25 Creative Ideas To Make Your Students Fall In Love With Learning Languages

Looking for Engaging Activities for World Language Classrooms? Here Are 25 Interactive Ideas!

Imagine how much more motivating it would be to practice German grammar, improve English listening skills, enhance French speaking abilities, or develop Spanish writing skills if the learning experience included interactive games instead of just textbooks and notebooks.

In this blog post, we share with you 25 ready-to-use interactive activities for teaching English (ESL/EFL), German (DaF/DaZ), French (FLE), Spanish (ELE), Portuguese (PLE), and Italian (ILS). These no-prep language teaching activities will transform your foreign language classroom into a fun, engaging, and meaningful learning environment—exactly as it should be!

All the digital languages lesson activities in this blog post are free to use and have been created with BookWidgets. You can find these ready-to-use lesson plans in this group, as well as the French, Spanish, German, Italian and Portuguese. You can create a free BookWidgets account (if you don’t have one already) and duplicate the widgets into it, allowing you to make some changes where necessary (like translating it) and receive your students’ answers in your account. Make sure to check out this webinar with great ideas on how to use BookWidgets in your language class.

We’ve divided this post into different categories:

• Interactive Speaking activities
• Interactive Listening activities
• Interactive Reading activities
• Interactive Writing activities
• Interactive Vocabulary activities
• Interactive Grammar activities
• Bonus : Short film activities

Interactive speaking activities

The best way to learn a language is by speaking it, but many students struggle with motivation or have limited opportunities for real oral interaction in class. To help, we’ve compiled creative and engaging speaking activities designed to get students talking confidently.

These interactive speaking exercises will not only improve language fluency but also make foreign language learning more dynamic and enjoyable. Whether you teach English, Spanish, French, German, or any other world language, these ideas will transform your classroom into a space for meaningful communication.

1. Conversation with TikTok

Surprise your students by bringing TikTok videos into the classroom. This original and creative French speaking activity was posted on this blog post for French lessons and I love the idea. Many teachers and language enthusiasts use TikTok’s duet function to have language learners practice a conversation by interacting with the video. Use BookWidgets’ Split Worksheet widget to add the video on one side and an audio recording question type on the other. This way, your students will not only practice, but you will also be able to review their practice and give feedback (including audio feedback!). To get even more inspired for using TikTok in your class, read this blog post.

Here are some examples of videos with other languages:

🇬🇧 English interactive speaking activity

🇩🇪 German interactive speaking activity

🇧🇷 Portuguese interactive speaking activity

🇪🇸 Spanish interactive speaking activity

🇮🇹 Italian interactive speaking activity

2. Role-play a job interview

This English speaking lesson plan is a classic role-play activity with a twist. As a preparation for the job interview role play, students bring five questions that are typically asked during a job interview into the correct order. Then, students brainstorm words that can be used to describe one’s personality (which they should use in the interview) before sitting in pairs conducting the interview, switching roles once the first interview is done.

3. Giving a speech

This Spanish speaking activity helps students practice speaking and presentation skills by delivering an award-winning speech.

They simulate being a recipient of a prestigious award, such as “Student of the Year,” and deliver a speech in front of the class. For that, they choose the category in which they have won. Afterwards, they prepare their speech by following the given structure. They then practice giving a speech with the audio recording question. After giving it, they wrap up this Spanish speaking activity by self-reflecting and marking in the rubrics questions their impression of their own speech.

4. Starting a new civilization

Bring an imaginary scenario into the classroom to encourage your students to practice having a discussion in English, German, or any other language you teach, and making a decision together.

In this German speaking lesson plan example, students have to create a new, sustainable and fairer society on a isolated pacific island. Students choose seven people out of a list of 12 candidates to fly to the island and start a model civilization there.

This activity was created with a WebQuest widget and as students work through the tabs, they go from individual argumentation to group discussion until finally writing onto the airplane the names of the seven candidates they chose as a group.

Interactive listening activities

Remember when all the resources we had to practice our listening skills were the tapes/CDs that came with our workbooks? Our current reality makes it possible to have contact with authentic listening resources for ESL, DaF; ELE, or any other language you teach. YouTube, Podcasts, and streaming services such as Netflix or Prime Video are valuable resources that we can use to create engaging listening activities for language classes, so make sure to explore them!

