Today’s post comes from Jamie at Specialty Spanish! Jamie is an experienced teacher who supports teachers like us in finding a balance between engaging classrooms and fulfilling lives.
Jamie shares practical tips, creative lesson ideas, and free resources to make planning easier and classes more dynamic. Outside the classroom, she loves to travel to Spain, read, and practice Taekwondo.
Her mission is to help educators excel in the classroom while enjoying life beyond it.
3 Helpful Facts About Integrated Listening and Speaking Activities
Are you looking for ways to build proficiency with your Spanish students? I have a great suggestion! Begin Integrated Listening and Speaking activities as soon as possible with your students!
What are Integrated Listening and Speaking Activities?
With ILS activities, students will hear a prompt, and then record a response. The prompt is usually pretty short. Many times, the prompt speaker will introduce a topic, and then ask the student a related question. Other times, the prompt will introduce a topic and then request that the student ask questions related to the topic.
How are Integrated Listening and Speaking Activities Structured?
It depends! The earlier in a student’s language learning you begin, the quicker students can develop comfort and confidence with listening and speaking.
Personally, I start by giving very simple prompts related to the unit theme. For example, if our class is learning vocabulary related to clothing and shopping, I will create an ILS activity related to familiar vocabulary. This is one way to marry performance and proficiency.
As students progress in skill and proficiency, you can add challenge in many ways. For example:
Use prompts that require more than one time frame
Use longer prompts for students to listen to
Use more complex language in the prompts
Create prompts that span a variety of topics instead of just one
Create prompts that span a variety of topics and a variety of time frames
(by the way, this last suggestion is what the AAPPL test is like!)
How, Exactly, Do I Create an ILS Activity?
There are lots of options! Here are my top 3.
Are you lucky enough to have a language lab at your school? The software will allow you to set up an activity where you record the audio prompt, and students will record their responses.
If you are creating your own, I suggest typing out the script for what students will hear. Typing or writing out your prompts allows you to edit before you record to make sure you have all the elements you want your students to practice. And, you are less likely to mess up your recording if you can read it!
No language lab? No problem. To create Integrated Listening and Speaking Activities, choose your favorite recording software. Record your prompts, and add them to a a document that you can share with your students. Ask them to use a recording device/software that produces a link. They can copy and paste the link to their responses in the document.
Last, if you are not a “techie” person, if you need to see one with your own eyes, or if you are pressed for time and out of energy, you can check out one of mine! Here is a FREE ILS activity with a Food and Restaurant theme! These activities can be used and re-used in higher level classes as review!
Resources
- FREE Integrated Listening and Speaking: Food & Restaurants
- Integrated Listening and Speaking Accidents & Injuries
- Listening & Speaking for Travel and Vacations
- Listening and Speaking Clothing and Shopping
- Find More Activities in My TpT Shop!
Other Posts You May Like
- Guided Conversations for Performance & Proficiency
- Marry Proficiency and Performance With Task Cards
- Performance vs. Proficiency in World Language
About the Author:
I’m Jamie from Specialty Spanish. I have been a high school Spanish teacher at the same school for 25 years! I specialize in teaching the upper levels of Spanish and though I love teaching AP/Dual Enrollment, my favorite year is Spanish 3! Students really bloom in that year with their ability to create with language!
I started my blog and TPT store during the pandemic. Not surprisingly, I was feeling overwhelmed and burned out in my profession. However, it was a huge, pleasant surprise to find that helping other teachers and creating resources that they need reignited my passion!
When I’m not in the classroom, I can usually be found with my husband at a soccer game or a diving competition! My 2 high schoolers are competitive athletes, and we are never bored! I also enjoy training in Taekwondo, walking my dog in the woods and playing pickleball with my sister!
