Tips for Creating Your Own Units in Your Spanish Classroom

¡Hola profes! Let me ask you a question – are your course curricula for your Spanish classes working for you? Do they provide all that you need to teach, practice, and assess your students? Are there supplemental resources that allow for differentiation and student choice?

I hope so, but if not – I have totally been there. I spent the first several years of my teaching career with an old teacher’s edition of ¡En Español! (the precursor to Avancemos) and a bank of multiple-choice questions I had to use on the midterm and final exam. 😱

Of course, that was not enough to provide my students with engaging, effective lessons on the topics I was supposed to cover in my classes. I had to create my own units, often from scratch.

Pro: I had a ton of control over what material I used to teach my students.

Con: It was time-consuming!

Over time, I devised a blueprint for my units. I learned what teaching materials, learning activities, and assessments worked for me in my classroom, and I came up with templates that I altered based on the topic I was teaching at the time.

Profes, if you have no curricula (or very bare-bones ones) and are responsible for creating your own units, having templates you can use will save you SO MUCH TIME as you plan out what you are going to do in your unit! Yes, you will still need to create the resources, but you don’t have to spend additional time figuring out what to create.

I find it is most helpful to start with your assessment(s) – what do you want the students to know and be able to do at the end of the unit? How do you want students to show their knowledge and skills? Traditional tests/quizzes, projects, oral presentations, email replies, simulated conversations, and interpretive reading or listening tasks are all options! Once you have your assessments figured out, I have found it is easier to go back and make sure that your learning activities are aligned with the end goal.

Next, how much time do you plan to spend on your unit? You may have a certain number of topics you need to cover in your course and, as a result, may face more of a time constraint. For bigger units, though, I think that 4-5 weeks is great for several reasons:

Your students will have ample opportunities to practice the vocabulary/grammar/topics you’ve presented
You will be able to assess your students at multiple times to gauge their progress
You will have time to practice and assess in the 3 modes of communication (interpretive, interpersonal, and presentational)

Here is an example of the scope and sequence for one of my favorite units, el medio ambiente y el presente del subjuntivo:

*Note: This is for approximately 45-minute class periods.

Activity	Approximate Time Spent
Introduce and practice vocabulary (various practice activities including worksheets, whiteboard practice, and games)	2 days
Introduce the present subjunctive (PowerPoint and guided notes outline)	1 day
Practice combining the vocabulary with the present subjunctive (guided practice activities, worksheets, games)	2 days
Information gap speaking activity & preguntas personales	1 day
Formative assessment (quiz) – not for a formal grade, just to assess student understanding so far	1 day
Task cards	1 day
Scrambled sentence puzzle	2 days
Review game of choice (Jeopardy, board game)	1 day
Exam (formal grade)	1 day
Interpersonal speaking activity (simulated conversation) – possible formal grade	1 day
Interpretive reading activity – possible formal grade	1 day
Interpersonal writing activity (email reply) – possible formal grade	1 day
Interpretive listening activity – possible formal grade	1 day
Culminating project (summative assessment)	3-4 days

If you like the look of this unit and think it could work for you in your classroom, you can check out the full bundle here!

Once you have your assessments and your scope and sequence, it will be easier to create activities, because you’ll know how much time you have to spend on them and how they will need to help prepare your students for the summative assessment(s). My suggestion for learning activities would be to find what works best for you and your students. What engages your students? What is manageable for you to create given the time that you have? This will vary from person to person, but it’s important to know yourself and your students. Creating units can be a challenge, and for you to be successful, it needs to be sustainable for you!

If you need unit plans but don’t have the time to spend making your own, I can help! Here are some complete units with everything you need to teach, practice, and assess your students!