Coming up soon in Expo 1 and a bit later in Mira 1 is that topic of what there is in your town.  Here’s some ideas to make a slightly drab topic slightly more exciting.

Videos

In my town video   This is a great little video for year 7s.  I tend to give them a list of places and they check off the ones they find.  Equally you could give them a variety of spellings and they could select the correct one.  You could then ask pupils to prepare their own version if you have access to smartphones and the like.

Colombia video   Complete with traditional South American music and there is a degree of cultural knowledge to be gleaned.  Perhaps give the pupils a script to gap fill or some questions to answer.

Visit … Advert

Pupils could make a radio advert using spreaker or audacity.  This is best done at the end of the topic.

Google street-view directions.

I have tried this recently and to an extent it worked.  I made my own using the city of Madrid and getting students to follow the directions I gave them.  I allowed the weaker ones to use LINGRO to turn my exercise sheet into a clickable dictionary.  It can work really well as long as your students have some staying power.  If you’re unsure as to how to put one together then a highly rated example can be found here.

Talk and draw.

Great for practising prepositions, listening and speaking.  Student 1 has a mini-whiteboard and a working pen.  Student 2 has a brain and vocal chords.  Student 2 puts a building in the centre such as a football stadium.  They then begin to describe their town “a la derecha del estadio hay un parque” and the other student starts to draw a plan.

Past and present

Antes había… ahora hay…

Antes era … ahora es …

This is a great way to introduce students to some basic past tense phrases and also go a little cross curricular with a historical picture of their town.

SIM City

SIM City was a simulator game where players had to build a city.  Students could do the same.  They would produce a town map, a description of each building or area of town.  I’m sure some could do it via audio or visual means if you choose to let them have that freedom.