Sample Lesson Plan
Lesson Overview: This lesson was utilized in the middle of a unit on leisure and free time. Grammar points for this unit were verbs-
like-gustar, the present progressive, and ir a + infinitive. This particular lesson incorporates Total Physical Response to learn new
vocabulary, reviews verbs-like-gustar and the present progressive, and acts as direct practice towards the speaking assessment.
Standards (ACTFL):
Standard 1.1: Students engage in
conversations, provide and ob-
tain information, express feelings
and emotions, and exchange
opinions.
Standard 1.2: Students under-
stand and interpret written and
spoken language on a variety of
topics.
Standard 1.3: Students present
information, concepts, and ideas
to an audience of listeners or
readers on a variety of topics.
Standard 4.1: Students demon-
strate understanding of the na-
ture of language through com-
parisons of the language studied
and their own.
Objectives:
1. Students can learn and begin to
integrate new location vocabu-
lary through TPR and scaffolded
practice.
2. Students can use the present
progressive to describe what peo-
ple are doing in photos.
Rationale:
In order to practice the present
progressive and verbs-like-gustar
in a meaningful way, students
will describe what leisure activi-
ties people are participating in in
four photos, and then discuss
their feelings on those activities.
This lesson prepares them to de-
scribe where an action is taking
place, as well as provides prac-
tice with the present progressive.
Assessment:
Students will produce an individ-
ually written description of a
photo by the end of class. They
will demonstrate knowledge as a
class of new vocabulary with
TPR. They will give me a
thumbs up/thumbs down when I
check on understanding.
Language Target:
This lesson employs 95% target
language instruction.
Class: Spanish 1 – 90 minutes
Set-up/Materials: Display google slides, have 8 different photos printed (1 for each table),
have 1 marker per student at each table, write the structured formula for describing what is hap-
pening in a photo on the board. This is the formula:
La ubicación + hay + sujeto + que + presente progresivo (+detalles).
General Practices: Each lesson has a set of google slides with instructions, questions, and vis-
uals. Flashcard-cold-called students read instructions and questions out loud. This gives stu-
dents a chance to practice pronunciation and allows class to stay in the target language 95% of
the time as students can always refer to text and visuals during activities. This also helps facili-
tate a student-centered classroom.
Specific Activities
Time Activities Teacher Thinking
9 min How are you?
Students will express their emotions Standard 1.1: Students are describing
using words other than “bien, más o emotions and expanding upon them
menos, mal.” They will also utilize with new grammar concepts.
verbs-like-gustar and the present pro-
gressive in their responses. We will This warm-up helps students start
pair-share, with cold-called students thinking in Spanish and builds class-
answering how they are. room community.
Objectives
Students will read the objectives and be
reminded of the agenda on the side of
the board.
25 min TPR Vocabulary
Students will pull out their notebooks
and draw the vocabulary visual dis-
played on the board.
Standard 4.1: Students are analyzing
Students discuss with their groups how how we learn languages and consider-
we practiced our new vocabulary at the ing what works for them.
beginning of the unit, and why we did it
that way. Students will share their A question in English may serve here,
thoughts with the class. as students are really working on meta-
cognition.
Students repeat new vocabulary and
gestures after teacher. Once they run Some students may need encourage-
through all the vocabulary, students ment to participate. Previously all stu-
will show the gesture when teacher says dents warmed up to TPR once they
the vocab, and then say the vocab when knew they were all expected to partici-
teacher does the gesture. Students will pate.
then close their eyes and do the gestures
upon hearing the vocab.
Post-Lesson Annotation:
1. I asked students if TPR was effective for
them, and they gave overwhelmingly positive
feedback on the practice. I will continue to
use TPR.
2. Students were originally expected to uti-
lize grammar concepts right away when
speaking about how they were feeling. This
worked much better broken up into two
steps.
3. Students incorporated all new vocabulary
on their speaking assessments, but looking
back I would eliminate two vocabulary
phrases (la parte superior/inferior), as this
may have overwhelmed struggling students,
and higher-achieving students could have
described the same area by combining other
terms in a more complex sentence.
4. The scaffolding of the Photo Description
Practice worked well, and all students met
the objectives by the end of the class period.
8 min Photo Description Practice – I Do
Teacher will describe what someone in
a displayed photo is doing. Students
will discuss with their group where they
think the person is in the photo. On a
count of three, students will shout out
the location while performing the ap-
propriate gesture. Teacher will repeat
the correct location in a complete sen-
tence, using the formula on the board.
30 min Photo Description Practice – We Do
In their groups students will write 3-5
sentences describing their particular
photo, using the posted formula.
Teacher will check on each group and
assist students as necessary.
Students will choose a leader. Student
leader reads their group’s paragraph.
Other students look towards the board
to see all possible pictures displayed
and try to decide which photo they
think it is. On a count of three, students
will call out which photo they think it
is. Teacher will call on students and
ask why they think it is the photo they
chose. This will be repeated for each
group.
15 min Photo Description Practice – You Do
Students choose a photo their group did
not describe, and write a paragraph de-
scribing their photo using the formula.
Teacher will walk around and assist
students.
***Students will watch a demonstration
of how to find a partner who wrote
about the same picture. Students will
stand up and describe their picture to
their classmates to find a partner that
wrote about the same picture.
3 min Wrap-up
Students will read that their homework
is to practice vocabulary introduced this
lesson. They will be reminded that this
vocabulary is essential for their speak-
ing assessment.
Standard 1.2: Students
must work to understand
what I am saying and then
apply it to answer the ques-
tion.
Standard 1.3: Students
must write a paragraph
their group will present to
the class.
I will choose groups ran-
domly to help students stay
engaged. I will also ask
students why they chose
their response, as I believe
it’s important to push deep-
er and communicate at a
high level that might be
slightly outside of their
comfort zone.
This completes the I do-we
do-you do practice on de-
scribing photos. I will
check student writing and
listen in on their conversa-
tions to see if they were
able to use the new struc-
ture and vocabulary.
***This can be cut or ex-
tended as necessary de-
pending on how earlier ac-
tivities go. If extended, call
on students to share some
of their paragraphs.
Students are expected to
practice 10-15 minutes
each night, but this explicit
reminder should help them
focus their practice time.