My students in grade 10 have a speaking examination in 5 weeks time and I believe this is the most stressful part of their IGCSEs. In order to prepare them well for the general conversation (which consists of asking a series of linked questions on two or three topics which students have covered in grade 9 and 10) I asked my students to get in pairs,
This video is great when teaching the topic of "eating and drinking" in Spanish. It is about Spanish table manners which are actually quite similar to the French table manners, apart from the olive oil on the table. I sympathize with Marina about the napkins. I actually do also find it "violent" not to have a napkin when eating!
A picture can be a great start for a conversation when it is hard to get students talking in the target language. In my present school, we prepare grade 9 and 10 for the IGCSE exams and one part of the exam is about students having to converse with the teachers about different topics they have previously learned.
Following my first story script in Spanish to practice classroom instructions, I have just finished creating another one which reinforces classroom intructions and which introduces one important question word: ¿Por qué?. It also introduces other key phrases from the Michel Thomas method such as es así and lo.
I am huge fan of the Michel Thomas method. The only thing that is bothering me is that it hugely relies on translation. I was trained to use the target language as much as possible in the classroom and my mentor taught me a few tricks to get the students to understand me in the target language like using lots of cognates.