ACTFL Can-Do Speaking Tasks by Level: A2, B1 and B2 Classroom Map

Speaking is often where the gap between "we covered the unit" and "students can actually use the language" is widest. A student can pass a chapter test on the preterite and still freeze when asked to tell a one-minute story about last weekend. This guide is the speaking companion to our ACTFL reading map: it translates the ACTFL interpersonal and presentational speaking modes into concrete, level-appropriate Spanish tasks at A2, B1, and B2 — the three levels we publish at.

This is a practical classroom map, not an official ACTFL equivalency chart. ACTFL Can-Do Statements are designed as examples of what learners can do consistently over time, not as a one-off checklist or placement test, and learners may sit at different levels in different modes or skills.

Two modes, not one

ACTFL separates communication into modes, and two of those matter especially for speaking task design:

Interpersonal — two-way, unrehearsed, negotiated. A conversation, an interview, a back-and-forth debate. Success is measured by whether meaning gets across between participants.
Presentational — one-way, prepared (briefly or thoroughly), to an audience. A short oral report, a recorded answer, a cultural comparison. Success is measured by clarity, organization, and content for a listener who cannot ask follow-up questions.

Most classroom "speaking practice" is interpersonal by default (pair work, small group discussion). Presentational speaking has to be planned for explicitly — and AP Spanish also includes presentational speaking, most obviously in the cultural comparison task.

The three levels we map

A2 ↔ roughly Intermediate Low. Students handle predictable exchanges and short, rehearsed presentations on familiar topics.
B1 ↔ roughly Intermediate Mid to Intermediate High. Students sustain conversations on familiar topics, narrate in connected sentences, and give organized short presentations with details.
B2 ↔ roughly Advanced Low to Advanced Mid. Students handle unfamiliar conversational turns, support a position with reasons, narrate and describe across time frames, and present on a wider range of concrete and some abstract topics.

ACTFL itself notes that CEFR/ACTFL alignment is not a simple universal equivalence — mappings differ by skill and by assessment, so treat the bands above as a working guide, not a placement rule.

A2 — "I can ask and answer simple questions on familiar topics"

What the speaker sounds like: short, mostly memorized chunks. Present tense dominates, with some preterite for personal narration ("fui", "comí", "vi"). Frequent restarts and self-correction. Vocabulary is concrete and high-frequency. Pronunciation is comprehensible to a sympathetic listener.

Interpersonal tasks at A2:

Exchange names, ages, likes/dislikes, and basic personal information.
Order food, ask for prices, ask directions, handle short transactional exchanges.
Answer five to seven yes/no or short-answer questions about a familiar topic (family, school day, weekend).
Conduct a 1–2 minute partner interview using a fixed list of question stems.

Presentational tasks at A2:

A 30–60 second prepared presentation on a familiar topic (mi rutina, mi familia, mi ciudad), supported by visuals.
A short recorded answer to a single prompt: "¿Cuál es tu comida favorita y por qué?"
A "show and tell" describing one object or photo with five to seven sentences.

What the task does NOT look like at A2: sustained back-and-forth on an unfamiliar topic, defending an opinion against pushback, narrating a complex sequence in past tense, or any task that depends on independent control of the subjunctive. Those are B1+ moves.

B1 — "I can sustain a conversation on familiar topics and give a short presentation with details"

What the speaker sounds like: sentence-length and short paragraph-length speech. Present and past tenses (preterite vs. imperfect contrast) used reasonably accurately. Subjunctive in fixed expressions ("ojalá", "espero que…"). Discourse markers begin to appear ("primero", "luego", "por eso", "sin embargo"). Pronunciation comprehensible to a non-specialist listener; errors do not usually obscure meaning.

Interpersonal tasks at B1:

A 3–5 minute paired conversation on a familiar topic, with at least three unscripted follow-up questions per partner.
A simulated transactional roleplay with one unexpected complication (the restaurant is out of the dish, the bus is late, the doctor needs more details).
A small-group debate on a familiar topic where students must respond to a partner's previous turn, not just to the prompt.
A short interview where students ask follow-up questions based on the interviewee's answers, not a fixed script.

