Talking about their lives

This site on Spanish language and culture offers a reading of a poem, “Instantes”, that talks about what the author would do if given the chance to live his life over again. The site provides the text as well as the audio of the poem. This could be a good exercise to promote a discussion about what the students might change in their lives if allowed to do so. The activity could lead to great use of the conditional verb tense and “if” clauses, as well as allow students the opportunity to be creative with their language. A teacher could play this poem in class and assign students the task of creating their own personal poem to be read aloud the following class. 

Another link from this same website presents a receptionist at a hotel describing a scary experience that happened to her while she was working. This video is most appropriate for more advanced students as the speech is natural and no transcript is provided (although there are exercises for learners to fill in the blanks if they do so on their own).  In the classroom, a teacher could play this at the beginning of an activity in which the students will talk about a scary time in their own lives,  which could be done in small groups or in pairs. The clip focuses on the preterite and imperfect forms of the past tense and provides the students with an authentic example of how people relate stories in Spanish which could be used to help them create their own.

http://coerll.utexas.edu/spintx/
 Spanish in Texas website. Contains videos of Spanish speakers discussing their lives and the use of Spanish in their lives.