How to Easily Structure a 50-minute Spanish Class Period

This post should be called "How to structure your 50-minute Spanish class period so students listen, speak, read, and write Spanish every day", but that's way too long. 🙃

It's definitely not possible for students to do a listening activity AND a speaking activity AND a reading activity AND a writing activity absolutely every single day.

But let's make that our lofty goal, mmmkay?

Or at least hit all 4 of those several times a week.

50 minutes goes by fast, so if you're wondering how in the world you can do that in your classroom - here's how I do it.

Some Fine Print

I should start by saying that this is not The Only Way or The Best Way to structure your 50-minute class period. There are tons of ways to do it.

This is what has worked for me in middle and high school classrooms. Please take my ideas and make them work for you and your classroom.

Okay now that we have that out of the way...

The Why

Let's start with why you want to structure your class periods in (roughly) the same format every day.

Students (and honestly everyone) thrive in routine. They like knowing what to expect each day.

Also, it's easier to plan your lessons when you know what parts you need to create and fill in. It lessens decision fatigue for you.

How I structure a 50-minute class period

... to include listening, speaking, reading, and writing activities and not overload students' brains.

For this example, let's imagine I teach a Spanish class in a middle or high school from 8:00am until 8:50am.

My general agenda for the period will look like this:

8:00-8:05am bell work (5 mins)

8:05-8:20am teach that day's new vocab or grammar lesson with an animated powerpoint (15 mins)

8:20-8:45am classwork (25 mins)

8:45-8:50am exit ticket (5 mins)

Bell Work

I make sure the bell work is so easy that absolutely every single student can do it without my assistance.

It's also something that every single student can do in 2-3 minutes. Matching vocabulary words with a clipart image, fill in the blank with the correct form of the verb that they absolutely have in yesterday's notes... They get 4-5 minutes, so it should be enough time for them to get settled, open their notebooks, and get started.

Sometimes I review the bell work and sometimes I don't. It depends how easy it is or if students have questions.

The Lesson

I use an animated powerpoint to teach that day's vocab or grammar or whatever the lesson is. I include lots of choral repetition, so students have ample practice saying the words before they get the classwork.

Some lessons will be much shorter than 15 minutes. Some will be longer.

Classwork

Depending on how long it took to teach that day's vocab or grammar, I have about 25-ish minutes for classwork.

If students spend 5-10 minutes on each activity, then I can give them 3-5 activities total.

Exit Ticket

I give students an exit ticket in the last 5 minutes of class, which they put in a bin on their way out the door.

This will be more challenging than the bell work, but something students can do in just a few minutes to show me if they understood the lesson or not.

Pro Tips

I have a timer and I use it religiously for just about every activity students do. It's got a magnet on the back and it's on the whiteboard, so I can't lose it.

I try not to spend more than 10 minutes on any one activity. Interest wanes and chaos increases after that.