Allow the students to be actors on center stage. This is the way that they can personalize the language, internalize it and make it their own.

With definite structural guidelines and flexibility for imagination, the teacher will not be disappointed. Student performances demonstrate real speaking proficiency. Students feel good about themselves, are successful in their learning and are the stars in their own eyes. Can we ask for anything more?

We know that students learn and retain more when they are personally involved in the learning process. Creating and producing oral presentations and visual displays give students an opportunity to be more creative in the target language.

A student-prepared and memorized speech with a prop can demonstrate the student's mastery of an assigned topic or grammatical concept. For example, after a family unit, one of my assignments was to share three points of interest about three different family members. One student described Madonna as her mother and showed a picture of her grandfather- George Bush!

The requirements must be clear and the teacher should model the finished oral presentation several days before the assignment date. A minimum time limit may be set to encourage longer compositions, but begin with short, tightly structured speeches. For example, ask for five sentences which describe a person. As the school year progresses, increase the length (from 15 seconds to 20, then 25 or 30 seconds).

I have found that students become more creative as they progress, and they relish the opportunity to display their new imaginative prowess. For this reason, I find it beneficial to vary the focus of each «speech». One speech might be situational («take us on a tour of your house»); the next could be a vocabulary assignment («give a 30-second speech which includes 10 vocabulary words»); yet another might focus on grammar («use three different persons of three different -ar verbs»).

Require a prop for better results. A collage, drawing, family tree or photograph could be used. Puppets are particularly effective. Students can make their own out of socks, balloons, paper bags, fingers, tennis balls, potatoes, etc. Given the students' reluctance to be the center of attention, hand-held props tend to alleviate anxiety. Both the speaker and the audience focus their attention on the prop, thus reducing stress for the speaker.

Students have many options available for their delivery of the presentation-they can use a stool, chair, podium or table. Allowing speakers the opportunity to chose their order of presentation also makes them feel more at ease and less anxious.

When students ask «Can I...?», the answer is usually «Yes», to encourage creativity. The only hard and fast «No» is the use of notes. By the end of the first semester of Level II, I require a two minute story for one-half of the semester exam.

The same assignment can offer the students a great deal of flexibility and will result in a variety of different performances. For example, asking students to create a monster with six different body parts can bring startling results -three dimensional life-size models, tennis ball puppets, and water-color paintings. The possibilities are limitless. Encourage the clown in each student. Remember: the prop is a shield for the shy students.

In order to hold the audience's attention, it is recommended that only 10-12 presentations be given in any class period. A listening comprehension quiz -or asking questions about salient points- helps maintain students' attention. Hold a discussion based on that day's speeches for review and to keep the audience on its collective toes.

By personalizing their presentations, students get more excited about language learning. From the earliest levels of elementary language acquisition, students can share personal information and tap their creative imaginations. For example, when you tell students

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to imagine that they are shopping in Mexico City and have $20 to spend on school clothes, they can use a lot of cultural information such as climate, fashion, school dress codes and monetary exchange; and, thus broaden the base of the speaking assignment. The sense of reality adds an authenticity to the learning environment. «Real» people use this language in the «real» world.

Students like to hear their own voices; and, although at first they may be shy, they can record themselves on audio cassettes. From the very first «Hello. How are you?", the students know that their performances are real.

The time spent on recording and then replaying is valuable. Students generally pay close attention to the tape, trying to identify the speakers. You can make general comments, helpful for later use, and you can replay the tape for more objective evaluation. An added bonus is that students redo their recordings, paying extra attention to pronunciation.

You can videotape fashion shows, newscasts, commercials and even show and tell presentations for evaluation and later class enjoyment. An assignment to describe an ideal party using five subject pronouns, ten different infinitives and a minimum of one prop was especially effective videotaped. Party hats, horns, sparklers and even pizza added to the drama created by the students.

Producing fairy tales, written in simple present tense, is another favorite. Students chose their parts, arrange their props and set the staging. The narrator serves as director, and everyone memorizes his or her lines. They love to see their drama performances as well as how other classes interpret their story. Each group always thinks its rendition of the skit is the best.

When filming, the results are always surprising. The students easily meet the grammatical expectations, add a bit of their individual personalities, and are truly the stars of the production. From a poll of 25 first year students, 22 responded that oral presentations were among the favorite learning techniques.

In addition to oral and written presentations, students can produce visual examples of key concepts. They can depict both grammatical and cultural ideas.

For example, the mobiles that they can prepare for the classroom, using coat hangers holding suspended items of various sorts, can serve a dual purpose. They can be bright and colorful, yet seriously review material previously presented. Verb conjugations and comparative adjectives lend themselves to mobile-making. One student hung three real socks to show «dirty-dirtier-dirtiest».

Students are by nature artistic; another way to make them stars is through filmstrips. A reputable company, Christy's Editorial Film Supply, 135 N. Victory Blvd., Burbank, California 91502 sells a «Make Your Own Filmstrip Kit» complete with fine point, permanent markers. Proud stars see their drawings enlarged on the screen, and even shy students stand tall in the semidarkness to narrate their creations.

Hispanic influence in the United States can be the topic for book cover collages. These can be laminated for their primary purpose and continue to reinforce cultural themes of Hispanic architecture, ranching, place names, food, clothing, etc. Each collage is different. Some students are so proud of them, they use them year after year.

Bulletin boards get a real boost when students are the designers. They can write and illustrate poems, comics, a calender and even proverbs for classroom display. Especially effective are cognate pictures, drawn early in the fall to show students how much foreign language they already know! Students like to make maps, flags and even Christmas ornaments depicting the target language culture.

Still another way to make students stars is to give them the opportunity to teach class. They cannot present new material, but they do an excellent job with review. Pairs of students can design an activity, reviewing the material assigned to them. They can present their idea and help the class play a game or do a worksheet. The review is productive, providing test questions for the teacher and giving students yet another setting in which to be the stars.

With oral proficiency as a classroom goal, students chose what they want to say and develop coping strategies in the target language. Through drama, imaginative role play, and visual presentations, students can be the «real» stars in the «real» -life classroom.

Hispania [Publicaciones periódicas]. Volume 73, Number 1, March 1990