The end of the semester or the school year is exciting but also hard. We want to keep helping our students to acquire the language but we’re exhausted. These five low prep end-of-the-school-year/semester activities can help you finish strong without burning out.
Why do I love these 5 end-of-the-school-year?semester activities so much? Because all of them reflect my 3 pillars when it comes to my comprehensible input-based class: Connections, Comprehension, and Communication.
Do you want to know more about comprehensible input? Get my free Guide to Comprehensible Input with my Lesson Planning Framework and Pillars. Click here to download your guide.
So let’s start with these 5 low prep end-of-the-school-year/semester activities to finish strong:
Star Student Interview:
If you follow me you know that one of my favorite activities to do in my class is the Star Student Interview. I learned his activity from Bryce Hedstrom. If you want to read more about this activity, click here.
I do the Star Student Interview during the entire year with some frequency. However, in the last two weeks of school or semester, I do it almost every day. Why? It’s a low-stakes student-driven activity. It´s also a stand-alone activity. If my student misses the class before, it doesn’t matter. They still can understand and participate. Without a doubt, this is in the top 5 of my end-of-the-school-year or semester activities.
At this point of the year, a lot of our students feel more comfortable with each other. We can use that to our benefit. Most of the students want to know about their classmates’ plans for the break or the highlights for the year. That´s probably what they will be talking about in the hallways.
So let´s bring those conversations to the class but in the target language. In addition, this activity is not only about the student interviewed, but the connections with other students in the class.
How can we make this activity a success? Keep it short, enjoyable, and comprehensible. Remember the goal is to get to know our students using comprehensible language and not to practice any grammar structure. Let’s not make the Star Student Interview a practice language activity.
These are my tips and tricks to make this end-of-the-year activity successful.
- Pre-write at least 20 compelling questions to ask your students. You can ask about the school year, their summer, or their plans. You can also add general questions.
- Use only 6 to 8 questions at a time and rotate. Don’t ask the same questions for all the interviews. Rotate them and always include a new one to keep it interesting.
- Ask for volunteers. One key element for the success of this interview is that the student is willing to share. So don’t force it.
- Connect with the class: Even though only one student is being interviewed, you can prompt connections to the class by asking the class if they agree or disagree with the response of the student. They love to see similarities and differences.
- Keep it comprehensible: I suggest that you create slides with the questions and add images or scaffolds to help students answer in the TL. The student that is coming to be interviewed is taking a huge risk. Check my slides for the Star Student Interview May Edition.
What can you do afterward? Anything or nothing. It’s up to you. You can create mini-biographies of the star students. Those mini-biographies can become great reading activities.
You can also create games in Kahoot, Gimkit, or Blooket. If you have intermediate learners, you can have your students create the games too.
The last days of school you can have an Ultimate Game Day with all those game sets.
II. Calendar Talk:
My second favorite activity is Calendar Talk. You can read more about the basics of calendar talk here or here. I do this activity on a daily basis but it is a perfect end-of-the-school-year or semester activity. Why? Because it’s all about the students, very comprehensible, and low-stakes. Also for me, it’s very low-prep because I already have my slides ready for the month. These are my slides for May in my TPT store.
At this point of the year or semester, my students can even lead this activity which is so much better. During calendar talk, we can discuss their last weeks of school. I like to ask them about their exams, how easy or difficult they are, and how much homework they’re doing for their classes. Very organic and student-driven conversation.
During calendar talk, we also explore some events of the month also. You can do that as a class or you can give your students a list of the events happening this month and have them do some research independently. If you have novice students, they can do it in their native language. The key to a successful research activity is to be very specific in the information you want and add a time limit. I like to keep it short 10 to 15 minutes.
After the research, they can share in Padlet, and then you can create a trivia game based on the information shared by the class.
III. Independent Reading:
There is nothing more rewarding for a student than to be able to read and understand a story, chapter, or novel at the end of the year. They feel so proud of themselves. They realize how much language they have acquired. What’s even better than reading a text that they understand is reading a text they have created or it connects with them. There is no doubt that independent reading is one of the best end-of-the-school-year or semester activities.
