Dr. Agon's Spanish Numbers

Want to practice reading and writing your numbers in Spanish, but aren't sure how? Well, you're in the right place!

Dr. Agon's Spanish Numbers is a freely available downloadable game that allows you to practice your Spanish numbers between 0 and 2,000,000!

You can download the game here.

After downloading the game, pick the range of numbers you want to practice by indicating the smallest and largest numbers of the range.
Next choose which mode of play you want to do: Easy, Medium, or Hard.

In Easy mode, the game provides you with the written-out version of a randomly selected number, and five randomly selected numbers in digits. Your job is to click on the correct number.

In Medium mode, the reverse happens. The game provides you with a number in digits, and you need to choose which written-out version is correct.

Finally, in Hard mode, the game provides you with the written-out version of the number and you need to identify the number using digits.

All three versions of the game are communicative input activities, which means that you are being forced to associate the provided Spanish with something meaningful (the digits). Communicative input has been shown to be one of the most effective ways to learn vocabulary, so hopefully this game will help you learn your numbers in Spanish!

As always, I'd love you hear any feedback that you may have about this tool!

Happy Language Learning!

The Communicative Vocabulary Game

One of the best ways to learn vocabulary (especially low-frequency vocabulary) is through frequent, shallow practice (see Nation 2001). This means that you will learn words best by being exposed to them as much as possible. However, this practice is best when it is as communicative as possible.

The Communicative Vocabulary Game (TCVG) is a new tool that I have created to help my students get this kind of practice with the vocabulary covered in our current textbook (Mosaicos).

Although not all questions are communicative, as many as possible are. To make them communicative, students must identify pictures, synonyms, antonyms, or even definitions in Spanish. For words that these communicative exercises were not possible to create, such as words taught in early chapters, students need to identify the definition in English.

One of the great features of TCVG is that the answers provided each time are randomly generated and arranged, so it is not possible to memorize a specific question set. Rather, students actually need to learn the vocabulary to do well at the game.

In the bottom left hand corner of the game are some numbers in the format of: A / B (C).

  - A is the number of vocabulary items the student has gotten right.

  - B is the total number of vocabulary items (this number varies depending on which chapter is being played.)

  - C is the number of wrong answers a student has submitted.

In my classes I usually play TCVG with my students on the first day that we cover a new chapter. I have them bring laptops to class with the game already installed on it, and break them into groups. They work together to see which group can finish the vocabulary for the new chapter the fastest, without making more than 50 errors.

In my experience students really enjoy playing this game as a way to help them learn the many vocabulary words we cover in this textbook.

This game is freely available to download online here.

You can also play this game for free in your browser here.

After downloading the Windows version, unzip it, and run the exe file.

After downloading the Mac version, install it, and run the app. (Warning! The Mac version is untested.)

I'd love to hear any feedback (suggestions, complaints, problems, praise, etc.) that anyone may have about this game! Happy Language Learning!

Risky World Improved!

Risky World has been upgraded!!

In the original version of Risky World you were only able to play Risk (e.g. paint the countries different colors and swing your mouse over the countries in order to see what their names are). In the upgraded version there are three new ways to play around with the countries of the world!

But of course the main way to play is to simply play Risk with this game. And Risky World is still a great tool just for this!

The new options are primarily designed to help you learn your countries. I added these versions in order to help my students learn the Spanish-speaking countries of the world!



In the first new version, the game names a country and you need to click on that country.

In the next version, the game highlights a country for you, and you need to select the name of the country from a provided list of options.

And finally, in the last version the game highlights a country for you and you need to type in the name of the country.








And of course, as you can see in these screenshots, in all versions of the game you are still able to limit which countries you will be playing with. You can limit the countries by what continent they're on, their population, their area, what language they speak, and their minimum GDP per capita!

Have fun learning your countries!

You can now play Risky World online in your browser for free!

You can download Risky World to play on your Windows machine. (Download. Unzip. Run exe.)

Risky World

As promised, I have completed a new version of my Risk game.

