Low-prep Vocabulary Activities for French, Spanish, Italian
Vocabulary instruction is one of the most important aspects of teaching languages, because students require many words to be able to communicate. In fact, in order to achieve conversational fluency in the target language, students need between 3,000 and 5,000 words. And regardless of which particular second-language acquisition and world language pedagogy strategies you employ, at the end of the day, we’re all responsible for providing students with plenty of opportunities to learn and practice vocabulary.
Before I share these vocabulary ideas with you, I first want to talk about vocabulary exposure. Conservative estimates show that most students need to be exposed to a word 10-15 times before it is committed to their long-term memory. For students who have learning challenges, I’d imagine this number to be even greater.
This may seem like a lot, but vocabulary exposures can stack up quickly. If a student reads a word, that’s an exposure. Listens to it being said out loud, that’s an exposure. Writes the word in their notebook. That’s an exposure. Practices saying it out loud a few times. That’s another exposure.
Providing. your students with fun and engaging vocabulary activities is a simple way to increase the amount of exposure they’re getting to vocabulary words, which helps them retain words more effectively and efficiently. This helps students perform better on assessments and increase their proficiency as they make their way towards conversational fluency.
Quizlet
I need to start this list off by mentioning Quizlet. If you don’t already use Quizlet, I implore you to do so! We were just talking about the importance of vocabulary exposure. Quizlet is THE WAY to supercharge the vocab exposure your students get: you can present vocabulary in a list form, as flashcards, there are practice games, there’s embedded audio (and the AI has gotten quite advanced in terms of pronunciation accuracy in the target language), embedded visuals, there are translations, there’s also Quizlet Live, which students love.
I’d recommend creating a Quizlet set for each of the vocabulary units you do. You can already find pre-made Quizlet sets, or you can make them yourself (it doesn’t take long). Share your set with your students via Google Classroom, and encourage them to download the Quizlet app on their phones to practice their French, Spanish, or Italian vocabulary on the go!
Vocabulary Bingo
In almost all of my vocabulary resources on TPT, I include Vocabulary Bingo. Why? It forces students to practice vocabulary recall. Many of the resources I see on TPT for Bingo include dozens and dozens of pages of bingo boards. But if we’re being honest, who has time to print them all out in color and laminate them? It’s so time consuming!
In my resources, I include a blank bingo board along with a page of images that students can cut out and paste onto their bingo boards. It takes them 5 or 10 minutes to make their own personalized bingo boards, and the best part is that they get to choose which vocabulary is on their board. I tell students to try to add a healthy mix of completely unknown words, words that they know moderately well, and a few words that they have already mastered.
A tip for the introverted teachers… I love playing Bingo with my students and calling out the vocabulary words, but it’s really draining for me as an introvert. Instead, I have students play small-group bingo in groups of 3-4 students. Each round, a different student becomes the “caller” while the other 2 or 3 players actually play. I like this because it saves me energy, provides students with an opportunity to practice pronunciation while they’re the word caller, and honestly, students prefer it. Try this out during your next teacher observation, too. I’ve had administrators comment on how clever this tweak was, as it turned a teacher-led activity into a student-centered one!
Charades & Pictionary
Simple games. Almost zero prep. Beloved by students. What more could you want?!
Take a vocabulary list that you already have and cut out the words. Place the words in a basket, and have students work individually or in pairs to pick a word from the basket, plan out a mini skit in which they act out (or draw) the vocabulary word, while students in the audience guess the word. Give students the option to act (great for the extroverted kids!) OR draw (great for the introverted and/or artistic kids!). No words, of course!
I’ve got a World Language Sports & Hobbies Charades activity that I offer as a freebie on TPT. Click the image below to grab it for your classroom!!
Memory Games
Another vocabulary activity that I include in most of my vocabulary resources in my TPT Store is a Memory Game. Image on one card, vocabulary word on the other. I try to use at least 15-20 words. Students cut out the cards, place them face down on their desk, shuffle them up, and take turns flipping over two cards. When they match the word with the image, they take the pair of cards and place it in their pile. If they do not match the word with the image, they place the two cards back where they found them. At the end, whoever has the most matched cards wins!
Word Sort
This one is a favorite of mine. Give students a vocabulary list in the target language. Give them 6 or 7 categories. Working independently or in pairs, have them sort the words into the categories you’ve selected. For example, during your Clothing Unit, maybe you have them sort the vocabulary words into the following categories: Tops, Bottoms, Headgear, Footwear, Jewelry, and Miscellaneous Accessories.
Hot Seat
One student sits facing the class. A vocab word is shown behind them. The class gives clues (without saying the word), and the student guesses.
Great to play as a whole class, or you can even have students play in small groups. Share a Google Slides presentation with them (one word per slide), and have them present the slide on a Chromebook BEHIND the student who’s in the hot seat.
Speed Word Chain
How to play: One student says a vocab word. The next student must say a related word (e.g., same category or rhyming word), and so on. You pick the rules. Here’s an example:
During the food unit, in round one, students need to pick a vegetable. Round 2: fruit. Round 3: Dairy item. Round 4: Meat. Round 5: Breakfast item. Round 6: Lunch item. Round 6: Cultural Food from the target culture(s). So on, and so forth. It’s helpful to make a list of the round criteria before you have your students play this game!
Variation: Have students stand up. Whenever a student “breaks” the chain, they sit down and a new round starts. Last student to not break the chain wins!
Alphabet Vocab Challenge
How to play: Have students take out a blank sheet of paper and write the alphabet, one letter on each line. Have students work in pairs or groups of three. Without using their notes, see how many vocabulary words they can come up with that begin with each letter of the alphabet.
Variation: Set a timer for 5 minutes—whichever group has the highest number of words is the winner!
I like to create specific rules when students “tally up” their points at the end of the game. For example, students give themselves +2 points for the FIRST WORD that they come up with for each letter, and then +1 point for each additional word. This incentivizes them to come up with words that begin with different letters of the alphabet to maximize their points!
Final Thoughts
One of our goals as World Language teachers should be to provide students with meaningful opportunities to acquire language. Additionally, we want students to use the vocabulary they’re learning in meaningful ways so that they build the intrinsic and extrinsic motivation to learn the vocab we’re trying to get them to learn.
If students regularly use new vocabulary during exciting in-class activities, they’re much more likely to go home and study their vocabulary, because they know they’ll need it during your class. If you just have students come in and do worksheets, chances are they won’t get the same sense of urgency, like “Oh wait, I actually need to learn this food vocabulary, because pretty much every day of Spanish class, we’re actually using the vocabulary in class.” (BTW, nothing against worksheets! I use them all the time. They’re great and important tools, but we need games and activities to increase the motivation piece.)
Hope you found something here that will be useful in your French, Spanish, or Italian classroom! Happy language and grammar teaching,
~ Michael
