Every Monday, I start every class with the weekend chat.  Basically just asking my students what they did over the weekend and turning it into comprehensible input.  It is instant personalization.

I have this document projected onto my board.  When a student shares what they did, I probe for more information by asking where, with whom, when, how was it, etc…  Sometimes it can turn into a story.  Sometimes it lasts for 45 minutes, other times for 10 minutes.  It all depends on the day and the weekend.

Jason Fritz has a French weekend chat document HERE.

After a whole quarter of just asking the class what did you do over the weekend? and students sharing, recently I have had to add novelty to the weekend chat.  This week I did this: I told the class, clap once/stomp once/snap finger once/shout whoop whoop/or another noise movement if you did this: then I read a few from the document.  Those that made the noise I acknowledged them and asked further questions to some.

When that gets old, I will do this (Kristy Placido gave me this idea):  I will give each student a key chain ring with a red, yellow, and green laminated circle piece of construction paper.  I will say in the target language: “I went to a restaurant”.  Students show me a red circle if they did not, a yellow circle if they don’t know, and a green circle if they did.  I will continue to say more statements and add PQA.

The weekend chat is always popular.  It is a great way to work in the first person form of verbs.  It is always interesting and they always want to share what they did.  As long as the weekend chat is spent in the target language, it is a valuable acquisition tool.  It is compelling, comprehensible input.