Creating Disney World Directions in Spanish Helps Students Learn
Second year Spanish students have a unit on giving formal commands. Giving directions to a stranger at Disney World makes the exercise more realistic, so I collected maps in Spanish at Magic Kingdom, Epcot Center, Animal Kingdom & Hollywood Studios. I created 4 stations, one for each park, and placed their maps at each station. Then I created 3 versions of worksheets listing a pair of attractions at each park. Students had to write directions they would give a stranger who asked them how to get from the first attraction to the last one. Students were given a “ticket” for one of the parks as they entered the classroom which designated the “park” they would “visit” first. This created a random grouping of students. Then I distributed all 3 different forms of the worksheets at each table. This gave the students in each group separate activities to accomplish. Each student could move at his/her own pace and progress around the stations in a clock-wise direction. They could also help each other although they didn’t all have the same “mission.”
Challenges or Obstacles:
- Students tend to want to copy each other’s papers, so I made the different versions of the worksheets. It was easy to do on a computer.
- Some students could not finish, so I graded the “quality” of their work versus “quantity.” (I used to assign 2 sets of directions per park, but this proved to be impractical.)
- Some students may bother others while working. I just kept an eye on them as they worked. I was able to separate students by moving one to another station in order to separate them.
Benefits and Successes:
- Students stayed “on task” throughout the activity and were highly interested in it. They worked at their own pace and felt a sense of accomplishment each time they moved from one “theme park” to the next.
- Since they had already studied the necessary vocabulary, the activity was practical and completed in a timely manner.
- Most students said they enjoyed the stations and now they want to go to Disney World and practice directions in ‘real life.” 🙂
- Each student could work and progress around the stations at his/her own pace.
- They could also help each other although they didn’t all have the same “mission.” Students who helped each other would discover that all the directions were linked.
Additional Material:
Submitted by: Betsy Fitzgerald, Muncie Central High School