Classroom Activities

Many different ways to teach verbs in a foreign language classroom exist. Due to the complexity of the verbs "to be" and "to have", Raquel and I felt pressured to create educational and understandable lessons that wouldn’t confuse nor bore our students. We knew that if we wanted students this young to truly grasp these difficult concepts, we needed to create activities that were fun and engaging.

After giving an initial lesson on each verb, their rules, and their uses, Raquel and I transitioned to games and activities with the class as a whole or in small groups. We found having students work together collectively was the most effective and engaging because students loved the activities and games we planned. We either played games as a class or students worked in small groups with 3-4 classmates that Raquel and I created based on comprehension level. These groups transitioned between five different “working stations” placed all over the classroom. They collectively practiced the verbs “to be” and “to have” by building and creating sentences based on their own body features, appearance, age, clothing, and emotions. We found that having students talk about themselves gave them more confidence to use these verbs in the classroom.