How To Incorporate Kinesthetic Activities In A Language Class

Do you remember back in the day when you tried getting students to act out a scene to practice another language? Or maybe you tried getting students to act out every vocabulary word? I wasn’t there to witness the class, but I can guess that your students felt awkward, and you weren’t happy with the lackluster effort.

I’m here to tell you that I’ve been there too.

We’ve all been there. But the good news is that you did a good job in taking a risk, and trying out something new. And, isn’t that what we want our students to do every day?

In this article, I’ll share a few kinesthetic activities that can successfully be used in a language classroom, that will have you happy with the results, and have your students feeling confident and comfortable.

Concentric Circles With High Five

I’ll be the first to admit that the name of this activity is not the most enticing. But, I’ll also tell you that when I used this activity with high school students, and adult learners, I got a whole lot more compliments on my teaching strategies.

In this activity, you need to split the class in half. If you have a class of 30, you’ll have 2 groups of 15. Give each student in one group a piece of paper that has a practice question on one side, and the answer on the other side. (Similar to practice flashcards back when education was completely analog.)

These students will need to get up from their desks and form a long oval facing outward. I would make ample space for this activity at the front of the room, and tell all the students to come to the front.

I’d tell half of them (half of the 15) to form a line shoulder to shoulder. Then I’d tell the rest of the group to stand back to back and shoulder to shoulder. So these students are standing in a long oval facing outward. They should all have their piece of paper with them, and hold it up so that the answer is facing them, and the question is facing out.

Then, the others half of the class needs to come to form an inwardly facing circle, where each student is directly facing a student with a question.