There are many ways to present students the idea of conjugation drills. I often try to tap into their competitive spirit, and therefore include many games into our daily "warm up" activities.
At the beginning stages of a chapter, students are still trying to commit the new vocab and new conjugations to memory. In an effort to put them on the spot and perhaps encourage them to study a bit more every night, I introduced my conjugation scrabble.
There are few rules to this game and therefore set up is easy and playing it is even easier!
In the TL, I share some of the key phrases that they will use in their game: "Palabras con amigos". This is my classroom version of the popular app "Words with friends". At some point in their lives they have actually played the original scrabble, done a crossword, or even used the app themselves. Therefore the details on how to actually play the game go smoothly.
Phrases like "my turn", "how do you spell", "who is the subject", "that is not correct" are all phrases that they must incorporate in their interactions while playing the game. The ultimate goal is for them to have some basic conversation while practicing their new conjugations.
The game went well! Students got into it! When time ran out (I set a timer to prevent it from going too long and therefore having students stop using the TL) students had to take their notes out and revise their spellings. The student who had the most words was the winner. Any spelling mistakes counted the verb as wrong. Winners enjoyed a small treat!
The next day we had a different activity and everyone seemed to have gone home and reviewed. So, in my eyes, Mission conjugation:Accomplished.
