Chat Mats: Innovative Tools for Safe and Communicative Language Success

Over this past summer and in recent weeks, I have been working on creating loads of Chat Mats for my upcoming academic year. I was so excited to start school and use them, and SURPRISE SURPRISE, my students absolutely loved them. They gave me feedback on them even without me asking them anything. This is what they said: 

• From Intermediate 2, Dani asked me: “Did you make this? They are so cute!”

• Also, from Intermediate 2, Alex said she loved them because “they are so easy to follow."

• James, an Intermediate 1 student, shared that these resources have made it much easier for the class to have non-stop conversations in Spanish, especially since they’re still getting to know each other and “sometimes it can be a bit awkward if you don’t know what to say to people you don’t know.” 

I was amazed to witness the effectiveness of these techniques in action as my students, who were strangers to each other on this very first day, as James mentioned, engaged in non-stop conversation.

Despite having only one or at most two years of Spanish exposure, and considering it was their first day back from summer break, their language skills may have been rusty. However, utilizing these tools on this initial day turned out to be a brilliant idea, as the level of engagement skyrocketed.

It was remarkable to observe how well the students responded and interacted with each other. This experience serves as a reminder that even with limited language proficiency and a fresh start to the school year, this comprehensible input method proved highly effective.

But what are Chat Mats?

Chat mats are interactive learning resources designed to foster communication and language practice in our language classes. They provide structured prompts and conversation starters that encourage learners to engage in meaningful dialogues. 

Translations in English or any other language are intentionally omitted in my resources. However, including clear and cute visuals alongside each sentence makes the meaning evident to our students. These visuals effectively convey the intended message, eliminating the need for translations.

What are the benefits of using Chat Mats in the World Language Class? 

1. Fosters Confidence
   The most significant advantage for me is their ability to foster learner confidence. Chat mats alleviate the pressure of generating language from scratch by providing guided prompts and scaffolding. This support allows learners to focus on fluency and communication, boosting their confidence in real-life language scenarios.

2. Facilitate Comprehensible Input
   Chat mats are crucial in facilitating comprehensible input, essential for language acquisition. The visual cues, contextualized prompts, and supportive framework provided by chat mats make the language input more accessible and understandable to learners. This enables them to more effectively grasp new vocabulary, sentence structures, and language nuances.

3. Promote Language Output
   Chat mats actively encourage learners to generate language output. Through structured prompts and conversation starters, learners are prompted to engage in meaningful conversations, ask questions, and express their thoughts. This process strengthens their ability to produce language independently, fostering fluency and accuracy in their speech.

4. Encourage Interactive Language Practice
   Chat mats are highly versatile tools for interactive language practice. They can be utilized in various settings, such as classrooms or online learning. Learners can engage in dialogues, role-plays, and discussions using the prompts provided on the chat mats. This interactive approach promotes active engagement, fosters communication skills, and creates an immersive language learning environment.

5. Support Self-Study and Language Practice
   Chat mats are equally beneficial for self-study and language practice. Learners can utilize chat mats independently to enhance their language skills. They can engage in conversations, practice dialogues, and simulate real-life scenarios. This self-directed practice allows learners to develop their proficiency at their own pace and actively reinforce their vocabulary, grammar, and conversational abilities.

6. Differentiation tool for writing support 

   I also plan to use the chat mats to help with differentiation so I can support all my learners during writing tasks. 

The positive feedback and firsthand results from my students have been incredibly inspiring. These innovative tools make a real difference in promoting safe and communicative language learning. Witnessing my students engage in non-stop conversations, gain confidence, and effortlessly follow the prompts has been truly rewarding.

Are you ready to try them? These are the ones that I created so far but there are more on their way. 

We have more than 300 in our shop including Chat Mats in different languages such as Spanish, French, English, German, Italian and by the time I am writing this Chinese and Japanese are being cooked.