Effective Activities to Teach Likes and Dislikes in Spanish

Four illustrated panels showing students' expressions of likes and dislikes: 'Me gusta jugar tennis' with a tennis court, 'No me gusta jardinería' with a watering can, 'Me encanta escuchando música' with a music player, and 'Yo odio quehaceres' with a kitchen scene.

I am back to teaching one section of Spanish 1 ( I teach levels IV and Dual Credit as well). Thankfully, I have been really enjoying the experience with 9th graders this time around (I have had some challenging post-COVID classes).

My students this year have shown excitement with almost everything we do in class. Unfortunately, this has not been my experience in the past. I had several students who’d complain about every activity, even watching the Netflix series such as Go, Vive Tu manera in class . However, this year, they seem more age- appropriate in their behaviors are already asking if I am going to teach level 2! I am taking that as a compliment:)

I love doing a sampling of the language the first few months of the year. We learn how to engage in basic conversation asking questions about likes and hobbies. This Quién soy yo activity really helped to set that up. While I don’t focus on in-depth units until second semester, we do enough to keep class interesting while students are acquiring vocabulary and skills–it’s been working.

This is one such activity (excuse any errors) that in addition to learning how to rate activities in our lives, it was relaxing, artistic, and had a communicative end it. Here is the ultra simple instruction sheet.

A student activity sheet showing drawings and written sentences: 'Me gusta viajar' with an airplane, 'No me gusta estudiar' with books, 'Me encanta jugar voleibol' with a volleyball, and 'Yo odio levantarme temprano' with a sunset.

Activity Set Up

Students had to share one thing they like, one thing they don’t care for, one thing they love, and one thing they hate using the verbs gustar, encantar, and odiar.” It was a very simple activity, but it worked well to help them practice verbs that express likes and dislikes while learning additional vocabulary.

I allowed them to use WordReference.com to look up any verbs they wanted to include. After writing, students went around the room talking with each other while I circulated to listen and offer corrections. It turned out to be a fun and effective way to practice important grammatical structures and communicate meaningfully. I also shared some of my own likes and dislikes with them to model the activity and encourage participation.

We did a similar speaking activity when talking about our classes. I had them rank their classes with:

Graphic with a colorful design displaying a prompt for students about their classes, featuring phrases like 'Me gusta', 'Me encanta', and 'No me gusta' along with corresponding statements in Spanish.

Materials:

–Cardstock

–Pencils and color pencils

A vibrant orange banner featuring the text 'THANKS FOR STOPPING BY! more resources below!' in bold white and playful font, decorated with flowers and a cheerful 'thank you' graphic.

Other activities related to Gustar for Spanish I+

8 Activities with the verb gustar

All About Me: Interview with Ainhoa

Me gusta mi cuidad

Rafael Nadal

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