Looking for a low-pressure way to get ALL your students speaking in Spanish class? Try a fishbowl! This speaking activity for Spanish class is super easy to do and provides a ton of input and output in the target language for students!
HERE’S HOW A FISHBOWL WORKS
1. FIND A SPACE
Before you begin, you’ll need enough space to make a big circle. This is a great opportunity to get students outside for some fresh air or advertise how awesome your class is in the commons or cafeteria if it isn’t being used (trust me- admin LOVE seeing this activity).
2. PICK A TOPIC
Decide what topic you want students to discuss or what question you want them to practice asking and answering. In Spanish 1, this might be very structured. The students asking the question might all be asking the same question such as “¿Cuántos años tienes?” or “¿Cómo te llamas?”. That way, students get a ton of great practice asking and answering the target question. In that case, I like to write the question on the board for students to refer to if they get stuck. I also provide the sentence frame for answering (Yo tengo … años. Me llamo … .) If you leave the classroom to do the activity, students can jot down notes on a scratch piece of paper.
For upper levels, conversation cards work great! Each card has one question on it. Pass out one card to each student; that will be the question they ask. Click HERE to see all my conversation cards.
3. SET UP THE CIRCLES
Once you have your question(s) ready to go, quickly divide the class into two groups. Have one group make a large circle. Have each person in the second group go stand in front of someone in the circle, facing the person. You should have two circles now, one inside the other.
4. SPEAK
Have students greet the person across from them in Spanish. Then have the outer group ask the inner group the question on their card. The inner circle needs to answer in a complete sentence and then ask their question. The outer circle also needs to answer in a complete sentence. Modeling this the first (and second) time you do the activity really helps!
5. ROTATE
Once that is done, both students need to say gracias to their partner and wait quietly for the signal to rotate. Once you give the signal (this could be a bell, “uno, dos, tres, mueve”, anything), the INNER circle moves one person to the right. It’s important that students don’t move until they hear the signal or else everyone will get jumbled up.
6. REPEAT
Repeat the process of greeting, asking, answering, asking, answering, thanking, and rotating one person to the right until everyone is back where they started. This is a quick process. Students are with their partners for no more than 30-60 seconds at a time, depending on the question. A fishbowl is a great way to get students to speak A LOT of Spanish in a short amount of time! 🙌🏻
Love this idea? You would also like my basketball game and relay race game!
I hope this Spanish class speaking activity helps! If you enjoyed this post, I would love it if you would pin it so others can enjoy it, too! 👇🏻 Thanks and have a great day!
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