7 Low Prep Ways to Use Task Cards in the World Language Classroom

I first stumbled upon task cards while looking at some awesome elementary classrooms on Instagram. Although I teach at the secondary level, I love to look at elementary classrooms for inspiration. Their activities are engaging and everything always looks so bright and inviting.

I was intrigued by task cards because they are highly engaging. Students receive one question or problem on a card which forces them to completely focus on the task at hand. Based on the type of activity, students can physically move to another card, or simply flip over another cards once they have completed the one they are working on.

I knew I wanted to adapt this to my classroom. Many times students feel that seeing a lot of words in a foreign language is overwhelming. They tend to identify the words that they don’t know, and lose focus on the words that they actually understand. By breaking down lists into task cards, I knew that students would not feel overwhelmed. I also liked that I could integrate physical movement into these activities as I find that my students love to get up and move around whenever possible.

I have created a list of 7 low-prep task card activities for your World Language Classroom. They are really no-prep once you have the cards cut but I say low-prep because I do not want to be misleading. The first time you make task cards you will need to set aside some time for cutting. I like to create mine in a table so that I can copy and paste the same table and then easily line up my papers and cut using a paper cutter.

You can create task cards with definitions or questions on them (really anything!) but I like to create mine with vocabulary words or expressions because I find these to be REALLY useful. I can use them as described in the 7 activities below or easily adapt them to use with another worksheet for a more hands on approach. 

1. Describe and Point:

Distribute the task cards to individual students (or one per pair if you don’t feel like creating a lot of sets!). Describe to them a word from your vocabulary list. If you are teaching a lower level you may wish to do this in English but if you have an intermediate or advanced level I like to do this in the target language. Ask students to point to the word that they think you are describing. If you have a large group you can ask them to hold up their answer to do a quick scan to see if everyone is on the right track. If students are playing in pairs, turn it into a competition and see who can find the correct word first!

2. Heads Up!:

For this activity, students will work in pairs or in a small group (I suggest no more than four). Each group gets one set of task cards. One student will take the set of cards and hold them up to their forehead with the word facing their group-mates. The group-mates must describe the word in the target language for the Student with the cards. The goal is to get through as many cards as you can in a set amount of time (usually 5 minutes per student is good). If they finish the task cards before the time is up, that’s ok! Students should shuffle the pile and continue to play to continue earning points. This is a really fun and engaging activity that students love to play.

3. Draw It Up!:

Students will work in pairs or small groups for this activity. Each group will receive one set of task cards. For each ≈5 minute round, one student will be the illustrator. They must randomly draw cards from the pile of face down task cards. They must create an illustration for their teammates and their teammates will guess the vocabulary word/expression. The illustrator who gets the most words per session wins! If you have small white boards, these work great with this activity. If not, a blank sheet of paper folded to create multiple boxes for different images works also!

 4. Write Me a Sentence:

You can have students work alone or in pairs for this activity. Each student/pair will receive one set of task cards. Starting with the task cards face down, each student will choose 5-10 (whatever number you’d like!) task cards. They must then create 5-10 sentences using each word/expression that they chose. They should leave the word/expression from the task card out of the sentence so that they can trade with another student for further vocabulary practice. They should also make sure that their sentence or description is easily related to their word/expression.

5. Write Me a Story:

Students will work individually for this activity. Students will be given 7 task cards at random. They must come up with a cohesive, short story that uses all 7 words or expressions. This is a really fun activity that gets students to think outside of the box and they love to share their stories with the class!

6. Haiku:

Students work individually for this activity. Students spread out the task cards in front of them (or to get them up and moving, you can spread them out around your classroom and have students walk around to look). They must come up with a creative haiku about the topic of study incorporating words or expressions from the task cards. Remember: the syllable pattern for a haiku is 5-7-5.

7. Word Association:

Students can work in pairs or small groups for this activity. Each group receives a set of task cards. From their pile, they will choose 10 random cards. For each card they must create a list of words or expressions that they can associate with the chosen task card. Each list must be at least 3 words/expressions long and should relate to the unit topic in some way.

I hope you find this use of 7 task card activities useful in your World Language Classroom! I love these activities because once I have the task cards created, I can easily mix up these activities to engage students and keep them on their toes! I have found that by doing 3-4 of these activities with vocabulary words or expressions my students are better prepared for assessments and are more likely to actually apply the vocabulary in future situations. I also love that these activities are no prep (besides creating the task cards) so that once I have the cards made I can easily transition to one of these activities. If I feel that my lesson is getting a little boring, these are great ways to shake things up and get kids moving.

I will leave you with one last pro-tip: the first time you use the task cards that you have created, hand them out to your students and assign each student a number. Have that student write that number on back of all of their task cards. I cannot tell you how many times I find a random task card on the floor and now have to search through 15 sets to see which one is missing that particular card. The number system helps to keep them organized! J

Thank you for reading. I would love to hear how you use task cards in your classes. Also, check out my Free Technology Task Cards available for download NOW!