Sneak Peek: Ways to create a low-stakes environment to get students conversing in your heritage Spanish class.
The Influence of the Affective Filter
Did you start teaching a heritage class with the expectation that they would come to class ready and willing to speak freely in Spanish? Me too.
Instead, the students that filled the seats were teenagers with very high social awareness and a fear of embarrassing themselves. Speaking in front of peers is an anxiety-inducing task. They don’t want to say anything wrong for fear of being judged. This plays a role in what is called the affective filter, an imaginary wall that can form and interfere with student language learning. Their past experiences in language classrooms with teachers of different management styles, along with personal motivation and attitudes towards learning can also influence this mental block.
Heritage learners may also suffer some degree of ‘language shyness’, formed from the self-perception that their language skills are not good enough. Maybe they’ve interacted in Spanish with others and experienced some shaming for their accent, how they used certain vocabulary, or didn’t conform to traditional grammar rules, leaving them with low confidence in their abilities.They might be comfortable speaking Spanish at home, but not in different settings.
Stephen Krashen’s Affective Filter Hypothesis supports this, citing emotional factors such as anxiety or a lack of self-confidence as barriers to second language acquisition. He is best known for his research regarding comprehensible input, and is an advocate of creating low-stress learning environments. When students are comfortable, they will absorb language more effectively.
To learn more about this topic and how you can create a safe, family-like classroom environment, see this post: Building Community through Partner Conversations in Heritage Spanish Class.
How to Increase Student Confidence
Create a classroom environment where students know that you view mistakes as a natural part of the learning process. Balance error correction with positive reinforcement, and show them that you are still learning, too! You’ll likely have students from many different countries using vocabulary that is new to you. Don’t be afraid to keep a personal dictionary, or a whole class list visible where you add new terms for all to see. It’s so important to emphasize the idea of having a growth mindset by modeling it yourself. Make it clear to your students that you are eager to learn from them too!
This might be a hot take, but not forcing students to use Spanish during the entirety of the class can actually be helpful. We have to remember that communication is the goal, and if students are feeling restricted, they feel more stress, and are probably going to talk less. If students use translinguistic practices, like Spanglish, that’s okay! Keeping focus on what students know and can do, valuing whatever they bring to the table, sets them up with a growth mindset. This is what we want. Model speaking in Spanish yo
Designing Speaking Activities
One way to help students feel less stressed when speaking Spanish is to provide concrete questions or prompts about familiar topics, such as where they would like to travel, what food is their favorite, what they do in their free time etc. When they don’t have to come up with the topic or questions themselves, they’ll be more likely to engage in conversation. When they share with one another they are also strengthening the relationships with their peers, which in turn helps everyone feel more comfortable.
Check out this free partner interview task, which combines a little fun and competition! Students will have to pick a category such as food, animals, colors, sports and so on. Each student takes a turn saying one word in Spanish related to the chosen theme (they’ll be building their vocabularies without even realizing it)! Whoever said the longer word related to the theme gets to choose the question that will be posed to their partner from the interview sheet. Once the question is asked and answered, it will be crossed off so it won’t be repeated. There are 22 questions total, but the activity can be shortened, or broken up over several shorter sessions. If you wanted, you could repeat the activity, but with new partners assigned.urself, and let it flow naturally for students.
Free Download: Partner Interview Task
Other Speaking Activities
Idea 1: Drawing
One student is allowed to view a pre-selected photo which they then must describe for their partner to draw. You can decide to display it on the big screen, with drawers having their back to it, or call students over to view it on your computer screen. Set a timer for 2 minutes. Once the time is up, drawers must reveal their art and the teacher shows the photo it should match. This is usually hilarious and some students will want to show off their good (or bad) artwork. Then the describer will become the drawer, giving both people a chance to speak Spanish. You’ll want to spread the students out a bit so the person drawing it can’t gather extra details from other describers nearby.
Idea 2: Speed Dating
Set up your desks like you would for speed dating, ideally two long rows facing each other. Divide the class into two groups, assigning each person a 1 or a 2. Make the 2s sit across from the 1s. Have a set of questions prepared that the 1s can use. Set a timer for one minute, allow them to converse. When time’s up, the 2s move to the next seat and talk to a new person. You can also do this by having students stand in two lines facing each other.
Idea 3: Opinion Corners
Choose a topic the students would be familiar with. Think musicians, restaurants, places, even school lunches. Decide how many opinion corners you want to allow. Four is usually good, but adjust based on class size.
On a piece of computer paper or construction paper write out your items, one per sheet of paper. For example, on one sheet you might write Taco Bell, on another sheet write McDonald’s, on the next write Wendy’s, and on the last sheet write Culver’s. Hang the sheets up in the four corners of the room. Ask students to pool themselves in the middle of your room, ask them to check out the signs and pick which one is the best restaurant. Give them twenty seconds to decide which sheet they want to move to. Once they have chosen their corner/restaurant, let them converse amongst one another discussing why they chose it as the best. Ask them to agree upon one spokesperson for each corner. After conversations have died down, go around and ask each spokesperson from each corner to share the opinions of the group. This activity usually brings out the laughter as students are quite passionate about their choices.
You can also do this with just two sides of the room to play This or That.
Recommended Materials:
This or That Cultura Latina Slideshow (Members Only)
These types of activities get students lost in the task instead of lost in the fear they have about speaking Spanish!
If you are looking for more easy and fun conversational activities to use with your students, check out this blog post: Character Card Icebreaker for Spanish Class. Although it’s referenced as a beginning of the year activity, you could use it any time to mix things up and get students interacting.
If you are ready for all of your lesson plans for heritage class to be done for you, join us in the Heritage Spanish Club!
If your students are heritage Spanish speakers but are receptive bilinguals and don’t produce much language yet, we recommend you begin with our Linaje Year One curriculum that will help them build foundational literacy skills. This curriculum is designed for middle school, but can be used with high schoolers who need extra language support.
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