Ben Schilaty
Unit lesson plans for SPAN 101. Based on chapter 1 of the BYU SPAN 101 textbook.
Lesson 1
Objective: Students will be able to greet one another formally and informally, ask someone how they’re
doing and describe how they are doing.
Functions: Students will ask two people how they’re doing formally and two people how they’re doing
informally. Students will respond using adjectives from the chapter.
5 minutes: Bienvenida
8 minutes: Discuss the difference between tú and usted. I will show pictures of older people (i.e.
President Monon) along with the word usted and do the same thing with the word tú. Students see
pictures of people/animals and decide if they would address them as tú or usted. Explain that in some
hispanic families children refer to their parents with usted.
7 minutes: Read dialogue on page 4 as a class and discuss the differences between buenos días, buenas
tardes, and buenas noches. Students do activity B on page 5 to reenforce greeting and the difference
between
10 minutes: Introduce students to the other subject pronouns using pictures and students in the
classroom (yo, nosotros, ustedes, él, ella, ellos, ellas).
5 minutes: Introduce vocabulary on page 6 (adjectives). Point out the difference between nervioso and
nerviosa by showing a picture of a nervious boy and nervious girl.
15 minutes: teach students the difference between ¿Cómo estás? and ¿Cómo está usted? Also, teach
them how to respond by saying Estoy…. I will then give students a worksheet that will be filled out
during the following activity. Half of the class will receive ties and everyone in the class will be given a
piece of paper with an adjective on it. Students will ask four other students their name and how they
are doing. Students with ties must be addressed as usted. Students will write down the response on
their paper and some will be presented to the class.
Lesson 2
Objective: Students will be able to name objects in the classroom using the correct articles.
5 minutes: Bienvenida
5 minutes: Read the first paragraph of the introduction to The Book of Mormon. Point out the definite
and indefinte articles in the paragraph. Draw a chart showing masculine, feminine, singular and plural
articles.
5 minutes: Explain how to pluralize nouns (casas → casas, actividad → actividades, luz → luces). I will
use pictures to help students to see the difference between plural and singular.
10 minutes: Show students various examples of nouns with their article (la señora, el señor, la
manzana, el libro, la mujer, el hombre). Explain that words that end in –o are usually masculine and
words that end in –a are usually feminine. Show some exceptions to the rule and explain that words
that end in –e or a constant have genders that can’t be predicted. Show students how to look up the
gender of a word in the dictionary or on rae.es.
15 minutes: Give students a worksheet that requires them to select which article goes with which noun
and go over the answers as a class.
5 minutes: I will give students a sheet with some verses from the Book of Mormon. Using pictures I will
explain the context and students will underline any articles that they see.
5 minutes: Go over the days of the week. Sing the days of the week to the tune of “Friar John.”
Lesson 3
Objective: Students will describe what is in the classroom using the verbs ser, estar and haber.
5 minutes: Bienvenida
10 minutes: Read the dialouge on page 9 focusing on the verb hay. Ask students ¿Hay
escritorios/árboles/estudiantes en el cuarto? Students will have a worksheet with some sentences on it
using the verb hay. With a partner students will decide if each sentence is true or not. If it is not true,
they will come up with a new sentence.
10 minutes: Tell students things that I do in the summer and contrast that with what I do during the fall
(descanso en el sol/estudio). Ask students what they do in the summer. Play the song “El verano
terminó” from High School Musical: El desafío. Students will have the lyrics and as they listen to the
song they will underline any articles they see. After the song I will point out the verbs and show how
they all end in –ar, er- or –ir.
10 minutes: Explain how to use the phrase voy a …. and give of examples of how to use it (el lunes voy a
estudiar). I will give the students a short list of verbs they can use and they will write out what they are
going to do each day of the week. Students will practice writing and saying sentences with vamos a __________ using verbs from the song.
10 minutes: We will review section C on page 8 which says that ser is used to describe characteristics
and identify and estar is used to show location and describe conditions. I will give various examples of
how the two verbs work and contrast them (estoy nervioso/soy nervioso).
5 minutes: Students will have a worksheet and they will use ser to write sentences to describe their
families and estar to say where they are.
Lesson 4
Objective: Students will be able to tell others their phone number and their addresses using numbers
and questions.
5 minutes: Bienvenida
5 minutes: Explain to the class that El Conde de Contar wants to help us get dates by teaching us how to
use numbers. Go over numbers 0-10. After going over the numbers I will hold up signs with numbers
on them and students will have to shout out the number I am holding up. I will place numbers on
objects around the room and ask ¿Dónde está el cinco?
10 minutes: Go over how to say, ¿Cuál es tu dirección? Give students a piece of paper with an
imaginary address. We will pretend that everyone will be going on a vacation and would like to send
postcards to class members while they’re gone. Students must ask four people what their address is
and write it down so that they can send them a postcard.
