Trying something new - La Persona Especial

So for years I have done the following to start my year in Spanish 1.
See PQA day 1 post.
See PQA after day 1 post.

In Spanish 2 a few years back I experimented with something else that was a bit of a flop.

But many have probably heard of Bryce Hedstrom's activity called, "La Persona Especial".

I've been really interested in this activity since I first heard about it. And I got to be in a private professional development session with Bryce on the plane as luck would have it where I could pick his brain about the activity. And he inspired me.

It also didn't hurt that the amazing French Teacher: Bess Hayles was going to be using the activity in her classes this year too. So if I needed to pick someone's brain about it, I will have a great resource in my own building!

But I have to admit, I am out of my comfort zone.  The idea that I thought I would try in my Spanish 1 & 2 classes is the following:

I will go over a basic set of questions about them, their name, where they are from, etc and then when I get to "what do you like to do", I will teach "likes" as well as then go into the third person form of the verb and let it segway into my previous experience with PQA. That will be the meat and potatoes of the activity, but I will also introduce new questions.


Since I have other curriculum constraints to meet, I won't be able to do "la persona especial" for the entire first semester like Bryce probably does. But at least I can get my feet wet, fall on my face plenty, and come back stronger and more informed next year to knock it further out of the park!

So here is what I figured I would use with my classes in conjunction with a giant piece of butcher paper for each class that I can write additional words, phrases, rejoinders on in case I go out of bounds.

I am a nerd and like to color coat things. Since this is my first attempt, I am intrigued to see how it goes with my kids.


My goals for this activity are:

• to expose them to 1st, 2nd, 3rd person forms from day 1
• to go as slow as necessary to ensure their comfort/success
• to learn about my kids
• to circle the information
• to go slower rather than faster despite my thinking they have it
• to quiz daily over the information (yes/no)
• to give a different type of quiz (writing/reading/speaking) every 5 students or so
• to circle back to the students we start with eventually and fill in the additional information
• to learn a WHOLE lot so that next year I can do way better
• to somehow finish this activity sooner rather than later so I am not stressed out about the lack of time in the rest of the semester to teach other concepts that I have to go over
• to have fun, hang out with my kids in the language and get to know them a little better
• to blog about my experiences for later reference/reflection

Wish me luck!