I can't take all the credit for this one I must admit but I wanted to share as it worked so well. My Department Head and excellent French teaching colleague, Mrs. Sarah Goodman, allowed me to steal her wonderful idea for teaching the house vocabulary so I now want to share with all of my fine readers. The brilliant thing about this project is that the students are more or less teaching themselves and they learn so much more than the mere vocabulary associated with the house; they also learn prepositions of place, the verbs "hay" and "estar", places in the town, expressions of opinion, quantities, sizes, colours and so much more... all in one project.

The project is called "The house of my dreams" and the students have to plan and draw out their dream house on a large poster, labeling all the rooms and pieces of furniture on their minimum two floors. They are encouraged to be as creative as possible. Next they have to write a 'sales pitch' with at least 25 phrases outlining why the buyer should purchase their house. They have to list what amenities are close-by, what is in the neighborhood, where items are located etc and all using very persuasive vocabulary. 

Finally on 'Sales Day' they dress up and present their house to their classmates and teachers who are circling the room asking them questions. Teachers from other classes stopped by and some even brought their native Spanish speakers with them to increase the authenticity of the speech yet further. They were not allowed to have any notes or their speech in front of them, they had to go from memory using their house plan as a guide. In the end, after they had all played the role of both buyer and seller, they each received one voting card where they could vote for one house they would buy listing their reasons (in Spanish) as to why they would purchase it. Every vote they received earned them an extra point on the marking scheme.

I circled the room and talked to them all about their houses and used a grading rubric to mark them on their spoken Spanish as well as their written speech which they had to submit. To say the project was a success is an understatement. They excelled, especially the students with a lower language ability. On their 'one minute summary' feedback post-its they said they loved telling others about their house and loved having others come and "inspect" their plans. They also stated how they liked "getting dressed up as a real estate agent" and they said they surprised themselves at how much they could say. They learnt so much in this two week project that I wouldn't hesitate to do it again and their confidence with speaking grew exponentially. Thank you to Mrs. Goodman for such an awesome idea! Let me know if you've done anything similar in the comments below guys!