Listening Comprehension Activities for Spanish Class

¡Hola profe! I hope you’re settling in nicely to the new school year! It’s hard for me to believe I’ve already been back for a few weeks – and I’m sure that some of you have been back for even longer!

Let’s talk about listening comprehension activities for Spanish class! Let me know if this is the case for you: You have a textbook series with ancillary materials. Some of the audio files are great! However, when you look at the comprehension questions that correspond, all you’ve got is a handful of multiple-choice questions.

Don’t get me wrong – there’s definitely benefits of multiple-choice comprehension questions for listening activities, a key one being that it helps prepare students that will eventually go on to take the AP Spanish Language and Culture exam. But if your students are struggling with multiple-choice questions or you just want to change things up a little, here are some listening comprehension activities that you can try with your students this year. These activities work for a variety of learners and ability levels, and appeal to different learning styles!

#1: Make a list of words/phrases from the audio.

Have students listen to the audio once or twice and make a list of the words/phrases they understand. Then, have students share their lists with a partner. If you like, you can then make a list as a class on the board. Finally, based on this list of words/phrases that they have, have your students make a prediction about the main idea of the audio.

#2: Cloze Passages.

Type up the transcript of the audio, removing some key terms that your students should understand. As they listen, students should try to fill in the missing words from the transcript. If students need some extra support with this activity, you can always provide a word bank!

#3: True/False Questions.

Write a series of statements pertaining to your audio file, and have your students decide whether they are true or false. To expand upon this, you could also have your students correct any false statements, or provide evidence from the audio to justify their choices. For example, if you’re listening to an audio about weather, and the speaker explains that it’s cold and rainy today, you might provide students with this statement: Cierto o falso: Hace buen tiempo hoy. Your students might respond with, “Es falso, porque hace frío y llueve hoy. Hace mal tiempo.”

#4: Open-Ended Questions.

This is a great activity if your students need an extra challenge! Write some questions that correspond to your audio file and have students answer them in complete sentences.

#5: Illustrations.

After listening to the audio file, have students illustrate what they heard. You could have them a single picture that depicts the scene, or multiple smaller pictures that show different elements of the audio. It’s up to you!

If you’re looking for new or different audio sources featuring native speakers, check out these free websites:

Spanish Proficiency Exercises from the University of Texas. This site has videos featuring native Spanish-speakers that are appropriate for novice, intermediate, and advanced students on a wide range of topics! You can download the videos, or play them directly on the UTexas site. Transcripts are available on the site, as well!
SpanishListening.org. Spanish Listening also provides videos that are suitable for students of all proficiency levels. This site features speakers from nearly every Spanish-speaking country, so you can help your students acclimate to different vocabulary terms and ways of pronouncing certain letters/words. Transcripts, follow-up questions, and even audio prompts are available for most videos, too! You cannot download videos, but you can embed them into your website or LMS!
Audio-Lingua. Audio-Lingua has audio files in Spanish (as well as many other languages) that you can download or embed into your website or LMS. There are countless audio files available on a variety of topics. You can search the site by proficiency level or keyword to make finding the perfect audio a breeze!
SpinTX. SpinTX also features videos of native Spanish-speakers on numerous topics. You can download the videos if you like, and transcripts are provided as well! You can sort the videos by speaker, topic, and grammatical concepts to help you find the right video to suit your needs.

However, if scouring the internet looking for audios or videos to use in your classroom is NOT your thing, no worries, because I’ve done it for you! Here are some listening comprehension activities that are differentiated and ready-to-use in your classroom: