Worksheets that Work

You may have seen my inflammatory the other day on twitter in which I said that I am tired of the bash on worksheets. I really am. I don't like worksheets that are only created to keep kids busy, but I am a big believer in designing tasks that require students to process what they are learning so that that skill or knowledge is personalize and acquired. When I put a task on paper I really try to do just that. Give them something that is an external demonstration of the cognitive processing I hope to guide inside of their heads. If not that, then the paper is a form of input that I want them to interpret and eventually use in their own communications.

Today in my class we are doing TWO worksheets. SCANDALOUS I know!!! 

It is the time of the year when we start sticking our toes in and testing the waters of storytelling. Here's a look at what we are doing to begin to process using preterite and imperfect together to tell at story.

1. First we explored travel problems to try to figure out the vocabulary. The ultimate goal of the lesson is to be able to talk about travel problems and explain how we solved them, but we have to start with the problems. Take a look:

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2. After allowing my students several minutes to work through these problems to see if they could figure out the new phrases and words, I allowed them to ask me about the ones that troubled them an I used more TL and CI to clarify. They jotted down what they thought they meant and made this their notes.

3. Then we worked on building a story. 

• I drew a three column table on my whiteboard. The first column I labeled "travel problems" and I filled in my own travel problems from the previous activity (My first response: Me perdí en Paris.). I then labeled the second column  "¿Dónde estabas?" To model, I asked the question to myself out loud, then filled in the first spot in the second column with my response (Yo estaba en Montmarte.) . I stopped then and read the first and second columns together to reinforce the message that column 2 represents what I was doing when I had the problem mentioned in column 1. 
• I then labeled the third column asked the second question, "¿Qué hacías?" to myself and filled in the third column with my own response (Visitaba una iglesia muy famosa.). I then read all three columns together in succession to tell a little story to my students.
  
• Next, I passed out the graphic organizer you see below. I directed them to follow my model and build their own mini-stories first by writing in their travel problems, then by responding to the questions in the other columns.

If you don't like the structure of a graphic organizer you can always have your students do this on their own paper by folding a sheet into thirds. You can even take away the titles and have them just follow you through the process. Also, if you don't like the transitions I put in, choose your own or do the activity several different times in different contexts or scenarios.

Anyway, that's it. That's today's exploration into the nature of the two past tenses using TWO, count them, TWO worksheets! The difference is that these worksheets are a mixture of comprehensible input, modeling structure, drawing attention to meaning and allowing students to make their own meaning. These worksheets are so much more than busy work.

Here are the links to the docs if you want them:

Link to Word Doc Version           Link to PDF Version

Happy Coaching!