5. Urban legends

Implementing podcasts in your class is an effective way to get students excited about listening to texts in Spanish, English, or any other language they are learning. Authentic material and interesting topics, such as urban legends, will keep your students motivated and engaged.

This example is a Spanish listening activity that brings an urban legend well-known in the Spanish-speaking world: El Chupacabras.

In this ready-to-use Spanish listening activity, created with a Split Worksheet, students listen to the podcast in Spanish to learn about that legend and have to draw the Chupacabras according to what they listen to in the description, to test their general gist of the topic. Aftewards, they do multiple-choice exercises to test their detailed understanding.

Need more inspiration? In this blog post we present you 10 inspiring podcasts for teachers worth checking out.

6. Understanding directions

This creative German listening activity was designed with a Split Whiteboard widget. Here, on one side we recorded an audio describing the way the blue car has to follow to reach the red car. On the other side, students see a whiteboard with a background image on which they have to draw the way to test their listening comprehension.

Take a look at this other blog post that brings ready-to-use Whiteboard ideas, many of which you can use in the language classroom.

7. The history of a language

YouTube has a lot of valuable material with which you can create a video quiz. In this example first shown in this blogpost with 30 ideas for French lessons, my colleague Dimitri presents a Video Quiz that teaches us facts about the French language, and how and why it is widely spoken. You can get inspiration from this to create a video quiz about the history of English, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Mandarin, or any other language you teach.

This blog post teaches you all about using the Video Quiz widget in your class, so go on and have a look.

8. Authentic material

Audio Lingua is a platform connected to the Académie de Versailles and provides short audio recordings by native speakers or language learners, in multiple languages for language learners. There, you can find authentic material on several different topics, and filter them by language level, gender and age group of the speaker, and duration of the audio.

In this ready-to-use ESL listening activity example, we created an English listening skill lesson plan about reality shows with an audio file from Audio Lingua. Students do a pre-listening activity to activate their knowledge of the topic. Then, they listen to the audio one time for general gist and then for detailed listening. Once that is completed, they sit in groups to discuss the topic and finally do a short writing activity giving their opinion about reality TV shows.

Interactive reading activities

Magazine and newspaper articles, blog posts, brochures, comic strips, manga, books, notes, e-mails, and social media texts all serve as excellent sources of authentic or adapted reading materials for language lessons. The range of materials available is vast and diverse. Below are four ideas to inspire your students to read more and enhance their reading skills.

9. Adapted magazine article

The beauty of working with digital material is that it can be very easily adapted to your students’ level. In this example of a German reading lesson plan, we adapted a text about everyday heroes to level B1 (lower intermediate) and created a full reading lesson plan, including a speaking activity to warm students up on the topic, vocabulary preparation before the reading part and two different types of reading comprehension exercises: skimming for general information and reading to understand detailed information.

To wrap up, students give their opinion about the person presented in the article and finally record audio describing someone they consider an everyday hero, justifying why. This lesson plan was created with a Split Worksheet widget, which allows students to read a text beside the questions to it, without having to download the text or opening it in a separate tab.

10. Bedtime stories

If you are looking for English reading activities for children, you must explore Naratopia! My colleague Lucie has already spilled the beans about this well-kept secret in this comprehensive blog post with ready-to-use activities for developing reading skills and I bring you here one example.

This WebQuest reading activity allows your students to create the habit of reading (and listening to) bedtime stories. The tabs of this webquest are for each day of the week. By opening them, students see the lexicon for the story and a Split Worksheet with the story and reading comprehension activities for it. Your students will be excited with this very visual, creative, and fun English reading lesson plan.

11. Reading recipes

This interactive reading idea for the Italian class is likely to get your students focused on the text they have to read: a Tiramisu recipe.

This Split Worksheet combines audio, video and text to bring students a very famous Italian dessert recipe. Here students watch a video with the explanation of the recipe and then read it to do the reading comprehension exercises. If your schools has the means for it, make it the first step of a mini-project in which the final step is savoring this homemade dessert as a class. Your students will love that!

