4 Fun Oral Language Development Activities for Multilingual Learners
Helping multilingual learners develop oral language skills is essential for building confidence, vocabulary, and academic success. Oral language development also support reading skills! One of the best ways to support language growth is through engaging, but low-pressure speaking activities.
Here are four fun activities you can use with elementary or secondary MLs.
1. Mystery Picture Reveal
My students love this activity. Start by covering up a picture with puzzle pieces or boxes and slowly reveal one section at a time. As students observe the image, they make predictions, describe details, and share ideas using complete sentences. Here is an already made resource for this activity!
Some suggested sentence starters could be:
“I think it is…because…”
“Maybe it could be…”
“I notice…”
“I predict…because…”
2. Picture Talk and Prediction
Using interesting pictures is a great way to spark conversation. Additionally, this activity can be done using visuals related to content topics such as ladybugs, life cycles, plants, rocks, and more. To introduce the activity, I usually start with pictures that are familiar to students or topics they are interested in, and then move on to content-related pictures.
Start by showing students a picture and ask questions like:
What do you notice?
What do you think is happening?
What might happen next?
This activity helps students practice vocabulary, inferencing, and speaking in complete sentences. It also creates opportunities for meaningful partner discussions and collaborative conversations. You can increase the rigor depending on your students English language proficiency and background knowledge on the topic.
3. Four Corners Discussion
For this activity, students move to different corners of the room based on their opinions about a statement or question.
Some examples are:
Homework should be optional.
Summer is the best season.
Technology helps students learn better.
Once students choose a corner, they discuss and explain their opinions with classmates. This strategy increases engagement while helping students practice academic speaking and listening skills. In addition, adding sentence stems and word banks with possible answers to give explanations might help your level 1s and 2s MLs explain why they picked a specific corner.
4. Speed Speaking Rounds
Speed Speaking Rounds give students multiple opportunities to practice oral language in a short amount of time. Students rotate partners every one or two minutes while discussing prompts or answering questions. This activity is perfect to do in a small group, but also in a classroom. If you co-teach or teach middle/highschool ESL, this activity will be fun for all students.
Because students repeatedly practice the same language with different partners, their confidence is built while speaking in a low anxiety space. It’s also an easy way to increase student talk time during lessons.
Some suggested prompts:
“Describe your ideal weekend.”
“Should homework be banned?”
“What is an important invention?”
“Describe your dream pet.”
“What do plants need to grow?”
“Why is water important?”
“Describe an animal habitat.”
“Where do we use math in real life?”
Tips for Running Speed Speaking Rounds
Give students sentence stems.
Set a timer for 1–2 minutes.
Model the conversation first.
Let students repeat the same prompt with multiple partners.
Start with easy prompts before moving to academic topics.
Encourage complete sentences.
Oral language activities do not need to be complicated to be effective. Simple, engaging routines like these can help multilingual learners build confidence and develop stronger speaking skills in a fun and supportive environment.
For more resources and strategies to use with multilingual learners:
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