As I have mentioned before, I LOVE cooking shows! Rachael Ray taught me how to cook, and I love the Pioneer Woman. However, those shows are a thing of the past. Now, cooking game shows are popular. Many teachers have had students create a cooking show in the past. I want to spice up the traditional assignment.
One of my current favorite shows is Chopped. The premise of the show is that contestants receive four mystery ingredients that they must use in a dish (appetizer, main course, and dessert). Of course, these items are crazy, and you can’t imagine how they go together. In the end, contestants create a cohesive dish. To transfer this to a foreign language class, students could either pick ingredients out of a bag (play food or names of the food), or you could give different groups a list of four foods. I would not use real food as it would be expensive! Students must think of a dish with these ingredients, and describe it in Spanish. They can add in different ingredients as well. In the end, they can present their dish to the class. The class can vote on which dish that they like the best.
Add in authentic Hispanic (French etc.) ingredients along with any foods that you would like to review. This would make it more culturally authentic. You can use this as a review unit. It would also be a great day-before-break activity. Also, it is best to put students in at least pairs because their cooking experience is probably varied.
Maris Hawkins 
I love Chopped too! I actually use it with vocabulary sentences. I break them into 4 groups and they pull 4 vocabulary words on cards out of their baskets. Each group must then write a very short (5-10 sentences) story using the 4 vocabulary words. I am the judge for the first round and the team that loses first joins me in the judging for the second round and so on. The final group standing wins and I usually give them each a free homework pass.
This is such a great idea! I can’t wait to try it. Thanks for sharing!
Thanks! Let me know how it goes when you do try it.
What fun! This is definitely a fun twist on the typical cooking show. My class is a middle school exploratory Spanish class so we don’t get deep enough into the language for the kids to meet an activity like this with success. But my mom is a high school Spanish teacher with levels 1-4. I am going to pass this idea on to her. Thanks for sharing!
Amy @ http://www.thegiftedgabber.com/
Thanks for your comment! Mom and daughter Spanish teachers is really cool! My mom was a teacher too- but a reading teacher in elementary school.