“First Word, Last Word”: A Reading/Listening/Writing Activity for the World Language Classroom

Here is a simple, teacher-led (or student-led), game that requires (almost) no-prep, and works with any reading / text that you are working with in class. Plus, you can implement it in your classroom tomorrow.

“First Word, Last Word” drives your students back to the text, helping them get another repetition of the reading / text without it feeling like a chore.

1. Make sure your students have the text (story, a dialogue, reader, cultural passage, etc.)
Also, make sure they have whiteboard or blank paper.

Note: You can do this activity before or after working with the text. However, I recommend doing it after the students are familiar with the text. (This drives them back to the text, getting them another repetition of the text.)

2. You (the teacher) chooses a sentence from the text. Read it aloud to the class, but omit either the first word or the last word of that sentence.

Teacher Tip: Keep alternating randomly between dropping the first word or the last word.

Also, you can read a sentence at a natural pace, a faster pace for a challenge, or slow it down and emphasize the pauses for classes that need a bit more scaffolding.

3. Students then re-read / scan the text to find the sentence you just read. Once they find it, they write down the missing the word on their whiteboard or paper.

Note: You can have them write out the entire sentence with the missing word, if you want to slow the pace down. (However, writing just the missing word lends itself to a faster pace and more energy.)

4. Once they write the missing word, they hold up their board (or paper) and you verify that their responses are correct.

Teacher Tip: You can make it a “race” and the first person to hold up their board (or paper) with the correct response wins a point.
– Option: The one with the most points wins a small prize (sticker, etc.) at the end of the game.

Or, if you want to give all students time to process and respond, tell students to not immediately hold up their board (or paper). Instruct them to wait and you will do a countdown (in the Target Language) and then everyone will show them at the same time.
– For example:(In the Target Language) “3, 2,1 – Show me!“.

5. Repeat as many times as you would like.

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Variation One:

• If you don’t want to read the sentence aloud, project (or write) the sentence on the board, omitting either the first or last word.
• The students will then read the sentence (with the missing word) on the board and then write it down on their whiteboard (or paper).

Variation Two:

• Divide the class into two teams.
• For each round, one student from each team will compete against each other.
  • Decide which two students will compete for the round. (One sentence per round.)
• Say (or project / write) the sentence (on the board) omitting either the first or last word.
• The first student to yell out the correct missing word, wins a point for their team.
• The team with the most points after the given number of rounds, wins.

Variation Three:

• Have students take turns being the “teacher”. That is, they take turns finding and reading a sentence aloud from the text omitting either the first or last word.

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This is fun, high-energy activity that gets buy-in from students. And it has some benefits too!

• Students aren’t translating word-for-word in their heads; they are visually mapping the target language structure to match the auditory input they just heard (or read on the board).
• Instead of reading line-by-line, students learn to skim for anchor words to track down the target sentence.
• Leaving off the first word often robs a sentence of its subject, article, subject pronoun, capital letter, or an important question word. Leaving off the last word often steals the verb (especially in German!) or the crucial piece of context.

Try it out and let me know it goes in the comments below! Danke!