Communicative activities focus on what students can do with the language rather than what they know about it. This presentation gives you tips on designing effective communicative activities.

1. in the
Foreign
Language
Classroom
Communicative
Activities

2. Tips, Tools and Resources to help
your students rise in proficiency
and communicate with confidence.

5. One of the ACTFL Core
Practices is to
design communicative activities.

8. 1
Focus is on
communication

9. This means doing something
with the language as opposed to
practicing isolated language
features out of context.

10. 2
Student-
centered

11. Students create with language
rather than having the language
explained to them.

12. 3
Focus is on the
message

13. Despite inaccuracy in language
forms, rather than focusing on
accurate forms and only
secondarily on the message.

14. Here are a few tips to keep
in mind as you design
communicative activities.

15. Activate background
knowledge on the topic or
choose a topic with which
students are familiar.

16. When the focus is on
communicating we want
students to be comfortable
with the topic.

17. Use open-ended prompts
and questions when
designing an activity or
task.

18. Prompts that are more finite
will not allow for opportunities
to engage with the topic and
negotiate meaning.

19. Design prompts that require
pairs or groups to rely on and
listen to each other.

20. Prompts that require sharing
an opinion, but not finding a
commonality or difference are
presentational in nature.

21. Design prompts that require
pairs and groups to collaborate
and use the language to arrive
at a product.

22. Not necessarily something
physical, but more finding a
collaborative solution.

23. Be sure that the tasks are
at (or slightly above)
students’ proficiency level.

24. A prompt for intermediate low
students (single, discrete sentences)
that requires connected sentences will
lead to a communication breakdown.

25. Download a PDF with a
template for designing
communicative activities
by clicking below.

26. Click HERE
to read my blog
post on designing
communicative
activities.

27. www.wlclassroom.com
Tips, Tools and Resources to help
your students rise in proficiency and
communicate with confidence.

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