Partner Pairing in the World Language Classroom

As World Language (WL) educators, we embrace opportunities to offer engaging and relevant partner activities in our classrooms. After all, communicating with those around us is the heartbeat of our discipline! Completing authentic tasks in pairs (or small groups) fosters collaboration, strengthens motivation, and allows learners to refine social skills. The process of deciding how to thoughtfully pair students for those activities, though, is a relatable challenge among educators. In this post, we’ll examine some of the benefits of partner work, and will explore WL-specific strategies for efficiently pairing learners.

Partner-based learning activities provide excellent opportunities for:

1. Increased student engagement. The interdependence required for role plays, info gaps, etc., ensures that students remain motivated throughout the task. This leads to improved focus, active participation, and greater levels of proficiency as each student aims to accomplish his/her assigned role.
2. Enhanced sense of community. When students are paired with peers of various proficiency levels and learning styles, they gain a rich opportunity to encourage, assist, and benefit from one another. This collaborative nature leads to a deeper sense of community and belonging within the classroom.
3. Reinforcement in a low-stakes environment. Limiting students’ audience to 1-2 others causes their affective filters to decrease; language acquisition can then occur more easily (Krashen, 1982). Social pressure is eased, creating a safe environment for learners to ask questions, exchange ideas and ponder topics.

When determining how to pair students, the key is to keep the strategies focused yet simple. Below are some fun, low-prep partnering methods that minimize transition time while enabling students to interact with a wide variety of learners.

Appointment Clocks: These provide each student with 12 unique “hourly” partner options. Simply distribute copies of an analog clock image that has one line extending out from each hour. Students schedule their partner appointments in Spanish by asking classmates, <¿tienes una="" cita="" a="" las="" doce?="">> If both students’ 12:00 slots are available, each writes the name of the other student on that line; repeat until all hours are filled. Then, when the class is ready for a paired activity, teachers simply announce a random appointment time; students’ clocks instantly indicate who their partner will be.

Map Partners: The set-up process here is nearly identical to Appointment Clocks; instead of using a clock, though, distribute copies of a map showing countries (or major cities) where Spanish is spoken. In my classroom, for example, each student receives a map of Central and South America. Students schedule one partner per country, and we regularly rotate through the countries when pairing off. (To extend or remediate learning, teachers can strategically preschedule some countries for students prior to map distribution. For example, pair students of similar proficiency together at Ecuador, or students with differing strengths together at Costa Rica.)

Country/Capital Partners: Each student receives a popsicle stick; written on the stick is either a country or a capital. Students move throughout the room in order to locate their match (e.g., Santiago looks for Chile), then begin work.

Flag/Country Partners: Give each student an index card containing either the name of a country or a picture of that country’s corresponding flag (to save time, you can order stickers of the flags). As above, work begins when students find their match; students can again utilize the opening pages of their textbook to find images of each country’s flag.

Match Game: Using familiar Spanish vocabulary, create logical pairs on index cards using one word/phrase per card (e.g., pan and mantequilla); students must find their related match. Alternatively, write half of a vocabulary word on a card (e.g., estud-); students search for their other half (-iante).

Art Crawl: Print out images of famous artwork from those featured Spanish-speaking artists (old wall calendars also work great for this), then cut each image into the desired number of puzzle pieces. Randomly distribute one puzzle piece to each student; the goal for students is to find and work with the classmate whose piece corresponds to theirs and helps recreate the original art. This activity is great for previewing Auténtico’s Arte y cultura insights that students will study throughout the year.

Conjugation Cards: Distribute premade index cards to students – one contains a subject pronoun with an infinitive (e.g., Je [être]), and the other contains the correct conjugation of that infinitive (e.g., suis); students find their match then begin work.

When our learners are empowered to communicate with a variety of people inside of the classroom, they will naturally feel more confident when given the same opportunity outside of the classroom. Therefore, we should aim to frequently offer authentic partner activities while keeping the pairing methods interesting, relevant, and fresh – for both teachers and students!

Source: Krashen, S. D. (1982). Principles and practice in second language acquisition. Pergamon Press.