I’m always looking for ways to get students up and moving in the classroom while they are practicing their foreign language speaking and writing skills. This is an activity that I call “Hide and Speak (or write)” that accomplishes this goal and students enjoy it and often ask to play. I’m happy to oblige because they speak (or write) so much during this activity.
- Begin by hiding 20-30 prompt cards. These can be index cards with vocabulary words, an image, a question about a reading, or proficiency-based questions aligned with ACTFL standards. The possibilities are endless for prompts based on the material that is being covered in class. Memory Cards or Task Cards work very well for this this activity.
- Pairs of students set out to find the prompts and when they do they return to the teacher with the card and perform the task: identify the image in the target language, use the word or verb in a sentence, answer a proficiency-based question or complete a Task Card. Lots of possibilities. This can all be through speaking or writing. When writing I give pairs a small white board and marker.
- If the pair responds correctly they can get a point for their team or the teacher can make it a point for the entire class with the goal being to get a certain number of points collectively in a specified amount of time. The teacher keeps the prompt card and the pair sets back out.
- Be sure to tell pairs that they need to wait in line to check in with the teacher so that that they don’t call crowd in.
Check out these task cards these task cards and memory cards that work well in this activity.