A twist on a listening activity for you…..
Give pupils a small card with an image on it, representing some of they key vocabulary that the class have been learning eg. if you have been learning daily routine, each card could show each of the reflexive verbs learnt, some pupils could have the same card – it doesn’t matter. Play an extract from an audio file (or read your own text out loud) and when a pupil hears their word they have to stand up and then sit back down again quickly. You should end up with pupils popping up all over the room if they are paying attention. Once you have done this once get the pupils to swap cards and do it again or make it harder by giving them two cards to listen out for.
I love using this activity to make pupils read a text in detail and you can encourage lots of TL use by giving the class the language they need to do the task, eg: How do you spell that? Say it again please. I’ve forgotten. Yes, that is right. No that is not right, you need a coma/full stop/capital letter etc.
Choose a text (or a few different ones) and stick them up on the walls, preferably as far away from the pupils as possible. Divide students up into small groups (4s works well) and give each group a text on the wall that they will be running to. Appoint a secretary/scribe and a runner, then, on the word go, the runner runs to the text for their group, runs back to the group and tells the secretary (the only person allowed to write) what the text says, who must write it down correctly. The aim of the game is to be the first group to finish copying the text correctly and you can allocate points to the first few teams to finish. Then you can get the pupils to assess each other’s written texts for errors and for each mistake the team loses a point. At intervals throughout the race, call out ‘change’ so the runner and the secretary have to give their role to someone else. Do this as many times as you dare! I also like to go round listening in and deducting marks for anyone caught speaking in English.
Another way to make pupils read…..
A common activity in the MFL classroom is a gap fill task, where pupils have a variety of words that need to be placed in a text. Why not shake this activity up and put the words around the room for them to find. They love the challenge of finding them, and then are more focused when they need to sit down and try to put all the words in the text correctly.
Here is a speaking activity for your classes which can be based on any text that you have and around any vocabulary that you wish to practise.
All you then need to do is to amend parts of it so that there are three options for a pupil to chose from.
First, send a pupil out of the room. Whilst they are outside, get the class to decide which answer will be the correct part of the first sentence with a multiple choice answer (a, b or c) and then do this for each multiple choice sentence. (Note: all answers could be correct, the aim is for the pupil to pick the same as the class and to get as much reading and listening practice in as possible.) Once the class has decided on the a/b/c option for each sentence, call the pupil back in and get them to read aloud the text. When they get to a multiple choice option encourage them to pick one. If it is wrong get the whole class to say something along the lines of Non, ce n’est pas correct, encore une fois! or No es correcto, otra vez and the pupil reading has to start all over again. If they are right they can receive a chorus of Oui, c’est correct, continue or si, es correcto, continua before carrying on.
Once the pupil reaches the end of the passage they should get a round of applause and then pupils can do this activity in pairs, choosing their own a/b/c options for their partner. You may wish to encourage them to write down the options they have chosen so that no one can be accused of cheating!
If you would like to see example texts then I have lots uploaded on my website, just search for Encore une fois or Otra vez or you can see a beginners Spanish example through the link below.