Identify Spanish Direct and Indirect Objects

Activity Overview

To learn Spanish grammar, students often have to learn English grammar first. Indirect objects, like direct objects, can be challenging for students to understand. To ensure that students can successfully identify indirect objects before progressing to teach them indirect object pronouns and their position in a Spanish sentence, students should provide original sample sentences that they think include indirect objects. The following storyboard activity is helpful in illustrating whether or not students really understand indirect objects. Students should practice identifying indirect objects until they reach mastery.

Have students write at least three original sentences that include indirect objects. Then students should parse and label their sentences with the appropriate syntactic labels. Students should begin with simple, straightforward examples, but as they improve, can undertake more challenging examples. In this model storyboard, sentences are intentionally simplistic to clearly demonstrate the roles of subject, verb, direct object, and indirect object. The focus of this activity is on the function of an indirect object. Understanding an indirect object’s place in the sentence and its function help students use them correctly. This skill is especially useful when students craft original, Spanish sentences with indirect object pronouns later in the lesson.