10 minutes: Explain to students that phone numbers in Spanish are usually given in pairs (3-18-39-81).
Teach them how to say ¿Cuál es tu teléfono? Go over numbers 11-20 and watch the video of Kermit and
a little girl counting in Spanish. Then go over numbers 21-20 and big number up to 100.
10 minutes: have students do activity B on page 11.
10 minutes: Give each student an imaginary phone number and have them ask four students for the
number. They will write each number down. If students finish quickly, the worksheet will also have
some numbers written out in pairs. Students will decide which number in the pair is larger.
Lesson 5
Objective: Students will ask questions using the words qué, cuándo, cuál, dónde and cuánto. They will
use these question words to ask others about their families.
5 minutes: Bienvenida.
15 minutes: Active students prior knowledge by talking about the game Clue and how players need to
figure out who committed the crime with what weapon and where. Through a PowerPoint students are
introduced to detective Sherlock Holmes. He is investigating a crime involving the robbery of 101
dalmatians. In the presentation Sherlock Holmes will ask various characters where the crime took place,
when, etc. Pictures will be used to help students understand the questions.
10 minutes: Read the dialogue on page 16 as a class. Discuss the difference between
cuánto/cuánta/cuántos/cuántas. Teach class how to say ¿Cuánto _______ tienes? and model how to
ask and answer the question. Students will then ask three other students how many
brothers/sisters/nieces/nephews they have.
5 minutes: Teach class how to say cumpleaños. I will tell the class that my birthday is February 2nd, el
día de la candelaria. I will show the class a Spanish calendar and explain that each day has a saint and
many people are named after the saint of the day they were born. Had I been Catholic my name may
have been Candelario.
10 minutes: Teach class how to say the months and show pictures to reinforce when each month is
(hearts for febrero, etc.). Teach students to say el primero for the first of the month. Teach students
how to say ¿Cuándo es tu cumpleaños? Es el _______ de ________. Model how to ask someone when
their birthday is. Go over how to ask someone how old they are and how to respond. Model for the
students.
15 minutes: Students will then be asked to ask six of their classmates when their birthday is and how
old they are. They will have a worksheet that will help them do this.
Lesson 6
Objective: Students will be able to say what they like and don’t like and ask others what they like by
using the verb gustar.
5 minutes: Bienvenida (dicho, canción, oración)
5 minutes: Go over examples of things that I like and don’t like using the PowerPoint (me gusta la
comida china, no me gusta el fútbol americano). Ask students what they like and write their answers on
the board.
5 minutes: Listen to Me Gustas Tú by Manu Chao and have students complete the worksheet by having
them put the song lyrics in order.
5 minutes: Using the first verse of Me Gustas Tú discuss the difference between gusta and gustan.
10 minutes: Students do actividad 2. Explain that person A will ask person B if he/she likes the thing in
the first box. Person B will then answer the question and ask person A if they like the thing in the
adjacent box. Students should respond with me gusta mucho, me gusta un poco, no me gusta mucho or
no me gusta nada.
5 minutes: Explain what ¿Qué te gusta hacer? means and give examples on PowerPoint.
15 minutes: Have students fill out survey sheet and report back to the class.
Lesson 7
Objective: Students will be able to say what they do at different hours of the day and ask at what time
things happen.
5 minutes: Bienvenida
10 minutes: To activate prior students’ prior knowledge I will ask students what they do during the day.
Then I will ask them when they do those things. I will show students a copy of my daily schedule and say
a las seis de la mañana me levanto, a las dos de la tarde tomo una siesta, ect. emphasizing patterns
(getting up at 6:00 am was just an example, I would NEVER do that in real life unless I absolutely had to
=). I will ensure that my schedule includes times such as 12:15, 3:30 and 4:45. We will discuss these
differences.
10 minutes: Students will work with partners. Person A will have a list of questions and a schedule,
person B will have a different set of questions and a different schedule. Person A will ask ¿A qué
hora….? and person B will have to look on their schedule for the answer. Then person B asks person A a
question. I will model this activity before students are asked to do it.
10 minutes: Teach students how to say ¿Qué hora es? and how to respond. Emphasize the difference
between es la una and son las … After showing multiple examples I will show pictures of clocks and ask
students what time it is. They will write down their answer and I will call on someone to say the answer.
7 minutes: On the same worksheet as before students will have 8 pictures of digital and analog clocks.
Partners will take turns asking each other ¿Qué hora es? and responding.
10 minutes: Explain to students what a cognate is. I will show them some very simple cognates like
animal and auto. I will then explain some simple cognate rules like words that and in –ty in English end
in –dad in Spanish. I will read some words in Spanish and students will guess what they mean. I will also
introduce some false cognates like embarasado and actual.