GERMAN CONVERSATION STARTERS FREEBIE

KS3 GERMAN SPEAKING KS4 GERMAN SPEAKING GCSE GERMAN SPEAKING CONVERSATION STARTERS FREEBIE 10 cards in question format

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Speaking is a language skill that learners tend to find very challenging, regardless of level, and increased engagement with language that requires them to both reproduce accurately language they are already familiar with, and to be creative with that language in order to produce new language is integral to successful language learning.

The questions feature a range of tenses, such as the present tense, imperfect tense, conditional tense, and wenn + subjunctive + conditional clauses. There is also a significant amount of implicit input on a range of grammatical concepts, such as direct and indirect object pronouns, use of the subjunctive and so on.

I include tenses we may not have formally covered, as the activity is not solely about practising language, but also about actively learning it. I encourage students to look for cues and clues in the questions themselves, and this certainly enables them to engage with new or unknown language successfully, and to progress in their learning.

Questions formats are varied, to ensure maximum opportunity to work with the different ways to ask questions in German. Some questions seek to elicit very similar information, but are asked in different language: this avoids learners simply parroting learned responses to fixed prompts.

I remind students that it is not necessary to tell the truth - the purpose is to create and produce accurate and realistic language. Students can prepare their responses in as much detail as possible on the accompanying planning sheet, remembering that these are conversation starters, so that once they have responded, they should then say something to continue the conversation going.

Frequent and regular engagement with the activity brings the best results: with the planning sheet, students can create and prepare increasingly detailed and more complex responses, reflecting their learning progress. I definitely find it useful to read through the questions together as a whole-group, with students offering initial suggested responses. This ensures everyone can actually access the language, and they also benefit a lot from each others’ ideas.

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