Marisa Mostek Last updated: April 8, 2024

21 Resources for AP Spanish Language Practice

Teaching students who are preparing for the advanced placement Spanish exam can be a challenge in and of itself.

This is because the material is more challenging than in other Spanish courses, you’ve got a stress-inducing exam looming—and students may not understand why taking AP Spanish is worth the additional effort.

In this guide, I’ll share with you some great resources for keeping your AP Spanish students engaged, and helping them prepare for the exam.

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Tips for Teaching AP Spanish Successfully

One way to motivate students to keep up with their more rigorous studies is to be educated on the answers to their questions regarding the AP exam.

An ideal place to start in your quest for AP-related knowledge is CollegeBoard’s AP Central site on AP Spanish Language and Culture. On this site, you’ll find key information about AP Spanish, from details about the test to practice exams.

The Wikipedia page on the Advanced Placement program is fairly informative as well regarding all things AP.

One of the greatest motivational factors driving students to opt into such classes is that, should they do well enough on the AP exam, they’ll receive college credit before even attending the university of their choosing.

Señora B’s sensational blog doles out useful advice for those teaching AP Spanish for the first time. It’s a one-stop, extremely helpful place for AP teachers to learn the tricks of the trade.

Another way to keep your students as interested as possible in AP Spanish class is to keep your lessons as intriguing as possible. Thankfully, there are games, worksheets, handouts, videos and more resources available on the Internet to inject some life into your lessons.

3 Types of Riveting Resources for AP Spanish Language Practice

1. Practice Worksheets for Class or Homework

Worksheets are a simple and productive way to get your students brushing up on their advanced Spanish skills.

Actually seeing graphs, images and other elements that have appeared on previous AP exams would be fabulous, wouldn’t it? Good thing there’s a Pinterest page specifically dedicated to graphs and tables for AP Spanish (shout out to Pinterest user Wendy Brownell for assembling these)! Print these out and hand them out to your students or assign a time to head to the computer lab and have a look together.

Lesson Planet costs money to become a full member and view the lesson plans in their entirety. However, you can sign up for a free trial to check out lesson plan after lesson plan specifically dedicated to AP Spanish. So, try it out! The resources are top-notch, and once you join you’ll have a huge diversity of general Spanish teaching resources open to you, so you may well decide that the investment is worth it in the end.

You use it to look for cute cat pictures, celebrity photos and just about any other instance when you need photos—so why not use it for AP Spanish class? A simple Google Images search for “AP Spanish worksheets” yields tons of results for you to use in class.

2. Practice Exams for Class or Homework

The more practice exams your AP students complete, the more prepared they’ll be when actual exam day rolls around.

Dedicating class time to prepping them for the big day is essential. Schedule classes where your students will take these practice exams, go over them together and get feedback from you and their peers.

CollegeBoard’s AP Student site is a great place to kick-start your search for practice exams. It’s simple and straightforward whereas some sites can be overwhelming with too many links. The Spanish Language and Culture site lists multiple audio prompts as well as free response questions.

Once your students are ready to tackle more AP Spanish practice questions, direct them to Varsity Tutors. This page is a colorful, easy-to-navigate and well-organized one, with detailed descriptions of the topic of each question. A little graphic showing the detail level also accompanies each question.

AP Central features information about the exam itself. For example, rules and regulations regarding test taking. You and your students should be well-versed in these rules and regs to make sure the exam goes as smoothly as possible. Knowing what to expect will make it easier to focus on the content of the exam itself.

3. Games and Activities to Practice AP Spanish

Practicing for the AP exam doesn’t always have to be done by completing worksheets and practice tests.

Using one of the many Spanish sites about language and culture, assign your students a topic and have them make a PowerPoint or other sort of project on the topic. Make sure it’s a site with advanced Spanish, such as this one about Miguel de Cervantes.

Trip to Disneyland Paris, anyone? The Spanish-language site of the official Disney Paris Resort can also be a great foundation for a fun activity. Ask students to navigate the site in Spanish only and make detailed plans for an imagined Disney vacation.

You should also check out FluentU as another engaging online resource that students would appreciate.

Each video comes with interactive captions that teach the language in-context. With FluentU’s diverse and growing library of authentic content, students learn and live Spanish in an immersive fashion, regardless of their language skill level. Your pupils can test their knowledge with fun adaptive quizzes and multimedia flashcards, all while enjoying the clips they watch.

FluentU works for educators as well! FluentU’s integrated teaching tools make it simple to monitor your students’ progress as they complete exercises and review the newly-learned material.

Check out FluentU today to see how you can boost your students’ confidence in their Spanish language skills!

For more specific lesson plan ideas, check out Señora B’s blog outlining one of her AP Spanish activities. She’s a seasoned teacher who has used the plan before, so you know it works!

For more fun ways your students can practice at home, tell them about these advanced podcasts to help them amp up their listening skills. Also encourage them to challenge themselves by reading a book entirely in Spanish.

With the addition of the resources into your lessons, hopefully you can transform any apathetic pupils into attentive ones!