Create a Language-Learning Conversation Game

Vocabulary apps produce children who know two hundred words and cannot order a drink. Speaking is a separate skill and it needs a low-stakes table to practise on.

How it goes

1. Pick ten situations your child might actually be in. Buying bread, asking where the toilet is, saying they do not like something politely.
2. Ask for the cards using the prompt below: situation on one side, five useful words on the other.
3. Have a fluent adult check them if you are not one.
4. Play in pairs. One draws a card and starts the situation; the other responds. Thirty seconds each.
5. Nobody corrects mid-turn. Note errors and mention one afterwards, at most.
6. Replay the same ten cards all week. Repetition is what makes it automatic.

The prompt

My 10-year-old is learning Spanish at beginner level. Make ten conversation cards. Each has a short everyday situation on one side, written in English, and five useful Spanish words or short phrases on the other with English meanings. Keep it to present tense and simple vocabulary. Say which phrases are more formal.

What a good result looks like

A good card gives a situation and the words to survive it: You want bread but they have run out. On the back, five phrases including one for not understanding and one for saying thank you and leaving. Cards that only supply nouns produce children who point.

Check that at least two cards contain a way to get out of trouble. “Sorry, I don’t understand” and “Can you say that more slowly” are the two most useful phrases in any language and they are the ones beginner materials always omit.

Check it before you use it

• Have a speaker check the phrases. Translation quality varies by language, and register errors make a child sound odd rather than wrong.
• Formality. Models default to formal, which sounds strange from a ten-year-old to another child.
• Regional variety. Spanish for Spain and for Mexico differ; say which you want.

Keep the human part

A person to speak to, who reacts. A card game with a parent who barely speaks the language works better than an app, because embarrassment shared is embarrassment halved.

If it is not working

If your child goes silent when a card is turned over, take the speaking role yourself for two rounds while they hold the card and prompt you. Watching an adult flounder in a second language does more for a shy child’s willingness than any encouragement.

If the phrases sound wrong to a fluent relative, use them as the lesson rather than binning them. Ask the relative what they would actually say, write that on the card in their words, and the deck becomes a family object rather than a worksheet.

One thing to watch

Voice chat with a chatbot suits a shy child and does not replace a person. Keep both if you can, and keep it on your account. Our guide to AI for multilingual families covers the balance.

Related: create simple bilingual reading activities covers the reading side.