more in depth so it’s not like this whirlwind sprint each one has an explanation. I hope it’s helpful for you!