12. Authentic reading material

An effective way to get students engaged while reading is by presenting them with authentic material. Bring students texts that they normally encounter in their daily lives in a foreign country and create a reading activity with authentic text, such as this one, first featured in that blog post for French teachers I had mentioned before. In this authentic French reading activity, students read an insurance form and answer the questions on the other side of the Split Worksheet.

Interactive writing activities

Writing is a skill widely neglected by many language learners. Therefore, it’s essential to bring engaging and interactive writing activities to your language classroom. The ideas below will inspire your learners to express themselves in writing in different ways.

13. Reflexive writing

Students become more engaged if they know that the teacher won’t be the only person reading the text they write. Use online forums like Quora to inspire your students to express themselves purposefully and share their thoughts on topics you bring them.

In this interactive Spanish reading activity we added a screen shot of a Quora’s forum feed to a Split Worksheet. On the other side of the worksheet students write their contribution to the forum and submit it to their teacher for correction and feedback before sharing their contributions in groups.

14. WhatsApp conversation

This writing activity for French classes first featured in this blog post for French teachers is very easily adaptable to any level or language.

Here, students choose two characters of a book they’ve read and write a WhatsApp dialogue of the two. This is a fun way to practice writing while wrapping up the discussion of a literaty piece.

15. Open-ended paragraph writing

Using a Rubrics question type gives your students the possibility to keep the correction criteria in mind and strive to write a good text. In this digital English writing activity students are given a topic about which they should write, they use the virtual scratchpad to make their notes before starting writing and reflect on their work before turning it in.

Make sure to watch this great webinar on open-ended questions and rubrics to learn how to get the most out of it. Have a loot at this blog posts on how to create digital rubrics.

16. Creative writing

This Portuguese writing activity brings fun into the classroom. Students spin the Randomness Tool and write a creative story based on the combination of emojis that appear. We also included an Audio Recording question so they can practice their speaking skills.

Interactive vocabulary activities

The vocabulary activities for language classes below showcase some of the many possibilities (but not all of them) to teach or have students practice vocabulary using BookWidgets, in terms of widgets and question types but also of widget settings.

17. Teaching vocabulary with images

In this fruit vocabulary activity for the German class, teachers can make the language class very visual and versatile.

As a preparation for class, students take a picture of the fruits they have at home or draw their favorite fruits on the whiteboard. Then they do a word-image-matching exercise, and practice reading by putting the fruits listed on a shopping list in the correct order.

Afterwards, they read a dialogue in which two people say what fruits they like and answer the multiple-choice picture question. To wrap up, they practice writing by annotating the names of the fruits on the picture and finally record a dialogue in pairs discussing the fruits they like and deslike.

18. Teaching vocabulary with games

I love using games to teach vocabulary. Luckily enough, there are so many cool tools to create vocabulary lesson plans, such as BookWidgets’ game widgets. By using a structure widget like the WebQuest or Planner, you can combine several different activities or games in one.

In this French vocabulary games webquest, we show you several activities to teach, expand and practice animals vocabulary in French. Here you will see a combination of puzzles, crossword puzzles, bingo, hangman, pair matching, and much more. In the end, students test their knowledge with a Worksheet and if you want to take it a step further, teach your students famous French proverbs that include animals. To learn more about how to get the most out of game widgets, check out this webinar.

19. Teaching vocabulary with hotspot images

With a Hotspot Image widget students learn new vocabulary independently. The teacher adds different hotspots to a background image with which students can learn new words. In this Spanish vocabulary activity about fruit and vegetables we added short audio files to each hotspot, teaching the pronunciation of the words. Besides audio, you can also add words, videos, links or web pop-ups to the Hotspot Image.

Learn more about the power of Hotspot Image widget in this blog post.

20. Teaching idioms and expressions

In this example of an interactive activity to teach English idioms, we create a Pair-Matching game with sentences and pictures, and students have to complete the idioms by matching the sentence cards with the correct picture.

