Ideas for Teaching Travel in a Spanish Classroom

Here are a few suggested activities from listserv users for when you’re teaching a unit on travel:

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I have my Spanish students act as travel agents and put together a Spain trip and have certain criteria and money limits on a presentation and they learn to plan a trip, find tickets, restaurants etc....groups draw out of a hat onto which cities that they are preparing a trip for. They get to decide if they're flying into Barcelona or Madrid. They love it and learn a lot especially when the spring can be a busy time.

Fynboh, K. Re: [FLTEACH] Airplane and train travel unit plans for Spanish class. FLTEACH listserv (FLTEACH@LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU, 9 May 2013).

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If your students have access to computers, the RENFE website has a lot of info to make up culture and vocab activities. The activities I make change slightly from year to year based on what is going on that year, but I do always ask them are to count the number of train stations in Spain on the RENFE site and the number of stations in Ohio (our state) from the Amtrak site. That gives them an immediate idea of how important train travel is in Spain as compared to the US, especially the Midwest.

I ask them to get dates for certain things-the Medieval train, for example, was a year or two ago, but they always have some promotion going on. Other things I ask are for dates, prices for certain types of tickets between cities, where does the Cervantes train go and some questions about that, perks for AVE travelers, etc. Don't go overboard: 10 questions is about right.

RENFE has a lot of ads on YouTube and videos on the website showing the different trains. The ads are awesome. Don't forget to show them the Pato.

360cities.net also has an inside and outside view of Atocha and we talk about the March 11 attacks, and you can even branch out into "the neighborhood" to review different parts of Madrid if you have done them by then.

There are great shots of the Spanish countryside and cities in the commercials.

http://www.renfe.com
http://www.youtube.com/user/renfe
http://www.360cities.net/image/atocha-railway-station-madrid#0.00,0.00,70.0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfpapNCpBDc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeFx_lRVCN0&list=SPF6F68F70FA2B44C8 (look at the Alaris 20 one-cute)

You could do a week or two of culture just on RENFE. Be careful, the song gets stuck in your head...

Szymanski, L. FLTEACH listserv (FLTEACH@LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU, 9 May 2013).