Sample Speaking/Reading/Writing Activity:
Travels through Asturias and Cantabria

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:

• Prepare an itinerary along multiple Spanish cities, and describe which tourist attractions in them they would like to visit.

• Compare different potential holiday destinations.

• Discuss their preferences for holiday destinations.

• Summarize and justify the plans they made for their trip both in writing and orally.

• Extract central and supporting information from touristic materials.

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 some vocabulary related to leisure activities and travel at this point in the course. They are expected to have familiarized themselves with present-tense verbs and modals such as querer, gustar, and preferir, as well as the ir a-future.

Jigsaw Activity : Un Viaje por el Norte de España.

1. Duration: 25-30 minutes.

2. Description: The focus of this activity is for the students to work together on planning a trip through the north of Spain, specifically the Comunidades Autónomas of Asturias and Cantabria. They will describe which places they want to go to on their trip and why, and how they will get there. This activity builds on previous classes, in which students will have practised the use of gustar and related verbs, as well as the ir a-future.

3. Materials: Four posters with information about the largest cities in Asturias and Cantabria.

   • • Poster A: Oviedo. Contains information about tourist destinations in Oviedo (e.g. Cathedral, University, plazas), its location (close to Avilés and Gijón, close to Parques Naturales), connections by road and public transport, prices for flights into and out of Asturias, prices for accommodation, one or two fictional TripAdvisor reviews.

     • Poster B: Gijón. Contains information about tourist destinations in Gijón (e.g. Campa Torres settlement, Neolithic dolmens), its location (close to Avilés and Oviedo, close to the ocean), connections by road and public transport, prices for flights into and out of Asturias, prices for accommodation, one or two fictional TripAdvisor reviews.

     • Poster C: Avilés. Contains information about tourist destinations in Avilés (e.g. museums, Interceltic festival, cathedrals and palaces), its location (close to Oviedo and Gijón, close to the ocean), connections by road and public transport, prices for flights into and out of Asturias, prices for accommodation, one or two fictional TripAdvisor reviews.

     • Poster D: Santander. Contains information about tourist destinations in Santander (e.g. Museo Marítimo, Palacio de la Magdalena, Cathedral), its location (further away from the three other cities, on the coast, close to the Estuario del Miera), connections by road and public transport, prices for flights into and out of Cantabria, prices for accommodation, one or two fictional TripAdvisor reviews.

4. Procedure:

   • • Put up the four posters in the four corners of the class.

     • Divide the class into "base groups" of 4. Assign each student a letter (A through D), as well as each corner.

     • Direct every student to their assigned corner. "Expert groups" (e.g. all people assigned A in the corner with the Oviedo poster) have 5-7 minutes to read the poster and discuss with the other people in their expert group what they like or do not like about the destination. (interpretive listening mode of communication to understand the instructions, interpretive reading to understand information on the poster, interpersonal speaking mode of communication to discuss likes and dislikes about assigned city with classmates in the same "expert group").

     • Students return to their "base groups". Base groups have 12-15 minutes to discuss their findings from the respective posters they examined, and to discuss what their ideal itinerary would be for a 5-day trip through these two Comunidades Autónomas, including accomodations, transport, activities for each day. (Interpersonal speaking mode of communication to negotiate preferences with group members and agree on an itinerary and plan).

     • Each group briefly presents their itinerary through Asturias and Cantabria, tells the class where they are going, what they are going to do, and why. 2-2.5 minutes per group (Presentational speaking mode of communication).

5. Rubric - See below.

Reading/writing Activity.

1. Re-read the text sample linked above. Students should have read this text prior to this class session, in the session about the grammar of the ir a-future. The text is adapted from Viviendo de Viaje: Ruta por Asturias - Guía de Viaje (https://www.viviendodeviaje.com/ruta-por-asturias/#slider-inspira).

2. Questions. (Interpretive reading mode of communication, for the short-answer questions also presentational writing mode of communication).

   1. ¿Cierto o falso? Corrijan las aserciones falsas.

      • En Cudillera, todas las casas tienen un color distinto porque los dueños las pintan con los colores de su equipo de fútbol favorito.

      • Solamente se puede llegar a la Playa del Silencio en colectivo.

      • En el faro de Cabo de Peñas, puedes entrar cuando quieras.

   2. Contesten a las siguientes preguntas.

      • ¿Dónde recomiendan hacer base en una recorrida por Asturias? Escriba por lo menos dos razones por lo que es un buen lugar para hacer base.

      • ¿Cuál de los lugares descritos te gustaría más visitar? ¿Por qué? ¿Cuál te interesa menos?

3. Writing activity. Your university has a small, competitive fund from which they award grants to language students who want to travel through a country in which their target language is spoken. The fund is meant to allow such language students to be immersed in their target language and culture for a week or more. Write a formal letter (around half a page) to the grants committee to try to convince them to fund your trip to Asturias. Include the following:

   2. • Appropriate greeting

      • Where you are travelling (destinations from the text or from the posters for the jigsaw activity)

      • What you will be visiting or which activities you will be doing

      • Why they should fund your trip

      • Rough budget

      • Appropriate farewell

4. Rubric: See below.