Jigsaw in Spanish classes

Group work is tricky.  I like social interaction very much, but in learning situations even I can get laser focused on wanting to learn the information and become irritated by slackers.  However, I see the benefits of learning from others, especially in a language class.

I love the jigsaw idea in which students are experts on one particular element and when they work in groups they are the expert of that element.  In my hybrid classes I'm considering using this idea during face to face time for:

1- pronunciation practice.  Spanish vowels can be tricky, especially the Spanish /i/ & /e/ because they are similar but different from English vowels.  Student A is listening for Spanish /i/ pronunciation and student B could listen for /e/.  It would be a good practice with this tricky skill.

2-writing practice.  All write sentences based on a prompt.  Student A looks specifically for one writing element while student B looks for another.  They swap papers and discuss what they see. 

Eventually I would like to be able to do this in a zoom meeting for online sections, but we'll see.  I'm not quite there yet but I bet students would prefer to work with a partner more than listen to me drone on for 30 minutes.  I know I would.

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