Listening Activities for Spanish Class

In this post we’re going to look at 30 listening activities you can use with your Spanish students. I’m also going to share a resource to help you keep all of them organized that you can just use at a glance while you’re lesson planning. Here we go!

It’s important to note that most of these are not my original ideas. They’re listening activities for Spanish class that I’ve come across in various places over the years. I’ll make sure to credit the original creators in the spreadsheet of activities below. Some of them have been around for so long that I’m not entirely sure who came up with them first, so if you recognize one and know where it came from, please feel free to comment so I can update it with the right info!

Watch the Video

Sources for Listening Activities for Spanish Class

Before we dive into the actual activities, I want to take a second to talk about where that listening input even comes from. When you’re planning listening activities for Spanish class, the source really matters. There’s not one perfect option, and honestly, it’s best to mix things up. What works great one week might feel flat the next, so having a variety keeps things interesting for your students—and for you.

Option One – US! The teacher is a great source of audio input for the students. If you focus on spending 90% of your class time in the target language, your students are getting a good amount of listening practice just by being present in your classroom. If you want to learn more about 90% Time in the Target Language, check out my blog post here on how I talk to students and their guardians about it, and grab my free handout for back to school night or conferences!

Option Two – other teachers! I think this is a great option because teachers know how to talk to novices. There’s a lot to be said for a listening activity that isn’t so fast the students just..panic. But, it’s also nice to have them hear other voices. If you have colleagues or teacher friends, offer to swap recordings for them every now and then so your students both get to hear someone else. I also highly recommend the novice listening library Laura Sexton started on Flipgrid. It’s a great source of this kind of recording!

Option Three-each other! Listening to each other (talking or just listening) totally counts, in my opinion. It might not be perfect, especially if your students are lower level and still working on pronunciation, but I’ve found that peer interaction actually helps a lot. Some of the best listening activities for Spanish class happen when students are engaged in conversation with classmates. They’ll catch things, correct each other gently, and it often feels way less stressful than teacher correction. Honestly, I rarely step in with those little pronunciation fixes, peers can be super helpful here, and the learning still sticks.

Option Four – videos and recordings from the internet, whether of native speakers or other learners. Thank goodness in this social media era there are OODLES of options out there for us. My personal faves are YouTube, Instagram, and Tiktok. Youtube is nice, because you can affect the speed of the video playback, which is sometimes helpful. IG & TT are helpful because they are SHORT. If you’ve done a movie talk, or seen my video on it, you know it doesn’t take much to pull a :60 second video and use it for multiple class periods.

Pssst – if your school doesn’t allow access to Instagram or TikTok on your school’s network, you can always save the video to use in your classes. I have a tutorial on it here!

In this category I would also include music! Music is a great resource for our students to hear the language. If you’ve seen my daily routines post, you know I love including Música Miércoles weekly, but there’s lots of other ways to include music too. I’m getting ahead of myself. Activities are coming!

Listening Activities for Spanish Class

lLet’s talk about the activities you can actually do with a listening selection. There are tons of listening activities for Spanish class out there, so I’m going to try and keep this short and sweet. If you have more questions about any of them or want to know how I’ve used them, drop me a comment and I’ll be happy to explain further!

