Use A Deck of Cards for Conversations {Free Printable}

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One of my older posts that has been extremely popular is how to use a Spanish deck of cards to get your students talking. All you need are Spanish Playing Cards {about one deck per five students} and the printouts I provide.

La Baraja is the name of the deck used in Spanish-speaking countries.  It is smaller than the English version containing only forty cards in all.  It also has different suits: oros (coins), bastos (clubs), espadas (swords), and copas (cups).  Traditionally, each of the suits represented a different part of medieval society.  The oros were merchants. The bastos were the peasants.  The espadas were the military, and the copas represented the Church.

The face cards are also different.  There is the sota (like our Jack), the caballo (horse/knight), and the rey (king).  Interestingly, there are no cards with the numbers eight and nine on them.

To use the cards and the questions, just shuffle the cards and put them face down in the middle of the group (no more than five students).  One student picks up a card and finds the appropriate question based on the suit and number of the card.  He or she then asks the person next to them the question.  That student answers and then picks up a card to ask the next student and so on and so forth.  I find that this activity works well at the beginning or end of a lesson.  It doesn't take a lot of set-up especially if you have the decks on hand.  I have laminated my question sheets so that they can be used again and again.  All you have to do is pull the materials out and get your students talking!

Here is my previous post with two free printables to use with these cards.

Here is a NEW printable of questions! Come back later in the month and I will offer up a fourth printable to use with the Spanish deck!

Are you interested in getting teaching ideas for your language classroom? See all the posts in this series...