Here’s a game for speaking French that will have your students using lots of vocabulary.
It’s also an activity that allows all students to participate regardless of their level of knowledge and proficiency. Of course, the better they are, the more complex their answers should be.
Even shy and introvert students should feel comfortable enough to participate.
Fun Speaking Games Series
2. “When, where, what” – a game for speaking French
The focus of this game is on vocabulary words and expressions to answer the questions “when?”, “where?”, “what?”
And, since students have to give their answers in the form of sentences, there’s the additional benefit of making them practice sentence structure as well.
Goal
Have students use previously learned vocabulary. It also improves social skills as students have to work in groups.
What you need
Just a list of ideas. You can be more or less detailed in the preparation of your list as you’d like.
How it works
- Divide the class into teams. Each team should have 3-6 students. Try to mix the extroverts and introverts, so that the teams are balanced.
- Tell them that they have to come up with sentences that relate to the prompt you’ll be giving them.
- The sentences should include information to answer all three questions: “when?”, “where?”, and “what?”
- The members of the team should work together to create their sentences, and they should take turns reading their answers aloud.
Here’s an example:
The teacher would say: “Le médecin a faim.”
The students could come up with sentences like:
– Il va manger une pomme à l’hôpital maintenant.
This sentence answers the questions “when?” (maintenant), “where?” (à l’hôpital), and “what?”(pomme).
Your prompts and the answers can be silly or serious. That’s entirely up to you. For younger kids, I would definitely recommend a more playful set of sentences. Remember, the goal is for them to use vocabulary to answer those 3 questions.
Here are a couple of sample sentences to get you started:
– La danseuse est fatiguée. (sample answer: “Elle va boire du thé chez elle ce soir.”)
– Le chat est grand et fort. (sample answer: “Hier il a mangé un poisson à la ferme.”)
When it ends
The game can go on for as many rounds as you’d like, but it’s a perfect time-filler, extension or review activity.
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Rules and variations
- Basic rules: groups get 2 points for making a sentence that answers all three questions. They get 1 extra point if the sentence is grammatically accurate.
- Make it easier: have common verbs, time expressions, and places listed on the board so students can refer to them if they get stuck.
- Make it more challenging: if your students are good and creative, you can tell them they’ll get 5 extra points if they use a word or expression that you will secretly select. In the example above, you could write on a piece of paper the word “sandwich”, but don’t let any of the students see it. If a team uses it in a sentence, they get 5 extra points. You could change the questions to “when?”, “where?”, “HOW?”, and have students only use adverbs to answer them.
What you can practice
- French Vocabulary lists related to a topic: clothing, animals, classroom vocabulary, countries, fruits and vegetables, places in the city, and so on.
I hope you have enjoyed this game for speaking French!
This is the second post in a series of fun speaking games for your French classroom. If you don’t want to miss out on future posts, subscribe to our For French Immersion newsletter!
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