Why learn Spanish? Activity - Great for the first few days back to school.

So, your middle schoolers or high schoolers have chosen Spanish as their second language. But why? Why would it be beneficial to learn Spanish? Well, there are many videos and books that talk about all the reasons why this is beneficial, but what do their peers think? You know that at the end of the day a child will listen to someone their age more than to a video or an adult (a.k.a parents or teachers). Now, sometimes we can use that in our favor and other times, well not so much!

But this time, we will use it in our favor. We will ask the children on the first day (either in person or digitally), why is it a good idea to learn Spanish? The answers will amaze you, but one thing to keep in mind is to make sure that the answers are genuine and that they are not based on what their parents told them were good reasons to learn Spanish. This will make the activity a lot more meaningful!

Once they have come up with the reasons why they are learning Spanish, then talk about the history of Spanish in the American continent. How did so many countries ended up speaking Spanish? This will obliviously lead you to talk about the conquest by Spain. Then provide a brief explanation about the different native groups that lived in those countries before Spain arrived. When I did this activity in the classroom, I focused on the language they spoke, their economy and their type of art. We spent some time looking at Mayan and Aztec weaving art used in "sarapes" and "huipiles". We discuss how colorful they were and the symbolism of some of the patterns. For this part of the presentation just find pictures and pull them up to discuss, or if you have any items of your own, bring them to class so the students can see them and appreciate them better.

Lastly, we put together the two activities we worked on "why learn Spanish?" and "Mayan/Aztec weaving".

I provided the students with about 3 feet of brown butcher paper. They worked together as a class to create vibrant patterns on the paper, the patterns had to be inspired by what we learned about Mayan/Aztec weaving. They used oil pastels to color the patterns, this gave such a vibrant design that made their creation look really nice. Once their designs were finished, then they added the word "español" and the reasons why learn it. This was perfect as an opening activity for the year. It created a great sense of community as they collaborated together in a relaxed and friendly atmosphere.

Here's a picture of what ours looked like, this one was done by 6th grade. Also, I am attaching a template that can be used by printing it out and coloring in the designs as a lot of schools going back this year are doing it virtually. Hope you give it a try and that you and your students enjoy the activity!

Here is the template needed if you would like to use it for individual students or digitally

why learn Spanish .pdf

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