A Fun Project Students Will Actually Love: Authentic Foods

Most beginning Spanish 1 students probably think that everyone in the Spanish-speaking world eats tacos.

And while it's true some people in Spanish-speaking countries do eat tacos - not everyone does. And there are other foods besides tacos!

If you're looking for an idea to teach students about foods of the Spanish-speaking world and expand their vocabulary beyond "los tacos", then have I got an idea for you!

Hispanic Foods Webquest & Menu Project

So this 3-day project is 2 parts: first the webquest, and then the menu project.

How to set up the webquest

1. Choose 3 countries you want to focus on that have very different traditional foods. It's easier if you choose places you're familiar with. I chose Spain, Mexico, and Peru.

You could choose more than 3 countries, but you want students to complete the webquest in 1 (50-minute) period. Add more countries if you have more time.

2. Do some research about what the traditional and common foods are in the 3 countries you chose. Find websites that clearly explain what the foods are in those countries.

Avoid websites that discuss alcohol (because #teenagers 🙄) or have long dense text.

Make sure it's on an appropriate reading level for your students.

I have found wikipedia to be super helpful in either having great info about traditional foods, or having sources with great info.

3. Type up questions about the foods you want to students to learn about, with the links you want them to use for the info.

It's easier if the questions go in the order of the reading. If students get stumped, teach them that CTRL + F will find a word so they don't have to search quite as much for the answer to each question.

I recommend about writing 1 question per minute of class time, but subtract the time it will take students to settle down, log onto the computer, and open the internet (10-15 mins in my experience) and subtract the last 5 minutes logging off and collecting papers. So for a 50-minute period, this is about 35 questions.

Some thoughts on 📝 vs 💻 ...

💻 If your classroom is completely virtual, then you can make the webquest a Google Doc and assign each student their own version. That makes the links easy peasy because students can literally just click them and then type directly into the document and submit it virtually.

📝 If your classroom uses paper, then you might have to make students type in the websites you chose. 😬 This means you want to choose websites that don't have absurdly long addresses that students will mess up. Or you can have them google search the website and important words from the first question to find the site without having to type everything in.

📝 If your classroom uses paper, but you have a classroom website, you could list the links on your website if it's easy for students to access. Number the links and direct students in your directions on the webquest to "click on link #1" or whatever is easiest for students.

How to set up the project

The idea behind this project is that students are opening a restaurant in their hometown with authentic foods that they learned about with the webquest.

They choose 1 country's food that they learned about to base their menu on.

I also make sure if I'm requiring their menu to have at least 6 foods, then the webquest includes at least 8 for each country. So they still have plenty of choice about what their menu looks like.

Students need the webquest in order to make their menu, which means if you collected the webquest at the end of the previous day's period, you have to pass them back. So if you're going to grade the webquests, you only have a 24 hour window.

I highly recommend the ✔️, ✔️➕, ✔️➖ system that is just marks on paper, so students think it's been graded, but you absolutely did not touch your grade book.

I have students create their "menu" on powerpoint. I ❤️ powerpoint. Google Slides will work the same.