1. 4 Corners (Mis Clases Locas) – you read a question that has multiple choices. Students move to the corner that represents their answer
2. Ball Toss – students ask a question, toss the ball, answer the question, repeat
3. Card Talk – Students illustrate (prompt), then discuss what they drew on their cards
4. Choral Translation – Teacher reads, class translates
5. Chunky Monkey (Señor Wooly) order lyric chunks chronologically while listening to song
6. Details, Details (Señora Chase) rotated timed writing, with points earned for the most details
7. Dictation – teacher reads sentences out loud, students try to write them accurately
8. Edpuzzle – watch videos and answer questions as added by the teacher
9. Interpretive quick quizzes (Señora Chase) – students listen to the media and then respond as much as they are able
10. Fortune Teller (La Secundaria) students ask and answer questions using the fortune tellers or cootie catchers
11. Human Bingo students walk around and ask/answer questions to complete a bingo sheet
12. In the Cards (Señor Wooly) choose card that matches description read by teacher
13. Is THIS the video? (Spanish Plans) listen to a song. Afterwards, teacher (silently) plays clips from several different videos. Students watch the clips and decide which they feel is the actual music video.
14. Letra Equivocada (Spanish Plans) give students lyrics, but some of them are wrong – they listen and mark when they hear something that doesn’t match 
15. Marker Partner (Cynthia Hitz) team version of the “agárralo/marker” game
16. Matamoscas in groups of 3, (2 players, 1 judge) students race to touch the image the teacher describes
17. Movie Talk narrate scenes in comprehensible language
18. Musical Bingo (Kara Jacobs) watch a music video and play bingo with things they see in it
19. Off-Side (Señor Wooly) students show agreement to 1 of 2 statements by moving to corresponding side of the room
20. Pareja Mentirosa in pairs, students take turns to read out loud. When they make a mistake the other partner calls out “Mentirosa”
21. Picture Talk talk about an image in comprehensible language for your students
22. Pop Up (Señora Chase) listen to a sentence, pop up when called to translate it first
23. Quite the character (Señor Wooly) match character photo with description
24. Running Dictation (Comprehensible Classroom) – students take turns running, memorizing a sentence, then dictating it to their partner
25. Reverse Running Dictation (La Maestra Loca) One student reads a sentence, other student runs and finds matching image, then reports
26. Sound Effect Reading (Julie Ogden Thompson) students make sound effects as you read
27. Speed Date Translate like volleyball reading, but with a timed, rotating element
28. Strip Bingo (Comprehensible Classroom) students listen and tear off pieces from a strip of paper
29. TeachVid video tool that pulls out the language for students to interact with over and over again
30. Viva la Música (Señor Wooly) students listen to song and highlight known phrases

Make Listening Feel Like Play

One of the best ways to keep students engaged is by turning listening activities for Spanish class into games they genuinely want to play. It doesn’t have to be complicated. Try playing “Guess the Soundtrack” where you play short clips from songs you’ve used in class and have students match them to the unit or vocabulary theme. You can even have students describe the vibe of the song in Spanish fun, relaxed, fast, and dramatic to spark conversation.

Another favorite? Audio scavenger hunts. Give students a list of words or phrases and play a video or song. They check off items as they hear them, and you can follow it up with a group recap or quick-write in Spanish. These activities are simple to prep and easy to adapt for different levels. Plus, they feel more like a challenge than an assignment.

All of the Activities and More!

Each of the activities I described in this video are linked in this spreadsheet, plus about 70 more. I think you’re going to love it – make sure you bookmark the page to easily return to for whenever you need inspiration!

Let Students Drive the Input

When students are part of the process, everything feels more personal. Invite them to bring in a school-appropriate song or short video clip they like and explain why they chose it. This is a great way to add fresh, relevant listening activities for Spanish class that connect directly to their world. You can even turn it into a “Student DJ Day” once a month.

Afterward, use the clip for listening comprehension questions, vocabulary pulls, or retells. Let them write a short paragraph about it, or act out a scene based on what they heard. By giving them ownership over what they hear, they are more invested and way more likely to stay focused.

Wrapping Up

If there is anything that I missed in the spreadsheet, please comment below and let me know! What are some of your favorite listening activities for Spanish class that your students love? I’m always looking to add more ideas and would love to hear what’s working in your classroom!

If you like these activities and you want to hear more ideas for your classes, check out the playlist that I have here for you! This is my playlist on reading activities so if you liked this, that’s a playlist full of activities kind of like these but more in depth so it’s not like this whirlwind sprint each one has an explanation. I hope it’s helpful for you!