10 Things You Can Do in the Language Classroom with Playing Cards

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Regular playing cards are really not expensive, and can be used to make the classroom interactive in a whole lot of ways. Of course, if you're happy to spend a bit more, there are also Spanish playing cards which add a touch of authentic Spanish culture to whatever you're doing. I love using these and getting the chance to talk about difference and diversity.

I also love giant playing cards as they're so much easier to see from the back of the classroom, and they have a certain novelty value that I enjoy!

Now, the above posts will bring you to what I think are your best options on amazon, but obviously playing cards are readily available everywhere, and it's worth noting that I first saw giant playing cards in Tiger for half nothing.

Anyway, onward!

Ten things you can do with playing cards in the language classroom

1. Create your seating plan
There are a couple of ways you can do this. For a totally random seating plan take enough cards from one deck to place one on each table, and take the same cards from a second deck.
Shuffle the cards from the second deck and have students pick a card as they enter the room. Each student goes to find their match, and sits down.
Personally, I prefer a less random approach most of the time. For less random seat assignment I would place cards on desks before students enter the room, but assign cards to students.

2. Make dividing up for group work easy!
At the start of the year give each student a playing card, and a square of sticky-backed-plastic. Have them stick the card onto their copy book, or homework journal, or wherever they'll be able to readily refer to it throughout the year.
Make sure you have al the Aces, all the 1s, 2s,3s etc, as far up as your class goes. That way you can divide easily into a variety of group sizes:

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e.g. 28 in the class. All cards from Aces to 7s assigned.

Pairs: Matching number AND colour
Groups of four: Matching numbers
Groups of seven: Matching suit
Two teams: Reds v blacks

and once you've done that you can 

3. Randomly select a student...
...by asking one of them to pick a card from your deck!
I like to have a pack of cards in an envelope for each class, so that only the right cards are in there.

4. Create a classroom marketplace...
Busyteacher has a post about something like this (and the next three entries too). Here's my version:

Use playing cards as an easy substitute for cash. All students are in pairs, half of them are vendors and half of them are shoppers.
All the shoppers get the same amount of cash, and a shopping list which will take them to each of the "shops" in turn. Each "shop" gets "products" to sell, with prices on them (so that no-one goes nuts for profit and makes it all impossible!). My "products" are laminated pictures of items (and my shopping lists are laminated too. I just love my laminating machine!) So, for example, my "Frutería" has several apples, oranges, a punnet of strawberries, bananas, a pineapplle, and so on.

Pairs have to buy everything on their list, greeting each vendor and asking questions like "Do you have...?", "How much is it?" and so on, and vendors reply. The end of the interaction is thanks and goodbyes. And for the second half of the exercise vendors and shoppers can swap.

5. Practice prepositions:
Lay out a four by five grid of playing cards on a desk, and then lay out a second layer on top, allowing the bottom cards to show at one side. 
Now you can ask "where is the five of hearts", and students can use their prepositions of answer "under the six of spades" or "to the right of the Ace of diamonds" or whatever.

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6. Play "¡Pesca!"
Great for practising real basics like "do you have" and "I have" or "I don't have", and numbers.
The rules are here.
(Incidentally, the vocab in the game is very simple, but it does include the use of an imperative verb!)

7. Give me... 10!
This is a nice simple one for vocab revision.
I write a topic on the board like "Healthy foods" or "things I would pack to go on holiday", and then ask a student to pick a card. If the card is an 8, then each group has to come up with 8 things from that category, and write them down. The first group with an acceptable list of eight, gets the card.

8. Play "Play your cards right"
Instructions here.
Practice whatever questions and answers you've just been studying, and also "arriba" and "abajo".

This is best as a team game, and with giant playing cards.

9. Card Talkers
Debbie's Spanish Learning has this great game, where a card drawn at random from a pack, corresponds to a grid which tells you what question you have to answer.

She has a basic grid, with questions like "How old are you?" and "What time is it?" and an advanced grid with more difficult questions, including describing things.

It's pretty awesome!

10. Rewards
Finally, I've heard to teachers giving Spanish Class Pesos as rewards for particularly good work or behaviour, and playing cards are as good as anything to use as tokens.

Have a Tienda de Recompensas where students can spend their pesos

As ever, I don't know all the things...
...if you have another thought, please do pop it in the comments. I'd love to hear what you're doing with playing cards!