Classroom Activities for Your Last Day as an Auxiliar de Conversación
For your last day as an auxiliar de conversación, you may want to think about some classroom activities to say goodbye to your students. In this post, I’ll show you what I did on my last day as an aux. Please feel free to use or adapt these materials for your class as you see fit!
My Life: Before, Now, and After
For my last day teaching English in Spain as an auxiliar de conversación, I wanted to come up with some unique classroom activities. I planned to tell my students a bit about my experience in Spain, and I intended to make the lesson relevant in terms of teaching English concepts to primary school students.
Since I taught first, second, and third grades of primaria, I needed to make a fairly simple lesson. And since my students at the time were learning about past, present, and future—about before, now, and after—I created a powerpoint presentation about my experiences that incorporated these concepts.
Here’s the presentation I created.
Click here to download the presentation.
When I presented this powerpoint to my students, I discussed a few things I did “before” going to Spain, “now” that I was living in Spain, and “after” I would leave Spain.
After my presentation, I asked my students to draw pictures of what I did before, now, and after living in Spain. I created handouts divided into three sections, with the words, “before,” “now,” and “after” written across the top. I instructed my students to draw three pictures: one that corresponds with each category. (I did an example on the board to help explain the activity.) In the end, the students colored the three pictures that corresponded with my past, present, and future.
For the first and second grade classes, I ended the English drawing activity there. But I asked my third graders to present their drawings at the front of the class. I asked them to say three sentences that explain what happened before, what is happening now, and what will happen after.
The students enjoyed this activity, and I enjoyed the chance to reflect on my experiences with them.
Auxiliar Quiz Game
If I had any time left over, I did another activity with my students. I created an improvised quiz game where they had to guess simple things about my life. (It makes more sense to play this game if you give your students some information about yourself in the beginning of the year when you introduce yourself. But the game also works as an English guessing game.)
For example, I asked my students: “How old am I?” Then, I gave them the opportunity to guess my age. I required them to use full sentences to be sure they got as much opportunity to speak English as possible. Naturally, many answered incorrectly, but that wasn’t the point. The point was for them to get a chance to speak English in class.
Here’s the list of questions I used. Of course, many others could be incorporated, too.
What is my name?
How old am I?
Where am I from?
Where do I live now?
What is my favorite color?
What kind of pet do I have?
What is my favorite food?
One way to adapt this game is to verbally tell your students the answers to these questions before you begin the game. Then you can see how well they were listening and how much they comprehended.
These were the English classroom activities I used with my students on my last day as an auxiliar de conversación in Spain.
Saying goodbye was difficult. I really enjoyed my time teaching English and living in Spain. I told my students I would miss them. They gave me cards and drawings in return.
