AFTER SCHOOL SPANISH CLUB

[LOLLY]

Help, i am about to start an after school spanish club in the summer term. Any ideas?

there will be a group of teachers involved in this, so not a solo project. I want to make it as fun as possible.

[Isabelle Jones]

Hi Lolly

How much time will you get for this? How old will be the children? You say other teachers will be involved, in what way? Will parents be contributing financially to this? If parents pay extra for the club, they will want to see what has been done. So, even if all your activities are listening and speaking, you would really have to provide a booklet for them to see what their child is doing and so that they can hopefully support it from home too. Will you have internet access? There are lots of fun online activies about... if not, I would advise singing, dancing (!!), stories, using drama games and other cross-curricular approaches e.g. PE games, cooking, craft etc...

Good luck with it all.

Isabelle
http://isabellejones.blogspot.com

[LOLLY]

we hope to have something in place after Easter. it is purely voluntary with no charge. we hope to attract about 20 children from years 3-6. we will have access to the computer suite and hall.I foresee it to be fun based and very hands on. teaching across Ks2 will begin from September

[Jo Rhys-Jones]

Have you got a budget for resources at all?

If you have Internet access there is free stuff around - youtube clips like Lisa's Vaca Lola (see main post) are great and if you tube is blocked at school you can always convert the clip using a site like zamzar and download it at home to play later at school.

Use the maths resources - number fans etc - to play games and learn spanish numbers. Lots of songs and stories usually go down well. If you can buy spanish books even better - try European Schoolbooks.
Take 10 is coming out in Spanish soon and will have DVD and CD - great fun.

Any chance of trying some Spanish food? Playing some spanish playground games? Check out Lisa's vamanos blog (see main page) and Isabelle may have some ideas too.

[Chris]

Hello Lolly

If you don't mind my saying so, I think you need to have some sort of an idea where you want to go with this, then we can give you more specific help. Your initial post is very vague, which is why you probably aren't getting the types of replies you might have hoped for.

For example, what kind of linguistic goals do you have in mind, if any? What expectations do you have for the attendees who come to your clubs? Do you want the classes to be all fun, or do you also want to see some measurable lingustic gains? The two don't always go together, leading to disappoiment down the line.

If you're starting up Spanish as a timetabled subject in your primary from September, and presumably you'll be carrying on with the clubs, I would tend to focus on the more cultural aspects of Spanish speaking countries, crafted to support what you're teaching in regular classes. You can work the language into the culture etc.

How good is your Spanish? Do the other teachers speak any Spanish, or are you all going to learn it as you go along (which is possible, especially with Spanish - you've made a very good move in choosing Spanish rather than French)?

I would advise having a long-term plan, even if it is just a club, otherwise you may be dooming it to failure before you even begin. Just my thoughts.

Good luck with it all.

Chris

[Jayne Jackson]

Hi Lolly,

If you haven't already come across the schoolslinks website, then I would recommend taking a look since there is a good range of ready prepeared Spanish flashcards and posters that will undoubtedly save you a lot of preparation time:
http://www.schoolslinks.co.uk/resources_mfl.htm

Also, if you are going to have access to an interactive whiteboard (?), then you may wish to consider subscribing to the babelzone website from lcfclubs.com - there's a very minimal cost involved for a single user licence and the activities, which follow the QCA 24 units for MFL, are all really engaging for KS2 learners.
http://www.lcfclubs.com/babelzoneNEW/

Wishing you every success in your new venture :)

[debby]

I think its is good idea and you should move on. sprachreisen spanien are also good courses available in Spanish universities. I appreciate with your idea and its really good.