Sample Grammar Activity:
ir a-future

Context: This activity is designed for students in a semester-long intro-level Spanish for Second Language Speakers class at the college level in the US.

Textbook: Marinelli, Patti J. & Karin Fajardo (2019). Conectados, 2nd Edition. Boston: Cengage Learning.

Objectives: At the end of this activity, students will be able to:

• Understand narratives and recommendations written in the Spanish Periphrastic Future

• Write short messages discussing their plans for the day

• Orally discuss future plans for the short, medium, and long term

They will practice the interpretive listening and reading, presentational speaking and writing, and interpersonal speaking modes of communication.

Prerequisites: Students are expected to have learned vocabulary related to leisure activities and travel at this points in the course. They are expected to have familiarized themselves with present-tense verbs (specifically ir) and modals such as querer, gustar, and preferir.

Structure of the activity:

1. Warm-up activity - Interpretive listening and presentational writing mode of communication. Students are presented (orally) with the following prompt questions, and asked to write down at least one sentence in response to each of them.

   • • ¿Qué haces normalmente en el fin de semana?

     • ¿Dónde haces estas actividades?

     • ¿Qué te gusta más hacer en tu tiempo libre?

     • ¿Qué haces normalmente cuando estás de vacaciones?

     • ¿Qué te gusta más hacer cuando estás de vacaciones?

They will then pair up with a partner to talk about their favourite leisure activities and holiday activities, and to find out about their partner's favourite activities and where they do them. They will be shown a partial (written) model, and asked to elaborate upon this model to talk about leisure activities. Comprehension tasks will be implemented by means of the instructor asking a number of students about the preferred activities of their partner. Model:

• "Yo en el fin de semana siempre lavo la ropa y los sábados voy al gimnasio para jugar fútbol. ¿Y tú?" "Yo prefiero jugar vóleibol. Pero lo que me gusta más en el fin de semana es ir al cine para mirar películas."

These activities activate vocabulary related to leisure and holiday activities. They activate, at least through the model and likely through students' own speaking based on the model, the verb ir and its inflected forms. Apart from activating such vocabulary and grammar related to the main topic of the lesson, they also prime the students semantically and conceptually - activities people like or prefer to do, and activities they do when they are on holiday broadly activate the conceptual domain of unrealized events which is closely related to that of future time reference.

2. Input reading activity. Students will be given a printed copy of the text sample linked above, adapted from Viviendo de Viaje: Ruta por Asturias - Guía de Viaje (https://www.viviendodeviaje.com/ruta-por-asturias/#slider-inspira). They will first individually read the text in its entirety (interpretive reading, 7-8 minutes). They will then complete the following scaffolded activities and answer the following questions one by one:

   • Underline in the text the answers to the following questions (2 minutes).

• Según el plan, ¿Dónde se quieren quedar Tania y David en Oviedo?

• ¿Adónde se quieren ir después de visitar la Playa del Silencio?

• ¿Qué pueblo quieren visitar para terminar el primer día?

2. • Class discussion. The sentences in which these answers are found will be written on the blackboard by the instructor. What do the sentences in which these three answers are found have in common? How are these three plans expressed in Spanish? (3-5 minutes).

   • Mark in the text three sentences in which Tania and David address the reader directly. A number of volunteers will be asked to read out loud one of their chosen sentences, which the instructor will add to the blackboard. It is likely that instances of the ir a-future (e.g. os vais a desplazar... vais a tener que reservar...) and instances of other constructions (e.g. os recomendamos hacer base..., no os podéis ir...) will be given (3-5 minutes).

   • Classroom discussion. Some of the sentences added after the second activity have something in common with those first three sentences. Which ones? What do they have in common? Answers may address both form and function. If there are no volunteers/answers, students will think about it with a partner first and then come back to full class discussion. This will lead into a systematized teacher-oriented discussion of the ir a-future and its meanings (10 minutes).

   • Underline in the text any other instances you can find of the construction discussed. Instructor will call on volunteers to read them, and add them to the board (5 minutes).

   • Creative expansion activity. Imagine you are in Oviedo, ready to start the first day of your trip in Asturias. Based on Tania and David's recommendations, choose two activities you want to do today. Write a short text message to a family member or friend telling them about your plans for the day (presentational writing, 5 minutes).

3. Follow-up activity. Students will be divided into groups of 4-5. They will be given an A4-sized printed copy of the following image (adapted from https://www.spanishlearninglab.com/talking-about-the-future-in-spanish-pdf-worksheet/) and a four-sided die. Each student will choose one small object they have on them to mark their position on the board (a coin, eraser, pencil sharpener etc.). Students will take turns rolling the die and taking the number of steps indicated. They will answer the question or respond to the prompt on the space they land on, or perform the action a blue space tells them to. The first to arrive on the space marked "fin" is the winner (presentative speaking, 10-15 minutes).