Purpose: You will practice your conversation skills in Spanish by listening to a recording and responding to the questions about your life and preferences in Spanish, as well as asking questions to your fellow classmates. You will get exposure to different questions that start with ¿Qué? and ¿Cuál?, and you will respond to these questions changing verb endings as necessary.

Task: This activity has four parts.

1. An initial listening activity
2. An audio recording based on the prompts in the listening portion
3. An audio response to your peers and an additional question.
4. A final audio post to those who commented on your original post.

Part 1. Listen to the following questions about your life and preferences.

Part 2. Pick three questions you want to answer and three questions you want to ask your fellow students (these may be the same or different, but they need to be from the 10 questions presented in the original audio file by the Spanish instructor). You may write down the questions you choose to answer and ask your peers if you would like to reference them for your recording. Using a computer or a voice memo function on a smartphone, in a single audio file record your answers to the 3 questions you selected to answer in Spanish, along with the 3 questions you chose to ask you peers (if you make mistakes, it is okay and expected; start over from the beginning of the sentence and keep recording). Post the audio file including your three responses and three questions in Spanish to the discussion board. Others will be able to hear your responses and questions in Spanish, just as you can hear theirs.

Part 3. You will respond to the original posts of two classmates by answering the three questions they asked you and asking them one question in return. This question must be a complete question from the original 10 presented; it cannot be ¿y tú? for this activity.

Part 4. Just as you have responded to the three questions of two of your peers and asked them an additional question, some of your peers have responded to your questions and asked you a question on your original post. Finish up the conversations by responding to each peer who commented on your original post. Answer their questions, and politely thank them for their time and sign off. If you need some help wrapping up the conversation, there are some ideas listed below.

• ¡Qué lástima! / ¡Qué pena! (What a pity / That’s too bad)
• También (As well)
• Como tú (Like you)
• ¿En serio? / ¿Verdad? (Really?)
• ¡Qué bueno! ¡Qué bien! (That’s great!)
• ¡Gracias! (Thank you!)
• Adiós (Goodbye)
• Hasta luego (See you later!)
• Cuídate (Take care)
• Nos vemos (See you!)

Criteria: The components of this activity add up to 100%.

Parts 1 & 2. 30% of the grade for this activity comes from this portion. You will hear 10 questions, and you will choose 3 questions that you would like to answer and 3 questions you would like to pose to your classmates. Record your 3 responses plus your 3 questions in Spanish in a single audio file (if you make mistakes, it is okay and expected; start over from the beginning of the sentence and keep recording). Each response is worth 5% and each question for your peers is worth 5%.

Part 3. 40% of your grade will be earned for interacting with two peers on their initial posts: you are to answer the three questions on the posts of two peers, so each answer is worth 5% and responding with one follow up question per peer is worth 5%.

Part 4. 30% of your grade will be earned for responding to your peers on your original post: you are to answer the follow up question that your two peers asked on your original post (10% each) and politely thank them and sign off (5% each).

Ejemplo:

Tom listens to the recording. He then chooses which three questions he wants to answer and which three he wants to ask to his classmates. He writes the questions down so that he can reference them while he is recording the audio file. Tom then records his responses in Spanish to the three questions he chooses to answer and he ends by asking three questions to his classmates. He uploads this single audio file to the discussion board. He has earned 30% of the points for this activity.

Tom then finds two peers, Sally and Tim, and he listens to their responses to the original prompt, as well as the questions they ask him. He then prepares his responses, carefully changing the verb endings and being sure to answer each question completely. He records a single file for each peer in which he answers the three questions they asked him, and he follows up with one additional question that was on the Spanish instructor’s recording. He has earned 40% of the points for this activity.

Tom goes back to his original post and sees that two of his classmates have answered the questions he asked. He listens to their responses carefully and listens to their additional questions. He records a final audio file for each peer in which he answers their additional question, thanks them by name, and signs off.