This is a guest blog by teacher Siobhan Daly. Thank you for sending it.
As a relatively
young teacher fresh from university, I was well aware of the importance of
games in the MFL classroom. Active teaching methods, encouraging a love of the
language, making students more confident and comfortable in the classroom- the
merits of games in the classroom were numerous. And the games of course proved
worthwhile - indeed, so successful that I admit that I was slightly resentful that
my own teachers in secondary school didn’t include games in classes when I was
a student.
Games for junior classes were simple and efficient- bingo, charades
and various quizzes. However, I was stumped when it came to organising games
for older MFL classes. Being well aware of their self-proclaimed “cool”
status, I knew that a simple game of bingo would do little to engage them
(unless there was a promise of an interesting prize, which my student budget
failed to stretch to).
Here are a few
games that really did work for senior students:
Chain games
This is extremely
simple, and basically involves each student saying a sentence in French. Each
student has to repeat the previous student’s sentence from the very beginning, so it’s
a good test of concentration and memory. It is particularly useful for practising
tenses - for example past tense, where students can describe what they did
yesterday or at the weekend. This is also useful for perfecting
pronunciation. It's a simple all rounder!
Running to the board games
Again, this is
really straightforward but is really useful for reinforcing vocabulary learned for
a particular topic. Split the class into two teams, and ensure that each
student takes turns to write vocabulary related to the topic on the board. The
team with the most vocabulary wins. This even makes learning about the
environment in French fun!
“Minute game”:
Again, this is
topic-focused. Split the class into small groups. Give each group an important
topic related to the written answer on the syllabus, for example healthy
eating. One student from each group must speak about the topic for one minute
without repeating themselves or pausing. If they do so,
the next team member must continue speaking about the topic for one minute.
Teams are awarded points for completing the minute, as well as not hesitating
to intervene. The first group to achieve six points win. I’ve found this
particularly useful for solving students’ fear of speaking French in class.
“Quiz trade”
Here, each student
will have a card with a French phrase and the English translation. Students
stand up and find a partner, asking that partner what the phrase on their card means
in French. Each student will guess each other’s card and swap cards. Each
student then continues and finds another partner to swap cards with.
When the activity
ends, students will use their card with their new phrase and incorporate it in
written work. They will also aim to incorporate the first card that they had, as well as any other vocabulary or phrases that they
learned in the game. I find this
effective for learning vocabulary for written pieces- it certainly makes the
learning process slightly less tedious for the students.
I hope that these are helpful. Bon courage in incorporating them into your own classroom!
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