During July 2023, I attended a workshop with Rita Barrett about creating a Tea Party experience with students. In short, the Tea Party experience is an activity where students take on the persona of a character from a novel/film/tv show (any story with characters) that you want students to preview in order to explore the backstories and relationships with the other characters. 

Super-blogger/teacher AnneMarie Chase loved the idea so much that she invited Rita to write about it on her blog. Like AnneMarie, I too was inspired after attending Rita’s session. So after publishing the posts, I was able to modify AnneMarie’s templates to create a Tea Party experience for upper-level Spanish students before watching the film, También la lluvia / Even the Rain – more information about the film can be found here from IMDB.  This post on AnneMarie Chase’s blog details how to run the Tea Party activity – so you will want to start there to understand how-to host a Tea Party, but below are the links to access the resources for my Tea Party for También la lluvia. 

I rarely share resources but I am sharing this resource because the whole class period was a wonderful introduction to the film. I feel that this year my students had a much better understanding of the film and the characters because of this powerful preview activity. I also loved it because in no way was the “preview activity” a passive one; my students were 100% engaged and actively interacting, speaking Spanish, and oh yeah, having tea and cookies.  

Also, I am inspired once again, so be on the lookout in August for another Tea Party Activity to use with novice-high level students before watching the very fun tv series: Acapulco. 

También la lluvia – Tea Party Interview Notes Sheet for Students    

También la lluvia – Name Tags for Tea Party Activity 

También la lluvia – Directions for Students during the Tea Party Activity: También la lluvia