This article gives you, ten activities you could use to have students practice speaking, listening, reading and writing when teaching a unit about travel, tourism or countries in your Spanish class.
We have compiled a list of speaking activities in Spanish that you could use or adapt to your classes needs next time you are teaching a unit on travel. Many of them could be done as a quick daily speaking activity or turned into a larger project or presentation.
Spanish Speaking Practice Ideas for Travel Unit:
1. Make a travel brochure, website, infographic about a Spanish speaking country, city or attraction. This would be a great opportunity for students to use technology.
2. Plan a trip (give them a budget or location) and make them plan a trip. Your Spanish students could plan flights, hotels/hostels, touristic attractions, an itinerary and must-see tourist attractions,
3. Research authentic or typical foods in particular areas—maybe make a grocery list.
4. A guessing game, like 20 questions—where someone is going to/at certain locations, site, city or country, and the class asks tries to guess where they are by asking yes/no questions.
5. Describe a mystery place— similar to 20 questions; students could describe a place and others could guess what place it is based on their oral or written description in Spanish.
6. Market Simulation. You could make a ‘mercado’ in your classroom and have students practice asking the cost of objects, prices, quantity, materials, etc. Some could role play as the shopper and other as the seller.
7. Role-playing— students could work on common questions, answers or phrases that certain people say. Like a hotel clerk, tour guide, tourist, bus driver, a “local”, taxi driving, bus station a lost tourist, etc.
8. Making a complaint- Students could complain about a problem… No hot water, no towels, no Ketchup, there are too many mosquitos, the hotel room wasn’t cleaned, etc.
9. Packing Activity- Students draw a place and month (or date), they could make a list of necessary clothing or items to bring on their trip in the target language.
10. Compare and contrast different places/cities/countries
Again, these activities could be used as a quick warm up, an entire class activity or project or some for a multi-day project or presentation. It all depends on how you would like to organize speaking activities and projects for your students in Spanish class.
Many of these ideas could be used with students from upper elementary school, middle school, and high school Spanish classes.
