In my first blog post, I alluded to how difficult it was to get students to speak Spanish in class. I described my struggle with wanting students to speak perfectly and their struggle with actually using the target language in class.

After thinking a lot about this dilemma, I realized that I had to create authentic tasks that would promote real-life exchanges between students in Spanish. After teaching basic vocabulary, I provided students with a brief scenario and put them into pairs to practice speaking about said scenario. I realized that in creating these tasks, I had to find topics of conversation that would really get students going and pique their interest. I’ve always known that students love to talk, but I never made the connection that by providing them with topics that they wanted to talk about they would actually talk up a storm…¡en español!

The first task I created was very simple. It dealt with teaching students two simple words: mejor (best) and peor (worst).


After I presented these words, I taught students how to agree, disagree, or state their neutrality about a particular topic:

Once I did this, I then distributed individual dry-erase boards and markers to students. I went through a short presentation with provocative statements such as “Chris is the best teacher at ESA” and “Cardi B is the best singer”. Students then wrote out in Spanish on their boards whether or not they agreed with the statements posed.

Once we did this activity as a class, students completed a short exercise in which they listed some of their favorite things and people. All they had to do was fill in a few blanks. Here are some sample questions:

1) ____________________________________ es la mejor cantante. [____ is the best singer]
2) ____________________________________ es el mejor equipo de béisbol. [____ is the best baseball team]
3) ____________________________________ es el/la mejor profesor(a) de ESA. [____ is the best teacher at ESA]
4) ____________________________________ es el mejor borough. [____ is the best borough]

The last task that students were asked to do was the actual interpersonal task itself; this task was given on day 2 after all of the above vocabulary was taught. The class was given a rough outline of some talking points to be addressed. This scaffold facilitated authentic conversation between students, and it also fulfilled the requirements of an interpersonal speaking task that is at once unrehearsed and unscripted. Here is the rundown of the task itself:

Instrucciones: Using your classwork from yesterday and your notes, talk to 4-5 different people. SPEAK ONLY SPANISH! Have an unscripted conversation. Use the Spanish you know. Feel free to add more details.

A) Partner 1
  • Ask your partner what their favorite (movie, song, etc.) is
B) Partner 2
  • Respond
C) Partner 1
  • Say you agree / disagree.
  • If you disagree, say what you think/believe
  • Ask your partner what their favorite (movie, song, etc.) is
D) Partner 2
  • Say you agree / disagree.
  • If you disagree, say what you think/believe
  • Say thanks and goodbye.
  • Change roles and repeat

Overall, students were really excited to get to chat with each other about topics that interested them. Furthermore, the vocabulary they learned is vocabulary they need to navigate real-life interactions with native Spanish speakers. This type of speaking practice that occurs within the classroom moves away from the teacher asking all the questions and reflects what actually happens in the world–people talk to one another without a linguistic mediator! This activity gave students the autonomy to practice their Spanish in a way that felt natural and spontaneous. Here is a clip of a two students engaging in the activity:

Students responded very favorably to this activity. They enjoyed having conversations with new words, getting to learn more about their classmates, and talking with different people. Clearly, the overall social aspect of this task was a huge success. Some students stated they wish they could have picked their own partners, while others wished they could have asked more questions to the same person. Since students were so excited to talk about their preferences, many said they wanted to learn more Spanish so they could add more details to their conversations!

One of the best outcomes of this lesson was that once it was created, I could apply the structure to other types of interpersonal tasks with different themes. I will follow a similar structure this week in class, but instead of getting students to talk about their favorite musicians, foods, etc., they will be read a short passage about their zodiac signs and discuss it. Here are the talking points students will have for this task:

Instrucciones: Talk to 4-5 different people. SPEAK ONLY SPANISH! Have an unscripted conversation. Use the Spanish you know. Feel free to add more details.

A) Partner 1
  • Ask your partner when their birthday is.
B) Partner 2
  • Respond
C) Partner 1
  • Ask your partner what his/her sign is.
D) Partner 2
  • Respond
E) Partner 1
  • Ask your partner what he/she is like based on their sign
F) Partner 2
  • Respond
  • Say whether you agree / disagree.
  • If you disagree, say what you think/believe
  • Say thanks and goodbye.
  • Change roles and repeat

Eventually, I would like to be able to remove all the scaffolds for these conversations and provide students with conversation prompts that are not so prescriptive. I believe that once they have more practice engaging in tasks like the ones detailed here, they will be more comfortable with interpersonal speaking in class.

One of the major pieces of advice I would give to teachers trying this activity is to make sure students talk about topics that are of interest and relevant to them. When first rolling out such a project, students need to be guided with clear scaffolds so they can take risks and speak the target language as much as possible.

As I move forward with my own practice, I’m wondering what other topics/themes/vocabulary would be appropriate and necessary to present. I also wonder what might be good ways to assess this type of activity. Perhaps self-assessments and peer assessments could be a start. Listening in on individual conversations and then offering timely feedback on students’ discussions is another way to provide feedback for them.

In addition, I think this structure would be great to implement for end of year World Language roundtables. During roundtables, one teacher and 2-3 students speak in Spanish for roughly 15 minutes. The teacher assesses the proficiency level of students in order for students to pass to the next level of language study. To some extent, roundtables revolve around teachers volleying questions to students. Conversations like those described here might be a much better structure for the roundtable.

Embarking on the journey to get students to speak more Spanish in class has been an exciting one! The biggest mindset shift I experienced is that when given high-interest topics and tasks that are well-scaffolded, students will not only rise to the occasion and speak more Spanish, but they will also ask for more and more Spanish to fill in communicative gaps! Meaningful tasks make engaged students. Students who can actually put their Spanish to real-life use outside of the confines of worksheets and stilted teacher-student-question-answer-volleying experience a self-confidence boost and an incredible sense of self-efficacy. In effect, Spanish becomes a living, breathing vehicle for engaging and interesting conversation!

A link to the PPT from the lessons described can be found here and a link to all worksheets, handouts, etc. can be found here! Please comment on this post and let me know what you think! I look forward to hearing your feedback and questions.