Field Trip Talk: Can-Do Conversation Checklists

Then I prepared a list of possible questions that would fulfill those Can-Dos, scrambled ’em up, and had the kiddos sort them into the three aforementioned Can-Do groups (before I let them see my groups, and definitely before they glued the questions into their notebooks).

We took the sorting pretty quickly to get in more rehearsal time, but if I had started the process sooner–say before spring break–we would have spent more time discussing what questions went where and why, perhaps with a Nearpod breakdown of each category.

Then I gave them a master list of questions they could take with them–with ALL of the Can-Dos in their Can-Do categories and ALL of the questions.

In English.

I had them go through the list without their notes and star the questions they thought they could say in Spanish. Then we compared to their notes and went through the English list as they repeated the Spanish version of the question after me.

We’ll be doing a cross between “speed friending” a Sra.Toth’s Yellow Brick Road (without the yellow bricks, probably). My kiddos will line up with some of the kiddos an amiga from another school is bringing and talk to each kid they can for 60 seconds, getting as many questions in as they can.

So we practiced our own speed friending. And then we’ll practice with partners. And then we’ll practice with different questions. And then we’ll practice with different scenarios. And then we’ll practice some more.

But they can only look at the English list they’ve starred up, so they have to produce the L2 off the top of their heads–BUT they can focus on what they’re confident with OR what they need to work on.

When it comes to portfolios, one of those essential Spanish class sentences that is right up there with “¿Cómo se dice?” and “¿Puedo usar el baño?” has got to be “¿Puedo grabar?” These will be quick 60-second, three-question recordings that they can edit together or delete entirely after they’ve gotten what they needed. And, just to keep things 

I designed festival-specific questions, but really you can substitute experience-specific details for the parts I bolded in each:

So the bold details could be switched out for the restaurant–or water walk–scenarios like this:

1. trabajar en un restaurante
   tener acceso fácil a agua todo el tiempo
   
2. plato en el restaurante
   uso de agua en tu casa
   
3. trabajar en un restaurante
   caminar para agua
   
4. tu plato favorito
   para usar agua para bañar o cocinar en países sin acceso en la casa
   
5. trabajo
   no tener acceso al agua en casa
   
6. empleados en el restaurante
   la caminata con agua
   
7. trabajo normalmente
   para ayudar a personas sin acceso al agua

This way if someone A) doesn’t get enough evidence for the next round of portfolios during speed friending, or B) is feeling friendly, or C) has a particularly cruel Spanish teacher watching their every mouthful at the restaurant making sure they’re maintaining the target language, they can simply use the same format and vary their details. Voila!

Presentational Follow-up

I also took the Novice Mid and High writing Can-Dos and mashed them up into two sets of reflective assignments from which the young ones may choose, depending on their current portfolio levels.

Novice Mids will label a map of the campus where we’ll be competing with things that happened at the festival. Novice Highs (and the small handful of intermediates) will write brief thank you cards to their group members, naming contributions each one offered in the whole process. If you can’t get your hands on a map of your field trip zone, have them make it! And in any good field trip, there will be someone who deserves a thank you note, right?

But the critical part that everyone will have to do–Novice OR Intermediate–is write up what they learned for the next generation. They will write a letter that includes:

• what they have done that helped them prepare
• qualities they have observed in winning (or losing) acts at the festival
• recommendations for next year’s group to prepare

For non-competitive field trips, I would recommend recording simple observations and how they lined up with their expectations before the trip, but the rest is pretty much the same.