El Internado Subjunctive Practice

Many traditional Spanish programs include the present tense subjunctive mood in their scope and sequence in year three, which is also when many teachers start using El Internado. Whether or not you are required to explicitly teach the subjunctive, your students should be hearing these constructions when you discuss the show.

I selected 10 scenes from each episode of the show’s first season. Sentences that use the subjunctive mood in Spanish often involve more than one person and tend to lend themselves well to discussion. For example, let’s take a look at a line from one of my favorite scenes from the series where Héctor is explaining his philosophy to his students on the first day. Héctor says something to the effect of, “No necesito que seáis los mejores. No, no lo necesito. Necesito que seáis buenos, que seáis personas.”

We can do a lot with this:

Why does Héctor believe this?
Does Elsa share this philosophy?
Which students agree with Héctor? Which one does not?
What do your own students think about what Héctor said?

I use these for Picture Talk and PQA while we work through each episode, however they would also make good prompts for a speaking or writing assessment. The text provides context for the scene so that the student can elaborate on what is happening. This would also be a great way to review the whole first season since the episodes are arranged chronologically (the slides within each episode are not in order).

Have you also checked out the free detailed episode guides that I wrote for the first season?