I love the first days of class! It is exciting to be back, and it is an opportunity to get everyone off to a good start. Starting back, I try to use activities where kids are sharing information about themselves in Spanish. I create activities that use familiar vocabulary, have pictures, and are structured to let kids hear and then produce Spanish.
Talking about things they like with gustar, kids can share personal information, either as a class, in pairs or both. I do a simple activity where the students have a pair of pictures, circle the one they like more, and then share that information.
First, as a group we go through the activity and students circle their answers. This way, students hear the vocabulary before they produce it. ¿Les gustan más las manzanas o los plátanos? ¿Les gusta más nadar o andar en bicicleta? Ideally, students circle the pictures as they hear the language and do not work ahead. To keep the group together, I ask them to point to the options as they hear me say them. I also point to the pictures and act out the verbs.
Then I tell them, Marca tu respuesta. Younger students want to share their answers right away, as we go. With older students, we can go through the whole activity, and then I can ask individual students to share their answers if they need to hear the vocabulary again. Then they can share in pairs.
This is a simple enough activity that you can adapt it to many situations. I change the handout depending on the level and age of the students. With students who are not reading yet, I just use pictures. I label the pictures for students who are beginning to read and include the question with some groups. You can use the links below to view and print the three different versions.
¿Cuál te gusta más? sin palabras
¿Cuál te gusta más? con palabras
¿Cuál te gusta más? con preguntas
Megan Quantrill
Aug 22, 2011
A fabulous resource! I find gustar difficult to teach adults, but kids will naturally get it if they have enough scaffolding and practice – thanks so much for uploading these pages!
susan
Aug 22, 2011
Another great activity. Gustar still gets me with the singular and plural…I always just want to say ‘me gusta’ for everything. Happy back to school! We don’t start until after Labor Day.
Cecilia Salgado
Sep 18, 2016
Thank you for sharing this activity. Students love to talk about their likes and dislikes. It’s pretty smart to start them on this right away the first days of school.