A recent web search of mine resulted in a great Bell Work activity that I can use in a variety of my Spanish classes:  https://docs.google.com/a/nyu.edu/file/d/0BwpTsZx0NUnlYzA0YTcwYzItM2U3Mi00MmFiLWJjMmYtYzdjZGIzNzI4ZjE4/edit?hl=es&pli=1

Known as FICHAS in Spanish, these are essentially flash cards that can be printed out, which depict real information in the form of a nutrition label, a cover of a DVD, an advertisement in a store, etc.  A series of questions referring to the picture asks students information that they extract from the image.  It requires no background information but solely on looking at the picture to answer the questions.  I have used my SMARTboard to project the Ficha, or flash card and give my students a time frame of about 5 minutes to answer the questions.  The visuals are a great way of getting the students' attention, and because the Fichas have a variety of topics, the students are often curious and interested in this exercise.  It's a neat way to start class, allows for the use of different vocabulary from that of the text book, and because all of the answers can be found on this one card, it shows students how to pinpoint answers from text.   Try the link to show your students Fichas that have already been created, and maybe have students make their own!

I recently downloaded an APP on my iPad called Zite.  This program allows you to select topics of interest, like education, travel, health etc., and articles from a variety of reputable resources will pop up on Zite.  I've seen articles from The New York Times, The Huffington Post, and the Time magazine show up on Zite that all pertain to my areas of interest.  I love the ease of sharing relevant articles with other people, or even sending them to my school e-mail so I can pull them up for the class to read on the SMARTboard.  Zite has made reading the news more personalized for me and provides yet another resource for me as a teacher to share information with my students.  I would suggest downloading Zite and selecting your favorite topics, but also add a few topics that you don't know much about so you can expand your knowledge! It's great for your own pleasure reading and will certainly be useful for classroom if you are looking for authentic resources!

I spend a lot of time browsing the web to find useful resources to teach my Spanish classes.  I love when I find power point projects that I can borrow.  Recently though, I've been coming across "infographs"- a visual, graphic organizer that can be about ANY topic and it can be found in ANY language.  I have used infographs to introduce new vocabulary to my students and to spark their interest in a variety of topics.  Here's a recent example of an infograph that worked well in my Spanish 4 classroom.  Because we emphasis 21st century skills, it's important that students have an understanding of the history of technology.  The kids found this infograph to be fascinating and they learned new vocabulary words that we don't normally find in textbooks that tend to be out of date.  Feel free to copy this and try it in your Spanish class!
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