In my early years of studying to enter the field of education, I did so with the intent of teaching Spanish to native English speakers. Since then, I have not once taught this subject to this demographic. Nevertheless, I did enjoy the preparation for it, and the student teaching experience that crowned these efforts. The students I worked with (attendees of both public and private Christian schools) were great fun and full of enthusiasm.
During my time working at the private Christian academy, I designed a project for my lower level Spanish students in which they designed their dream home. They had to describe all the rooms in their home, the colors and designs, and layout, so they were using lots of new vocabulary they had just learned. Many of the students chose to do posters to present their designs, complete with drawings and cutouts but one student designed his home using an online software that I’m sure by now is obsolete, but there are several tools available to use now that are designed for this specific purpose (one of which is http://www.roomsketcher.com/). He wowed all of us with creative and innovative designs, all while describing them in his fledgling Spanish. Pretty impressive! This project really brought out the creative streak in several students, while pushing them to use as much Spanish as possible both written and oral.
Amanda M. Orozco 