Speaking Activities for Spanish 1

Starting from scratch with Spanish 1 can feel overwhelming, especially when your students know absolutely nothing. Let’s talk about simple speaking activities for Spanish 1 students to support them in their language journey!

Today we have a guest blogger, Ashley! Here’s a note from her.

Hi! My name is Ashley and I am the Spanish teacher and blogger behind Srta Spanish. I started my blog after constantly being inspired by other teachers and what they were sharing on social media and wanting to contribute to the conversation! Come check out more of what I have to share and all of my blog posts here.

Why focus on Speaking Activities for Spanish 1?

We know students need input, input, input before they’re ready for output, so why are we talking about speaking activities for Spanish 1 at all? Since we want to aim for 90% of class time in the target language, we want to be intentional with how we’re using the precious seconds of time in every class period. While it’s true that teachers are often the source of input for our students, we can use other resources like readings, podcasts, and even other students as valid sources of input!

The most important part of speaking activities for Spanish 1 is keeping your expectations reasonable and the material in bounds. Asking too much from your students for their proficiency level is a recipe for frustration, disappointment, and class time spent in English instead of Spanish. Think about the ACTFL can do statements for novice learners:

Interpretive: “I can identify the general topic and some basic information in both very familiar and everyday contexts by recognizing practiced or memorized words, phrases, and simple sentences in texts that are spoken, written, or signed.” Source
Interpersonal: “I can communicate in spontaneous spoken, written, or signed conversations on both very familiar and everyday topics, using a variety of practiced or memorized words, phrases, simple sentences, and questions.” Source
Presentational: “I can present information on both very familiar and everyday topics using a variety of practiced or memorized words, phrases, and simple sentences through spoken, written, or signed language.” Source

When we split that up into novice low, novice mid, and novice high, we can really drill down into what we want to do with our students when it comes to speaking activities. A lot of it begins with memorized words or phrases, with the help of gestures and visuals – so how can we incorporate those into our speaking activities for Spanish 1? Let’s dig in!

Speaking Activities for Spanish 1

Here are some of my favorite ways to get your students speaking, even at the novice low level in Spanish 1. There’s a mix of interpersonal and presentational speaking in here, with lots of memorized words, phrases, and visual scaffolding. Check out these games and lesson ideas for your Spanish 1 students!

The Beginning of Spanish Class Routine

Let’s start at the very beginning with a simple start of class routine. This routine relies on visuals via Google Slides, Google Forms, and even handouts – depending on how you choose to mix it up.

Students respond to simple, short questions about how they’re feeling, what the weather is like, and what’s going on in their lives. At the beginning of the year, this is a lot of “bien” or “mal”, but it progresses into more in-depth vocabulary and providing more information as their skills grow and you increase the options available with the scaffolding.

Learn more about this start of class routine in my blog post here!

Special Person Interviews

Here’s that presentational opportunity I was referring to! Special Person Interviews, or Star of the Day, is one of my favorite weekly routines in Spanish class. It’s a great way to get to know students, reinforce novice skills, and give them a chance to speak in front of their peers.

This is, again, done with a lot of scaffolding for students through visuals on Slides. You can choose what questions you would like to include in your interview, and you can even mix things up. When it comes to speaking activities for Spanish 1, I prefer to keep the interview questions consistent, even using the same Slide week after week to help them master the vocabulary and become more confident.

You can kick off Special Person Interviews by bringing in a special guest, especially when you’re working with complete novices. It’s a great way to model how the process works without putting a student on the spot!

Brain Breaks in Spanish Class

When you’re really focusing on spending 90% of class time in the target language, it can feel exhausting and overwhelming for students. Popping in purposeful brain breaks to help give them a breather is a great way to lighten the mood, but they can also be another great speaking activity for your Spanish 1 students!

For example, the Ball Game is a great brain break that doubles as a speaking activity. You can use it at any point of the year – even the very first day of school!

A quick round of This or That can be a brain break, a song, or hand clapping game work great, too. Check out a round up of some of my favorites in my blog post here!

Reading and Speaking Activities for Spanish 1

La Pareja Mentirosa is one of my favorite speaking activities for Spanish 1 because there’s almost no original output needed, making it really attainable for novices. Students read out loud and make slight tweaks to the reading by omitting words, adding details like “no”, “muy”, or changing names in the reading.

Click here to learn more about how to play this game with your classes!

Running Dictation Game

This game is perfect for your novice students since it’s full of memorized words and phrases! Here’s a really quick overview of how it works:

Students take turns “running”, memorizing, and repeating the sentences to their partners. Something I love about this activity in particular is that it forces negotiation and pronunciation. If the speaker isn’t clear, their partner will ask them to repeat themselves and clarify words together as they check and recheck, then follow up!

Guess Who Game

This game is an oldie, but a goodie for so many reasons. Students play in pairs or small groups to pick a person or thing on the game board, then ask yes or no questions until they are able to guess who.

Grab a free guess who game to play here!

This game has a lot of scaffolding for novices with the provided hand out, and it’s super flexible for your units, depending on the vocabulary or topic you’re working on!