Get Them Talking: 10 Activities for ANY World Language Class

world language class

Here are some fun ways to get your students talking in any world language class.

Hot Seat: Break up students into groups. They devise questions on the topic of your choice. They take turns sending members to the hot seat to answer their questions. Fun- LOTS of talking…

Partner Pictionary: One talks, the other draws what they said. Works with any level.

Pass It: Pass vocab items around (i.e. clothing, school supplies, flash cards with pictures of the items- whatever you are studying). Play music. They say the word that they have when the music stops.

Subtitles: Put students in groups. They act out a situation based on the theme you are studying. They then act it out with the other groups taking notes. The groups go up again to act out their stories while the subtitles that the other groups wrote are read aloud.

Go Fish: Any vocabulary you have with two cards. I make mine on Power Point and print doubles, glue to card stock and laminate them.

Put students in small groups (2-4 is ideal).

Shuffle, pass out seven to each. They have to use the target language to get pairs.

i.e.

-¿Tienes los frijoles?

-Sí, tengo los frijoles.

This can be used with any theme. Great for vocabulary development and teaching object pronouns, too.

Play Teacher: Have a student lead the class in your TL routines (i.e. calendar, pledge, attendance). We have a lot of fun with this.

Slides: This activity works especially well for anything related to narrating in the past.

I love to use storyboards. Freeology.com has FABULOUS ones.

Students make up a sequence based on what they are learning and draw some pictures in the frames. They then trade with another group who has to retell what they think happened.

Talk Time: Turn on a timer. Give a theme or let students choose one. The only requirement is to speak in the TL the whole time.

Two Circles/Two Lines: This works well in novice-level classes. You can give them a speaking task (i.e. ask 5 questions, talk in the TL for as long as you can, a speaking activity from your text, etc.).

They get in two lines or form two circles. They speak to the person across from them until they get a signal to change. Great to learn short conversations.

Musical Lines or Chairs: Similar to above, but with target culture music.

Looking for more? https://reallifelanguage.lpages.co/20-fun-activities-to-learn-a-language/

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    1. Here is a compilation of resources for Spanish:
      https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/100-Distance-Learning-Activities-for-Spanish–5406378

      However, the activities can be used in other languages with some adaptation. What do you teach?

      I include this in my CI Spanish course, too:
      https://real-life-language.teachable.com/p/immersive-beginning-spanish-lessons

      I just created a 5000-word free guide on 5 weeks of low and no prep fun that has activities for ANY language. I will send this out to my email list in the coming weeks. Let me know at hello@reallifelanguage.com if you want one. Please also remind me to send some links to other activities, apps, etc., for online language classes/middle school.

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