Increase Your Spanish Students’ Engagement With Board Games

¡Hola profes! How are you doing? I can’t believe we are nearing the middle of November already. Thanksgiving break will be here before we know it!

Last week, I shared one of my favorite activities that I turn to at this time of the year when my students’ attention becomes more difficult to capture: Jeopardy (if you missed the post, you can check it out here). This week, I wanted to talk about another one of my go-to attention-grabbing activities: board games!

Not only can board games add an element of excitement to your classroom, but they can also create meaningful learning experiences that reinforce your unit content. Let’s explore how board games can help you elevate your Spanish lessons with minimal prep work required from you!

#1: Board games are versatile.

Imagine having a learning activity that adapts seamlessly to any concept or skill you want to reinforce with your students. Luckily, board games do just that! Whether you’re focusing on vocabulary, grammar, conversational abilities, or cultural nuances, board games can be customized to suit your specific teaching objectives. The possibilities are endless, making board games an invaluable addition to your teaching arsenal.

#2: Board games provide fun, engaging, and meaningful learning experiences.

If your Spanish classes haven’t felt fun or exciting (for you or your students) lately, board games can turn that around for you. The element of fun is at the core of each game, helping you move away from activities that might disengage your students and providing opportunities for students to interact meaningfully with the content of your unit. Board games appeal to students’ competitive natures, and you will love watching your students eagerly using their Spanish in order to win! Learning becomes play, play becomes learning, and we love to see it!

Board games help foster student engagement, reinforce unit content, strengthen relationships between students, and offer opportunities for collaborative learning and peer teaching. Students who are able to explain correct or incorrect answers to others tend to show better understanding of that content later on!

#3: Board games require minimal prep work.

You can find blank board game templates online, or you can make your own. Once you have a template, simply fill the spaces with a verb to conjugate, a sentence with a blank to fill in, a question to answer, a picture to identify, or whatever will reinforce the content of your unit! I also like to add special spaces, like “Lose a turn” or “Move _____ spaces forward/back.” The best part is, once you have your games, you can reuse them for years to come!

So, what does game play look like in class? Here’s what I do:

To help make game play easier, I give out an instructions sheet that tells students how they should move through the game board and how to win. Since I usually keep my games the same, I can reuse these instructions sheets over and over again!
To play the game, I place students in groups of 3-4. Each group gets a game board, an instruction sheet, game pieces, and dice. You can raid your own board game collection at home for game pieces and dice if you like, or you can purchase them. Students move through the board and complete the task on each space. I tell my students that they have to answer correctly in order to remain on the space (otherwise, they have to go back to the space where they started their turn), but you can make your own rules!
To make this a speaking activity, have your students verbally give the answers. If you prefer written practice, I have each group use a mini white board where players should record the answers. Group members should confirm if each answer is correct or not. I circulate throughout the room to settle any disputes or answer any questions about this!

If the idea of board games intrigues you but the idea of making them does NOT, I’ve got you covered! Here are some of my favorite board games that you can grab and use in your classroom immediately!