Preparing for the Seal of Biliteracy: 3 Ways To Express Opinions

Are your students preparing for the Seal of Biliteracy? One of the more advanced things they will be asked to do is to express and opinion. Here are some ways you can practice this in class regularly and help students learn memorized phrases to be able to answer question on the Integrated Listening and Speaking section of the Seal of Biliteracy tests!

Use Memorized Phrases When Preparing for the Seal of Biliteracy

One way in which you can make preparing for the Seal of Biliteracy is to give students some phrases that they can use regularly. We know students need to be able to create with language to be in the Intermediate range of proficiency, but there are lots of sentence starters we can introduce to get their speech started!

Here are some of the phrases I put on a laminated paper for my students:

Creo que
Pienso que
Me parece que
En mi opinión

The thing is, they don’t need a lot of them! Just enough so they know how to start what they want to say!

Offer Lots of Opportunities To Express Opinions

As I’ve been making my transition from traditional vocab and grammar teacher to a more proficiency-based teacher, I am realizing that what makes language relevant to students is creating scenarios in which students actually WANT to use the language.

At first I thought getting students to practice what I needed them to learn and letting them create with language was mutually exclusive, but I was wrong! In preparing for the Seal of Biliteracy, I start right away! Here’s one really easy way to get your students engaged!

Let’s say you’re doing a unit on jobs/careers. Each day, our warm up is a partner speaking task. Instead of asking them to tell their partner what a teacher does, ask them about their opinion! Here are 2 examples:

In your opinion, which job is worse? Being a teacher or being an accountant? Why?
In your opinion, what qualities are “must-haves” for teachers?

When you ask students what they think, you will have increased buy-in and interest! We all love to talk about our opinions, and some students will love to play devil’s advocate!

What Else Can Students Express Their Opinion About When Preparing for the Seal of Biliteracy?

There are so many ways to ask students to express their opinion! One way I’ve snuck it in this spring is by doing a “March Madness” activity with music. **I must say, there are lots of Spanish teachers out there that organize this and it is NOT my idea!**

But it’s been a lot of fun. Someone creates a bracket of songs. We listen to 2 each day, discuss our opinions, and vote. When the votes from my 5 classes are in, we move the winning song to the next round. My students have a laminated paper with sentence starters for how to express opinions. This paper also contains vocabulary related to music. Words like poetic, rhythm, melody, voice, message, slow, fast, etc. These are words that don’t always come up in our pre-designed curriculum, but when they use them throughout the month to talk about the songs they like or dislike, eventually, they can use them in other scenarios!

Other things I ask their opinions about are: seasons, pets, places to travel, celebrities, athletes, TV shows, when the best time to shower is, etc. The more relevant to their life and interests, the better the buy-in and participation! Preparing for the Seal of Biliteracy can be a lot of fun, and you don’t need to feel like you’re teaching to the test!