Pizza Faces – Maintaining conversation for intermediate performance

I think I should have been starting online classes with pizza faces from the beginning.

I mean, sneaking in a few Spanish essentials and practicing with a useful tool early on–those are noble pedagogical goals, right? And starting with such small, familiar language chunks can help hit the ground running but in a way that is totally comfortable and confidence building!

But more importantly, their faces are HILARIOUS. Starting off with reaction videos to your teacher’s pizza preferences sets a fun, intimate–yet totally school appropriate–tone for the course.  And taking silly selfies first thing? What better way to get the positive vibes flowing?  Plus it could give me the perfect running gag to acknowledge common ground and individual quirks.

Intermediate skills

The truth is, though, that I was actually a third of the way into my second semester of Spanish III online when I thought of this activity. Several of my kiddos were giving me complete sentences in conversation, asking and answering questions, and they were ready to move up.

You see, one important thing that intermediate speakers can do is maintain a conversation in the target language. It is one of three indicators that separate I1 from I2 on the interpersonal AAPPL rubric (the others being “more than one sentence” and “questions” rather than just “simple questions.”)

But what does “maintaining a conversation” look like?

My first thought is of course follow-up questions–questions that are completely spontaneous and completely dependent on what your conversation partner says. But if you’re really maintaining a conversation and not just rattling off memorized questions, there needs to be an in-between step that really demonstrates the listening. You have to acknowledge the answers that the other person gives.

Task setup