In my classes, especially in my novice classes, we create a lot of our own stories using story asking. Usually, at the end of one semester, we have more than 7 stories and at least 3 versions of the same story. I type all the stories in a google doc. This material is gold for our classes because we´ve created them.
We also co-write our stories based on the cultural stories that I share with my classes. Those stories are great for the end of the year.
So during the last week or two of school, I make copies of the stories and have students choose 2 or 3 stories to read again and complete an independent activity.
This year I’m doing something different. I decided to tell a new story: La Leyenda del Tuko y los Pájaros. This story only adds 5 new words to my class. Most of the language is recycled so it will be super accessible. I wanted to add this story to celebrate the Asian and the Pacific Islands Heritage Month. This is a legend from the Philippines. I have a lot of students from the Philippines, so I know this will be very special for them.
What to do after reading? Some of my favorite independent activities to complete with a story are the following:
- Create a graphic novel of the story
- Create a game about the story
- Create a test about the story
- Modify the story
- Create a smash doodle of the story. I learned about smash doodles from Sra. Dentlinger who has written a lot about this activity.
I put music on and let my student work independently while reading and completing these independent activities.
Now, if you don’t have stories, you can choose to do a novel that is totally comprehensible to them. One of my favorite novels for level one is Clases de Confesiones by AC Quintero, Tumba by Mira Canion, and Luis y Antonio by Terry Marrama.
You can also check out my collection of 15 stories for novice learners here, and some templates for the Independent Activities here TPT. Here is also the Leyenda del Tuko y los Pájaros.
I also have a free reading perfect for May about la Batalla de Puebla. Click here to get that for free in your inbox.
IV. End-Of-The-Year Movie:
Nothing more entertaining than watching a movie, and there are so many great ones. Now, if you’re watching a movie in Spanish, The question is: Should we watch movies in the target language or in the first language? I don’t think there is one correct answer. It’s all depending on what your goal is.
At the end of the year, I don’t have the energy to scaffold an entire movie in Spanish for my students, so we watch the movie in English with subtitles in Spanish. The movie has to have compelling cultural content though. These are my steps to watching a movie in my class.
- Watch 20 minutes of the movie.
- Stop the movie and create a summary of the movie with your class using write and discuss. I learned this activity from Mike Peto.
- Then, that text can be used for independent reading as mentioned in my previous activity. You also can create a game in Kahoot, Blooket, or your favorite platform.
What are some of my favorite movies?
- Coco
- Under the Same Moon
- Selena
- McFarland USA
- The Book of Life
- Viva Cuba
- También la Lluvia
- Cesar Chavez
- The 33
- Spare Parts
- Real Women Have Curves
- In the Heights
V. End-Of-The-School-Year or Semester Olympic Games:
My friend Bertha Delgadillo mentioned this activity in one of our live sessions on Instagram back in May, and I thought it was great.
I’m sure that you’ve created tons of games in Gimkit, Kahoot, Quizlet, Blooket, and more. What about if you just play all those sets again? Your students would love it. You can play individual or team versions of the games and even try different modes. Blooket and Gimkit are amazing tools for that.
You can take this activity one step further and create a version of the Olympics with different rounds of the games. Each time that your students play a game, assign points to the first, second, and third place. You can also add an element of luck by using the Wheel Decide with different points. First place can spine the wheel 3 times, second place 2 times, and third place once. Each time they can decide whether to keep the points they receive or spin again.
Imagine that! Your students will be reading and seeing all the language used so far one more time while they have fun. I’ll definitely do this on the last day or two of school.
Bonus Activity!
Whatever you do at the end of this year, make sure you survey your students. I started doing this 3 years ago, and the information is gold.
Ask questions like what activities helped you the most, what activities didn’t help you much, what your strengths were, what you would do differently in class this year, etc.
Think about questions to will help your students reflect on the year and also questions that will help you make adjustments for next year.
So that’s it. Those are my favorite 5 low prep end-of-the-year or semester activities. They all support language acquisition but don’t require tons of prep for you or a lot of energy from the students. Let me know which one is your favorite.
One Response