Below are some of the project from throughout the year. They are in chronological order from when they were assigned, but they are mixed projects from all three Spanish levels. Overall, I saw an increase in effort and creativity in their projects as the year went on as students became more confident in their Spanish and their own abilities.
Directions: Create a conversation between two characters including a greeting, the date, the weather, the time, and a goodbye.
Purpose: Students practice using the introductions vocabulary in context rather than just filling out worksheets to practice their conversational Spanish.
Reflection: Most students followed my example exactly, as this was the first project they did and they were still uncomfortable with the content, the class, and projects. They also weren't comfortable with speaking aloud yet, so writing the introductions into comics made the project more accessible.
Directions: Create a poster explaining the rules of a chosen sport. Students were given a set of questions they had to answer, but all other creative choices were up to them.
Purpose: Students practice writing complete sentences to convey objective information about sports.
Reflection: The students still followed my example of sentence structures quite rigidly, but I saw more creativity in their general project designs. I also noticed more students were engaged in the material and tried more to make their posters look nice. Students also had higher interest because they had more choices in the sport, the poster layout, what pictures to include, etc.
Directions: Create a menu for a restaurant. Students were instructed to create three items for breakfast, lunch, dinner, sides, and drinks.
Purpose: Students combine food vocabulary to create more complex meals.
Reflection: I saw a lot more creativity with this project. Students were much more involved with finding additional vocabulary, theming their menus, and personalizing their "restaurant." This project was definitely a favorite, and I saw a lot of intrinsic motivation as students worked on this. In fact, I had to limit students on work time due to their intense focus and creativity.
Directions: Create a comic related to healthcare. Students were given total creative freedom, as long as they included a required amount of vocabulary words/phrases.
Purpose: Students create realistic interactions between people using medical related vocabulary, putting the content into context.
Reflection: This was the project I saw the most creativity with, as students were comfortable with broader directions and more creative freedom. I believe this is a result of all the projects we did throughout the year where they practiced their curiosity and creativity and got more comfortable with the language.