One of the first topics that you cover as a Spanish teacher is the alphabet. Your book will have a nice list of the Spanish letters and probably even some example words. There may be a Spanish worksheet included too. You will want your class to say the letters out loud as well. Below are a few activities I use to get my students to practice using and pronouncing the letters.

Once I have presented the letters, and the class has practiced pronouncing them, I break the students up into groups of twos. Each person spells his or her name to their partner. They then spell a few of the basic Spanish words we have learned so far. At this point I have them pick a random word in Spanish which their partner is to spell. Person one spells out a word in Spanish from the book. Person two writes down the letters he hears. He then checks to see if it is correct. I usually use basic classroom nouns for this one.

After about ten minutes I'll have the students go back to their seats and I'll tell the class to get out a piece of paper. I will then select a student to spell out a word in Spanish while the rest of the class writes down the letters they hear. Students can pick a noun from the book or even the name of a Spanish speaking country. We will do this for about ten minutes and then I have the class recite the alphabet one student at a time. Starting with the first person in the first row each student will say a Spanish letter. We go around the classroom until the alphabet is complete. If one student makes a mistake the others can correct it. I sometimes give some kind of incentive for the class to get through the entire alphabet without any mistakes. This motivates even the most difficult students to concentrate!

So as not to spend the whole class on one subject, I usually move on to a new concept. The next class I will start off with a warm up dealing with the alphabet. I usually tell the class to number their paper from one to ten. I then pronounce ten Spanish letters in random order. There are all sorts of things that you can do to practice the Spanish alphabet. These are just a few of the activities that I've enjoyed in the past.

Andrew Lawton
http://spanishgrammarlessons.com

I am a Spanish professor with Austin Community College in Austin, TX. I have also taught Spanish online with a few different universities over the years. I have created a website for students to practice Spanish at: http://spanishgrammarlessons.com