No wrong answers here! Just lots of thinking required. Open-ended questions are great for these reasons:
- natural follow-up to closed-ended questions
- students produce answers at their proficiency level
- encourages debating and justifying their opinions/beliefs
- students are comparing which leads to a new perspective of cultures/languages
- you get to know your students on a personal level (who knew they loved that too!)
- students can be creative and reflective
For each of the following examples, I included a range of open-ended questions (from novice to advanced) to show you a variety. I only use the ones that fit my students’ proficiency levels. Many times I’m doing a little acting and drawing to help novices understand some questions.
Example #1
Unit Topic: Sports & Activities (Novice)
Daily Objective: I can talk about athletes including what makes them awesome.
Open-ended Questions:
(Don’t speak Spanish?? Describe the most athletic athlete in the world. / Explain what sport needs the most talent. / What two sports would you combine to make a similar video? Describe it.)
Example #2
Unit Topic: Food & Restaurants (Novice)
Daily Objective: I can order a pizza from Telepizza.
Open-ended Questions:
(Don’t speak Spanish?? Would you eat the Nacho Pizza? Why? / Tell me about the weirdest food you’ve seen in a restaurant. / If you created a new unique pizza, what you would make?)
For my novice students, I will put quick grammar references on the board like “-ía = would” and let them try using this tense. It’s not a whole grammar lesson, but it’s enough to expose them to it so they can communicate their answer. #GrammarSprinkles
Example #3
Unit Topic: Childhood or Monsters & Myths (Intermediate)
Daily Objective: I can tell what I use to be afraid of when I was little.
Open-ended Questions:
(Don’t speak Spanish?? What monsters were you afraid of when you were little? Tell a story about them. / What purpose do “monsters” serve in different cultures?)
Example #4
Unit Topic: Activities (Intermediate)
Daily Objective: I can talk about my opinions about outdoor activities.
Open-ended Questions:
(Don’t speak Spanish?? What do you have in common with Pedro? / Explain how Pedro’s activities in Spain are similar to or different from what you do. /How does Spain resemble (or not) where you live? / Explain where you would take a GoPro. / Tell me about your last adventure.)
Example #5
Unit Topic: What is Art? (Intermediate)
Daily Objective: I can describe different types of art and their purpose.
Open-ended Questions:
(Don’t speak Spanish?? Describe the graffiti in your community. / What’s the purpose of graffiti? / Should they have been arrested for the graffiti? Why? / If you made a graffiti mural, what would it look like and what would it represent?)
In addition to these, I’d like to add a few possible open-ended questions based on Megan’s videos in “Focus on the Facts” (they would be in the target language too).
Example #1 Coca-Cola – Would this commercial be as successful if Coca-Cola did not use Latino names?
Example #4 “No tengo dinero” – Is it difficult to date someone in a different social class?
Example #5 Careers – What careers are you interested in? Why?
Hope you enjoyed the videos and examples!
Videos from YouTube and on our Chispas page, Questions made on Piktochart.com & Stock images from Pexel.com or Pixabay.com
Check out more ways to use YouTube videos!
YouTube Task #1 – Identify Aspects of Culture
YouTube Task #2: Focus on the Facts
How do you organize your you tube clips? Right now i just have mine in a watch later -but im getting too many.
That’s a great “problem” to have! I wish I could say I’m super organized, but I’m not. 🙂 I have them a little of everywhere. I began by creating folders by unit topics on my YouTube account but I couldn’t remember which one I used for different lessons. Then this worked better: In my daily Keynote/PowerPoint, I put a title & link to the video that I want to use. Sometimes the links are broken, but that usually means it was time to replace it anyways. If you teach Spanish, we are organizing videos on our Chispas page.
I love this idea of engaging students with a video as a class activity. How do you find such relevant videos that speak to your topic? Usually when I am searching for things – whether it be on youtube/search engines – I end up empty handed. Any helpful tips on finding just the right video, whatever the topic?
Many thanks!
You read our minds JJ! That is a post for next week that has lots of video-finding tips.
Many thanks! Will be sure to keep an eye out for that email!
How do you design the questions? Is there any webpage that I can use to do them?
We use Piktochart.com and the PicCollage app.