First, a quick review of the purpose of this tool. The idea is that you can have your students try to conquer the largest number of countries by correctly answering questions you pose. Usually I have easy and hard questions. If they answer an easy question they get to conquer a neutral (white) country. If they answer a hard question they get to steal a country from an opponent! In the end, the group with the most countries wins. (It's up to you what that means.) The competition and strategy involved in this game can really get students motivated to do their best to answer your questions!

In this version of the game I have made several improvements over the original version as detailed here:

- You can choose which countries to play with from among 167 real-world countries. You can limit the countries played with by choosing which continent(s) they're on, what language(s) they speak, what the minimum size (area) of the countries is, what their minimum population is, and what the minimum GDP per capita is.**






- After you have settled on which countries to use and started the game, you can move the camera around with the following commands:
     - W/S to move up/down.
     - A/D to move left/right.
     - Q/E to adjust the zoom.

- The game now keeps track of how many countries each color owns, so its easier to see how everyone is doing.










- You can download the game for Windows here. (After downloading the file, unzip it and run the executable.)

Well, that's it for now. If you have any suggestions or comments or if you have used this tool in your class and have an anecdote about how it went, I'd love to hear from you! Please comment below and/or send me an email.

** (All data for this game was pulled from the CIA World Factbook. So it's also kind of fun just to mess around with the options and learn about the countries of our world.)

Risky Spanish

One of the main challenges of any instructor is keeping students engaged in what's going on in class. This is especially true if what you're doing in class involves a lot of repetition. We want to keep students engaged because research has shown that they learn more when they are paying attention and care about what's going on in class (duh!) Now, ideally we want them to be engaged with the material itself (Whoa! these verb conjugations are so cool!) But let's face it, sometimes we have to have them practice stuff that they really don't care about at all (especially in Gen Ed courses). So what do you do then? Well, often we try to spice things up with games, group work, competition, etc. But even Jeopardy and Family Feud get boring after a while. That's when I like to play Risk!

Now, for those poor souls out there who don't know what Risk is, it's a classic game where you compete to try to take over the world country by country. Now, obviously the original version of Risk isn't going to be much use in class, so that is why I created an online version*. In this version of Risk, you simply click on the button for a color, and then click on a country to make it that color. And that's it! So how do you use it in class? Well, what I like to do is have a lot of questions (some easy, some hard). Then I break up the students into groups. The groups take turns trying to answer their choice of an easy or hard question. If they answer an easy question correctly, then they get to take over a neutral (white) country. If they answer a hard question then they get to take over a country that already belongs to another group! Since I'm a Spanish teacher, in this version of the game you can only capture countries where Spanish is an official language. But don't worry, I'm planning to come out with a less field-specific version of the game over the summer.

I've used this game several times in my own classes and I can tell you that my students really get engaged! You wouldn't believe how excited they get when they find out that they've conjugated the verb "tener" correctly! I hope that your classes enjoy it too!

*This game has been deprecated. Please see the new version described here.

Random Sentence Generator using Excel: Take 2

In a previous post I presented and discussed a way to use excel to generate random sets of vocabulary words for students to use to create their own sentences. In this post I am presenting and discussing a new way to use Excel to actually create the sentences for the students, who then have to interpret / translate them. The benefit to this approach is that the students are being provided with input rather than being forced to produce output. Research has shown that, while output is very helpful for language acquisition, only input is necessary for language acquisition.

In this template you will find three sheets.

Let's discuss the third sheet first. In this sheet you will enter in your lists of sentence fragments. So, in the first column you put the first part of the sentence (say the main verb and subject), in the third column you put the second part of the sentence (say the direct object), and in the fifth column you put the third part of the sentence (say the adverb(ial phrase)). The second, fourth, and sixth columns are for you to put in the corresponding translations if you're going to do a matching activity. And that's all you have to do!


Now you simply go to the first sheet to see your magnificent, randomly generated sentences!










And you go to the second sheet to see randomly generated sentences that your students can match up with their provided, randomly arranged, translations!







Now, to keep you from accidentally changing the code used in the template, all the cells except the ones where you enter your words are locked. However, if you're feeling brave and want to look at what's going on behind the scenes, then feel free to use the password (which is "password") to unlock the sheets and mess around.