SPANISH VR CASE STUDY: Spanish Vocabulary (Student Age 9-10)

“The idea of this lesson is to allow students to read, speak and familiarise themselves with Spanish vocabulary. As part of our Spanish scheme of work, the children studied a unit called ‘La Casa’. In this unit, the children explored objects in the house and how to describe a room; ask questions about a room; and explain and describe the objects. I taught this lesson at the beginning of the ‘La Casa’ unit to introduce the children to new vocabulary that they would come across. They then used this experience to generate a word bank in their books, which they annotated in English, adding pictures to represent the words.”

Frankie Smith
Age 9 – 10 Primary School Teacher (UK)

PRACTICAL SESSION

I created a CoSpaces world based on our current unit of work; we created a house with everyday objects that the students might come across. The objects in the CoSpaces world were labelled with both the English and the Spanish. Students worked in groups of three in order to collect, share and use new vocabulary. It also meant that the person using the headset had someone to help guide them around the classroom. The children were free to explore the CoSpaces world at their own leisure. They shared the new vocabulary they discovered with each other and compiled a list of new vocabulary. I encouraged the students to say the Spanish words aloud to their partners. Their partner could then give the English translation (if they’ve been taught it); guess what the English might be (if they have yet to learn the vocabulary) and/or check the pronunciation.

IMPACT ON LEARNING

Learning a foreign language can be off-putting for some children so this immersive, hands-on approach removed those barriers through an exciting stimulus. They all wanted to take part, have a go and share their new vocabulary with their peers. The children were willing to share what they’ve learnt and were excited to support others in saying their new vocabulary. When we did say the words altogether as a class, it wasn’t as challenging as the children had seen the words before and attempted to say them. The vocabulary was understood at a deeper level and the children were able to embed and use these words more effectively in following lessons and pieces of work. To be able to put pictures to the Spanish (both written and spoken) meant that all of my students were able to access the lesson and were engaged from the start.