We’ve repurposed this English idioms Pair-Matching game to create a complete idioms lesson plan, by adding exercises in a horizontal Split Worksheet. Students start by playing the game and once done, they scroll down to work through the questions: Marking the idioms in a a dialogue, matching them with their meanings, filling in the blanks with the correct idioms and finally writing the correct idioms to then discuss the questions orally in pairs.

Interactive grammar activities

Teaching grammar in a fun and creative way is possibly a language teacher’s biggest challenge, but essential to awaken students’ interest in certain topics. The interactive grammar activities below aim to bring a change of pace into your grammar class and have your students motivated to practice even German grammar!

21. Organize verb tenses on a timeline

Many students learn better with visual resources. Use the Timeline widget to give students an overview of the verb tenses of the language you teach.  In this French verb tenses activity, students should write sentences with two different verbs into the different tiles in the timeline: one for each verb tense.

22. Teach prepositions in a fun way

Prepositions are for many students one of the most feared aspects of learning a language. Bringing creative ways to teach and practice prepositions might change their minds about it. In this German prepositions activity, we first present a love letter for the students to read in which they mark the prepositions.

The love letter is actually an adaptation (with AI) of the lyrics of the song they listen to in the next exercise. By listening to the German song, students drag and drop the prepositions into the correct blanks. Then, they move on to categorizing the prepositions into two groups: prepositions with the accusative case and prepositions with the dative case. Then, they work with the meaning of the prepositions by doing an Annotated Picture exercise. To make this preposition exercise meaningful and personal, students take a picture of their environment and wrap up by describing what they see in the picture by following the given structure.

23. Practice irregular verbs with flashcards

Repetition is important to learn new vocabulary, so this Flashcard activity to learn irregular verbs in English interactively allows your students to study on their phones whenever they are. Here, they can choose the study or practice mode and you this gives your students a lot of flexibility to learn independently.

This is definitely more fun than writing the same verbs ten times in a notebook like I had to do back in the day. Make sure to check out this blogpost with great ideas on how to use flashcards in your classroom.

24. Drilling grammar structures for practice or review

Drilling is a very effective way to absorb new grammar structures. Therefore, an essential tool in my grammar lessons is BookWidget’s Randomness Tool. There, each wheel is a part of speech and I ask AI to create a list of: pronouns, nouns, and verbs for me to add to it. It is ready to go very fast and not knowing the elements that they have to build the sentences with keeps them focused. Check out this Spanish verb tenses Randomness Tool and get inspired!

🎁 Bonus interactive activity for the language lesson

Before wrapping up, I’d like to leave you with a hot tip for a fun lesson plan for language classes: using short films.

In the blog posts below you will find many great short films that can be used in the world language classroom to spark conversation, practice listening, reading, and writing, as well as vocabulary and grammar:

• 10 short films for students with ready-to-use lesson ideas to engage your students
• 20 powerful short films that teach students about ethics and morality

In this English short-film activity, students will practice several different skills at once, while doing something different in the class. They make assumptions about the short film based on the title, describe what they saw in the video in pairs, and compare the reality with their expectations.

Then they answer writtenly a couple of questions to make sure they understood the short film. To wrap up, they personalize the topic of the video by creating a visual representation of elements brought into the film and write three tips to deal with setbacks, which is the main topic of the short film.

Wrap-up

To wrap up, using interactive activities to teach world languages can make a huge difference in your classroom. By incorporating digital tools like BookWidgets, you can create engaging and meaningful experiences for your students, making language learning more fun, dynamic, and impactful. Whether it’s speaking, listening, reading, writing, vocabulary, or grammar practice, there are countless opportunities to enhance your lessons and bring them to life. So go ahead and explore these ready-to-use activities for the world language classroom, adapt them to your needs, and start transforming your language lessons today!

Remember, All the featured speaking lesson plans are designed with BookWidgets. You can duplicate the lesson plans from this group, adapt or translate them, and share them with your students. You can also create digital lessons like these from scratch. Want to learn more about creating engaging lesson activities with BookWidgets?

✔️ Follow BookWidgets on Bluesky, LinkedIn, Instagram, and join our teacher community on Facebook!

Connect with me on LinkedIn and Facebook and share your fun ideas for the language class with me!

Happy teaching and learning!