Spain in the Middle Ages

 We are dealing with “Spain in the middle ages” in a 5th and 6th grade classroom. This is an extension activity where students have to explain what they know about some aspects of the middle ages. 

I want my students to describe in a written way and then orally: 

- the feudal system of this period (king, nobles-clergy-lords, knights, peasants-serfs) and how people looked like (students are learning clothes, materials and patterns in the English area and the structures of “made of”, “look like” and the past simple of regular and irregular verbs). 

-How the cities were in the period of Al-Andalus (mosques, walls, forts, souk, public baths, etc) and give examples of cities where nowadays we can see these parts (Toledo, Córdoba, Granada, Ávila, etc).

Students individually have to do a written description of these two mandatory points. They are allowed to have a look at the textbook and the OneNote (bloc de notas) where they have plenty of information about the topic), but they cannot copy it. They will create the description with their own words. After that, the students will be in pairs in order to correct the mistakes of the description of his/her classmate. 

Finally, the next activity will be at home. This activity will be the oral one. Using the app. “Flipgrid” (https://info.flipgrid.com/) , I have created a wall of the middle ages, where students have to upload their videos, reading the description made in class.

All students can watch the videos of their classmates and I can evaluate and give them an inmediate feedback of the video-description. This is a way of improving communicative skills, written and orally. Apart from that, students love recording videos and uploading them and watching their classmates on them.

Melania del Riego