Presentational tasks at B1:

A 1–2 minute prepared presentation with an introduction, two or three supporting points, and a conclusion.
A short narration of a past experience using preterite and imperfect together.
A recorded opinion response: "¿Estás de acuerdo con X? ¿Por qué?" with at least two reasons.

At B1, the speaker should be doing more than retrieval — they should be connecting ideas, giving reasons, and handling the small surprises of real conversation. If the task can be completed by reciting memorized chunks, it is testing at A2.

B2 — "I can support a position and discuss a range of topics, including some abstract ones"

What the speaker sounds like: connected paragraph-length speech. Full range of tenses including subjunctive in adverbial and noun clauses. Lower-frequency and abstract vocabulary used appropriately ("desigualdad", "polémico", "consecuencia"). Hesitation is managed in Spanish ("a ver", "es decir", "lo que quiero decir es"), not in English. Errors are present but rarely interfere with meaning.

Interpersonal tasks at B2:

A 5–8 minute discussion on a debatable topic where students must support claims with reasons and respond to counter-arguments.
A simulated AP-style conversation: five to six turns, each requiring a different function (greeting, answering, asking for information, expressing an opinion, making a suggestion, closing).
A panel-style discussion where each student is assigned a distinct perspective and must defend it across multiple turns.

Presentational tasks at B2:

A 2-minute cultural comparison between an area or community of the Spanish-speaking world and the student's own or another community (the AP exam task — see our cultural comparison guide).
A 3–4 minute prepared presentation that takes a position and supports it with evidence from at least two sources.
A recorded analytical response: "Analiza las causas y consecuencias de X" — not just describing, but explaining.

B2 speakers are not just communicating — they are arguing, analyzing, and connecting. The task should require them to do something cognitively non-trivial with the language, not just produce more of it.

A common mistake: confusing fluency with proficiency

A student who speaks quickly and confidently in Spanish is not necessarily a B2 speaker. A student who pauses, self-corrects, and reaches for vocabulary is not necessarily an A2 speaker. Fluency (rate, smoothness) and proficiency (range of functions, accuracy on those functions) are related but distinct. The right question is not "did this sound impressive?" but "what could the student actually do with the language in that turn — and at what level?"

The clearest sign of B2 speaking is not speed; it is the ability to handle an unfamiliar prompt without falling back to memorized chunks, and to keep going when the first sentence does not come out right.

How to use this map in your classroom

Audit one upcoming speaking assessment. Match each task to the level descriptors above. If a "B1 conversation" can be completed entirely with memorized question-and-answer pairs, it is testing at A2. If an A2 prompt asks students to defend an opinion against a counter-argument, it is asking for B2 performance.
Standardize your task verbs. Exchange, answer, describe → A2. Sustain, narrate, give reasons → B1. Defend, analyze, compare perspectives → B2. Using the same verbs across units gives students a clearer sense of progression and gives you a faster way to write level-appropriate prompts.
Build interpersonal AND presentational into every unit. Most curricula default to interpersonal pair work. Add at least one short presentational task per unit — even 60 seconds — so students develop the one-way, organized-speech muscle that AP and many proficiency assessments require.
Record, re-listen, re-do. One of the highest-leverage moves for speaking growth is having students record a one-minute response, listen to it once, and re-record. Done every two weeks, this beats almost any other intervention.

The practical test is simple: if the task demand and the student's proficiency level do not match, the assessment tells you more about task design than about the student.

Where Context Spanish fits

Every debate and story on Context Spanish is published at A2, B1, and B2 with discussion prompts written to the right speaking demand for each level. The debates library in particular is built for interpersonal speaking — paired and small-group — while the stories include short presentational prompts (retell, react, compare) you can drop straight into a unit. Pair this guide with our ACTFL reading map and the AP cultural comparison guide for a full picture of how interpretive and productive skills line up across the proficiency ladder.

Module links throughout this guide open a free preview. The full A2/B1/B2 versions, discussion prompts, and teacher notes are available with a free educator account.