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I recently had a request to blog more about a variety of games for the French as a second language classroom. If you're pretty familiar with my blog & the types of activities I like to do, then these first few options will probably be nothing new to you.  I do however have a little treasure that I haven't shared outside of my classroom since "the days of yore" (aka Teachers' College!), so stick around!


Bingo

I decided (thanks to Charity Preston's advice, through the Teaching Blog Traffic School) to create a knock-your-socks-off free product about 14 months ago.  I knew going into this project that it would be a significant amount of work, but I wanted to save teachers a ton of time and inject a bit of fun by creating a ready-to-print Bingo game that would hopefully fit with the realities of teaching French that I know so many of us have encountered (teaching on a cart, class sizes WELL beyond the supposed "averages," learners of all types, and even the "I-only-have-to-take French-this year-because-next-year-my-dad's-getting-me-exempted" sort.)

I thought and thought, then planned and planned... several days and do-overs later, the Winter Sports & Activities Bingo was born.
photo of French Winter Sports and Activities Preview - free 70 page download

In my class, this fit in well with the unit from the Pearson resource On Y Va 1 called "Destinations d'hiver" but by no means is it taken directly from there, and it certainly stands well on its own during the winter months. (Or at another time if you teach somewhere without snow, and happen to have another opportunity to teach about winter traditions in North America!)

I've also made a Bug and Animal version in the past few months.  I'd like to do more, but they DO take a considerable amount of work (and in the case of images, such as in the Insect & Animal version's accompanying flash cards, there is also a monetary investment on my part!)

Photo of Insect and Animal French Bingo game with two levels with 40 unique cards each and a set of flashcards or posters


So, essentially, I only want to keep spending hours on them if people like them and can find a use for them. If you have a themed bingo game request, with enough notice for me to spend time developing something, please do let me know!

J'ai... Qui A...?

My current students are huge fans of this oral chain game.  It doesn't take much time, and they always ask to play multiple times. In a Core French or beginner class, it would definitely require a little pre-teaching. I've got a couple that deal with holiday events (Christmas, Chinese New Year), and plan to bundle them up when I get a couple more completed, to offer at a reduced price. There are ... ahem... a couple in my files that I didn't quite get done in time for the holiday upon which they are based.  I also have some that are more appropriate for core French, including the fact that they take a lot less ink and paper when printing (as I've found that the pieces seem to disappear a lot more easily in those classes). My former students enjoyed this activity too.

Photo of some of Teaching FSL's J'ai Qui a oral chain game activities

Clue (Les Indices)

This is one of my best selling items on TPT (and TN).  I probably was inspired by something I saw somewhere else (aside from the Hasbro (TM) game itself!, which I've credited in the product) since I found cards with Qui, Où and other interrogative words in my file boxes from when I first started teaching... literally in a previous millennium  ...  but honestly I couldn't figure out how I had used it back then so I sat down and remade one from scratch. I ended up creating multiple versions for scaffolding and differentiation. I figured even if you don't use them all in one year, at some point you'll get a group that's a lot higher or lower than usual, and it's always good to have something tucked away for when that happens. 

I love that this game can be played as a whole class or with medium sized groups of about 6-10 students to increase talk time! I also love that once a class knows how to play it, you can even leave this as an oral student-run activity when a supply teacher is in your class. (It's a GREAT last minute option for those single period paybacks when your school's administration has had to get you to cover a colleague's absence and the opportunity to get your prep time back another day arises!)

Maître des Mots

This is my old standby!  It's one of a few games that I came up with before becoming a teacher, when I was getting volunteer experience in a French classroom after I completed my B.A. degree, before I even applied to teachers' college.

So what's cool about this? It's a Word document that you can project in your classroom & have a student fill in when it's his or her turn to be the "maître" or "maîtresse." You can also print it so that students can play with a partner or in small groups (which would make a great, fun centre activity, just focusing on using the target language to communicate while they play the game!)

A confession on Easter Monday... I usually don't even use my own sheet for this - just a blackboard or a classroom whiteboard is all you need!  It's a great game to play as a sponge activity. Once the kids understand the rules, they really enjoy it, and I find that even those who are more reluctant to participate (i.e. weaker students within  a Core French class) are eager to offer at least one answer.  Either way, the game comes with a printable PDF version, an editable Word version, and full instructions (en français!) for play.

I'm offering it free for the first 6 hours after this blog post, and then it will be available for $1 as a nice little activity to top up another TPT order.