If you want your students to practise speaking, I recommend the "Knee to Knee" activity.
Students pair up facing each other -their knees touch! One student has his back on the blackboard the other is facing it. The teacher writes a number of words for the student facing the board to explain for his partner. The latter's job is then to guess the word the student describes.
I give sets of 5 words before the two students swap places.
Nouns are easier to describe and guess so use them with beginners. Other than that I let students pick essential vocabulary from the texts read in class and then they challenge each other on their privately picked words.
Check my uploads for ready to use wss to use with this activity if you want to get started right away!